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THE

LITERATURE OF THE HIGHLANDERS.

LITERATURE OF THE HIGHLANDERS:

A HISTORY OF GAELIC LITERATURE FROM THE
EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY.

BY

NIGEL MACNEILL,

AUTHOR OF "NENIE: WITH OTHER POEMS;" "THE HIGHLAND HYMNAL," ETC.
MINISTER OF BEDFORD CHURCH, LONDON.

"Móra ic senaib bar senscéla."-TOGAIL TROI.

INVERNESS :

JOHN NOBLE, CASTLE STREET.

1892.

Celt 2523.5

Celt 2612.201

Harvard College Library

Sept. 3, 1913

Bequest of
Jeremiah Curtin

JOHN NOBLE, PRINTER, INVERNESS

PREFACE.

It is hoped that the readers of the following chapters will bear in mind the fact that this is the first complete account of Gaelic literature that has yet been offered to the public, and that it must inevitably exhibit traces of the natural imperfections of all pioneer works. To other workers in the same field I am of course greatly indebted; and if any of them had published a fairly full history of our Highland literature it is quite unlikely that the present volume would ever see the light.

The names of about one hundred and eighty composers of Gaelic poetry alone occur in this volume, while not more than a third of that number will be found in any previous work on the subject. Still I am aware that some mistakes and omissions will be met with, but these, I trust, will not elicit so much reprehension as material for correction hereafter.

On the subject of the science of language and race movements glanced at in the Introduction, the student will find the latest views in the works of Penka, Schrader, Sayce, Hyde Clarke, and others. The "Ultonian Hero-Ballads " of Mr Hector Maclean and the Reliqua Celtica of the late Dr Alexander Cameron will be prized by those interested in the fields on which the great Cuchulin fought and Ossian sang.

My studies in the Celtic field have been carried on in the midst of duties of a sacred and exacting character; and I have often been hindered by the thought that the attraction in this direction

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