have been the chief and most remarkable agents, the name comes to have a fitting and appropriate enough meeting, without the necessity of taking in the name of Deirdri or Dearduil at all. Mr. Mackay next gives a translation of a couple of quatrains from the oldest known version of the Clann-Uisneachan ballad; that, namely, of the vellum manuscript in the Advocates' Library, bearing the date 1238, and quoted in the Highland Society's Report on Ossian:

"Beloved land, that eastern land,

Alba, with its lakes;

Oh, that I might not depart from it;

But I go with Naois.

Glen Urchain, O Glen Urchain,

It was the straight glen of smooth ridges :
Not more joyful was a man of his age

Than Naois in Glen Urchain."

Mr. Mackay will have it, of course, that this "Glen-Urchain" is his Glen Urquhart. The Gaelic name of Urquhart, however, is invariably a trisyllable; but this apart, the Glen-Urchain of Mr. Mackay has no existence in the ballad from which he professes to translate. The quatrain stands thus in the original

"Mo chen Glen Urchaidh,

Ba hedh in Glen direach dromchain ;

Uallcha feara aoisi

Ma Naise an Glend Urchaidh."

It is Glen Urchaidh, observe, not Urchain; the Glenurchay of Argyllshire, in short, not the Glen Urquhart or Urchadan of Inverness-shire. This is further proved by the context, the immediately preceding and succeeding stanzas, which speak of Glen Mason and Glendaruel in Cowal; of Duntroon; of Innisstrynich on Loch Awe; of Eite or Etive, &c. In so far, in short, as this story of Clann-Uisneachan of Ireland has to do with Scotland, we find it connected with Argyllshire, where indeed we should most naturally look for it; and chiefly with Glen Etive and Loch

THE CLANN-UISNEACHAN BALLAD.

417

Etive, where we have Dun-Mhac-Uisneachan; Grianan Dheirdir; Caoille Naois; Eilean Uisneachan, &c. &c. In Argyllshire, too, it was that the Clann-Uisneachan ballads were preserved till discovered and taken down from oral recitation by the collectors. And if Dun-Dearduil and "Glen-Urchain" must be given up as having no connection with the ballads in question, so would it seem to follow that some other etymology than any connection with the name of Naois, must be found for Loch Ness, Inverness, &c.

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