Dar-Thula, from "Illustrated London News"

In this dramatic wood engraving, a woman with flowing dark hair and a serious expression, Dar-Thula, stands at the center of a stormy scene. Her gaze is directed upward, as if pleading with unseen forces. The wind whips her drapery around her, emphasizing the raw emotion and turbulent atmosphere. Behind her, a ship struggles against powerful waves, its mast visible through the spray, while lightning flashes in the dark sky. The artist, Frederick James Smyth, created this image for the *Illustrated London News* in 1861, a time when such publications brought art and literature to a wide audience. This print captures a moment of high drama from the Ossianic poems, a popular eighteenth-century literary sensation that evoked a mythical, ancient Scotland. The stark contrasts of light and shadow, typical of wood engraving, heighten the sense of peril and the heroine's emotional intensity, drawing the viewer into her plight.