A writer using the pseudonym ‘Cailein Gorm’ (no confirmed dates) translated Thomas Gray’s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ (1751) into Gaelic. Given his interest in translating from English into Gaelic, this could be Erskine himself.
As Ronald Black notes (An Tuil, 1999), two other twentieth-century Gaelic poets attempted the same: Donald John MacDonald | Dòmhnall Iain MacDhòmhnaill, whose translation is included in the volume Chì Mi (1998), ed. Bill Innes, and Duncan Livingstone | Donnchadh MacDhunLèibhe, whose draft has been preserved in manuscript.
Publications in Erskine’s Periodicals
- [Thomas Gray]: ‘Marbhrann Sgrìobhta an Cill Dùthcha’ [poetry, GD; translation of ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ by ‘Cailein Gorm’], Volume IX, Issue 2 (Summer 1914)