Like the Irish language Bard Brian Merriman, Alasdair begins by parodying the conventions of the Aisling, or Vision poem. In the Aisling genre, the poet is out in the countryside and meets a figure, usually a woman, from the Otherworld. The figure will lament her lot under foreign tyranny, call upon her sons to liberate her, and prophesy the return of justice when the House of Stuart regains the throne. In Alasdair's hands, the convention is given an cynical and comedic twist. Instead of a woman, the Bard describes a meeting with the ghost of a Campbell who was beheaded for supporting the Stuart claim to the throne. The ghost then tells the Bard that the Campbells will soon be punished for committing high treason against their lawful King, first being visited by the Ten Plagues of Egypt and then by another Great Flood upon their lands. The Bard is instructed to emulate Noah by building an Ark for carefully selected Campbells. The moderates will be welcomed aboard the Ark's decks after being purged of their Whiggery by swallowing a heavy dose of seawater. Campbell redcoats are to be tied with millstones and thrown overboard. A female poet of the clan who had mocked Prince Charles and accused him of illegitimacy was to be treated to a fitting punishment before being delivered right into the Bard's hands. Also, Colin Roy Campbell of Glenure, who has been appointed as the Crown's Factor on the forfeited lands of Clan Stewart of Appin, is one the few Whigs for whom the ghost confesses a certain respect:  According to Father Charles MacDonald, "In other passages he prays that the Butcher may have a rope tied around his neck and may be made to swing from it., - a blessing to which, if it could do any good, many a Highlander today would respond with a hearty amen. His choicest of offering to the King is the Scottish Maiden - i.e. the Guillotine - and so on. But these extravagant forms of "lese majeste", and of course not at all to be approved of, even in a poet." According to John Lorne Campbell, two of the poems in "Ais-Eridh na Sean Chánoin Albannaich", "A Song on Old Age" and "A Dialogue between a Friend and a Foe of Whisky", were actually composed by Alasdair's close friend, the North Uist bard Iain Mac Fhearchair.