t subject, and noted that

"Dr. Brown, in an attempt to sketch the origin of
poetry--an attempt which attracted the attention of
Bishop Percy in his remarks introductory to the
_Reliques_--proposed more than one hundred years ago
to discover the source of the combined dance, song,
melody, and mimetic action of primitive compositions
in the common festivals of clan life. The student of
comparative literature will probably regard Dr.
Brown's theory as a curious anticipation of the
historical method in a study which, in spite of M.
Taine's efforts, has made so little progress as yet.
The clan ethic of inherited guilt and vicarious
punishment has attracted considerable attention. But
the clan poetry of the ancient Arabs and of the
bard-clans, surviving in the Hebrew sons of Asaph or
the Greek Homeridae, has not received that light from
comparative inquiry which the closely connected
problems of primitive music and metre would alone
amply deserve."[144]

Not much has been done since this was penned. Max Mueller had
previously, in 1847, declared that the Rig Veda consisted of the clan
songs of the Hindu people,[145] but the importance of such a
conclusion has been entirely neglected. In the meantime evidence is
accumulating that in Britain there are still preserved many examples
of clan songs. Thus Lord Archibald Campbell has published, in the
first volume of his _Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition_, some
sixteen or seventeen sagas. Some of these are clan-traditions; and the
editor notes as evidence of their antiquity the fact that none of them
makes any mention of firearms. These clan-traditions all relate to
feuds and vendettas; and in one case it is expressly recorded that the
descendants of one of the foes of the clan, in their account of the
incident narrated, "altered this tradition and reversed the main
facts." This has been followed by a volume definitely devoted to
"clan-traditions,"[146] while in the _Carmina Gadelica_ and many of
the Highland incantations there are preserved specimens of ancient
clan songs.

The most interesting of the tribal songs is that preserved at the
Hawick Common riding. The burgh officers form the van of a pageant
which insensibly carries us back to ancient times, and in some verses
sung on the occasion there is a refrain which has been known for ages
as the slogan of H