Note 158 — THE BOOK OF THE DEAN OF LISMORE. (continued 2)

This bard has been met with already as an imitator of Ossian. He was in all likelihood an ecclesiastic. Several of the early Lords of the Isles were liberal benefactors to the Church, and it is not unlikely that this liberality called forth the praises of our bard. The word “bochd,” poor, associated in one of the lines of this composition with “brontachd,” bestowing, is often by early Gaelic writers applied to monks and hermits, who lived upon the beneficence of the wealthy, and became finally enriched by their gifts.