THE OSSIANIC POEMS
Side by side with the numerous prose sagas which fall under the title
of "Fenian," and which we have already examined in Chapter XXIX., there
exists an enormous mass of poems, chiefly narrative, of a minor epic
type, or else semi-dramatic épopées, usually introduced by a dialogue
between St. Patrick and the poet Ossian. Ossian[1] was the son of
Finn mac Cúmhail, vulgarly "Cool," and he was fabled to have lived
in Tír na n-og [T'yeer na nogue], the country of the ever-young, the
Irish Elysium, for three hundred years, thus surviving all his Fenian
contemporaries, and living to hold colloquy with St. Patrick. The
so-called Ossianic poems are extraordinarily numerous, and were they
all collected would probably (between those preserved in Scotch-Gaelic
and in Irish) amount to some 80,000 lines. My friend, the late
Father James Keegan, of St. Louis, once estimated them at 100,000.
The most of them, in the form in which they have come down to us at
the present day, seem to have been composed in rather loose metres,
chiefly imitations of Deibhidh and Rannaigheacht mór, and they were
even down to our fathers' time exceedingly popular both in Ireland
and the Scotch Highlands, in which latter country Iain Campbell, the
great folk-lorist, made the huge collection which he called Leabhar na
Féinne, or the Book of the Fenians.
Some of the Ossianic poems relate the exploits of the Fenians, others
describe conflicts between members of that body and worms, wild beasts
and dragons, others fights with monsters and with strangers come from
across the sea; others detail how Finn and his companions suffered from
the enchantments of wizards and the efforts made to release them, one
enumerates the Fenians who fell at Cnoc-an-áir, another gives the names
of about three hundred of the Fenian hounds, another gives Ossian's
account of his three hundred years in the Land of the Young and his
return, many more consist largely of semi-humorous dialogues between
the saint and the old warrior; another is called Ossian's madness;
another is Ossian's account of the battle of Gabhra, which made an end
of the Fenians, and so on.[2]
The Lochlannachs, or Norsemen, figure very largely in these poems, and
it is quite evident that most of them--at least in the modern form
in which we now have them--are post-Norse productions. The fact that
the language in which they have for the most part come down to us is
popular and modern, does not prove much one way or the other, for these
small epics which, more than any other part of Irish literature, were
handed down from father to son and propagated orally, have had their
language unconsciously adjusted from age to age, so as to leave them
intelligible to their hearers. As a consequence the metres have in
many places also suffered, and the old Irish system, which required a
certain number of syllables in each line, has shown signs of fusing
gradually with the new Irish system, which only requires so many
accented syllables.
It is, however, perfectly possible--as has been supposed by, I think,
Mr. Nutt and others--that after the terrible shock given to the island
by the Northmen, this people usurped in our ballads the place of some
older mythical race; and Professor Rhys was, I believe, at one time of
opinion that Lochlann, as spoken of in these ballads, originally meant
merely the country of lochs and seas, and that the Lochlanners were a
submarine mythical people, like the Fomorians.
The spirit of banter with which St. Patrick and the Church are treated,
and in which the fun just stops short of irreverence, is a mediæval,
not a primitive, trait, more characteristic, thinks Mr. Nutt, of the
twelfth than of any succeeding century. We may remember the inimitable
felicity with which that great English-speaking Gael, Sir Walter Scott,
has caught this Ossianic tone in the lines which Hector McIntyre
repeats for Oldbuck--
"Patrick the psalm-singer,
Since you will not listen to one of my stories,
Though you have never heard it before,
I am sorry to tell you
You are little better than an ass;"
to which the saint, to the infinite contempt of the unbelieving
antiquary, is made to respond--
"Upon my word, son of Fingal,
While I am warbling the psalms,
The clamour of your old woman's tales
Disturbs my devotional exercises."
Whereat the heated Ossian replies--
"Dare you compare your psalms
To the tales of the bare-armed Fenians,
I shall think it no great harm
To wring your bald head from your shoulders."
Here, however, is a real specimen from the Irish, which will give some
idea of the style of dialogue between the pair. St. Patrick, with
exaggerated episcopal severity, having Ossian three-quarters starved,
blind, and wholly at his mercy, desires him to speak no more of Finn or
of the Fenians.
"OSSIAN.
"Alas, O Patrick, I did think that God would not be angered thereat;
I think long, and it is a great woe to me, not to speak of the way of
Finn of the Deeds.
"PATRICK.
"Speak not of Finn nor of the Fenians, for the Son of God will be
angry with thee for it, he would never let thee into his court and he
would not send thee the bread of each day.
"OSSIAN.
"Were I to speak of Finn and of the Fenians, between us two, O Patrick
the new, but only not to speak loud, he would never hear us mentioning
him.
"PATRICK.
"Let nothing whatever be mentioned by thee excepting the offering of
God, or if thou talkest continually of others, thou, indeed, shalt not
go to the house of the saints.
"OSSIAN.
"I will, O Patrick, do His will. Of Finn or of the Fenians I will not
talk, for fear of bringing anger upon them, O Cleric, if it is God's
wont to be angry."
In another poem St. Patrick denounces with all the rigour of a new
reformer.
"PATRICK.
"Finn is in hell in bonds, 'the pleasant man who used to bestow gold,'
in penalty of his disobedience to God, he is now in the house of pain
in sorrow....
"Because of the amusement [he had with] the hounds and for attending
the (bardic) schools each day, and because he took no heed of God,
Finn of the Fenians is in bonds....
"Misery attend thee, old man, who speakest words of madness; God is
better for one hour than all the Fenians of Erin.
"OSSIAN.
"O Patrick of the crooked crozier, who makest me that impertinent
answer, thy crozier would be in atoms were Oscar present.
"Were my son Oscar and God hand to hand on Knock-na-veen, if I saw my
son down it is then I would say that God was a strong man.
"How could it be that God and his clerics could be better men than
Finn, the chief King of the Fenians, the generous one who was without
blemish?
"All the qualities that you and your clerics say are according to the
rule of the King of the Stars, Finn's Fenians had them all, and they
must be now stoutly seated in God's heaven.
"Were there a place above or below better than heaven, 'tis there Finn
would go, and all the Fenians he had....
"Patrick, inquire of God whether he recollects when the Fenians were
alive, or hath he seen east or west, men their equal in the time of
fight.
"Or hath he seen in his own country, though high it be above our
heads, in conflict, in battle, or in might, a man who was equal to
Finn?
"PATRICK.
"(_Exhausted with controversy and curious for Ossian's story._)
"'Ossian sweet to me thy voice,
Now blessings choice on the soul of Finn!
But tell to us how many deer
Were slain at Slieve-na-man finn.'
"OSSIAN.
"'We the Fenians never used to tell untruth, a lie was never
attributed to us; by truth and the strength of our hands we used to
come safe out of every danger.
"'There never sat cleric in church, though melodiously ye may think
they chant psalms, more true to his word than the Fenians, the men who
shrank never from fierce conflicts.
* * * * *
"'O Patrick, where was thy God the day the two came across the sea who
carried off the queen of the King of Lochlann in ships, by whom many
fell here in conflict.
"'Or when Tailc mac Treoin arrived, the man who put great slaughter
on the Fenians; 'twas not by God the hero fell, but by Oscar in the
presence of all.
"'Many a battle victory and contest were celebrated by the Fenians of
Innisfail. I never heard that any feat was performed by the king of
saints, or that _he_ reddened his hand.'
"PATRICK.
"'Let us cease disputing on both sides, thou withered old man who art
devoid of sense; understand that God dwells in heaven of the orders,
and Finn and his hosts are all in pain.'
"OSSIAN.
"'Great, then, would be the shame for God not to release Finn from
the shackles of pain; for if God Himself were in bonds my chief would
fight on his behalf.
"'Finn never suffered in his day any one to be in pain or difficulty
without redeeming him by silver or gold or by battle and fight, until
he was victorious.
"'It is a good claim I have against your God, me to be amongst these
clerics as I am, without food, without clothing or music, without
bestowing gold on bards,
"'Without battling, without hunting, without Finn, without courting
generous women, without sport, without sitting in my place as was my
due, without learning feats of agility and conflict,'" etc.
Many of these poems contain lyrical passages of great beauty. Here,
as a specimen, is Ossian's description of the things in which Finn
used to take delight. It is a truly lyrical passage, in the very best
style, rhyme, rhythm and assonance are all combined with a most rich
vocabulary of words expressive of sounds nearly impossible to translate
into English. It might be thus attempted in verse, though not quite in
the metre of the original. Finn's pursuits as depicted here by Ossian
show him to have been a lover of nature, and are quite in keeping with
his poem on Spring; his are the tastes of one of Matthew Arnold's
"Barbarians" glorified.
"FINN'S PASTIMES.
"Oh, croaking Patrick, I curse your tale.
Is the King of the Fenians in hell this night?
The heart that never was seen to quail,
That feared no danger and felt no spite.[3]
What kind of a God can be yours, to grudge
Bestowing of food on him, giving of gold?
Finn never refused either prince or drudge;
Can his doom be in hell in the house of cold.[4]
The desire of my hero who feared no foe
Was to listen all day to Drumderrig's sound,
To sleep by the roar of the Assaroe,
And to follow the dun deer round and round.
The warbling of blackbirds in Letter Lee,
The strand where the billows of Ruree fall,
The bellowing ox upon wild Moy-mee,
The lowing of calves upon Glen-da-vaul.
The blast of a horn around Slieve Grot,
The bleat of a fawn upon Cua's plain,
The sea-birds scream in a lonely spot,
The croak of the raven above the slain.
The wash of the waves on his bark afar,
The yelp of the pack as they round Drumliss,
The baying of Bran upon Knock-in-ar,
The murmur of fountains below Slieve Mis.
The call of Oscar upon the chase,[5]
The tongue of the hounds on the Fenians' plain,
Then a seat with the men of the bardic race,
--Of these delights was my hero fain.
But generous Oscar's supreme desire,
Was the maddening clashing of shield on shield,
And the hewing of bones in the battle ire,
And the crash and the joy of the stricken field."[6]
In entire accordance with this enthusiastic love of nature is
Ossian's delightful address to the blackbird of Derrycarn, a piece
which was a great favourite with the scribes of the last century.[7]
Interpenetrated with the same almost sensuous delight at the sights
and sounds of nature, are the following verses which the Scotsman, Dean
Macgregor, wrote down--probably from the recitation of a wandering
harper or poet--some three hundred and eighty years ago.
"Sweet is the voice in the land of gold,[8]
And sweeter the music of birds that soar,
When the cry of the heron is heard on the wold,
And the waves break softly on Bundatrore.
Down floats on the murmuring of the breeze
The call of the cuckoo from Cossahun,
The blackbird is warbling amongst the trees,
And soft is the kiss of the warming sun.
The cry of the eagle at Assaroe
O'er the court of Mac Morne to me is sweet;
And sweet is the cry of the bird below,
Where the wave and the wind and the tall cliff meet.
Finn mac Cool is the father of me,
Whom seven battalions of Fenians fear,
When he launches his hounds on the open lea,
Grand is their cry as they rouse the deer."
Caoilte [Cweeltya] too, the third great Fenian poet, was as
impressionable to the moods of nature as his friends Ossian and Finn.
Compare with the foregoing poems his lay on the Isle of Arran, in
Scotland.[9]
THE ISLE OF ARRAN.
"Arran of the many stags, the sea inpinges upon her very shoulders! An
isle in which whole companies were fed, and with ridges among which
blue spears are reddened.
"Skittish deer are on her pinnacles, soft blackberries on her waving
heather; cool water there is in her rivers, and musk upon her russet
oaks.[10]
"Greyhounds there were in her and beagles, blackberries and sloes of
the dark blackthorn, dwellings with their backs set close against her
woods, while the deer fed scattered by her oaken thickets.
"A crimson crop grew on her rocks, in all her glades a faultless
grass; over her crags affording friendly refuge leaping went on, and
fawns were skipping.
"Smooth were her level spots, fat her wild swine, cheerful her fields
... her nuts hung on the boughs of her forest hazels, and there was
sailing of long galleys past her.
"Right pleasant their condition, all, when the fair weather set in.
Under her river-banks trouts lie; the seagulls wheeling round her
grand cliff answer one the other--at every fitting time delectable is
Arran!"
In another poem that Caoilte is fabled to have made after he met and
consorted with St. Patrick is a vivid description of a freezing night
as it appeared to a hunter. A great frost and heavy snow had fallen
upon the whole country, so that the russet branches of the forest were
twisted together, and men could no longer travel. "A fitting time it is
now," said Caoilte, "for wild stags and for does to seek the topmost
points of hills and rocks; a timely season for salmons to betake them
into cavities of the banks," and he uttered a lay.
"Cold the winter is, the wind is risen, the high-couraged unquelled
stag is on foot, bitter cold to-night the whole mountain is, yet for
all that the ungovernable stag is belling.[11]
"The deer of Slievecarn of the gatherings commits not his side to
the ground; no less than he, the stag of frigid Echtgé's summit who
catches the chorus of the wolves.
"I, Caoilte, with Brown Diarmuid,[12] and with keen, light-footed
Oscar; we too in the nipping nights' waning end, would listen to the
music of the [wolf] pack.
"But well the red deer sleeps that with his hide to the bulging rock
lies stretched, hidden as though beneath the country's surface, all in
the latter end of chilly night.
"To-day I am an aged ancient, and but a scant few men I know; once on
time, though, on a cold and icebound morning I used to vibrate a sharp
javelin hardily.
"To Heaven's King I offer thanks, to Mary Virgin's Son as well; often
and often I imposed silence on [daunted] a whole host, whose plight
to-night is very cold [_i.e._, who are all dead now]."
It is curious that in the more modern Ossianic pieces, such as
the scribes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries delighted
in transcribing, there is little mention made of Caoilte, and the
complaints about surviving the Fenians and being vexed by the clerics
are more usually put into the mouth of Ossian.
Here is one of the moans of Ossian in his old age, when fallen on evil
times, and thwarted at every turn by St. Patrick and his monks.
"Long was last night in cold Elphin,[13]
More long is to-night on its weary way,
Though yesterday seemed to me long and ill,
Yet longer still was this dreary day.
And long for me is each hour new born,
Stricken, forlorn, and smit with grief
For the hunting lands and the Fenian bands,
And the long-haired, generous, Fenian chief.
I hear no music, I find no feast,
I slay no beast from a bounding steed,
I bestow no gold, I am poor and old,
I am sick and cold, without wine or mead.
I court no more, and I hunt no more,
These were before my strong delight,
I cannot slay, and I take no prey:
Weary the day and long the night.
No heroes come in their war array,
No game I play, there is nought to win;
I swim no stream with my men of might,
Long is the night in cold Elphin.
Ask, O Patrick, thy God of grace,
To tell me the place he will place me in,
And save my soul from the Ill One's might,
For long is to-night in cold Elphin."
There is a considerable thread of narrative running through these poems
and connecting them in a kind of series, so that several of them might
be divided into the various books of a Gaelic epic of the Odyssic type,
containing instead of the wanderings and final restoration of Ulysses,
the adventures and final destruction of the Fenians, except that the
books would be rather more disjointed. There is, moreover, splendid
material for an ample epic in the division between the Fenians of
Munster and Connacht and the gradual estrangement of the High-king,
leading up to the fatal battle of Gabhra; but the material for this
last exists chiefly in prose texts, not in the Ossianic lays. It is
very strange and very unfortunate that notwithstanding the literary
activity of Gaelic Ireland before and during the penal times, no
Keating, or Comyn, or Curtin ever attempted to redact the Ossianic
poems and throw them into that epic form into which they would so
easily and naturally have fitted. These pieces appear to me of even
greater value than the Red Branch sagas, as elucidating the natural
growth and genesis of an epic, for the Irish progressed just up to
the point of possessing a large quantity of stray material, minor
episodes versified by anonymous long-forgotten folk-poets; but they
never produced a mind critical enough to reduce this mass to order,
coherence, and stability, and at the same time creative enough to
itself supply the necessary lacunæ. Were it not that so much light has
by this time been thrown upon the natural genesis of ancient national
epics, one might be inclined to lay down the theory that the Irish had
evolved a scheme of their own, peculiar to themselves, and different
altogether from the epic, a scheme in which the same characters figure
in a group of allied poems and romances, each of which, like one of
Tennyson's idylls, is perfect in itself, and not dependent upon the
rest, a system which might be taken to be a natural result of the
impatient Celtic temperament which could not brook the restraints of an
epic.
The Ossianic lays are almost the only narrative poems which exist
in the language, for although lyrical, elegiac, and didactic poetry
abounds, the Irish never produced, except in the case of the Ossianic
épopées, anything of importance in a narrative and ballad form,
anything, for instance, of the nature of the glorious ballad poetry of
the Scotch Lowlands.
The Ossianic metres, too, are the eminently epic ones of Ireland. It
was a great pity, and to my thinking a great mistake, for Archbishop
Mac Hale not to have used them in his translation of Homer, instead
of attempting it in the metre of Pope's Iliad--one utterly unknown to
native Ireland.
I have already observed that great producers of literature as the
Irish always were--until this century--they never developed a drama.
The nearest approach to such a thing is in these Ossianic poems.
The dialogue between St. Patrick and Ossian--of which there is, in
most of the poems, either more or less--is quite dramatic in its
form. Even the reciters of the present day appear to feel this, and
I have heard the censorious self-satisfied tone of Patrick, and the
querulous vindictive whine of the half-starved old man, reproduced with
considerable humour by a reciter. But I think it nearly certain--though
I cannot prove it[14]--that in former days there was real acting and a
dialogue between two persons, one representing the saint and the other
the old pagan. It was from a less promising beginning than this that
the drama of Æschylus developed. But nothing could develop in later
Ireland. Everything, time after time, was arrested in its growth. Again
and again the tree of Irish literature put forth fresh blossoms, and
before they could fully expand they were nipped off. The conception
of bringing the spirit of Paganism and of Christianity together in
the persons of the last great poet and warrior of the one, and the
first great saint of the other, was truly dramatic in its conception,
and the spirit and humour with which it has been carried out in the
pieces which have come down to us are a strong presumption that under
happier circumstances something great would have developed from it.
If any one is still found to repeat Macaulay's hackneyed taunt about
the Irish race never having produced a great poem, let him ask himself
if it is likely that a country, where, for a hundred years after
Aughrim and the Boyne, teachers who for long before that had been in
danger, were systematically knocked on the head, or sent to a jail for
teaching; where children were seen learning their letters with chalk
on their father's tombstones--other means being denied them; where
the possession of a manuscript might lead to the owner's death or
imprisonment, so that many valuable books were buried in the ground,
or hidden to rot in walls[15]--whether such a country were a soil on
which an epic or anything else could flourish. How, in the face of all
this, the men of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries preserved in
manuscript so much of the Ossianic poetry as they did, and even rewrote
or redacted portions of it, as Michael Comyn is said to have done to
"Ossian in the Land of the Ever-Young," is to me nothing short of
amazing.
Of the authorship of the Ossianic poems nothing is known. In the Book
of Leinster are three short pieces ascribed to Ossian himself, and
five to Finn, and other old MSS. contain poems ascribed to Caoilte,
Ossian's companion and fellow survivor, and to Fergus, another son
of Finn; but of the great mass of the many thousand lines which we
have in seventeenth and eighteenth century MSS. there is not much
which is placed in Ossian's mouth as first hand, the pieces as I
have said generally beginning with a dialogue, from which Ossian
proceeds to recount his tale. But this dramatic form of the lay shows
that no pretence was kept up of Ossian's being the singer of his own
exploits.[16] From the paucity of the pieces attributed to him in the
oldest MSS. it is probable that the Gaelic race only gradually singled
him out as their typical pagan poet, instead of Fergus or Caoilte or
any other of his alleged contemporaries, just as they singled out
his father Finn, as the typical pagan leader of their race; and it
is likely that a large part of our Ossianic lay and literature is
post-Danish, while the great mass of the Red Branch saga is in its
birth many centuries anterior to the Norsemen's invasion.[17]
[1] In Irish Oisín, pronounced "Esheen," or "Ussheen." However,
the Scotch Gaelic form has, thanks to the genius of Macpherson, so
overshadowed the Irish one that it may be allowed to remain.
[2] Standish Hayes O'Grady, in the third vol. of the Ossianic Society,
gives the names of thirty-five of these poems, amounting to nearly
11,000 lines. The Ossianic Society printed about 6,000 lines. The
Franciscans have shown me a MS. with over 10,000 lines, none of which
has been printed.
[3] In the original Ossian asks--
"An éagcóir nár mhaith le Dia
Ór a's biadh do thabhairt do neach?
Nior dhiultaigh Fionn treun ná truagh
Ifrionn fuar má 's é a theach."
[4] Irish writers always describe Hell as cold, not hot. This is so
even in Keating. The "cold flag of hell."
[5] In the original--
"Glaodh Oscair ag dul do sheilg
Gotha gadhar ar leirg na bh Fiann
Bheith 'na shuidhe ameasg na ndámh
Ba h-é sin de ghnáth a mhian.
Mian de mhianaibh Oscair fhéil
Bheith ag éisteacht re béim sgiath,
Bheith i gcath ag cosgar cnámh
Ba h-é sin de ghnáth a mhian."
[6] Literally: "O Patrick, woful is the tale that the Fenian king
should be in bonds, a heart devoid of spite or hatred, a heart stern in
maintaining battles.
"Is it an injustice at which God is not pleased to bestow gold and
food on any one? Finn never refused either the strong or the wretched,
although cold Hell is his house.
"It was the desire of the son of Cúmhal of the noble mien to listen to
the sound of Drumderg, to sleep by the stream of the Assaroe, and to
chase the deer of Galway of the bays.
"The warbling of the blackbird of Letter Lee, the wave of Ruree
[Dundrum Bay in the County Down] lashing the shore, the bellowing of
the ox of Moy Meen, the lowing of the calf of Glendavaul.
"The cry of the hunting of Slieve Grot, the noise of the fawns around
Slieve Cua, the scream of the seagulls over yonder Irris, the cry of
the ravens over the host.
"The tossing of the hulls of the barks by the waves, the yell of the
hounds at Drumlish, the voice of Bran at Knockinar, the murmur of the
streams around Slieve Mis.
"The call of Oscar, going to the chase, the cry of the hounds at
Lerg-na-veen--(then) to be sitting amongst the bards: that was his
desire constantly.
"A desire of the desires of generous Oscar, was to be listening to the
crashing of shields, to be in the battle at the hewing of bones: that
was ever _his_ desire." (_See_ Ossianic Society, vol. iv. The Colloquy
between Ossian and Patrick.)
[7] Printed by O'Flanagan in the "Transactions of the Gaelic Society,"
1808, and translated by Dr. Sigerson in his "Bards of the Gael and
Gall." I cannot refrain from the pleasure of quoting the following
verses from his beautiful translation:--
"The tuneful tumult of that bird,
The belling deer on ferny steep:
This welcome in the dawn he heard,
These soothed at eve his sleep.
Dear to him the wind-loved heath,
The whirr of wings, the rustling brake;
Dear the murmuring glens beneath,
And sob of Droma's lake.
The cry of hounds at early morn,
The pattering deer, the pebbly creek,
The cuckoo's call, the sounding horn,
The swooping eagle's shriek."
[8] _See_ p. 59 of the Gaelic part of the book of the Dean of Lismore.
The first verse runs thus in modern Gaelic:--
"Binn guth duine i dtir an óir,
Binn an glór chanaid na h-eóin,
Binn an nuallan a gnidh an chorr,
Binn an tonn i mBun-da-treóir."
[9] _See_ "Silva Gadelica," p. 109 of the English, p. 102 of the Irish
volume. I retain Mr. O'Grady's beautiful translation of this and the
following piece.
[10]
"Oighe _baetha_ ar a bennaib
Monainn _maetha_ ar a mongaib,
Uisce fuar ina _h-aibhnib_,
Mes ar a _dairghib_ donnaib."
Note the exquisite metre of this poem of which the above verse is a
specimen.
[11] This, like most of the couple of thousand verses scattered
throughout the "Colloquy of the Ancients," is in _Deibhidh_ metre,
which would thus run in English:--
"Cold the Winter, cold the =Wind=,
The Raging stag is =Rav=in'd,
Though in one Flag the Floodgates =cling=,
The Steaming Stag is =bell=ing."
[12] This was Diarmuid of the Love-spot, who eloped with Gráinne, and
was killed by the wild boar, from whom the Campbells of Scotland claim
descent, as is alluded to in Flora Mac Ivor's song in "Waverley":--
"Ye sons of Brown Diarmuid who slew the wild boar."
[13]
"Is fada anocht i n-Ailfinn,
Is fada linn an oidhche aréir,
An lá andhiu cidh fada dham,
Ba leór-fhad an lá andé."
_See_ p. 208 of my "Religious Songs of Connacht" for the original of
this poem, which I copied from a MS. in the Belfast Museum. The Dean
of Lismore in Argyle jotted this poem down in phonetic spelling nearly
four hundred years ago, but the name of Elphin, being strange to him,
he took the words to be _na neulla fúm_, "the clouds round me," _ni
nelli fiym_ he spells it. Elphin is an episcopal seat in the county
Roscommon, where St. Patrick abode for a while when in Connacht. I
often heard in that county the story of Ossian meeting St. Patrick
when drawing stones in Elphin, but always thought that the people of
Roscommon localised the legend in their own county. But the discovery
of the Belfast copy--and I believe there is another one in the British
Museum--shows that this was not so, and the Dean of Lismore's book
proves the antiquity of the legend. That Ailfinn (Elphin) was the
original word is proved by rhyming to _linn, sinn_ and _Finn_, which
_Fiym_ (= fúm) could not do.
[14] I once saw a letter in an Irish-American paper by some one whose
name I forget, in which he alleged that in his youth he had actually
seen the Ossianic lays thus acted.
[15] Like the Book of Lismore and others. _See_ Sullivan's preface to
O'Curry's "Manners and Customs."
[16] "Ich vermuthe," says Windisch ("Irische Texte," I. i. p. 63),
"dass Ossin (Ossian) auf dieser Wege zu einer Dichtergestalt geworden
ist. Die Gedichte die ihm in der Sage in den Mund gelegt werden,
galten als sein Werk und wurden allmählig zum Typus einer ganzen
Literaturgattung." But the same should hold equally true of Caoilte, in
whose mouth an equal number of poems are placed.
[17] The following Ossianic poems have been published in the
"Transactions of the Ossianic Society." In vol. iii., 1857, "The
Lamentation of Ossian after the Fenians," 852 lines. In vol. iv., 1859,
"The Dialogue between Ossian and Patrick," 684 lines: "The Battle of
Cnoc an Áir," 336 lines; "The Lay of Meargach," 904 lines; "The Lay
of Meargach's Wife," 388 lines; "The names of those fallen at Cnoc an
Áir," 76 lines; "The Chase of Loch Léin," 328 lines; "The Lay of Ossian
in the Land of the Ever-Young," 636 lines; and some smaller pieces.
Vol. vi., 1861, contains: "The Chase of Slieve Guilleann," 228 lines;
"The Chase of Slieve Fuaid," 788 lines; "The Chase of Glennasmóil," 364
lines; "The Hunt of the Fenians on Sleive Truim," 316 lines; "The Chase
of Slieve-na-mon," 64 lines; "The Chase of the Enchanted Pigs of Angus
of the Boyne" [son of the Dagda], 280 lines; "The Hunt on the borders
of Loch Derg," 80 lines; "The Adventures of the Great Fool" [which,
however, is not an Ossianic poem], 632 lines.
I have in my own possession copies of several other Ossianic poems,
one of which, "The Lay of Dearg," in Deibhidh metre, consisting of 300
lines, is ascribed to Fergus, Finn's poet, not to Ossian.
"Is mé Feargus, file Fhinn
De gnáith-fhéinn Fhinn mhic Cúmhail,
O thásg na bhfear sin nár lag
Trian a ngaisge ni inneósad."
In the library of the Franciscans' Convent in Dublin there is a
seventeenth-century collection of Ossianic poems, all in regular
classical metres, containing, as I have computed, not less than
10,000 lines. Not one of these poems has been, so far as I know, ever
published. The poems printed by the Ossianic Society are not in the
classical metres, though I suspect many of them were originally so
composed, but they have become corrupted passing from mouth to mouth.