art thou named, the Mighty Man, but many mighty men are seen from Tura's windy walls.——He answered, like a wave on a rock, who in this land appears like me? Heroes stand not in my presence: they fall to earth from my hand. Who can meet Swaran in the fight but Fingal, king of stormy hills. Once we wrestled on the heath of Malmor[1], and our heels overturned the wood. Rocks fell from their place; and rivulets, changing their course, fled murmuring from our strife. Three days we renewed our strife, and heroes stood at a distance and trembled. On the fourth, Fingal says, that the king of the ocean fell; but Swaran says, he stood. Let dark Cuchullin yield to him that is strong as the storms of Malmor.
No: replied the blue-eyed chief, I will never yield to man. Dark Cuchullin will be great or dead. Go, Fithil's son, and take my spear: strike the sounding shield of Cabait[2]. It hangs at Tura's rustling gate; the sound of peace is not its voice. My heroes shall hear on the hill.
He went and struck the bossy shield. The hills and their rocks replied. The sound spread along the wood: deer start by the lake of roes. Curach[3] leapt from the sounding rock; and Connal of the bloody spear. Crugal's[4] breast of snow beats high. The son of Favi leaves the dark-brown hind. It is the shield of war, said Ronnar, the spear of Cuthullin, said Lugar.——Son of the sea put
- ↑ Meal-mór—a great hill.
- ↑ Cabait, or rather Cathbait, grandfather to the hero, was so remarkable for his valour that his shield was made use of to alarm his posterity to the battles of the family. We find Fingal making the same use of his own shield in the 4th book.—A horn was the most common instrument to call the army together, before the invention of bagpipes.
- ↑ Cu-raoch signifies the madness of battle.
- ↑ Cruth-geal—fair-complexioned.
