Review Author(s): Don. Mackinnon Review by: Don. Mackinnon Source: The Celtic Review, Vol. 8, No. 32 (May, 1913), pp. 356-359 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30070260 Accessed: 27-06-2016 06:59 UTC

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This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 06:59:42 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 356 THE CELTIC REVIEW to remember that she is the destined bride of the king. Deirdre here reminds him that she never has given and never will give her consent to be King Conor's bride. Plucking a red rose from a bush near by, she hands it to him with these words: 'As a Knight of the Red Branch you cannot refuse the gift, except for a valid reason.' Naoise's last scruples vanish; he takes the rose, and raising the maiden high upon his shoulders, sets out with her that night, accompanied by Ainle and Ardan. They took with them three times fifty men, three times fifty women, three times fifty horses, three times fifty greyhounds, and moved round Erin from Essa to Beinn Etair, and east again until King Conor's designs made it incumbent on them to fly for safety to Alba, which was the heritage of Usnach, called by Macpherson the Lord of Etha.

(To be continued)

BOOK REVIEWS

The Spiritual Songs of Dugald Buchanan. Edited with Introduction, Notes, and Vocabulary by Rev. DONALD MACLEAN, author of The Highlands before the Reformation; Duthil: Past and Present; The Literature of the Scottish Gael, etc. etc. New Edition. Edinburgh: John Grant, 1913.

Dugald Buchanan, at the time schoolmaster and catechist in Rannoch, and well known as a competent Gaelic scholar, was chosen to superintend the issue of the translation of the New Testament into Scottish Gaelic made by the Rev. James Stewart of Killin. While in Edinburgh on this duty the poet attended classes in the University, Natural Philosophy and Anatomy among them, and his signature is to be seen in the University Album. During his stay in the capital he conducted religious services among the Highlanders of Edinburgh, and published, in 1767, eight Religious Poems, amounting in all to only about 1590 lines. To the little volume were appended ' The Sum of Saving Knowledge,' ' The Shorter Catechism,' 'The Commandments,' 'The Lord's Prayer,' and 'The Creed.' It has always been said that these formed only a portion of the author's poetical compositions, and that he intended to publish others later. This may well

This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 06:59:42 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms BOOK REVIEWS 357 have been the case. But in 1768 fever raged in Rannoch; the poet caught the infection and succumbed, at the age of fifty-two. Buchanan left behind him an autobiography, a portion of which was written as early as 1741, and continued in the form of a diary down to 1750. This treatise appears to have been written in English. The late Rev. John Campbell of Iona used to say that to his personal knowledge John Mackenzie, editor of The Beauties of Gaelic Poetry, translated the Autobiography for Messrs. Maclachlan and Stewart, Edinburgh, from an English MS., which was at one time in the possession of the Countess of Leven and Melville. Internal evidence seems to prove that Dugald Buchanan could not have written this piece of Gaelic prose as we now have it, while John Mackenzie may well have done so. Whether these eight poems constituted the whole of the author's poetical labours or not, we may regard them as in his own judgment his best, fitly conveying the burden of his message to his fellow-countrymen. His reputa- tion as a poet rests on them, and will rest securely as long as the old tongue is read. Buchanan was fairly well read in English literature: he names in his Diary several volumes that influenced him. His poems also contain adap- tations from Watts, and especially from Young's Night Thoughts. But to this man of genius who thought so deeply, felt so strongly, and gave such lucid expression to his varying moods, the Book of Books was Holy Scrip- ture, and next to it the Book of Nature as unfolded to him in the scenery of his native Perthshire. Highlanders have had many eminent men who composed religious verse from Columba downwards, several of them since Buchanan's day. There were, e.g., Dr. James Macgregor of Nova Scotia and Dr. Macdonald of Ferintosh, who, in intellectual stature and in gifts of clear and forcible exposition, approached our author closely, if they did not quite equal him, while in depth of knowledge and breadth of view they surpassed him. Then there was John Morrison of Harris, who, in poetic insight, subtlety of intellect, and power of self-analysis was fully his equal, if not his superior. But in sublimity of conception, in grandeur and felicity of expression, none of these distinguished men can fitly compare with the Rannoch poet. And even if we extend the comparison to the foremost of our secular poets, Dugald Buchanan will not suffer. It is true that his poems do not contain the wealth of diction or the variety of imagery found in such poets as Alexander Macdonald and Duncan Macintyre, but neither of these, at his very best, can show greater command of apt diction to express his ideas, or of felicitous imagery to deck them in all their beauty and all their majesty. Like his own 'Hero,' Buchanan has his ideas and language ever under control: the secular poets, even the very best of them, are too often the slaves of their wealth of vocabulary, 'intoxicated with the exuberance of their own verbosity.' The Highland people took to Buchanan from the first. Seven editions were printed by 1799. The Rev. Allan Sinclair, of Kenmore, named his edition, printed in 1875, the twenty-first. If one were to regard the dif-

This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 06:59:42 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 358 THE CELTIC REVIEW ferent dates on the title-pages of these hymns as separate editions, one would count them as over forty. Certain it is that no other volume of Gaelic poetry was printed so often, or so much read. Their influence on the religious life of the Highland people must have been incalculable. One could have wished that the teaching of our author was expressed in more genial form. The man by all accounts was of a humane, genial disposition, but it is possible that in such case the literary power might suffer. The poems of Buchanan have been in continuous circulation since 1767. They have been translated into English prose by Sinclair, and into English verse by Mr. L. M'Bean. Individual poems have appeared in English verse from time to time--' The Skull,' e.g., by Professor Blackie in The Language and Literature of the Highlands. The reader may ask, Whence, then, the need for a new edition? Mr. Maclean's volume supplies the answer. It is probably the case that no subsequent editor was as competent a Gaelic scholar as Dugald Buchanan himself. In any case, the author's edition of 1767 was prepared with great care, and printed with great accuracy. Later editors, through ignorance or carelessness, allowed errors, in increasing numbers, to creep in. The diction and syntax are so plain and clear that few blunders were possible on that score. But several are met with. A rare word eal-ghris, 'deadly paleness,' 'horror,' was removed in favour of fearr- dhris, 'bramble-briar,' which the context shows was absurd:-

Ar learn gu faic mi'n eal-ghris air, Cur a chath sheirbh gu crich.

Some grammatical forms were in use in 1767 which have since fallen into desuetude. The literary form no co = 'until,' is used twice by Buchanan, in the guise of nach gur, nach gu'm. We have dropped the no (nach) and changed the co into the phrase gus an do, sometimes crushed into gus 'na. The tense particle do, which we preserve in interrogative and negative clauses, is dropped or changed to a in affirmative past tenses. In Buchanan's day this do with past tenses was common, and the poet frequently used it. The editors commonly ignored the particle, to the detriment of the line. They also allowed printers' errors to multiply shamelessly. Further, there never was an attempt made to elucidate Buchanan's text by a single note. Mr. Maclean's volume goes far to correct and make good such blunders and deficiencies as these. He is a great admirer of Buchanan, and a devoted student of Gaelic in its older and later forms. He provides us here with the text of 1767, with only such changes in orthography, etc., as Buchanan himself, in his judgment, would have made if he lived now. We have thus, to begin with, a reliable text, and, as Gaelic texts go, singularly free from printers' blunders. A short and clearly written introduction, giving the main facts of the poet's life with a judicious survey of the contents of the poems, precedes the text. Following it are voluminous notes, theological, etymological, grammatical, with parallel quotations from various authors;

This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 06:59:42 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms BOOK REVIEWS 359 interesting in most cases, illuminating always. To the notes Mr. Maclean has added two excursus, one on what is called vocalic auslaut, on which is based the law of Initial Aspiration, and the other on nasal auslaut, which explains the phonetic feature known as eclipsis, a feature more common in Irish than in Scottish Gaelic. The contents close with a Vocabulary which will be found serviceable by many readers. The volume is in every way suitably got up, and no one who desires to study Dugald Buchanan with intelligent comprehension can afford to be without it. So far as one can judge from a somewhat cursory reading, the volume is, for a first edition, singularly free from error. But a more careful examina- tion would no doubt trace a few. Mr. Maclean writes the title-page in English, ' The Spiritual Songs of Dugald Buchanan.' The title of the 1767 edition is in Gaelic, ' Laoidhe Spioradail le Dhighall Bochannan.' The word laoidh of old meant 'lay,' secular or sacred, but since the middle of the eighteenth century at least, the meaning in Scottish Gaelic is restricted to religious verse. DON. MACKINNON.

Teutonic Myth and Legend. By DONALD A. MACKENZIE. London: The Gresham Publishing Company. 7s. 6d. net. The author re-tells and reviews the mythological and heroic stories of the Teutonic peoples, beginning with the Icelandic Eddas and Sagas, and then passing to Beowulf, the Hamlet of Saxo, the Volsung tales, the Nibelungenlied and the Dietrich lays. An interesting introduction deals with the origin and growth of the various legends and poems, and provides the necessary historical settings. Like his raiding ancestors, Mr. Mackenzie invades Teutondom occasionally to claim some of its treasures. He holds that the Grendel part of Beowulf is not Teutonic at all. It is not found in the North German circle of romance, but resembles closely a type of story very common in Scotland. The hero slays a male monster (Grendel), and then has to deal with the mother (the Cailleach Mhor). Similarly 'Finn- mac-Coul' and other Celtic heroes have frequently to fight the demon-mother after slaying the demon. 'The inference is,' says the author, ' that the poet who gave the epic its final shape in England had a British mother, or, at any rate, came under the influence of British intellectual life. Like Shakespeare, who utilised old plays, he may have refashioned an earlier Anglian poem, appropriated its geographical setting, and infused the whole with the fire of his genius.' Mr. Mackenzie also challenges the Teutonic claim for the 'Seven Sleepers' Legend which Rydberg was supposed to have traced to a Scandinavian birthplace. He shows that there are ' Seven Sleepers' legends in Scotland, of which Rydberg had no knowledge, and points out that they resemble the Arabian type more closely than the Scandinavian. Finn-mac-Coul is contrasted with Sigurd, and an illustration from an old wood carving shows the latter biting his thumb to obtain know- ledge. The author finds many points of contact between Celtic and Teutonic

This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 06:59:42 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms