Note 4 — Chapter XXXIX

See for her poems "Sár-obair na mbárd Gaelach," by Mackenzie, p. 22. Unfortunately he gives us no full account of where the poems were collected, all he says is, "We have the authority of several persons of high respectability, and on whose testimony we can rely, that Mary McLeod was the veritable authoress of the poems attributed to her in this work." This is, in an important matter of the kind, very unsatisfactory, but Mary's poem, "An talla 'm bu ghná le MacLeód," seems to bear internal evidence of its own antiquity in its allusions to the chief's bow—

"Si do lámh nach robh tuisleach, Dol a chaitheadh a chuspair Led' bhogha cruaidh ruiteach deagh-neóil,"

to which she alludes again in the line—

"Nuair leumadh an tsaighead ó do mheoir."

("When the arrow would leap from your fingers.")