Page:The Celtic Review volume 4.djvu/93

80 Garnardaich seems analogous to fiarnaidh for fiannaidh, and suggests connection somehow with English yawn, Old English gánian, Scottish gant. Gunnars is found in West Ross (Applecross and Lochbroom) and in Easter Ross, but gunnas in the Black Isle and gunnais in Gairloch. Whether it is or is not based on conas is doubtful. The word aing and the form miong are used also in the Outer Hebrides. Tastar for tartar occurs in Rob Donn’s Poems; in West Ross it is tatar.

Guilbearnach is heard in Perth and West Ross, and irinn in Easter Ross. Airm for ainm, and also aram for anam, are met with in the book of the Dean of Lismore, and occur in Irish Gaelic.

CLIAR SHEANCHAIN

the last of the old time bards has long been gone, the memory of them still lives in the traditions of the Scottish Highlands, and from time to time one hears among the older people stories relating to those itinerant companies of bards, story-tellers, and other performers that were known far and wide as ‘Cliar Sheanchain,’ or Senchan’s Company. In these stories the Cliar Sheanchain are represented as travelling in companies of twelve, more or less. Their custom was to quarter themselves on some well-to-do and hospitable family, where they were sure of food and lodging, and there they stayed till they often became a grievous burden to their hosts. The conventions of Gaelic hospitality were strict, and the satire of a bard was a thing not lightly to be incurred. The words of satire had strange power. They caused a man’s face to redden even to blistering, and the man even unjustly satirised did little good thereafter. So the bards stayed on at their will, eating and drinking of the best, not without grumbling. There were, however, certain rules of the game. On the one hand, the Cliar were bound to get the best of