Page:Poems of Ossian.djvu/11

 INTRODUCTION.

the earliest ages mankind have been lovers of song and tale. To their singers in times of old men looked for comfort in sorrow, for inspiration in battle, and for renown after death. Of these singers were the prophets of Israel, the poets and rhapsodes of ancient Greece, the skalds of the Scandinavian sea-kings, and the bards of the Celtic race. The office was always most honourable, the bard coming next the hero in esteem; and thus, first of the fine arts, was cultivated the art of song.

Down to quite a recent time the household of no Highland chief was complete without its bard, to sing the great deeds of the race's ancestors. And to the present day, though the locomotive and the printing press have done much to kill these customs of a more heroic age, it is not difficult to find in the Highland glens those who can still recite a "tale of the times of old."