Authorities

An ancient stand-up dog-fight, from a sculptured cross in

The first question for enquiry is, who and what were the heroes of Ossian?

According to Professor O’Curry’s Lectures, the following dates rest upon ancient authority—

Finn’s pedigree begins. Finn son of Cumhall, son [B.C. 110.] of Trenmór, son of Snaelt, son of Eltan, son of Baiscni, son of Nuada Necht, who was monarch of Ireland B.C. 110.

Finn slain, in the reign of Cairbré Lifeachair. [A.D. 283.]

Battle of Gabhra. Death of Oscar and Cairbré (p. [284.] 304. ] ap. 482, Coming of St. Patrick to Ireland (p. 472), to whom Oisin, the son of Finn, and Caelte his kinsman and contemporary, recited poems describing the glories of the

In a matter of such antiquity it is of small importance that Oisin, who had a grown up son in 284, must have been about 180 years old in 432, and more { than 200 before St. Patrick could have built the monasteries in which the poor old blind Irish bard was so grieved, starved, and tormented by jangling bells, droning psalms, and howling clerics; it is proved that the names of the old Fenian heroes were known when very ancient manuscripts were written, and that is enough. So, taking the third century as a starting point, let us take a rapid voyage of discovery down the stream of time, carrying with us the published Gaelic Ossian, and noticing anything old that bears upon Gaelic traditions at its proper place. If Scotchmen and Irishmen will not pull in the same boat, let there be no bumping, or jostling, or fouling, but a fair race for what may be left of the poems when the voyage ] ends; if any one is bored by such races he need not follow the boats, he may skip over a short cut to ; the winning-post, but if he does he must not give an opinion about the line of country which he is too lazy to travel. First, then, let it be granted that Finn lived in Ireland at the end of the third century, and that the first book of Temora is founded upon an event which took place in Ireland before the book of Leinster was written, if not in 284; but it must be granted, on the Irish side, that Hector Boyce made Finn a Scot and a giant in 1526, when the Scotch historian published his work.*

The passage is partly quoted in the Highland Society’s Report on Ossian, and p. 170, Hist. of Scotch Poetry, and part of it is as follows:—‘ Conjiciunt quidam in haec tempora Finanum filium Cœli (Fyn MakCoul vulgari vocabulo) virum uti ferunt immani statura septenum enim cubitorum hominem fuisse narrant.”

So, in the sixteenth century, Fyn was the son of heaven, and the historian then ranked him with King Arthur; and tales and other compositions concerning Fyn with the Arthurian fables. It must also be granted that numerous Celtic worthies bore Ossianic names besides the Irish heroes. Engenius I., son of Fin-Cormach-us, was a king of Scotland slain in battle with the Romans, A.D. 357. Ferg-us (Wrath-us) was the name of a Scotch king who was lost in the Irish sea, B.c. 330, and many historical personages have borne that name besides the Irish bard Fergus, the son of Finn MacCumhal of A.D. 280. Cumhal, again, is like many Celtic names; it sounds like Coil-us, who was a king of the Britons, and if he be the hero of the English ballad, his was a rough age:—

“Old King Cole, unsophisticated soul,

To read and to write he thought useless quite,

Congall-us was a Scotch king in 501 or thereabouts. There were many Scotch kings called Donald, if we can believe Scotch history, and the men who wrote these names were generally of the race which now says “garsong, ung ver du vang, et ung morceau du pang.” The sound of the French and Gaelic nasal o and u are identical, and a man who would write garsong because he seemed to hear that sound, would also write MacDonald, as it is now pronounced in Gaelic, Macongil, and one sound of MacCumhal would be Maccungil and another Macooil. Now, if this erroneous ng, which expresses the Saxon value of the French and Gaelic nasal o and u, and the word Mac be struck out, there remains a nasal o-il or u-il, and so, instead of Cumhal, Coil-us, Cole, Cowl, Cool, Congall-us, Donald-us, and Dugald-us, we come very nearly to Hoel, whose son would be ap Hoel, O’Hoel, or Mac-Hoel, and thus Fionn may be made the son of the mythical Welsh Howel, or of some great man who bore the same name before the flood. By a like easy process, Fionn becomes a Macdougald, and as Campbell is not an ancient Gaelic name, I may point out that Camul was the “Celtic Mars,” and that Camel-ot, Camel-odunum, and other such names, all savour of Cumhal, though that word now means handmaid, or subjection, according to dictionaries.

Fenian names also appear in the Milesian story (p. 447 of O’Curry’s Lectures.) Beginning with Japhet and Magog, the race is traced through Scythia, Egypt, Scythia again, Greece, and Spain, whence a colony came to Erinn in the year of the world 3500, at which time Ireland was governed by the three sons of Cermna Milbheoil (honey-mouth), Ethur, Cethur, and Fether; “mythologically known as MacCuill, MacCeacht, and MacGréin€;” who were Tuatha dé Danann, and reigned at Tara. Scota, the mother of the Milesian leaders, was shortly afterwards slain in a battle, and one of her sons was Eber Finn. So Finn was a mythological Milesian long before the Finn of the third century, and MacCuil Finn’s patronymic was also that of the mythological head of the race which the Milesians found in Ireland.

Finn is also one of the commonest names in Scandinavia, and so is Köl, so we get Finnr Kölsen, the equivalent of Fin MacCowl. Oscar is also common, and is interpreted to mean As-gair the spear of the gods, and Oske is one of Odin’s numerous names.

In the twelfth century Geoffrey of Monmouth names Coillas, and Coel, and Conan, as British heroes, and according to the chronicle Conan was made king of Armorica. Sir Gawain is probably the same personage as Gow or Gol, the son of Morna, so they may be Welshmen or Bretons. Phinn, MacPhunn, Fin-lay, and scores of other names common in England, Scotland, and Ireland, also resemble the Ossianic names. But the Finns or Lapps inhabit Finmark at this day, and have all along been magical people in the north, so the Celtic heroes may be Lapps. In the story of Gunnhillda (Njal Saga, vol. ii., 378), we learn how, in the tenth century, a beautiful maiden was sent to Finnark to learn magic from the Finns, and “some believed that Mattul the Finnish king himself was her master in magic,” but Gunnhillda’s story is mixed up with that of the whole of the west of Europe, in that she was a Viking’s bride, and mother of Scandinavian kings, so her master in magic may be MacCoul himself in disguise.

Feinne may be Phoenician or Egyptian, if there be any truth in the old legend about Pharaoh’s daughter.

In like manner “Art” is the Gaelic now commonly used for the Christian name “Art hur,” or Art is not to be appropriated to any one Irish king, though there may have been an early Cormac Mac Art, for there was an early British Arthur, of whose deeds romance is full. So Bran and Conan were early Welsh kings, though Brian and Conan may have flourished in Ireland. Brenn-us sacked Rome about 930 B.C., if Bran was Fionn’s magic black hound, A.D. 280; and generally it must be granted on all sides that the early history of Great Britain and Ireland must be Celtic history, and that the best place to get at it is Ireland, where the Celts were not much disturbed till a comparatively late period. But Irish, Scotch, Welsh, Manx, and Cornish, and Clyde Celtic history, and all the early romance of Europe, is so tangled and twisted together, that it will be no easy matter to unravel the skein. Without some knowledge of Gaelic it is hopeless to begin upon this dark history. Let me give one example. There is a Lord Mayor in London, and in every town in England. Monsieur le Maire is a French official in every village in France; the mayors of the palace played their part in French history; the Maormors were anciently Scotch great men; but very few know that maor, pronounced nearly like the French word, is still the Highland constable and ground officer, and civil officer, though Inverness has a provost.

But I have now to do with the heroes of “Ossian’s poems.”

In Professor O’Curry’s book, a vast amount of curious information is given relative to Irish writings. It appears that many hundreds of these are preserved in various libraries and collections at home and abroad. They contain histories, genealogies, codes of law, historical tales, and tales of all kinds; romances, legends, and poems of various sorts, and “numerous Ossianic poems relating to the Fenian heroes, some of them of great antiquity.” The earliest writing is Latin, and attributed to the time of St. Patrick, about 480; others are attributed to St. Colum Cillé and the sixth century, others to the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and following centuries, and these are generally assumed to be Irish, not Scotch, because of their language and the character in which they are written. Most of them probably were written in Ireland, but such documents must be judged by their contents. I received a letter this year from a Scotch highlander in Glasgow, part of which was written in the old hand. A song composed by Duncan Macintyre, the Breadalbane bard, was written in the old character in 1768. It was commonly, though not always, used before that time; inscriptions on the cross at Inverary and other old stones in Scotland are in old letters and in obsolete language. St. Colum Cillé founded Iona; and if St Patrick’s churchmen used old letters, the saint is accused of having been born in Scotland. Those who only understand modern Irish or Scotch Gaelic cannot, without study, read or understand the old written language, which is and always has called itself Gaelic. So Scotchmen and Irishmen would do well to make peace, and help each other to use these old records, and call their language Gaelic, instead of Irish or Earse, which words are only used in speaking English, and produce discord.

Now these ancient Irish documents and those which are preserved in Scotland, like Scotch and Irish traditions, are pervaded by the variously spelt names of Fionn or Finn and his worthies. There is hardly a grown highlander who is not familiar with their names—they are household words at the firesides of Irish peasants; and the characters and relationships of these mythical warriors are almost invariably the same. They are the heroes of Ossian.

Professor O’Curry, who probably knows more about Irish lore than any man now living, and has spent great part of his life in reading and transcribing old manuscripts, holds that the “Fenians,” who answer to the “Fingalians ” of English readers, were historical Irish personages who flourished in the third century, but he shews, p. 10, that Fer Féne was written in the book of Ballymote in 1391, in a poem composed in 1024, and he translates it “Féne men, these were farmers.” Still, Finn’s genealogy is traced to 110 B.c., and it rests upon ancient authority that Diarmaid O’Duibhne ran away with Grainne, the bride of Finn, and daughter of Cormac Mac Art, and that Finn’s son Oisin was a warrior poet.

Poems attributed to Finn Mac Cumhail, his sons Oisin and Fergus Finnbheoil, and his kinsman Caelté, do exist in Gaelic MSS. seven hundred years old. Five of these poems are attributed to Finn himself, and exist in the book of Leinster, which is said to have been compiled from older books in the latter part of the twelfth century; and in the book of Leacan, compiled 1416. Two poems attributed to Oisin are in the book of Leinster. One consists of seven quatrains, and records the deaths of Oscar the son of Oisin, and Cairbré Lifeachair, monarch of Eirinn, who fell by each other’s hands at the battle of Gabhra, “fought A.D. 284.” The second is longer, and records early races on the Curragh of Kildare, wherein Oisin, Caelté, and Finn were gentlemen riders, and magical personages acted the part of modern sharpers, and tempted the heroes into unhallowed dens near Killarney, where they spent a wild night after the races. Another Gaelic poem of undoubted antiquity is attributed to Fergus, and tells how Oisin his brother was enticed into a fairy cave, and discovered himself to Finn by letting chips cut from his spear-shaft float down a stream; as Diarmaid betrayed his retreat to Fionn in the tradition (page 43, vol. iii.) Another is a love story, which Caelté is supposed to have recited to St. Patrick.

Professor O’Curry nowhere says that the “poems of Ossian,” as published in 1760 and 1807, or anything like them from which they could have been translated, exist in ancient Irish manuscript, and gives no support to the argument of his countryman; but he also says, “Of MacPherson’s translations, in no single instance has a genuine Scottish original been found, and that none will ever be found I am very certain.” If he means that the Gaelic of 1807 never can be found in an ancient manuscript, he is certainly right, for the language must have obeyed the common law of change incident to all languages; but he has pointed out some of the incidents on which the first book of Temora is founded, in one of the two ancient poems which were attributed to Oisin in the tenth century; and it is beyond question that endless stories and poems about Fionn and his people have been for centuries, and still are traditionally preserved in Scotland, as well as in Ireland. According to Irish authorities, then, Gaelic poems are preserved in ancient manuscript, and some relate to the Ossianic heroes, but they were Irishmen, who lived, and loved, and fought in the third century, and not Scotchmen; but according to other Irish authorities, these men flourished much later. Scotch and British Fenians are mentioned, and Scotch Oscars appear in Irish poems, even Danish Oscars are named in Irish books; and the feats attributed to the ancient heroes who bore these Ossianic names, and whose chief was Finn, are often the exploits of giants and demigods.

According to MacPherson and “Ossian’s poems,” Fingal was king of Morven, and lived about the same time; according to tradition, which scorns dates (see No. lxxxii), Fionn was the son of a Scotch king who came from Ireland, and of a Scandinavian princess, and drove the Scandinavians from Scotland, having first passed through many adventures in Ireland. Assuming that he lived in the third century, he may have been a leader of Celts in their early fights with the Northmen, Danes, or Anglo-Saxons, who followed the Romans; before any authentic account of their raids was compiled, and before men thought of distinguishing between Ireland and Scotland. But no tradition now current, and no ancient manuscript of which I have heard, makes any mention of the kingdom of Morven or its king Fingal. I believe that the kingdom is an invention of the compounder of Ossian’s poems, whoever he may have been.

The name Fionnaghal is, however, no modern invention; Barbour knew it as “Fyngal” about the days of Bruce. It occurs in a Gaelic song printed by Gillies, 1786, and composed by Iain Lom, a bard who sang about the time of Montrose, and died 1710 at a great age. It is in an elegy on Glengarry composed in the seventeenth century, in which the poet MacMathain or Mathieson, Seaforth’s bard, calls the MacDonalds Sliochd righ Fionnaghail, the race of King Fingal (Beauties of Gaelic Poetry, Mackenzie); and the name also occurs in a traditional story now current in Islay. Righ Fionnaghal according to this was a MacDonald, and “king of the Isles,” and lived in the island in Loch Fionn-lagan in Islay, where are the ruins of the habitation of the lords of the Isles. A family of Mac-intyres (sons of the carpenter) claim to be descended from an illegitimate son of this King Fingal; and Flora Macintyre, one of my peasant contributors claims to be one of them. The story goes, that the king and his son were at sea in a boat, when the peg in the bottom came out and was lost, and the water rushed in. The young man, who had never gained the notice of his father, thrust his thumb into the hole and chopped it off with an axe, “Mo laochan air saor na h-brdaig!” “My fine lad, the thumb carpenter,” said the king; and from this MacDonald, son of Fingal, came the family of the Thumb Carpenters, who are still called Macintyres in Islay; or in Gaelic, “Mac an t-saoir na h-drdaig.” MacDonald is often so pronounced as to make the name resemble MacCumhal. This story is well known about Arisaig.

As for the poet, to whom nearly all the old poetry in the Highlands is now attributed, his date and origin are as uncertain as his father’s. If he was Fionn’s son he could not have survived to converse with St. Patrick, and he could not have lived with a fairy lady in the land of youth; he is in Gaelic popular tradition and old Gaelic lore the counterpart of Thomas the Rymour, who was a living man in 1280, and yet went to. fairy land, and has the credit of being a prophet, a magician, and a poet—the author of Sir Tristrem. That ancient Scotch poem “Sir Tristrem,” and the oldest Scotch poems known, treat mainly of Celtic worthies and their adventures, and include the incident of the good knight who slays a dragon, and the false servant who claims the honour and the princess, which is in the Gaelic “Sea-maiden;” and in a tale told to me by an Irish fiddler; in German, Norse, and other popular tales.

There is a popular saying still current in Islay, which joins true Thomas to a common Celtic British legend. He is supposed to be still living, enchanted in Dumbuck (Dun-a-bhuic, the buck’s hill), near Dumbarton (Dunbreaton, Mount Breaton); and he appears occasionally in search of horses of a peculiar kind and colour. He pays for them when they are brought to the hill; and the vendor sees enchanted steeds and armed men within the rock. It is said—

When Thomas of power and his horses shall come,

The day of plunderings will be in Clyde.

The date of Fionn and his family may be the third century; but unless there were many who bore the same names, or the names were titles, the exploits of a series of men, and the fabulous deeds of mythological characters, must have gathered about the names of this single family. I am still inclined to believe that these heroes of popular romance were ancient Celtic gods.

Be that as it may, I will endeavour to shew that their names have been current for a very long time, and that Ireland has not an exclusive right to them.

According to a Scottish legend given by Fordun, etc., [203.] the nation of the Scots embraced Christianity in the

reign of King Donald, consequently sculptured stones,

even with Christian symbols, may be of very ancient

date in Scotland. 360. St. Ninian was born; he was son of a British prince,

went to Rome, founded Candida Casa, or “Whitehorn,”

and converted the southern Picts, who are supposed to

have been the people between the Firth of Forth and

the Grampians.

Figure dressed in the Belted Plaid, copied from an ancient sculptured stone found at St, Andrews, supposed to represent a Pictish hunting party, Date unknown, No Christian symbols, 432. St. Patrick preached in Ireland. 508. Fergus, son of Ere, who is said to have received the

blessing of St. Patrick in his youth, led a colony of Dal-

riads from Ireland, and founded the Scottish monarchy.

—Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, pp. 4, 11, 44, 49.)

Fergus was succeeded by Domangart, Comgal, and Conal, by whom the Island of Iona was bestowed upon St. Columba. The saint is supposed to have been born in Donegal, A.D. 521.

St. Columba landed at Iona, and shortly afterwards °° preached to the northern Picts. There are consequently good ‘reasons why the traditions of Argyle should still resemble Irish traditions, and Conal and Patrick ought to be conspicuous names in West Highland tales, and Picts ought to appear.

The only Gaelic traditional reference to a people with a name like that of “the Picts” is an occasional, but very rave, mention of ProcaIcn, as a kind of men. The word, pronounced Pyuchk-aich, is common all over the west, but it means a cole-fish at a particular stage of its growth. Other sizes of the same fish are called Cupainn, which, as “cuddy,” is immortalized by Johnson as caught by Boswell. A larger size is Ceit-ean-ach, derived from Ce, the world, tein, fire=ceit-ean (part of April), the spring, directly after which came the festival of Beal-tainn and its symbolical fires. So “Ceit-eanach” means a “spring-fish,” and something very like the fish meant is sculptured on a Pictish stone in Scotland (see vol. iii., page 356, left hand, upper corner), and these stones date from Pagan times, and probably have to do with Pagan observances.

The same fish, when grown very large, is called “ugsa,” pr. oox-e, which is the Norse for a bull, and the whole tribe is called glas-iasg, grey or green fish. As every clan has some fish, beast, bird, and plant for a badge, perhaps the Picts adopted this fish, or fish in general, as their badge, and thus the modern name of the fish may be the ancient name of a tribe. At all events, there are plenty of Lowland traditions about Picts as a different race, but there are scarcely any in the Highlands. The Irish call them “cruithnich,” for which word all manner of meanings have been found, including “cruinn-ich,” Round-ites. Some Irish writers hold that the Picts migrated from Ireland to Scotland

There is also good reason for the continual reference to the island with fire about it, and the Scandinavians, for the churchmen of Iona or men of their class visited

783. First recorded hostile appearance of the Danes in

871. Ingolf, first Norse settler, set out for Iceland. 880 to 900 = Harold Fairhair, king of Norway, rooted out the Vikings in the west, and drove a rush of settlers to Iceland. In the Norse accounts of these events a story is told of a searover who found his way to Iceland by letting ravens fly from his ship. I have a long Gaelic story in which a man finds his way over the sea in pursuit of a mysterious lady, by the help of three ravens, two of which he kills and tortures because they will not fly, but the third to save his life flies, and shows the way. Ossianic names occur in this

700 to 800: A manuscript, supposed (for reasons given in the Appendix to the Report of the Highland Society on the poems of Ossian) to be of the eighth century, is believed to be somewhere in Edinburgh. It contains a version of ‘The Tain”—a poem relative to which the Ossianic Society of Dublin have lately published a volume of very curious matter, and which is also mentioned by Professor O’Curry. Whatever may be the real date of this ancient MS. it throws the date of Osin, or Ossin, or Ossian, and Finn, and of incidents in surviving traditions, both prose and poetry, very far back; but, so far as I am informed, it does not contain any of the Gaelic poems published in 1807.* So we may pass on.

An ancient Gaelic MS. has been lately discovered in [900 to 1000:] England. I am not aware that it is yet decided whether the language is most like Irish or Scotch Gaelic; but it is Gaelic, and contains, as it is said, a charter of lands near Aberdeen, and it was probably meant to be read by people who lived where it was written. I mention it as evidence that Gaelic was written in the east of Scotland in the tenth century.

The following sentence appears in the Saturday Review of December 8, 1860, as Gaelic taken from this MS.:—

The translation given is—

Be it on the conscience of every one in whom shall be the grace of the booklet with splendour that he gave a blessing on the soul of the misellus who wrote it.

In this form I can make nothing whatever of the Gaelic, and not much of the English. There is not one word, except bendacht, which even looks like modern Gaelic, but the following sentence conveys as little meaning at first—

The Gaelic, otherwise divided, looks better; the reader may puzzle out the other language for himself. Taking this to be phonetic spelling, it is not unlike modern Gaelic with one Latinised word, and would seem to be a formal gift of a wood on a hilltop, and a

“To the Forchi (? the Farquhars). To every man to whom it may be said. The half of the wood on the high place to them. A blessing on the little soul of

It is difficult to know where a word begins or ends in old writings, and perhaps this arrangement of the letters may be as good as the other. I know nothing further of this manuscript, and very little of old manuscripts of any kind, so this is a mere guess at a puzzle. 1000 to 1100. Book of Leinster compiled, it contains numerous

1014. Brian’s battle with the Norsemen was fought in Ireland. A description of this fight is given in the Njal Saga, and though it is interlarded with supernatural portents, it is an account written not very long after the event, and is probably very true in the main. Having lately visited the scene of the Njal Saga in Iceland, I have become impressed with the extraordinary truthfulness of every part of the story, which can now be tested. If a spot is described, the people who live there now will point it out, and the narrative there appears probable, for it accords with the locality. It is told that Gunnar stood on a height, and thence shot a number of men with arrows, and the nearest peasant mounted the only block of lava in the place that seemed to suit the description, and posed as Gunnar. Close to the spot, he pointed out a number of human bones, skulls, and teeth, which had been laid bare by a strong wind which had lately driven the black sand away from a small rising ground. Unless these were the bones of the men slain there by Gunnar, eight hundred years ago, it is not easy to make out how they came there, amongst the bare lava and sand near “the springs.” They bear every mark of great age, there is no burying ground near, and it was no one’s interest to play a trick upon travellers. Though I cannot believe that Odin appeared at Brian’s battle, or his corse-choosers before it, or that ravens, and swords, and showers of blood, fell upon and attacked the pagan Norseman, I can readily believe that such stories were told, and believed, and written down in Iceland as true, and that the smaller incidents of Brian’s battle were truly recorded nevertheless. It appears that king Brian’s army had banners, and in a traditional Gaelic ballad, at least as old as 1784, and now current, is a description of the banners of the Feinne. The Celts had swords, and spears, and shields, and mail, like the traditional Feinne. Kerthialfad is mentioned as a leader of the Celtic army, and in the song of the Muilearteach, page 136, vol. iii., occurs the name Cearbhal as a leader in some great battle between Celts and Lochlanners, in which the Celts won, and where they displayed banners, one of which was the banner of Fionn, which is described in another poem. They used spears, and shields, and swords, and elsewhere it appears that they wore mail. A magic raven was the standard on the Norse side, and according to the Saga, ravens attacked Brodir’s men; a raven plays his part in the Lay of Osgar. One of the Saga heroes, on the Celtic side, was Ospak; one of the traditional heroes was Osgar,.and they performed similar feats, “Ospak had gone through all the battle on his wing, he had been sore wounded, and lost both his sons, before king Sigtrygg fled before him.” Osgar, according to the Gaelic poem, broke his way through the battle to the king of Lochlann, whose name is not given, and slew him, and an Orkney Far] was really slain, if the king was not. Osgar, like Ospak, was sore wounded, if sickles or herons could go through his waist after the battle. “Ospak was a heathen Viking,” but he would not fight against the good Celtic king Brian. Osgar was a heathen Celt, and according to part of his traditional history, he went to Lochlann as a boy, carried there by a scaly monster, who ate men, and came in a ship; a Viking might be remembered as such a being. If the man on the apple gray horse be meant for Odin by the Norse Saga writer, it is quite fair that a Celtic bard should bring down his Olympus, and Fionn at the head, and so this lay of the Muilearteach may mean Brian’s battle, and be a tolerably true ballad account of that fight. It may also mean something much older, or more modern, but points of resemblance between a saga and a ballad are worth remark. Miss Brooke, in 1789, attributed the Lay of Magnus to the twelfth or thirteenth century, and assumed that the Norse invader meant, was the Magnus who worked so much ill in Ireland about the latter end of the eleventh century. This tells for the antiquity of traditional Gaelic poetry, and for the groundwork of “Fingal,” but not for the Gaelic of 1807.

In a charter of lands in Morayshire, the words [1220.] “Tubar na fein” occur. This is explained to mean “The well of the great or kempis men,” which proves that the name of the Feinne was even then associated with the topography of the eastern Highlands.—(Celtic Gleanings, MacLauchlan, 125.)

1238. A MS. in the Advocates’ Library contains, amongst other things, a version of the poem on which “Darthula” is founded. The character is “Irish;” but it seems, from internal evidence, to have been written in Cowal. Several traditional versions of a poem on the same subject have been collected in Scotland and printed. The story is claimed as Irish, and this probably was a popular Gaelic ballad long ago. This throws the framework of one of the published poems very far back, but does not affect the Gaelic of 1807, for “Darthula,” as published, is not there; but Deirdir sings a plaintive ditty in a language which is not very different from modern Argyleshire Gaelic, though differently spelt, in which she takes her leave of “that Eastern land, Alba, with all its lakes,” and names a whole series of places which correspond to places in Argyleshire about Lochawe, Cowal, Glencoe, etc. A specimen of the poem is at pages 298, 299, Appendix to H. S. Report. So the groundwork of Darthula is common property, and genuine and old, for Professor O’Curry finds mention of the tale of the children of Usnech in early Irish manuscripts (1319), and believes it to be as old as A.D. 1000; but the poem of Darthula must be carried further on.

About this time the halls of barons, and even the [1250.] courts of princes, were frequented by wandering minstrels, and in the romances of the period they are constantly mentioned.

The Northmen were accompanied by their skalds in their warlike expeditions, and the accounts which these men wrote were in verse and prose. The verse is quite different in spirit and metre from Gaelic verse; but “sgeulachd,” pr. skale-ach (tales), are often partly verse well.

In the history of the Norwegian expedition against Scotland, A. D. 1263,* is an account of the expedition of Haco, represented as the most formidable that ever left the ports of Norway. The prize disputed with Alexander, son of William, king of Scotland, was the possession of the Hebrides.

In the manuscript, as described by the translator, are pictures, some of which represent a man killing a boar, and another fighting with a mermaid, both of which subjects form the groundwork of stories now told in the Highlands. Most of the figures are in armour, Their helmets are sometimes conical; so are the helmets sculptured on many of the Hebridian tombstones. The whole course of the expedition is minutely described. They sailed as far south as Loch Long, drew their boats over the isthmus now called Tarbert or draw-boat, harried the islands in Loch Lomond, and fought a great battle with the Scotch near the Kumrey (Cumbraes), after which Haco sailed by Botar; (Bute, Gaelic Bòt); Hersey) Arran Ar fhinn, Fionn’s land, according to some), Sa-tir-is-mula (the Mull of Kintyre, maol-cheann-tire, bluff of Land’s end); Gudey (Gigha Giugha); Il (Islay, Ile), where he levied a contribution of cattle, meal, and cheese; Myl (Mull, Mul-e); Rauney (Rona, Rona, seal isle); Skidi (Skye, Eilan sgiathnach, the winged island), and thence by Harf (Cape Wrath), to Orkney, where the king sickened and died.

In this early account by an eye witness of a Norwegian expedition, mention is made of “Kiarnakr

From grave-stones at Kilberry and Skipnish, in Argyleshire.

son makamals,” a Scot who harried the Isle of Skye, and whose men “had even taken small children, and raising them on the points of their spears, shook them till they fell down to their hands,” and in the story abstracted, vol. iii., p. 184, and got in Islay, Fionn MacChumhail goes from Islay to Skye to fight the Scandinavians. There is no mention of burnings and murders,

but as such proceedings were then common amongst

Vikings, according to Norwegian accounts, probably

both sides were equally cruel. The translator suggests in

a note, that as Makamal is elsewhere written Niachamal,

it may be a mistake for “Nial Camal,” a lord of Lochaw.

The name was probably written from ear, and the name

of the lords of Lochawe is not pronounced Kamal now-a-days

in Gaelic. It seems possible that the name may

be Ceathearnach (warrior), Mac (son of) Cumhail; but it

might be a corruption of several other Gaelic names, as

now pronounced, including the big Macaulay, of whose

deeds there are so many traditions current in the Long

Islands. Be that as it may, petty rulers throughout

these islands were then styled kings, as they are in

Gaelic stories. Ships were generally small enough to

be drawn overland, as described in Barbour’s Bruce,

and in traditions; and there are many other traits

which appear in popular tales still repeated in the

places mentioned. This seems to give a vague reference

to something like an Ossianic name. I have several

Gaelic stories which clearly describe a Scandinavian

descent upon the country about the Clyde, in which

Fionn is made to play a part. So this tells for the

antiquity of these traditions; and shows how old records

may have been destroyed, for there were religious houses

on the islands in Loch Lomond. 1314. Bannockburn was fought. According to Barbour the

west Highlanders were there in force.

It is strange to trace an ante-celtic feeling in the bard who wrote this passage, and it is equally strange to find so little about Bruce in Highland tradition now.

Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, compiled his [1375.] poem of “the Brus.” The manuscript in the Advocates’ Library contains the words, “hym all.” Hart’s edition, printed 1616, has “Fingal.” Jamieson’s 1820, has “hym all,” and the edition of the Spalding Club, published from a collation of ‘the Cambridge and Edinburgh MSS.,” follows Hart.

“The Lord of Lorne,” enraged at his men who durst not follow the “Brus,” sets them an “ensampill,”

The lowland poet here remarks that he might “mar manerlik” have “liknit” him to Gaudifer de Larys, and narrates an exploit performed by that hero of romance, which he knew, and thought a better illustration of Bruce’s valour; so he probably gave the words of the Lord of Lorne as he had heard them, honestly, though he did not see their force. The passage refers to the strife which, according to tradition, was constantly going on between Goll Macmorna and Fionn; and the Lord of Lorne (MacCowl) spoke according to his lights, to men who understood what he meant.

Irish history claims a real existence for Fionn and Goll,

and modern lowland stories have added supernatural

incidents to the real history of the Bruce and Wallace. With respect to the various readings; “hym all”

makes no sense, Fingal does not accord with tradition,

but fynn all would remove all difficulties, and mayhap

the scribe wrote hym for fynn, not knowing what was

meant. Spelling and writing were not fettered by

rules in the olden time, and the letter y might well

express the existing vowel sound of Fionn. MacDougald of Dunolly (Maccowle as anciently

written) now owns a brooch which was won in fight

with the Bruce in Lorne, near Morven, the supposed

kingdom of Fingal. It is clear that Barbour then

expected lowland readers to understand this allusion to

two Ossianic heroes.—(Highland Society’s Report, p. 21.

Hist. of Scotch Poetry, 275. Barbour’s Brus.) 1391. The Book of Ballymote, above referred to, was

written, and contains something relative to the heroes

alluded to by Barbour. So they were widely known

about the time of Bannockburn, 1314, and the history

of Bruce shews that he at least courted the aid of the

men of the west, who “were stalwart and stout.” 1408. A charter of lands in Islay was written in the

usual form of Latin charters, but in the Gaelic lan-

guage and character, by Fergus Beaton, generally called

the Mull Doctor. This proves that the Gaelic character

and language were then used in legal documents in

Scotland.—(Celtic Gleanings, 76.) This manuscript

disproves the Irish claim to the exclusive use of the

old character, and refutes the assertion that Gaelic was

not a written language. It might as well be argued

that English was unwritten because the Times does not

use Chaucer’s language and black letter.

The Book of Leacain, above referred to, was written. [1416.]

Sir Colin of Glenurchy, ancestor of the Breadalbane [1432.] family, got a charter from his father, and set up for himself. About this time the name MacCowle was applied to MacDougald in Lorne. It is pronounced Macgooill now. This Colin is styled Black Colin of Rome. It is said that he was a knight of Rhodes, and that he was three sundry times at Rome.*

Here then is a foundation for some passages in the tale of Conall Gulban, got in Cowal. Highland worthies went to the East and fought the Paynim. Amongst the movables at Taymouth, and the jewels of the house, mention is made “of ane stone of the quantitye of half a hen’s eg set in silver, being flatte at the ane end and round at the other end lyke a peir, whilk Sir Coline Campbell, first laird of Glenurchy, woir when he fought in battle at the Rhodes against the Turks, he being one of the knychtis of Rhodes.” This amulet appears to have been subsequently used as a charm for more homely purposes, and one like its description is still at Taymouth.+ I have seen many such amulets in the Highlands, and they are still used as charms,—so here is foundation for the amulet in Conall Gulban.

Printing invented by Koster. [1438.]

Guttenburg. [1442.]

Guttenburg’s bible completed. [1460.]

About this time Blind Harry composed “Wallace;” [1450.] William Dunbar was born; and wandering minstrels fell into disrepute in lowland Scotland and elsewhere.

t Sketches of Early Scotch History, p. 344. It seems that there were Celtic bards then wandering about as well as the lowland minstrels, who were all classed with sturdy beggars by an Act of 1457.

Holland, in a stanza (quoted page 181, Hist. of Scotch Poetry), abuses a bard out of Ireland, and mimics his language. It is bad Gaelic, written by ear by one who did not understand more than its general meaning. “Banachadee ” is clearly Beannachadh Dhia, God’s blessing, which is a common Highland salutation on entering a house; and equivalent to the Irish salutation “God save all here.” Other two lines mean—Said Black Knee give us a drink—come, me drink. Son of Mary’s son, ach! great son! me dry lake. The last lines quoted are—

O’Deremyne, O’Donall, O’Dochardy droch,

Thir are his Ireland kingis of the Irischerye;

O’Krewlyn, O’Conocher, O’Gregre, Makgrane,

The Schenachy, the Clarschach,

The Benschene, the ballach,

The Crekery, the Corach,

Scho kennis them ilk ane.

This is a list of names and certain words which mean “The reciter of old tales;” “The singing woman” (or the fairy woman); “The boy;” “The spoiling;” “The battle;” and these I take to be a list of current songs or poems which such hungry, thirsting, black-kneed, and therefore barelegged, wandering minstrels recited, together with the genealogies of kings and nobles. So here is a glimpse of Celtic dress and poetry, and it confirms the accounts given of bardic recitations.

William Dunbar, who flourished in the reign of James the Fourth, and was a churchman who satirized the church in the “Interlude of the Droichis ” (Evergreen, p. 259), says—

My fair grandsyr hecht Fyn Makowll,

That dang the diel and gart him yowll.

My fader meikle Gow Mac Macmorn,

Out of his moderis wame was shorne.

And hence it is evident that tales about the Feinne were then commonly known to those for whom the poet composed, that is to say, the lowlanders of Scotland.

In one of his satires, “The Daunce,” Dunbar introduced the seven deadly sins performing a mummery in the dress of the period, before Mahoun and his infernal court, together with troops of those at whom the satires were aimed—nuns, loose livers, and above all, shaven priests and celts.

The fiend of the Lowland bard concludes his entertainment thus:—

“Than cry’d Mahoun for a Heleand padyane,

Sy ran a feynd to fetch Makfadyne,

Be he the correnoch had done schout,

Erische men so gadderit him about,

Thae tarmegantis with tag and tatter,

Full loud in Ersche begouth to clatter,

The devill sa devit was with thair yell,

That in the deepest pit of hell,

From this curious composition a great deal is to be learned about the manners and customs of these rough times, and we get another distant glimpse of Highland ways long ago. There was a fierce war of words between Highland and Lowland nationalities then, as there was between Celt and Saxon in the days of MacPherson, Johnson, and Boswell, and as there is in our own day when Bon Gaultier writes his famous Celtic ballad—

It also appears that lowland bards, then as now, did not know much about the Gaelic language, and made no distinction between Irish and Erische; but they knew the customs of the race. MakFadyane shouted a lament for the dead, so that was a “Highland pageant,” and all the Ersche gathered about him and began to “clatter,” so the custom of crying the coronach, like that of keening in Ireland, was a Highland custom in the fifteenth century. This custom is clearly referred to in the traditional poem on the death of Osgur, and funeral processions are still followed by the bagpipes, and martial music accompanies a soldier to his last home. It also appears that these “Ersche” were a fierce race of termagants, dressed in “tag and tatter,” some fluttering outlandish costume, wholly different from the fine lowland bonnet and flowing gown of “Pride,” who leads the procession in the infernal mummery which Dunbar imagined and described. From the former quotation it appeared that they were bare-kneed “black-knees,” and it seems that the poet hated the whole race and their language, and satirized them, with other objects of his aversion, with all his might.

It may be new to most English readers to learn that MacMhurich, Clanranald’s bard, long afterwards composed a Gaelic satire on national music. In this the “coronach of women” (no longer that of men, be it observed), and “Piob gleadhair,” the pipe of clamour,

Highland sculptors also made stone satires upon the pipes: Above the door of “Dundarav,” a ruined castle near Inverary, there used to be a figure playing a tune upon his nose, which suggested the above design of the Spirit of the Pipes. Lowland view. are called the two ear sweethearts of the black fiend— a noise fit to arouse the imps; and other epithets are used fully as bitter and coarse as anything in Dunbar’s “Daunce.”

Dancing to pipe music is a Scotch custom at least as old as the days of James the Fourth. It is a custom which still prevails in Italy, Spain, Ireland, and Scotland.

Dunbar in his Testament of Kennedy throws some light upon the manners and customs of Carrick, a Celtic district of Ayrshire. He makes a brother churchman, with whom he held poetic jousts, desire that no priests may sing over his grave.

August 1829, Dancing to pipe music. Highland dress with belted plaid.

So the poet knew the sound of the bag-pyp, and thought it an instrument fit to fie the feyndis, as many lowlanders do still, but it was the music which a beer-drinking churchman would delight to hear “playing a spring.”

It seems that beer, not whisky, was old Scotch drink.

From a set of woodcuts. Dress about the time of Henry VIII. It seems that about this time bagpipes were known in the south. In a curious “Dance of Death,” under which Latin texts are printed, is the figure sketched above, which is dancing with a jester who has the tonsure of a priest. Death here seems to wear a sort of kilt. In other cuts he is playing on a violoncello, and on something like a dulcimer, and then he is otherwise dressed. In the garden of Eden he is naked.

Caxton’s press set up at Westminster. [1471.]

First book printed in England. [1474.]

About this time, the beginning of the sixteenth [1501.] century, Gavin Douglas, bishop of Dunkeld, inscribed a poem to James the Fourth, and wrote—

Craibit Johne the Reif and auld Cowkellpis sow,

And Peirs Plewman that made his workmen few Greit Gowmacmorne and Fyn MaCoul, and how

Their saw I Maitland upon auld Beird Grey, Robene Hude and Gilbert with the quhite hand,

The verse is quoted in the Report on Ossian, and

p. 170, Hist. of Scottish Poetry. It is part of “the

Palis of Honour,” an allegorical composition, in which

the poet introduces every famous personage of ancient

or modern times, sacred or profane, of whom he knew

anything; all the classical poets—Brutus of Albyon,

Friar Bacon, Chaucer, and a mob of poets and their

heroes. So here are two of the heroes of Ossian in

good company at this court of honour, but even then

their history was known to the author only by hearsay. There is consequently a good deal to be found about

Fionn in old times in the Lowlands, but nothing, so far,

of the poems which are referred to. It so happens that

some older than that period have been preserved.

While polished bards, Highland and Lowland, were

exercising their wit on such compositions as are found in

old manuscripts, the “savage” Celtic people were

repeating their own old ballads, and these were simple

and free from the smallest tinge of coarseness. So far

as I know anything of old Gaelic poetry, there is

nothing to be likened to the satires above referred to. 1527. Bishop Percy, speaking of an Earl of Northumber-

land who died about this time, observes that he lived at

a time when many of the first nobility could hardly

read or write their names.

Dean MacGregor’s MS. was written at Lismore in [1512 to 1529.] Argyleshire.* It is not written in the Gaelic character and it seems to have been spelt by ear for the benefit of English or Scotch readers. Amongst other matters it contains 11,000 lines of poetry, some attributed to Oisein and his comrades, some to bards of the period, including Sir Duncan Campbell of Glenorchy, who fell at Flodden, 1513, and Lady Isobel Campbell, daughter of the Earl of Argyll, “8th MacCallen Mor:” she was sister to Lady MacLean. Part of this manuscript has been deciphered and translated, and is in course of publication, and the editors will describe it. It probably is a collection written from dictation, and gives, according to the writer’s ability, a faithful representation of the current language and traditional poems of the district of Lorne in the sixteenth century. I have seen a few sheets of this publication, and these prove beyond question that the groundwork of the first book of Temora had been made the subject of a Gaelic poem which was written down more than three centuries ago, but the poem of 1807 is not there. This manuscript, then, disposes of a great deal of the Ossianic controversy, and clears the ground. <A great many of the incidents in Temora, even minute details, are given in a poem attributed to Allan MacRoyre, in 1530, and some of the same incidents are in the Irish poem attributed to Oisin in the twelfth century; but Temora is attributed to Ossian who lived in the third; some twelve hundred years before Dean MacGregor wrote; and it seems highly improbable that a long and well-known traditional poem should have escaped the Dean’s notice, while a short one on the same subject was written down. Lorne is close to Morven, but there is no mention of Fingal or his kingdom. It is thus proved that Fionn and his heroes are not simply creatures of MacPherson’s brain, or worthies who belong exclusively to Irish romance; and it seems probable that some one has added a “gal” to Fionn, and given him a kingdom, in the same way that the Gaelic name Temair has been expanded to Temora and contracted to Tara since 1391.

It is proved that “Earse” was a written language three centuries ago, and has altered but little since, and that Johnson and his followers erred in many things. It is proved that old materials existed in Scotland from which some one might have concocted at least one book of Temora without stealing from Ireland. And the out-and-out supporters of the antiquity of the Gaelic of 1807 are bound to produce something like Temora as it now stands in some manuscript, equally old, though it has been ingeniously suggested that the great traditional poems were then so notorious and so well preserved that no one would take the trouble to write them down or multiply copies. The Gaelic, then, of the poems of Temora, as published, was probably put together by some Gaelic bard who lived between 1530 and 1763, when the Gaelic of the 7th book of Temora was printed, though Oisein lived and sung long before the twelfth century. It remains to be seen whether the probable date of the published poems of 1807 cannot be more accurately determined.

Dean MacGregor’s MS. was partly written in Argyleshire, and some of the Gaelic poetry contained in it is attributed to Duncan MacCallein an dygriddir (Duncan, son of Colin the good knight), who fell at Flodden, and some to two ancestresses of the family of Argyll.

The following is a translation of six lines, which Mr. MacLauchlan was good enough to copy and spell for me from the Lismore MSS., and which are there attributed to “Ysboll ne Vc. Kellan” (Isabel, daughter of Colin’s son):—

The rhythm indicates the division, and so do the assonances.

Several lines contain words whose sound, now-a-days, would admit of a double or treble meaning, and some of these might be distorted by one who was led to expect something wrong, but there is no coarseness in this quaint little ditty; and if this be all her poetical sin, the poor lady’s character has been sadly maligned.

This class is amorous, moral and _ satirical, not Ossianic poetry; but if the nobility of those days who spoke Gaelic, composed in Gaelic, and wrote poems similar in spirit to those which were current at court, there were Ossianic poems of a different stamp then current amongst the people. If it can be shewn that nobles continued to use the language at a later date, it becomes not only possible but probable that some species of Gaelic poetry, different from popular ballads, but founded on Celtic traditions, might have sprung up in Scotland before the times when Shakspeare and Milton flourished in England, or even later, and yet before MacPherson’s time. If it can be shewn what were the manners and customs of the district in which lords and ladies wrote Gaelic poetry about these times, the kind that would be apt to please may be surmised. From the genealogy of the Argylls, from which I have quoted in the text, I copy the following passage relative to Lady MacLean, sister of Dean MacGregor’s poetess:—‘ She, according to common report, was exposed by her husband, the laird of MacLean, upon a bare rock in the sea, called Lersker, near the Island of Lismore, in view of the castle of Duart, that she might perish by the return of the tide, but people from on board a boat providen-tially passing that way, upon hearing the cries and shouts of the lady in distress, took her on board, and restored her to her friends, although, at the same time, these very men who were employed to expose the lady to the mercy of the sea returned to Duart Castle, where John Gorm, the first of the family of Lochnell, a boy of three or four years of age, was with his aunt, the Lady MacLean, whom they had left upon the naked rock. And as soon as they had entered the castle of Duart they kindled a great fire on the middle of the hall floor, and formed themselves into a circle around the fire, and caused strip the boy John Gorm naked, and placed him between them and the fire, when the boy, by reason of the heat, was forced to run round the fire, while each of them, as he passed within the circle, rubbed his naked skin with an hot roasted apple, which occasioned blue spots on the boy’s skin ever after, for which he was called John Gorm, or blue John. His nurse, though she ran into the hall in a furious manner, could not enter into the circle to preserve the child’s life, until by means of one M‘Gilvra of Glencannell, who had more humanity than the rest, and who, as they stood in a circle with their feet close, opened his legs a little (for he durst do no more for fear of suspicion), she rushed through the man’s legs, and, entering the circle, snatched up the boy, and carried him off straight to the shore, which is hard by the walls of the castle, where, finding a boat at hand, they made their escape, and Providence so ordered matters that John Gorm and his nurse were out of danger before their enemy had full room to reflect upon their flight, for which cause the laird of MacLean was killed at Edinburgh by John Campbell, the first of the family of Calder, brother to Lady Maclean, and uncle to John Gorm, the first of the family of Lochnell, who, as soon as he saw the laird of MacLean, he thrust the sword, sheath and all, through his body. These things gave rise to a song composed in these days (take up MacLean and prick him in a blanket).”

The main incidents of this story were all told to me by an old woman in September 1861. She speaks hardly any English, and is very old, and, like many of her class, speaks oracular predictions now and then. It is to be hoped that she knows the future as well as she remembers the past.

“Earl Archibald was slain at Flodden.” So says the Argyll genealogy, whence this story is taken, of the days when Dean MacGregor wrote, and Henry VIII. reigned, and Lady Casselis composed amorous Gaelic poetry, if she be the lady meant by the family history. There was a lady called “Magrate nan oran” (or something which looks like it), “for her inclination to rhyming,’ who was a younger daughter of “the last Lord Lorn of the name of Stewart,” and married Colin Earl of Argyll, Glenurchy’s pupil, about 1460. But whoever the composer of these songs may have been, the fact remains, that before the times of Shakspeare, lords and ladies composed Gaelic poetry, and Dean MacGregor wrote some down as theirs; and they were people of a class likely to be affected by the court literature of their day and country, some of which was rude enough.

Now “Ossian’s poems” are distinguished by a peculiar vein of sentimental grandeur and melancholy, and the popular manners and customs of the east and west in these days do not accord with such a spirit. Short, stirring, wild martial songs, like the current Ossianic poems, or political, or controversial, or amorous ballads, might suit the taste of the grim soldiers who roasted a boy, but a long epic would surely set them fast asleep; so unless the gentry or clergy wrote “Ossian,” we must abandon the sixteenth century, and, as the builder of Taymouth said, “birz yont.” But it must not be forgotten that, amidst all the ribaldry of ballads of that time, there is much beauty of feeling and sentiment in the lowland Scotch poetry of the clergy; and Shakspeare wrote as he did, although the amusement of roasting men had been pushed to the extreme about his time in England.

Sir David Lindsay composed satires against the [1535.] clergy, some of which were acted before James the Fifth and his Queen, and are exceedingly coarse. In one of these compositions, a pardoner is introduced with reliques for sale, amongst which are the following:—

“Heir is ane relict lang and braid,

In one of his interludes he says—

“But dowt my deid yone man hes sworne,

In another composition the poet says—

“Stewart of Lorne will carpe richt curiouslie.”

And hence it appears that he knew something of west

country traditions, and mayhap alluded to the Stewarts,

of whose works some are preserved. Fyn MacCoull and

Gol MacMorne were clearly known to the poet and his

audience, if “Fingal” was not mentioned by this

author. Colin and MakConnal and their cow might

be a reference to some well known story about a feud;

but a horn that was a “relic” must have been that of

a famous cow, and there are plenty of such animals in

the old stories mentioned by Professor O’Curry, in one

of which (‘The tain” above mentioned) MacCumhal

plays a part. But, however he got there, Fyn went to

court about 1535, and was presented by Sir David

Lindsay in a dress of motley for the second time.

(Hist. of Scotch Poetry, 376, 425). 1530. A manuscript attributed to John Beaton, one of

the family which furnished the MacDonalds of the

Isles, and even kings of Scotland, with physicians for

several centuries, is preserved with other MSS. at

Edinburgh. These are supposed to have belonged to

the Beatons, and contain medical metaphysical, and

mathematical discussions, all in Gaelic. If the dialect

and character be Irish, it proves that early Irish and

Scotch learning were identical, for this was part of the

library of a Scotch family who flourished about this

time. This also gives a clue to the knowledge of Gaelic

matters, which Scotch courtiers who could not now speak

Gaelic, evidently possessed. 1549. A provincial council of Scotch clergy were so scan-

dalized by the flood of ballads poured out against them,

that they enjoined every ordinary to search for them,

and take steps for the punishment of the offenders who

sang them. (Hist. of Scotch Poetry, 391).

The first book was printed in Ireland—the liturgy by [1550.] Humphrey Powel.

In Lemoine’s history of printing, it is stated that an [1565.] Irish liturgy was printed in Dublin for the use of the Highlanders of Scotland. “Reid” supposes this to be an error. I have not heard of a copy, and the book meant probably is Carswell’s Gaelic prayer-book, printed [1567.] at Edinburgh in Roman type, Of this, there is a copy at Inverary, which I have seen. It is the first printed Gaelic book extant; and in the preface it alludes to the habits of the Highlanders of Scotland, who then composed stories about the “Fianaibh,” etc.* It proves that the reformed clergy set their faces against the old heroic traditions which Dean MacGregor had striven to preserve thirty-seven years before, and which some of the reformed clergy now condemn.

George Bannatyne collected Scotch poetry, and his [1568.] manuscript is the chief source whence a knowledge of old Scotch poetry has been gleaned. MacGregor’s far earlier Gaelic collection has been well known for a century, but such has been the neglect of everything genuine and Gaelic, that till now its contents have hardly been thought worth attention.

From Bannatyne, Ramsay drew his materials for the Evergreen, published 1724; and he “altered, added to,” and “retrenched” his originals “with extreme licentiousness.” (Hist. of Scotch Poetry, £16.)

It seems hard then to blame MacPherson as if he were the only man of his time who mangled old poetry to make new, and never to look at old authorities to see what was the truth. The fault has been as much on