Culmin’s Ghost Appears to His Mother — Nicolai Abildgaard

Culmin’s Ghost Appears to His Mother, 1794 by Nicolai Abildgaard (1743–1809)

Near are the steps of Culmin; the youth came, bursting into tears. Wrathful he cut the wind, ere yet he mixed his strokes with Fillan. He had first bent the bow with Rothmar, at the rock of his own blue streams. There they had marked the place of the roe, as the sunbeam flew over the fern. Why, son of Cul-allin! why, Culmin, dost thou rush on that beam of light? It is a fire that consumes. Son of Cul-allin, retire. Your fathers were not equal in the glittering strife of the field. The mother of Culmin remains in the hall. She looks forth on blue-rolling Strutha. A whirlwind rises, on the stream, dark-eddying round the ghost of her son. His dogs are howling in their place. His shield is bloody in the hall. “Art thou fallen, my fair-haired son, in Erin’s
dismal war?”

From The Poems of Ossian by James McPherson.