us, and elsewhere systematised and elaborated, are the only facts, or the only kind of facts to be considered in such a controversy; but we do assert that their importance is supreme, and that they have never hitherto been admitted in the controversy. It is to facts however, and to facts like these, that the attention of Ossianic students ought now to be directed; and at every step, if we are not greatly deceived, they will multiply and reiterate their testimony in so decided a fashion, that it will be impossible for any critic, or for any collector in the world, to disregard or dispose of them. All farther serious controversy on the subject, in short, is destined to be of this character—common-sense and practical; and the sooner we prepare ourselves, as honest enquirers, to engage in it after this fashion and in this spirit, the better.

P. HATELY WADDELL.

THE HIGHLAND CEILIDH.

By Alastair Og.

We are in a west coast village or township, cut off from all communication with the outer world, without Steamers, Railways, or even Roads. We grow our own corn, and produce our beef, our mutton, our butter, our cheese, and our wool. We do our own carding, our spinning, and our weaving. We marry and are taken in marriage by, and among, our own kith and kin. In short, we are almost entirely independent of the more civilized and more favoured south. The few articles we do not produce—tobacco and tea,—our local merchant, the only one in a district about forty square miles in extent, carries on his back, once a month or so, from the Capital of the Highlands. We occasionally indulge in a little whisky at Christmas and the New Year, at our weddings and our balls. We make it too, and we make it well. The Salmon Fishery Acts are, as yet, not strictly enforced, and we can occasionally shoot—sometimes even in our gardens—and carry home, without fear of serious molestation, the monarch of the forest. We are not overworked. We live plainly but well, on fresh fish, potatoes and herring, porridge and milk, beef and mutton, eggs, butter, and cheese. Modern pickles and spices are as unknown as they are unnecessary. True, our houses are built not according to the most modern principles of architecture. They are, in most cases, built of undressed stone and moss (coinneach), thatched with turf or divots, generally covered over with straw or ferns held on by a covering of old herring nets, straw, and rope, or siaman.

The houses are usually divided into three apartments—one door in the byre end leading to the whole. Immediately we enter we find ourselves among the cattle. A stone wall, or sometimes a partition of clay and straw separates the byre from the kitchen. Another partition, usually of a more elegant description, separates the latter from the Culaist or sleeping apartment. In the centre of the kitchen a pavement of three or four feet in diameter is laid, slightly raised towards the middle, on which is placed the peat fire. The smoke, by a kind of instinct peculiar to peat smoke, finds its way to a hole in the roof called the falas, and makes its escape. The fire in the centre of the room was almost a necessity of the good old Ceilidh days. When the people congregated in the evening, the circle could be extended to the full capacity of the room, and occasionally it became necessary to have a circle within a circle. A few extra peats on the fire would, at any time, by the additional heat produced, cause an extension of the circle, and at the same time send its warming influences to the utmost recesses of the apartment. The circle became extended by merely pushing back the seats, and this arrangement became absolutely necessary in the houses which were most celebrated as the great Ceilidh centres of the district.

The Ceilidh rendezvous is the house in which all the Folk-lore of the country, all the old sgeulachdan or stories, the ancient poetry known to the bards or Seanachaidhean, and old riddles and proverbs are recited from night to night by old and young. All who took an interest in such questions congregated in the evening in these centres of song and story. They were also great centres of local industry. Net-making was the staple occupation, at which the younger members of the circle had to take a spell in turn. Five or six nets were attached in different corners of the apartment to a chair, a bedstead or post set up for the purpose, and an equal number of young gossipers nimbly plied their fingers at the rate of a pound of yarn a day. Thus, a large number of nets were turned out during the winter months, the proceeds of which, when the nets were not made for the members of the household, went to pay for tobacco and other luxuries for the older and most necessitous members of the circle.

With these preliminary remarks we shall now introduce the readers of the Celtic Magazine to the most famous Ceilidh house in the district, and ask them to follow us from month to month while we introduce the principal members of the celebrated circle. We shall make each re-appear in these pages to repeat their old stories, recite old poems, never published elsewhere, propound riddles, and in this way we shall be able to lay before our readers a vast amount of the legends, clan feuds, and traditional family history, connected with the Highlands, a large amount of unpublished poetry, duans, riddles, proverbs, and Highland customs. It will be necessary to give a great part in the original Gaelic, especially the poetry; but translations of the legends, riddles, and proverbs, will be given when convenient.

The house is such as we have above described. The good-man is bordering upon five-score. He is a bard of no mean order, often delighting his circle of admiring friends with his own compositions, as well as with those of Ossian and other ancient bards. He holds a responsible office in the church, is ground-officer for the laird as well as family bard. He possesses the only Gaelic New Testament in the district. He lives in the old house with three sons whose ages range from 75 to 68, all full of Highland song and story, especially the youngest two—John and Donald. When in the district, drovers from Lochaber, Badenoch, and all parts of the Highlands find their way to this noted Ceilidh house. Bards, itinerants of all sorts, travelling tinkers, pipers, fiddlers, and mendicants, who loved to hear or tell a good story, recite an old poem or compose a modern one—all come and are well received among the regular visitors in the famous establishment. As we proceed, each of the strangers and local celebrities will recite their own tales, not only those of their own districts but also those picked up in their wanderings throughout the various parts of the country.

It was a condition never deviated from, that every one in the house took some part in the evening's performance, with a story, a poem, a riddle, or a proverb. This rule was not only wholesome, but one which became almost a necessity to keep the company select, and the house from becoming overcrowded. A large oak chair was placed in a particular spot—"where the sun rose"—the occupant of which had to commence the evening's entertainment when the company assembled, the consequence being that this seat, although one of the best in the house, was usually the last occupied; and in some cases, when the house was not overcrowded, it was never taken up at all. In the latter case the one who sat next to it on the left, had to commence the evening's proceedings.

It was no uncommon thing to see one of the