The Maid of Elvar: A Poem in Twelve Parts

"The native legends of thy land rehearse." Allan Cunningham (1784–1842), the author of The Maid of Elvar, an epic written in the style of traveling bards from former eras, places this quotation on the title page of his book, giving his due to a kindred spirit from a prior generation, one William Collins (1721–1759), a fellow Scottish poet and student of the old epics like himself. The epics recited by bards were an oral tradition and therefore likely to be lost to posterity. Both Collins an...