What is this ship on Loch Inch,[174]
Of which we now may speak?
What brought this ship on the loch,
Which songs cannot o’erlook?
I would like much to ask,
Who was it brought that ship,
Afloat upon that angry loch,
Where changes often come?
The fierce wind from the hills,
And bitter storms from the glens,
Oft has the vessel from the shore,
Stolen upon the dangerous sea.
Stranger, who sawest the ship,
On the rough and angry stream,
What should hinder thee to tell
About her and about her crew?
An old ship without iron or stern,
Never have we seen her like,
The vessel all with leather patched,
Not even beneath the waves is’t tight.
Her boards are trifling bits of deals,
Black patches down along her sides,
Useless nails to fix them on
Upon her scanty, stinted ribs.
What woman cargo is in the black ship
Pulling her on betwixt the waves,
The cargo heartless and senseless too?
Widows of a foolish mind,
A boasting, talkative crew,
A load vexatious and bad,
Quarrelsome and covetous,
Of evil minds and evil deeds.
Their ways and conversation bad,
A band of well-known fame,
No substance in what they say,
Drunken, singing, with levity,
A band ill-shapen, mischievous,
Who live by both sides of Loch Inch.
In spite of thee and of their ship
On the stormy sea’s dun face,
No good woman could take that ship,
However pressing the constraint.
The worst of women go to sea,
Others cannot give them help.
Let this ship be driven from the loch,
Down to the fierce and roaring deep,
Let the wind pursue the ship,
To the old point of Seananach.
There will I leave upon the stream,
The ill-favoured, ill-doing ship,
Of wicked widows full on the sea,
Without a psalm or creed e’er said,
What.
* * * * *
The fame of the house of Dunolly, little favour where they drive
a herd.[175]
This brute is much like a dog, greedy aye for stolen flesh.
[173] Nothing is known of this poet. The modern M’Intyre, the bard of
Glenurchy, has a place second to none among the composers of Gaelic
poetry; but it would appear that there was an older poet of the name,
and one not unknown to fame. Four hundred years may produce no little
change in the place which not a few men of note in our day hold in the
temple of fame, and greater stars than the bard M’Intyre may have their
lustre dimmed by time. He is another writer of satires on women, a kind
of composition wonderfully popular, judging from our MS. at the period.
We only give a few specimens of these, but there are several in the
miscellany, and some of a character which, in modern days, one wonders
the Dean could have admitted to his collection.
[174] The only loch of this name with which the Editor is acquainted is
Loch Inch, on the Spey, in Badenoch.
[175] These satirical lines on the family of Dunolly are given as a
specimen of the strain indulged in at times by the bards, to gratify
their animosity against hostile clans. It need hardly be added, that
the Macdougalls of Lorn were a race as distinguished for the antiquity
of their descent, as for the high character of many of the name.