CHAPTER I.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

Bold text is denoted by =equal signs=.

A superscript is denoted by ^x or ^{xx}, for example ui^o.

There are no Footnotes in this book.

The two changes noted in the Errata at the end of the book have been

applied to the etext.

Many minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.

THE

LITERATURE OF THE HIGHLANDERS.

THE

LITERATURE OF THE HIGHLANDERS:

A HISTORY OF GAELIC LITERATURE FROM THE

EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY.

BY

NIGEL MACNEILL,

AUTHOR OF “NENLÆ: WITH OTHER POEMS;” “THE HIGHLAND HYMNAL,” ETC.

MINISTER OF BEDFORD CHURCH, LONDON.

“_Móra ic senaib bar senscéla._”—TOGAIL TROI.

INVERNESS:

JOHN NOBLE, CASTLE STREET

1892.

JOHN NOBLE, PRINTER, INVERNESS

PREFACE.

It is hoped that the readers of the following chapters will bear

in mind the fact that this is the first complete account of Gaelic

literature that has yet been offered to the public, and that it must

inevitably exhibit traces of the natural imperfections of all pioneer

works. To other workers in the same field I am of course greatly

indebted; and if any of them had published a fairly full history of

our Highland literature it is quite unlikely that the present volume

would ever see the light.

The names of about one hundred and eighty composers of Gaelic poetry

alone occur in this volume, while not more than a third of that

number will be found in any previous work on the subject. Still I

am aware that some mistakes and omissions will be met with, but

these, I trust, will not elicit so much reprehension as material for

correction hereafter.

On the subject of the science of language and race movements glanced

at in the Introduction, the student will find the latest views

in the works of Penka, Schrader, Sayce, Hyde Clarke, and others.

The “Ultonian Hero-Ballads” of Mr Hector MacLean and the _Reliquæ

Celticæ_ of the late Dr Alexander Cameron will be prized by those

interested in the fields on which the great Cuchulin fought and

Ossian sang.

My studies in the Celtic field have been carried on in the midst of

duties of a sacred and exacting character; and I have often been

hindered by the thought that the attraction in this direction ought

to be resisted. Still I have felt like many others the need of making

a speciality of some helpful study; and what for me could be more

natural as a mental exercise than to be found searching out in those

obscure fields of an ancient literature for the intellectual products

of my forefathers?

I am much indebted to several friends who encouraged me from time to

time. It gives me great pleasure to mention among these the name of

Dr Stoddart, late editor of _The Glasgow Herald_ whose kindness and

generosity to myself personally I will always cherish with gratitude,

and whose sympathies with all that is good and noble in any people

were the natural outcome of the cultured heart of a gentleman and

a Christian. To him I owe the title of this book as well as the

privilege, through the columns of his influential journal, of

showing some of the treasures of our Gaelic literature to the great

English world beyond our Highland Israel. With his name ought to be

associated in this matter that of the able manager of the paper, Mr

Alexander Sinclair, an Argyleshire Highlander. The articles then

published in 1881 were the first of the kind to appear in a newspaper

of such high standing. The names of other gentlemen from whom I have

received kindness occur to me also as I write: Mr D. H. Macfarlane,

ex-M.P.; Mr Fraser-Mackintosh, M.P.; Dr R. Macdonald, M.P.; Mr Duncan

Macneill; and Mr John Mackay, C.E. I have also much pleasure in

acknowledging the readiness with which the Messrs Nisbet, publishers,

London, have granted me permission to use in the following chapters

some articles I contributed to _The Catholic Presbyterian_.

This book may be described as the child of the peaceful Highland

revolution on which the political and Christian genius of the Right

Hon. W. E. Gladstone stamped imperial sanction and approval in the

Crofters Act of 1886. Its growth and delivery in various lectures,

magazine articles and otherwise, during seventeen years, have been

coincident with the workings of the spirit of racial fusion and union

which recent political struggles after a Brito-Irish brotherhood

have well-nigh perfected. On the following pages, therefore, I am

occasionally an advocate of the just rights and claims of a noble

race and an obscure literature; but at the same time I remain a lover

of the great English people. I have learned during a residence of

upwards of ten years to appreciate and love the generous qualities of

my English fellow-citizens.

N. MACNEILL.

67 LADY MARGARET ROAD, LONDON, N.W.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE

INTRODUCTION 1

I. EARLY GAELIC LITERATURE—PATRICK 27

II. SOUTH ALBIN GAELS—BRIGIT 41

III. NORTH ALBIN GAELS—COLUMBA 54

IV. LATIN HYMNS OF THE CELTIC CHURCH 71

V. ANCIENT BALLADS 87

VI. PROSE ROMANCES 120

VII. MEDIEVAL BARDS 141

VIII. JACOBITE BARDS 165

IX. MACPHERSON’S OSSIAN 185

X. OLD LAYS 207

XI. GENERAL LITERATURE 222

XII. SACRED BARDS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 236

XIII. BARDS OF THE ANGLO-GAELIC ERA 254

XIV. POPULAR SONGS 277

XV. BARDS OF THE CELTIC RENAISSANCE 292

XVI. SACRED BARDS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 314

XVII. THE GAELIC REVIVAL 326

INDEX 345

[Illustration: (decorative separator)]

INTRODUCTION.

“Forchubus caichduini imbia arrath inlebrán colli aratardda

bendacht foranmain intruagáin rodscribai.”

_Gaelic (Scot.) MS. of 9th Cent._

The Celts and the Teuton started westward from the cradle of the

human race, spreading themselves over Europe; while other members of

the same stock went eastward, extending themselves over wide tracts

of Asia. From the Celts, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Teutons have

sprung the chief nations in whose possession Europe still remains.

It is interesting to think that the brothers who parted thousands

of years ago, somewhere in teeming Asia, the one going east and the

other west, are now meeting again on the plains of Hindostan. Their

movements during those thousands of years have encircled the whole

earth. Fiercely have they fought and disputed over every inch of

the ground which one or other of their tribes at one time or other

occupied. Theirs has always been the chief ruling power in the

world. They begin to know one another again. From the extreme west

of Europe, across the New World, the Anglo-Celt arrives in India and

recognises the Hindoo as his brother.

The Aryans migrated into Europe in a somewhat advanced state of

civilisation. According to Sayce their advent was from the north,

a theory which subverts nearly all previously accepted opinions on

the subject. Some of them, however, such as the Greeks first and the

Romans afterwards, favoured by the maritime countries in which they

settled, made more rapid progress than the others. It was largely

their self-conceit that led the Greeks and Romans to describe all

the nations beyond their bounds as “barbarian.” Our ancestors in

these islands, whether Celtic or Teutonic, were never mere savages.

They had a religion, if not radically the same, fully as enobling in

its tendency as that of Greece and Rome. They evidently made some

progress in the useful arts, while in the days of Rome’s greatest

splendour they were in possession of military weapons which were not

much inferior to her own. The form of government among the Celts was

patriarchal, and this continued for a long time among the Gaels of

Scotland. There was the king or chief, who was regarded as the father

of the clan, tribe, or nation. With him was associated a council of

chieftains or elders, and in important matters the mot of the whole

people. But with all this political organisation they could not make

such progress in civilisation as the Greeks and Romans, who mostly

dwelt in cities. The Gaels who along with the Germans acted the part

of pioneers on the plains of Europe, and living a rural life, could

not compete successfully in the race for higher civilisation with the

brother races who inhabited the maritime cities of Greece and Italy,

and who, besides, obtained much of an earlier civilisation from

Phœnicia and Egypt.

The early migrations of the Gael are involved in much obscurity. By

the study of topography, however, we can follow many of his footsteps

westward. This study, however, is rendered very difficult, and at

times very uncertain, because the discoverable traces of the presence

of the Celt lie embedded in the soil of the life of the powerful

pre-Celtic races. The Celt and the Teuton have always been close

neighbours. The progress of the two westward appears to have been

somewhat simultaneous, at least on the Continent. The geographical

positions of France and Germany at the present day represent not

inaccurately the attitude of the Gaelic and Teutonic races towards

one another in their earlier movements from the east. It has been

said that the Celts came too soon into Europe, just as the Slaves

came too late. It would be difficult to verify this remark in the

light of history and in the face of existing facts. While admitting

that the remark may have an element of truth in it, we must remember,

with regard to the Slaves, that it is premature to anticipate what

they may become. We see them a mighty threatening wave on a westward

course. The Chinese hordes, who are already a trouble, press behind

the Russians; and the growing power of the latter in Europe is a

matter of serious concern to our statesmen. The struggle between

Celt and Teuton again cannot be said to be at an end as long as

France and Germany maintain their present watchful and hostile

attitude. As to their racial composition respectively the former

may be said to be as much Celtic as the latter is Teutonic. But

on the other hand, in the United Kingdom, Celt and Teuton may be

said virtually to agree. They have so blended for centuries that,

notwithstanding boasts on both sides, which science cannot sustain,

it is impossible almost to produce a pure Saxon or a pure Gael. It

cannot certainly be done in Scotland. This intermingling of races in

the British Islands has produced a national character very unlike our

Continental neighbours. The Anglo-Celtic power of the British Empire

is not so immobile or sluggish as the German, nor so light and airy

as the French; and its rule appears almost to have arrived at the

incipient stage of universal dominion.

Great Britain was peopled in the north and in the south

simultaneously from the Continent, and Ireland was similarly peopled

from the north and south of Britain. The Gaels of Ireland and of

Scotland were the same people, having the same language and music;

and all the elements of civilisation about them were the common

property of both. At the same time there are evidences that the Gaels

of the North of Ireland stood in closer relationship to those of

Scotland than those in the South of Ireland. And this holds true even

to this very day. It should always be borne in mind that there have

been different tribes of pre-Celts, Celts and Teutons in Ireland,

which has hitherto prevented that national cohesion in the time of

danger which alone could secure the independence of the country.

Ireland being peopled at a later period, has taken a longer time in

developing a full-orbed nationality. On the other hand there has

been an earlier homogeneity among the Scottish Celts; whether called

Picts, Gaels, Scots, or Albanaich, they were always one against the

common foe, whatever might be the feuds among themselves. In more

recent days the reformation of religion in the 16th century helped

to produce in the Scottish Gael a distinctively different character

from that of the Gael of Ireland; it also destroyed in Scotland

many of the old Gaelic things which were associated with a religion

that was regarded as superstitious. Thus much of the history and

the literature of the Scottish Gael was lost. In Ireland, where no

violent changes took place in the condition and religious beliefs of

the people, we find very extensive manuscript literature—rich with

interesting spoils of the past—as well as more relics even of earlier

Gaelic life in Scotland.

Chiefly through the great labours of Zeuss, the distinguished

Bavarian, the Gael is now, as already remarked, universally admitted

to belong to the Aryan family. No student of the science of language

will now contend that he has any special affinity to the Semitic

race. The _Keltae_ of the Greek, the _Galli_ of the Roman, and the

_Gàidheil_ of Scotland and Ireland, are the same people. In the east

and in the west _Galatia_, or in Gaelic [_Gaidhealtachd_, contracted]

and pronounced _Gaeltachd_, is the _Celtica_, or land of the Celts

or Gaels. _Gaeltachd_ or _Galatia_ is literally Gael_dom_, or the

country of the _Gaels_. The term “Gael” is the same as “Celt,” the

only difference being that the original _Gaidel_ comes to us through

Latin in the former and through Greek in the latter. So the two may

be used indiscriminately, although some writers have endeavoured to

preserve a distinction, using “Gaelic” for the language spoken in

Scotland and Ireland, and “Celtic” as a more generic term, embracing

all the Gaelic Brythonic dialects. “Gael”—the Roman “Gaul”—and the

original “Gaidel,” aspirated into “Gaidhel,” which in its aspirated

form at last drops the _dh_, and becomes “Gael” or Gaul, is just

the same word. The Gael stands in the same relation to the Welsh,

the Cornishman, and the Armorican, that the Englishman and German,

the Roman and Greek, stand to one another. The Gael, the Manx, and

the Irish constitute one branch of the stock, while the Welsh, the

Cornish, and the Breton constitute the other.

The Celtic element enters largely into the population of the

United Kingdom. Just as Celtic dialects were spoken at one time

throughout the whole of the British Islands, so to the present day

a powerful Celtic element pervades the people of Great Britain

and Ireland from the lowest to the highest classes. John Knox and

Robert Burns, two representative Scotchmen, were more Celtic than

Teutonic. The national perfervid spirit and genius are so still.

The name of the great Reformer is from the Gaelic _Cnoc_. Ireland

can produce many Anglo-Celtic names, among which we find that of

the Duke of Wellington. The mothers of the greatest epic poet and

the greatest general that England ever produced were Celts. Sarah

Caston, the mother of Milton, was the daughter of a Welsh gentleman;

and Elizabeth Steward, the mother of Cromwell, was the daughter of

William Steward, in Ely, a descendant of the Celtic Stewards of

Scotland. Professor H. Morley says:—“The main current of English

literature cannot be disconnected from the lively Celtic wit in which

it has one of its sources. The Celts do not form an utterly distinct

part of our mixed population. But for early, frequent, and various

contact with the race that, in its half-barbarous days, invented

Ossian’s dialogues with St. Patrick, and that quickened afterwards

the Northerner’s blood in France. Germanic England would not have

produced a Shakespeare.” It is only the other year that a Cambrian

Celt disappeared from our midst—one of the greatest names in English

literature—Mary A. Evans, better known by her assumed name of George

Eliot. This other quotation from Professor Morley’s “Library of

English Literature” is as true as it is suggestive:—“The Celts are by

nature artists. Mr Ferguson has felt this in his own art, and said in

his ‘History of Architecture:’—‘The true glory of the Celt in Europe

is his artistic eminence. It is, perhaps, not too much to assert that

without his intervention we should not have possessed in modern times

a Church worthy of admiration or a picture or a statue we could look

at without shame.’ It would be far too much to assert this of books;

but certainly Teutonic England could not have risen to the full

grandeur and beauty of that expression of all her life in all her

literature ... without a wholesome blending of Teutonic with Celtic

blood. The Celts are a vital part of our country, and theirs were the

first songs in the land.”

Before parting with this subject let me note three remarkable facts

which the history of Gaelic Scotland presents. They have not always

been fully recognised. The first is that the Caledonians were never

fully conquered by the Roman Power which brought almost all other

nations of the world into subjection. The second is that a Gaelic

people gave its present name to the country. The third is that a

Gaelic King has given us the line of monarchs which we have still

represented in the present sovereign of the British Empire. To these

another fact might be added—that the earliest modern literature is to

be found among the Scoto-Irish Gael. After the decadence of Greece

and Rome the Celts were the first of the European tribes to cultivate

letters. While the Germans and the Northmen were yet roving heathen

tribes the Gael in Ireland and in Scotland had their seminaries of

learning, where literature was loved and cherished. And from the

Colleges of Durrow and Iona missionaries, whose well-trained minds

and zealous hearts fitted them for their great undertaking, went

forth to Christianise the people of England and the Teutonic tribes

on the Continent. The extant manuscripts in Gaelic and Latin which

came from their pens are monuments of their learning and piety, as

well as of the reverence in which they were held by the people to

whom they brought the light of the Christian truth. Some of these

manuscripts, now studied with such rich results by Continental Celtic

scholars, are to be found in some of the great libraries on the

Continent; in St. Gall, Milan, Wurtzburg, and Carlsruhe, Zeuss found

those Gaelic ones on which he based his great work the “Grammatica

Celtica,” published in 1853. These facts ought to make the study of

Gaelic interesting—the oldest living language in Europe that can

boast of such early relics of culture.

It is now necessary that some remarks should be made on the language

in which the literature we are to examine is to be found. The Celtic

forms a branch of the Indo-European group of languages. It is divided

into two nearly distinct languages, which are thus classified:—

{ { Gaelic.

{ THE GAIDELIC, { Irish.

{ { Manx.

CELTIC { { Welsh.

{ { Cornish (_extinct_).

{ THE BRYTHONIC, { Breton.

{ { Gaulish (_extinct_).

The differences between Gaelic, Irish, and Manx are merely dialectic.

The Cornish became extinct last century. The Gaulish is also extinct;

and what remains of it is found only in the names of places.

To Zeuss is due the credit of having assigned its proper place to

Celtic in the family of languages. The problem before his great

publication in 1853 was the relationship in which the Gaels, the

Welsh, and the old Gaulish people stood to one another and to the

other nations of the world. Numerous publications on this question

appeared during the last two centuries. But from a scientific point

of view they are of very little value. Errors and unscientific

theories abound in every work. At that time the scholars of France

and Germany never mastered the Celtic languages; indeed, there were

few reliable grammars by which they could be acquired. The native

scholars were deficient in linguistic training, in common sense, and

frequently in common honesty. No Gaelic scholar was conscientious

enough to learn Welsh, no Welsh scholar to learn Gaelic; but each

and all were ready enough to compare their languages with Phœnician,

Persian, Etruscan, Egyptian, Hebrew, Arabic, &c., of which, again,

they knew in reality next to nothing; though a few of them might know

a little Hebrew. There was one remarkable exception, however, to

this—the great Welsh scholar Edward Llhuyd, of whom it may be said

that he lived a century and a half before his time; but, incapable of

following him, the native school of philologists sank into chaotic

and puerile etymological dreams. The Celtic problem became more

hopeless than ever, and Gaelic philology became distasteful to sober

minds.

At the same time many Celts insisted “on the lofty claim they used to

advance of speaking the primeval language.” It is only recently that

they have learned “to submit to the logic of facts and listen to the

voice of science.” A Gaelic poet, in an elaborate poem on his native

language, thus declares his conviction on the much-debated subject,

what language was spoken in Paradise—

“By Adam it was spoken

In Eden, I believe,

And sweetly flowed the Gaelic

From the lovely lips of Eve.”

Some fifty years ago the science of comparative philology began to

make itself felt, and Celtic scholars tried to apply its principles

to Celtic. Pritchard, Bopp, Diefenbach, Pictet, and others worked

in the right direction, but they failed fully to solve the Celtic

problem. J. Caspar Zeuss, a Bavarian Highlander, at last succeeded,

by combining with a mind of unusual power a devotion to the subject

which amounted well-nigh to a sacrifice of his life. This devotion

might not even have been sufficient if he had not possessed what

no one before him possessed—the really oldest manuscripts of both

the Irish and Welsh dialects. The labours of Zeuss have shown:—That

the Gaelic and Welsh languages were originally one; that dialectic

differences in Cæsar’s time were so small that an old Gael would be

at once understood in Wales; and that the Gaels and Cambrians were

identical with the Celts of the Continent—with those of Spain, Gaul,

Lombardy, and the Alpine countries; that this Celtic tongue is one of

the branches of the Aryan stock of languages.

The consequence of these established facts is to put an end to all

attempts at connecting the Celtic with the Semitic class of tongues.

We know the Gaelic language now in three stages:—

1. Old Gaelic up to 1000 A.D. The most ancient relics of this

period are the glosses of St. Gall in Switzerland, the Ambrosian

Library of Milan, &c., discovered by Zeuss.

2. Middle Gaelic, from 1000-1500 A.D., is represented by an

extensive mass of manuscript literature.

3. Modern Gaelic from the sixteenth century, when books began to be

printed, to the present day.

The softening caused by excessive aspiration is the greatest change

which the language has undergone.

As spoken in Scotland at the present day the chief dialectic

differences are:—

1. The _ia_ of the North for the _eu_ of the South and West

Highlands, illustrated by BIAL, BEUL, _mouth_; FIAR, FEUR, _grass_.

2. The vowel-tone difference, illustrated in such words as ORAN,

song. The _o_ is pronounced in three different ways; in Islay and

other parts of Argyll like _o_ in _old_; in Mull and other place

like _ou_ in _foul_; in the North generally like _aw_ in _law_.

3. The consonantal difference illustrated in the pronunciation of

_c_ and _chd_.

4. The accentual or rhythmic tone difference, observed in the

conversation of natives of different places.

In Arran and Perthshire, and to some extent in Caithness and

Sutherland, the people in speaking cut off the terminal syllables of

many words. In the North Highlands they speak with a slow, sometimes

swinging emphasis; in the South Highlands they are more hurried in

their utterance. Any Highlander, speaking distinctly, will be readily

understood, North and South.

Gaelic appears to possess wonderful vitality. While English has

stamped out Gaelic among the Celts of Galloway and Ayrshire, Gaelic

has stamped out the Norse language in the Western Isles, where the

people are largely of pre-Celtic and Norse origin. It is remarkable

that although of the same family of languages, Gaelic and English,

like oil and water, cannot readily commingle.

Other subjects associated with early Gaelic literature are the Druids

and the Féinne. That dim, indefinite, prehistoric period of our

annals which terminated in the contact of heathenism with the living

forces of Christianity may be termed pre-Celtic. In the dawn of the

historical period a mysterious class of men called Druids, and a

mysterious body of heroes called the Féinne or Fianna, emerge into

view, just as we mark the vanishing or absorption of the pre-Celtic

peoples. Whatever they were, a certain class of _Magi_ existed once

in these islands. But their sudden disappearance in history, like

that of the Féinne, has induced many to question whether such an

order of men ever lived. But it is historically certain that a class

of men, answering to the description, met and tried to oppose Columba

from Iona when he visited King Brudeus at Inverness. They have

been called Druids, but that term should be regarded in a general

or conventional sense. They were without doubt the priests of

learning and religion among the ancient Scots. In possession of some

knowledge, meagre as it probably was, they were invested with mystic

importance by the ignorant and superstitious. With the introduction

and enlightenment of Christianity it would be seen that this

exclusive order and priestly caste found their supremacy undermined.

Their teaching, whatever it was, appears to have had a beneficial

influence on the formation of the national character. They do not

seem to have indulged in any enervating services or gross idolatry in

the kind of worship which was maintained among the people. We see the

moral significance of their influence more fully when we contrast the

ancient Gaels with the ancient Greeks. With all their fine ethical

and æsthetic perceptions, we find that the latter throughout their

whole history were never a very moral people. Just as their bodily

senses were enslaved by their keen sense of the beautiful in form,

colour, &c., so were their moral energies by many vices. The sensual

and luxurious life of the Romans also soon sapped the foundations of

the empire, and made it a prey to the less civilised nations around.

But from the earliest times down to the present we find among the

people once influenced by the Druids a very high moral tone. Guilty

as they might be of plundering other races with whom they openly

waged warfare, strict honesty among themselves as neighbours was

inculcated and observed. The internecine quarrels and the mutual

plundering of the later periods arose from the dissensions purposely

sown by the Scottish kings. To weaken the clans and the bond of union

existing between them unrighteous charters were granted to certain

lands in favour of pretenders that could present no valid claim.

Hence the majority of the clan feuds which frequently drenched the

Highland hills and glens with blood.

One particular result of the early teaching has been the national

respect for woman. It is one of the finest moral traits in the

character of the Gael. At this day it is among the Gael of the Outer

Hebrides and of the more recognised Celtic districts of Ireland,

such as Munster and Connaught, that the Registrar General finds the

smallest percentage of illegitimacy. The high-toned morality which

the poems of Ossian exhibit in this respect has been used as an

argument against their authenticity. And yet it should be no argument

at all for one who can trace out and analyse the early sources whence

developed the moral elements of the national character.

The Celt has been generally very religious. The religion of the Gael

of Scotland, like that of the Kymry of Wales, whether in ancient or

in modern Christian times, has always flourished in an atmosphere of

deep severity. The rigid ethics of the early religion, combined with

a hard life at a distance from enervating centres of civilisation,

help to explain this. This sternness of doctrine also, no doubt,

prepared the modern Gael to accept with such absolute entirety, and

with such earnest heartiness, the Calvinistic system of Christian

truth which many regard as severe and harsh. The higher results

of the literary and moral culture of the Druidic religion we have

embodied in the relics of Ossianic poetry. The order of Druids, with

their ideals of philosophy and religion, have vanished; but their

power for good remains embedded in the foundation of the national

name, with its educating influences and its inspiring associations.

In this power lay the moral strength of our early ancestors.

Christianity, in its early Celtic and Reformed stages, developed

into higher and purer issues this national virtue; and the character

of the people is exponent of the results of the process. Other

tribes and communities have had Christianity among them too, but

with different results. This line of thought suggests an explanation

of why, as has been already remarked, the Irish Gael appears to be

somewhat unlike the Scottish Gael.

A glance may now be appropriately bestowed upon that other somewhat

mysterious body—those heroes called the Féinne.

Chief among the early Gaelic inhabitants was the renowned order of

heroes known as the Féinne, the Fianna, or the followers of Fingal,

or Finn, the leader. They are supposed to have lived in the second

and third centuries of our era, and to have been the Caledonians who

checked the progress of the legions of Rome. Very little reliable

help can be found regarding this question in the extant annals of

the Gael. In general it may be held that this race of Finn came

from the shores of the Baltic to North Britain, and that they were

not unrelated to the ancient Norse. Recently a new theory has been

adopted by some, like Mr Campbell of Islay, whose views are entitled

to much respect. They argue that the existence of the Féinne is only

a myth—part and parcel of an old world system, not unconnected with

the classical and oriental—a system of which we have the same with

variations in the Militia of Ireland, and in the Knights of the Round

Table of the ancient British. It is held that Fingal and King Arthur

are the same personages; that Graine, the faithless wife of Fingal is

the same as the faithless Guinevere, the spouse of Arthur; and that

the unhallowed love of Diarmad and Graine has a suggestive similitude

in that of Sir Launcelot and Guinevere. On the other hand, it is

argued that the similarity of these relations, however systematic in

appearance, may still be adequately explained by the fact that human

nature is much the same in all lands and amongst all races; that this

symbolic theory does not seem to be supported by the well-grounded

conviction of the people in whose traditions the memory of the heroes

of the Féinne has been handed down to us; that it is not at all

probable that the names of merely fictitious heroes would live in

the topography of a hundred hills, like the name of Finn; that it

does not find support in the more philosophic theory regarding the

heroes of ancient peoples—that all the mythological characters are

only exaggerations of real ones; that human nature is never satisfied

with the barely mythic and unreal, and that the patriotic and other

affections never derive sustenance from false and unbelievable

characters.

Can a vague statement of this character not satisfy the inquiring

student? To the patriotic Celtic inquirer, next in importance to the

evangelisation of the Highlands by Columba, stands the great question

of the Féinne, who have so indelibly impressed their individualities

on the Gaelic imagination of Scotland. To the more inquiring spirits

of recent times these brilliant heroes have appeared very strange

and mysterious indeed. They have had a Melchisedec kind of existence

in our traditional history; no one has been able to suggest whence

they came, or whither they have gone. The names of their leaders

have become woven with fable, song, and story; with the hills and

glens of Albin and Erin; with the warlike struggles which the various

conflicting races have fought on our Ero-Albinic shores. So vague and

romantic however, has their history been, that a few clear-sighted

writers, conversant with comparative mythology, have come almost to

the conclusion that the Féinne were, as we have already seen, a mere

Gaelic expression of a world-wide mythus, whose various component

elements can be found from Japan to the Hebrides. The popular tales

and the bardic ballads have been regarded as the _debris_ that may be

still collected on the shores of the ages.

The plain Highlander living in the mere tents of history and

literature, has been reluctant to accept so vague an account of a

very heroic ancestry. Has not he the poems of Ossian still in his

hands? Are not the names of Finn and fellow-heroes stamped on a

thousand hills in Albin and Erin? So the invariable conclusion has

been that in some mysterious way and during some mysterious period

“Fingal lived and Ossian sang.” The disappointing question all along

has been, however, where can any account be found of these people in

our accredited national histories? The inquiring spirits among our

patriotic youth examine recent histories in vain. Our antiquaries

write of names and places, but they have failed to assign a local

habitation and a name to the Finian people. The only approach

to a definite representation of the race we have in the famous

mystifications of James Macpherson in his dissertations, notes,

and poems. But the geography of Macpherson appears to have been as

mistily convenient for himself as it has been perplexing to his

commentators. Not even the genius of Dr Waddell in his goodly volume

has been able to identify the localities of Macpherson, or remove

the veil of ghost-like existence in which the Ossianic heroes are

enshrouded.

Our ordinary historians appear to have avoided treating of so

perplexing a period or class of men. Browne is satisfied with a

statement on the Ossianic question. He does not touch on the history

of the Finnic period. Keltie ignores the whole question. MacLauchlan

in his “Early History of the Scottish Church,” which embraces the

Ossianic age, has nothing to say of the Finnic environment. In his

introduction to his edition of Ossian, Clerk is equally silent as to

the accurate identification of the people of whom Ossian became the

laureate bard. Nor is anything very definite to be found even in the

learned works of Skene. When such admirable authorities are almost

universally silent, it becomes a very hazardous matter to attempt any

statement on the question.

It must be admitted that hitherto the sources of much of our definite

accounts have been Irish compilations. Notwithstanding Macpherson’s

comparative contempt for the character of the Irish Finian heroes,

and for the Irish Ossianic compositions, yet much of the ground work

of his own historic ideals was furnished by Irish productions. But

any historic truth the Irish compositions may have had perished in

the using in the hands of Macpherson. The result has been a system

of chronology that neither he nor his friends have ever been able to

explain.

The question still remains, Who were the Féinne? The answer in

general has been that they were Gaelic heroes of the second and third

centuries of the Christian era; who fought with Romans, with Danes,

and with one another; and finally struggled with the converting

powers of Christianity. In Ireland they have appeared under the

guise of a Milesian militia, a conception which is thoroughly in

harmony with the chivalrous ideals of that interesting island. The

following sentences contain the gist of all the information that is

now available:—“It is quite a mistake to suppose _Finn Mac Cumhaill_

to have been merely imaginary or mythical character. Much that has

been narrated of his exploits is, no doubt, apocryphal enough; but

Finn himself is an undoubtedly historical personage; and that he

existed about the time at which his appearance is recorded in the

annals, is as certain as that Julius Cæsar lived and ruled at the

time stated on the authority of the Roman historians. I may add here

that the pedigree of Finn is fully recorded on the unquestionable

authority of the Book of Leinster, in which he is set down as the

son of _Cumhall_, who was the son of _Trenmor_, son of _Snaelt_, son

of _Eltan_, son of _Baiscni_, son of _Nuada Necht_, who was of the

Heremonian race, and monarch of Erinn about A.M. 5090, according

to the chronology of the Four Masters, that is, 110 years before

Christ. Finn himself was slain, according to the Annals of the Four

Masters, in Anno Domini 283, in the reign of _Cairbre Lifeachair_.”

Little can be added to this statement by O’Curry. The great battle

of _Gabhra_—Garristown in Meath—took place in 284; and the ballads

represent the brave Oscar, and _Cairbre Lifeachair_ as falling by

each others’ hands in the deadly struggle. Oscar was the beloved

son of Ossian, and his grandfather Finn, who died a year before the

battle of _Gabhra_, is brought back to life by the Romancists to

pronounce a eulogy on the fallen Oscar.

Irish annalists are satisfied that the fatherland of Finn and his

heroes was Ireland; but no one appears to be able to point out the

territories over which Finn reigned. It is an undoubted fact that

_Cairbre Lifeachair_ was the monarch of Erin when Finn died, and

when the battle of _Gabhra_ was fought. What can be more natural

then than to suppose with Macpherson that Finn was monarch of Albin?

In Macpherson’s works Finn is represented always as going from

Albin to Erin, a rendering of history which the Irish authorities

refuse to accept. When we look for the Kingdom of Finn in Scotland

where Macpherson has located it, we certainly fail to ascertain its

boundaries by means of his mystifying phrases. That his Morven is not

the Mor_vern_ of Argyllshire has been pointed out long ago; nor is

much satisfaction to be found in Dr Clerk’s interpretation of _Mor

Bheanna_, the Great Hills, as a general characteristic of Scotland.

It is another illustration of Macpherson’s prudent indefiniteness

behind which the secret of his works has been preserved.

Now it appears to me that I am led aright in my studies of this

period of Albin’s history, when I regard the Féinne as the last

leaders of the great race in Albin and Erin who disappeared in

history before the extension of the Gaelic conquest and supremacy.

The spirit of their struggle is truly recorded in the ballads when

it is repeatedly declared that they went forth to the battle, but

that they always fell. This is the melancholy key-note of the

Ossianic poetry. This is the passionate patriotism—a brave, resolute

and chivalrous race, ever ready for the fight, ever ready to go

forth to battle—and has always appealed to the popular heart. The

brave Finians, however, seemed to go forth to die. The fate of

possible extinction appears to have pressed heavily on the heart

of the people. And when the leaders were all dead and gone, Ossian

the immortal singer of their exploits and enterprises mourned in

his blindness and solitude the departure of his brother heroes and

hunters,—dwelling with pathetic tenderness on the oft-recurring

refrain: “The last of my race!”

The Albinian monarchy, whose head-quarters were situated near Loch

Ness, exercised rule over various tribes. Early in our era its sway

appears to have extended, to use the proverbial sayings, from the

Ord of Caithness to the Rhinns of Islay, from the Hen of Lewis to

the Cock of Arran: _O’n Ord Ghallach gus an Roinn Ilich, ’s o’n

Chirc Leoghaisich gus a’ Choileach Arranach_. This Albinian kingdom

was, no doubt, the scene of the Finian exploits which have formed

the subjects of poetic romance. It was frequently assailed by the

Norse on the north-west and east; and by Celts on the south-east.

The latter finally prevailed, bestowing their Celtic tongue on

the conquered Albinians. The Féinne appear to have been the last

leaders of the national cause. They were probably bilingual, as the

more educated classes were in the days of Columba. Many of them may

have been fully Gaelicised, while resisting the encroachments of an

alien civilisation. Ossian and his fellow-leaders would be of this

class. And just as many patriot bards in our own time in Ireland and

Britain, lament the decay of Celtic nationalities in the language of

the Teutonic conqueror, so the laureate bard of the Albinian people

has sung of “the last of his race” in the tongue of the conquering

Gael.

The kindred of these remarkable heroes appeared in those early ages

in various lands. They were the immediate predecessors, not only of

the Celtic, but in some cases also of other races. They were the most

ancient Lochlins that ploughed the German Ocean with their trembling

barks. They were the earliest Vikings that sailed round the Orkneyan

skerries; that visited their kindred and fought with them on the

shores of Albin, of Erin, and of Breatun. And clearly it is their

connections we have in the north-east of Europe, where they survive

in a trying climate with shrunk proportions and exhausted national

energies. The famous ballad on the _Battle of Gabhra_ represents four

companies of Finians as engaged in the terrible fight—the Féinne of

Albin, the Féinne of Erin, the Féinne of Breatun, and the Féinne of

Lochlin.

The names of these heroes are still to be found in Lochlin, Erin,

and Albin, the lands in which their celebrated deeds were chiefly

performed. We find them in the pages of Adamnan like the shadows of

a departing people. Finn or Fionn, appears in various forms, as in

_Findchanus_, _Fintenus_, &c. Here we have also the first, or most

ancient, written form of the name of the great bard himself, in Latin

disguise, “Oisseneo nomine.”

The territory of the Caledonians lay from Loch Long eastward to the

Firth of Tay and the German Ocean, and northward in later times to

the Moray Firth. The Caledonian Forest is represented as extending

in a north-eastern direction from Loch Lomond to the river Isla.

The Caledonian territories, however, were always shifting. Like the

_Celtica_ of the Continent of Europe, the _Gaeltachd_ of the British

Islands was always under a process of change, but at the same time it

was ever the region or the land of the Gael. Lands were won from the

tribes whom the Gaels conquered, while territories were surrendered

to those who pressed on behind them. At first the _Gaeltachd_ was in

South Britain; but as the Gaels moved northward, Albin contracted,

and the land of the Gael extended. Finally, the Caledonians became

the general term for all the Gaelic clans who opposed the legions of

Rome.

The etymology of _Caledonia_ has not been satisfactorily explained.

The celebrated James Macpherson explains it as follows:—“When

South Britain yielded to the power of the Romans, the unconquered

nations to the north of the province were distinguished by the name

of _Caledonians_. From their very name, it appears that they were

of those Gauls, who possessed themselves originally of Britain.

It is compounded of two Celtic words, _Gael_, signifying _Celts_

or _Gauls_, and _Dun_ or _Don_, _a hill_; so that _Gael don_, or

Caledonians, is as much as to say _Celts of the hill country_.” In

the very next sentence Macpherson unconsciously suggests quite a

different and better etymology: “The Highlanders to this day call

themselves _Gael_, their language _Gaelic_ or _Galic_, and their

country _Gaeldoch_, which the Romans softened into _Caledonia_.”

Consideration for Latin Inflections would readily transform

_Caeldachd_ into _Caledonia_. A rival explanation has found place

in many school books—Coille-daoine, rendered _Men of the Wood_.

This, however, is not the accurate translation. The compound is

absurd and unnatural. It reads to a Gael like _Men-Wood_ in English.

Another explanation has been _Gaedhil dhonna_, brown-haired Gaels;

but physiological facts and the laws of phonology do not support

this derivation. The Welsh have given us its meaning from a Cymric

standpoint; and as the word is unknown in Gaelic in its historic form

the Welsh suggestions appear very reasonable. The Caledonian Forest

in Welsh has always been Calydin or Celydin, a term which means

_Wood_. Its Gaelic cognate would be _Coilltean_, which also supplies

the representative consonants of Caledonia. The great forest of the

Central Highlands would be very naturally spoken of as the _Woods_,

Coiltean; _Caledonii_ being only a Latin derivative.

With the spread of Christianity the Caledonians became the great

people in Albin. In the later ages they consisted of Gaelicised

Albinians, Gaels, and Brythonised Gaels. Among them appeared those

who stand first on the roll of literary Scots: the poetry and tales

of the Féinne developed into their present shape in the hands of

the ancient Christian Gaels of our land. The poetic compositions

which relate to this period furnish us with gleams of life from the

borderland of decadent heathenism and Christianity.

From the first proclamation of the latter onwards the outlines of

Scottish story become continually clearer, shining more and more

until the day of national freedom and independence shone on a brave

and struggling people. In glancing very briefly at the history of

the Gael of Albin we find that it naturally suggests the following

periods, described by terms which indicate the fresh elements

introduced on fresh changes taking place:—

I. The Pre-Celtic Period embraces the unrecorded ages which partially

terminated in the third century, when the influence of Christianity

began to be felt. The Roman province in Scotland became nominally

Christian by the Imperial adoption of Christianity by Constantine in

the year 313.

II. The Celtic Period extends from the third century to the

year 1068. During these dark and unsettled times there was much

intercourse carried on between the old inhabitants of Albin and

the people of Lochlin; generally the intercourse took the form of

a fierce struggle for supremacy. In 1068 Malcolm III. married an

English princess, known afterwards as the saintly Queen Margaret;

Gaelic afterwards ceased to be the language of the Scottish Court. At

that time Picts and Scots being united under one monarchy the sway of

the Northmen in the north-west became much enfeebled. The power of

the latter was completely broken by the disastrous defeat of Haco, at

Large, in 1263.

III. The Norman or Feudal Period extends from 1068 to 1567. Few

of the Gaelic preachers, or representatives of the early Scottish

Church, survived the repressing influence of Queen Margaret, who

was a zealous Roman Catholic. The Norman conquest of England caused

many Saxons to seek refuge in Scotland, where they were welcomed

by the Queen and her royal husband, _Ceann-Mor_. Norman influences

also began to be felt in Scotland. The lands of Celtic chiefs were

chartered away by the King to Norman barons, of whom many became as

Celtic and as identified with the Gaelic inhabitants as the Celtic

mormaers whom they supplanted. The patriarchal system began to decay,

and feudalism was gradually introduced.

IV. The Protestant and Jacobite Period extends from the middle of the

sixteenth century to the year 1745, when Jacobitism on Culloden Moor

received its death-blow. The nominal first, afterwards the actual,

acceptance of the Reformation doctrines by the Scottish Celts in the

sixteenth century has very vitally affected their literature, as well

as completely changed their relations with the Irish Celts.

V. The Anglo-Gaelic Period begins in 1745. The influence of the

English language and English thought has been extending in the

Highlands since then; while through the general intermingling of

races, and a better mutual understanding, the prejudices of Celt and

Saxon respectively have been everywhere dying away, especially among

the classes by whom the force of the democratic tendencies of our age

has been felt and acknowledged.

The dates assigned to the above periods are only approximately

accurate, but they may serve to shadow forth some of the chief

influences which have been at work in the history of Celtic Scotland,

and of which we have traces in the literary annals of the Gael.

Perhaps the surprising thing in connection with these meagre annals

is the fact that there are any literary remains at all, when it is

remembered how frequent and how violent have been the changes which

have occurred in the course of the history of Albin.

The Anglo-Gaelic era of Highland history commences, as has been

pointed out, with the decay of the Jacobite cause. The changes that

have taken place since 1745 have deeply affected the destiny and

character of the people. In some respects the contact with the fresh

forces brought into play was beneficial, in other respects it was a

moral loss; but it is to be hoped that on the whole there has been

considerable gain, and that not altogether material.

Under the social and educational changes that have been taking

place during the last century the Highlanders have shown wonderful

adaptableness in the course of the process they have been undergoing.

The revival of a more earnest spirit of Christianity in many

districts has completely altered the social habits of the people,

while the influence of educational agencies has reached the most

secluded glen and remote headland.

The English language is everywhere taught, the people, knowing its

use in the sphere of secular success, preferring to have their

children educated in a purely English rather than in a Gaelic school.

The present rising generation all understand and talk a little Saxon

of some sort, but Gaelic will be the language of the mass of the

population for some generations yet. English thought and culture also

reach the people through the hundreds of University-bred ministers

who preach Gaelic in Highland pulpits.

These important changes in the Celtic world are not effected without

many venerable regrets being uttered by sentimentalists both in

Ireland and Scotland. If we look across the channel we find that the

Irish Gael indulges in the same unpractical wail over an irrevocable

past, that we find so prevalent with his brother of Albin. The cry

of the sentimentalist there is even more intense, more persistent.

The unpromising present of the Gael there appears to attract like

a magnet all the revolutionary sympathies of the usually stolid

Teutonic heart, after a little contact of the races. Just as in

their political difficulties the Irish have always looked for help

from Spain, France, or America, so unless the gods somehow interfere

to preserve their native tongue, all they can or will do, waiting

for external or divine deliverance, is to take up the refrain—“It

is dying.” This is how an Irish poet, the Rev. M. Mullin, Clonfert,

sings with incomparable sadness:—

“It is fading! it is fading! like the leaves upon the trees;

It is dying! it is dying! like the Western Ocean breeze!

It is fastly disappearing, as footsteps on the shore,

Where the Barrow, and the Erne, and Lough Swilly’s waters roar;

Where the parting sunbeam kisses the Corrib in the West,

And the ocean, like a mother, clasps the Shannon to its breast;

The language of old Erin, of her history and name—

Of her monarchs and her heroes, of her glory and her fame—

The sacred shrine where rested, through her sunshine and her gloom,

The Spirit of her martyrs, as their bodies in the tomb!

The time-wrought shell where murmured, through centuries of wrong,

The secret voice of Freedom in annal and in song

Is surely, fastly sinking into silent death at last,

To live but in the memories and relics of the Past!”

It must be very consoling to give one’s grief utterance in this

highly poetical fashion; it is a question whether the poetry loses

or gains in force, when it is remembered that the singer perhaps

never put forth any effort to preserve the life of that ancient

tongue which he is harping into her grave. Perhaps he does not know

the language at all. He may be among those who first spurned and

then starved her scholars; of the sentimentalists who, after learned

devotees gave to the world in books the results of a life’s labour,

on the publication of which they had expended more than all their

own means, might borrow but would not buy a copy. The accomplished

Archbishop MacHale of Tuam, found out to his cost the full meaning of

this remark. Few were the copies of his excellent Græco Irish Homer

that were sold; and here we have an illustration of the extent of the

encouragement that real Irish scholarship receives. At the same time

it must be admitted that the writers of Celtic books are frequently

much to blame. They bury their productions in expensive volumes

which can never obtain general circulation, or they do not furnish

the precise thing required; or if they do, it is not always in a

saleable popular fashion. Thus we have to regret the evil results

of contemptuous neglect on the one hand, and extravagant claims and

impracticable theories on the other, as well as an imaginary sense

of loss and wrong, on the part of those who ought to give a more

practical direction to the people’s sentiments.

But the Celt is neither dead nor dying. He is still an important

factor in the making of the world’s history. Apart from the very

large Celtic element that has been absorbed in the Anglo-Celtic

intermingling of races under the supremacy of Teutonic rule in

these islands we find some four or five millions of people talking

one or other of the Celtic dialects. The number of Gaelic speaking

Highlanders is not much under half a million. There will be about

300,000 of a Gaelic-speaking population within the geographical

limits of the Highlands, the area of which is upwards of three-fifths

of Scotland. There is a larger Gaelic population in Glasgow than the

whole population of Greenock. The Gaelic bard of to-day has thus as

large an audience to sing his lays to as the great Ossian himself had

in ancient Albin.

Still it is constantly asserted that whether or not the Gaelic

language is dead and ready for burial it has no literature; and the

assertion has been repeated for several generations with emphatic

persistence. The following chapters are intended to show that there

is a literature; and that it does not altogether deserve the contempt

with which it has been hitherto regarded. And the English-reading

public have a right to know from the pens of Gaelic scholars what

is the value of the literature still extant in the ancient language

of a people with whom they are so closely united, and who form an

important integral portion of their common empire. All have an

interest in bringing the reign of ignorance, apathy, and prejudice to

an end.

At last in the midst of neglect and apathy, of petty rivalries

and discords which so readily breed within circumscribed spheres,

when our Gaelic scholars, MacLauchlan and Clerk, Skene and J. F.

Campbell, and others, were giving to the world the results of their

laborious efforts to uphold the character and literary prestige of

their countrymen, and were thus paving the way, one voice began to

be heard on behalf of a despised language and literature. That voice

crying in the Highland wilderness was that of Professor Blackie! By

inimitable eloquence and unwearied energies he interested high and

low at once and for years in the establishment of a Celtic Chair in

the University of Edinburgh. From the Queen, from lord and laird,

and from peasant, he charmed, by his sweet and natural manner, the

gold on which that Chair is now so successfully founded. Not only

that, but he has also given us the fullest account hitherto published

of the language and literature of the Scottish Highlands. It is

needless to speak of the affection and gratitude which Highlanders

cherish towards the learned and venerable Professor, who has been a

most potent Celtic force in this generation. “_Saoghal fada ’n deagh

bheatha dhuit!_”

Irish scholars have recently laboured hard and successfully in

furthering the interests of their native literature. It is enough

here to mention the names of O’Donovan, O’Currie, Whitley Stokes,

Joyce, Standish O’Grady, and Bourke—men whose learning and talents

would adorn the literary annals of any nation. While the Irish

have accomplished more than the Scottish Gael, the Welsh have

done more than either to preserve their language and cultivate

their literature. Under systematic efforts to suppress it entirely

the Kymry have adhered to their ancient tongue with unwearying

pertinacity. While the Gael of Ireland and Scotland have not yet

been successful in supporting one purely Gaelic newspaper, the Celt

of Wales has his Welsh newspaper in every town of importance in

the Principality. It is to the Kymry that we owe the best work yet

published on Celtic philology—the “Welsh Philology” of Professor

Rhys of the Celtic Chair at Oxford. So now it may fairly be said

that we are in the midst of a Celtic Renaissance. Books of a certain

useful character do sell, notwithstanding the well founded complaint

referred to above. The first edition of Canon Bourke’s “Aryan Origin

of the Gaelic Race” was exhausted in a very short time. Campbell’s

“Tales” are out of print. These are signs of the times which, along

with the establishment of Celtic Chairs at the central seats of

learning, decisively indicate a reviving interest in Celtic studies.

In talking once of the emotional element of the Celtic nature, an

enthusiastic Irish scholar jocularly remarked to the writer that the

Gael was dying away in song. If this turns out to be true, it is

evident that his remains will be examined with pious and scientific

care.

It is interesting to find that, meagre as Gaelic literature is—and

the great wonder is that what we have should have been produced

in so unpromising a field—it extends over sixteen centuries. Its

stream issued from that fount of Gaelic heroism which began to burst

forth in the first centuries of our era, when the ground of the old

European world was on every side shaken by the heavy tramp of the

Roman legions and by the consequent disturbance of equilibrium among

the clans and races everywhere. Epic products of genius, of course,

there are not in Gaelic literature. Perhaps the pure Celtic genius,

as Mathew Arnold held, is incapable of producing epic works—is too

emotional, and is only rich in lyrical and ballad power. Great works

requiring leisure, quietness, and perseverance there are not; the

life of our ancestors, active, earnest, and practical—its energies

ceaselessly being called forth to combat the ruthless forces of

nature—did not admit of the necessary cultivation and ease for such

productions. Extensive fruits of Gaelic thought and letters we do

still possess, however, although much has been lost, especially

of what was produced in earlier days. But these should not for a

moment be spoken of in comparison with the magnificent monuments of

intellectual endeavour which Greece and Rome and Anglo-Celtic Britain

have reared. But Gaelic literature will compare favourably with

that of many other countries, especially when united with its sister

product, Irish literature. And Welsh literature, no doubt, should

also be added. English literature, because of the basis it has in the

soil of Christianity, is the grandest product of the human intellect,

the master works of Greece and Rome not excepted. It is great; it is

partly Celtic; and we, as Anglo-Celts, admire it. But we may with

advantage look beyond the bounds of our English studies, and then

see more clearly the foundation of our Anglo-Celtic empire when we

have examined with tender and sympathetic care the interesting relics

of Celtic thought enshrined in the ancient language of the British

Islands.

It ought perhaps to be acknowledged that the English-speaking peoples

of these islands are, at present peculiarly ready to accept any

authentic information respecting Celtic history and literature. The

same remark replies to Continental scholars. In our own islands the

stirring of nationalities in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and that

simultaneously with the movements of the practical politics of the

parties of the day and the advocacy of the reform of our land laws,

has deepened the interest in all questions relating to Celtic life

and thought.

It is a mere truism to remark that the language and literature of the

Gael have been much neglected. All attempts to bring their claims

before the English-speaking world were, till recently, treated

with systematic indifference if not with contempt. The national,

historical, and scientific value of the study of both does not appear

to have occurred even to many who ought to know better. Interesting

and inviting as the field was, it lay long unoccupied. Highlanders

conscious of some talent were attracted by the rich prizes and honour

obtainable within the sphere of English letters. A few who dipped

into Celtic studies found them either unprofitable or turned away

with disgust from a path in which they were met on all sides with

petty jealousies and ignorant pretence. The Rev. Dr John Smith,

of Campbeltown, distinguished alike for his learning and general

culture, sacrificed much of his time and means to Gaelic studies;

and, finding them unprofitable, turned in his leisure hours to

farming on his glebe. He was also annoyed by a truthless, pedant

schoolmaster, Duncan Kennedy, of Lochgilphead, who laid claim to

the authorship of some ballads which Dr Smith had published. The

English Republic of letters could not be blamed for disregarding the

intellectual history of a people who ignored their own productions

and all that they inherited from their ancestors. Yet is it a

reproach to Irish and British scholars that Continental students

should be the first to create interest in Celtic studies and place

them on a scientific basis. The real parties, however, who ought

to bear the blame are the Celts themselves—the Kymry of Wales, and

the Gael of Ireland and Scotland. It is with much propriety that

Professor Geddes of Aberdeen, thus addresses British Celts with

regard to their languages:—“_Your_ advantages are great. To you

it is a mother-speech, whereas to others like myself it has to be

laboriously learned, and after all imperfectly, so that it can hardly

be said to be a speech at all in such mouths as mine. It is otherwise

with you; you are within the shrine, such as I are without, and just

as the radiance of a cathedral window, rich with the spoils of time,

looks blurred and poor to the eye that seeks to comprehend it from

without, but streams in full glory on the eye that gazes from within,

so your native speech rightly studied ought to be to you resplendent

with linguistic treasures, such as no stranger can be expected to

unveil.” The Highlander alone can fully know and appreciate the

language and literature of his race. But if he takes up the obsolete

harp of his fathers, and rehearses in melancholy strains that his

people are perishing and that his language is dying, it is quite

natural, that his Teutonic neighbour should chime in with an emphatic

and not always a sympathetic amen.

This sort of harping is the species of music with which many

Highlanders, and Irish Gaels also, have been pleased to humour and

feed their patriotic feelings over the general neglect of Celtic

interests. Well may the disinterested spectator declare that they are

not much in earnest—that the wail is partly hypocritical; for they

have done so little to preserve their language and nationality. And

no doubt the cry is to a certain extent hypocritical with not a few

self-constituted patriots, and the bulk of the people disregard it.

The latter do not take up the wail, and they are mainly in the right.

The enthusiast and the sentimentalist, who indulge in the dirge, run

away with one small truth, or the phase of a truth—with a pathetic

misconception of the true state of things. Sometimes they hire

themselves to do the coronach, like the Irish professional mourners

who do the wailing over the departed. But the people in general

are not drawn by the charming of the sentimentalist; they are more

practical. They know and feel the power of circumstances and destiny

which they have to overcome and bear, and act accordingly. While they

find their native hills barren, and their native glens inhospitable,

they betake themselves to the rich woods of Canada and the prairies

of the United States. Witness what a large body of the Glengarry

Highlanders once did. Again, when they find the want of the English

language a bar to their secular success in life, they protest, while

cherishing dearly their native tongue, against pure Gaelic schools

being thrust upon them, and demand English teaching first. This has

been the case not so long ago in the Long Island. And the reason

is quite patent. Before arriving at school age the children are in

possession of their mother-tongue; and the parents consider, and

very rightly, that the sooner their sons and daughters acquire good

English the better for their own comfort, interest, and success in

the great English-speaking world in which they have necessarily to

perform a part. English ought to be taught from the first through,

and simultaneously with, the Gaelic. In all this the people show

that their utilitarianism is sensible, intelligent. They recognise

the facts of their surroundings. They listen to the charming of the

sentimentalist, but they go on their own practical way rejoicing.

Hundreds of Highlanders in our large towns never enter a Gaelic

church. English-speaking mothers and children do not find the

arrangement of services convenient and, consulting the general good

of all the members of the family, they take their seats elsewhere. In

this they cannot be deeply blamed. In Scotland we are quite familiar

with the stereotyped arguments and phraseology which are applied to

depopulation and other matters. But many of those who rehearse the

one on public platforms and weave the other into elegiac verse do

not always give us a practical illustration of their theories and

teaching by living in the Highlands and by having Gaelic taught in

their own families.

This conviction and cry of the imaginative Celt that the world

is slipping from his grasp—that his affairs are in a hopeless

condition—has done much injury to his own interests. And it is not

at all surprising although his neighbours and the rising generation

of his own people have regarded his language and literature with

persistent indifference. Ossian himself is proverbially known to

us—“Oisein an déigh na Féinne”—as the “last of the race.” It would

almost seem that every generation of Gaels during the last millennium

regarded itself as the last of the “race.” Yet, strange to say, the

Gaelic language is spoken to-day within pretty nearly the same limits

as it was a thousand years ago, a fact encouraging to the sanguine

and poetic natures of men like William Livingston, that very original

Islay bard, who once sang as follows:—

“Cànain àigh nam buadhan òirdhearc,

A b’ fharsuing cliù air feadh na h-Eòrpa;

Bithidh i fathast mar a thòisich,

Os ceann gach cainnt ’na h-iuchair eòlais.”

ENGLISH:—

_Strange mystic pow’rs lie in that tongue,

Whose praise through Europe wide has rung;

As ’twas of yore in school and college,

It shall be first—the key of knowledge._

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CHAPTER I.

EARLY GAELIC LITERATURE—PATRICK.

“Si labhair Padric ’nnínse Fail na Riogh,

’S an faighe caomh sin Colum náomtha ’n I.”—

_Maclean in Lhuyd’s Ar. Brit. (1707.)_

ENGLISH: _’Twas it that Patrick spoke in Inis-Fayle,

And saintly Calum in Iona’s Isle._

The present state of our knowledge does not enable us to assign an

exact date to the first beginnings of Gaelic literature. The most

ancient ballads have certainly come down to us through the hands

of Gaelic Churchmen; and it may be taken as absolutely certain

that writing was unknown until it was introduced by Christian

missionaries. The monuments of Runes and Oghams, the study of which

may be pursued in the works of Stephens, Anderson, and Ferguson, can

scarcely be regarded as literature in the proper sense of the term.

At the threshold of the temple of Gaelic letters we are confronted

with one name which can not be ignored—that of Ossian which we see

inscribed on the portals.

In his days and those of his peculiar people, the Féinne, the Pagan

and pre-Celtic Period was coming to a close. Let us look a little at

the picture that has been handed down to us of this great bard with

whom the heathen dispensation ended.

That a Fingal lived and an Ossian sang is a proposition that cannot

be successfully disputed. It was in the eighteenth century, when

James Macpherson published his fragments of ancient Gaelic poetry,

that the controversy which rages yet around the name of Ossian arose.

This controversy, as well as the poems, English and Gaelic, published

by Macpherson, will be afterwards considered. In the meantime, the

name of Ossian is used in a conventional sense, just as the name

Homer is frequently used. He lived, let us say, in the third or

fourth century, when the heathen dispensation of the pre-Celts and

of the Gaels was drawing to a close, when the Druidic period, with

its mysteries, was coming to an end. It is neither affirmed nor

denied here at this stage that Ossian was the author of the Gaelic

poems at present in circulation, and from which Macpherson ostensibly

translated. But what may be safely affirmed is, that there was in the

days of Gaelic heathenism an eminent bard of the name of Ossian, who

started the key-note of some poetry, which may be styled Ossianic.

That fragments of his compositions have been handed down to us may

with equal safety be affirmed. But of the early poems and ballads

contained in Campbell’s “Leabhar na Féinne” we are absolutely unable

to say which was composed by Ossian or which by his imitators and

others. In that vast and valuable collection there may be pieces of

Ossian’s; and certainly the authorship of many poems is directly

attributed to him, though evidently in many cases by loose tradition.

His name is also attached to several productions which can easily be

proved to belong to some unknown authors. “A hoodir Oisein” would be

readily prefixed by reciters and scribes to any anonymous piece of

merit to gain currency for it.

But granting that Ossian is not a myth, but a veritable man who was a

great bard among his people, a further question arises, Was the poet

Irish or Scottish? The Irish have all along declared that the true

and original Ossian belonged to them, and lived in their country.

Their indignation over Macpherson’s productions knew no bounds.

All Macpherson’s heroes are represented as _going from_ Alba _to_

Erin, which harmonizes well with the recent deliverances of Sayce

and Rhys. He described all the Irish Ossians as fictions and fables

manufactured by monks in the Middle Ages, and as so far inferior to

the genuine remains of Ossian as the most insipid heroics of the

present day are to the immortal productions of Homer. He showed that

their system of chronology could not be harmonised—that it was, in

fact, absurd. As represented in the everlasting dialogues between

the poet and the saint, he asked how could Ossian, who was supposed

to live in the third century, hold converse with St. Patrick, who

did not arrive in Ireland till the fifth century? No such objections

could be brought against Macpherson’s Ossian, whose chronology

was, perhaps conveniently vague, fairly consistent with itself.

The Irish _literati_ then betook themselves to the manufacture of

poems _a la_ Macpherson, whom they denounced first as a thief and

afterwards as a forger. When they failed to produce any poems of

such superior merit as those of Macpherson, the theory of theft from

the Irish was given up, and that of forgery substituted. It was

quite evident that the Scottish “Ossian” published by Macpherson was

very different from the composer of Irish ballads and Finian tales.

It was admitted by the Scottish patriots that there was a Scottish

Ossian very like the Irish one—that of the later or heroic ballads

and of the popular tales. But they held that this was a spurious,

inferior, and more recent bard or bards, who attached the name of the

great father of Gaelic poetry to their own productions; and that the

genuine, true, and original poems of Ossian, the immortal poet of the

ancient Caledonians, were translated and published by Macpherson.

The claims of the two countries cannot be satisfactorily adjusted or

reconciled. History, however, conclusively shows that the Gaels of

the North of Ireland and those of Scotland were at this period very

closely related—were, indeed, but one people. Just as Shakespeare is

claimed by all sections of the English-speaking world as their common

heritage, so Ossian would be regarded by all the Gaelic-speaking

tribes or clans as their common property.

Ossian occupies the same place in both the Irish and Scottish

genealogies of the great Finian family. He is the son of Finn or

Fingal, the father of the brave and peerless Oscar, the chief bard of

his people.

Fionn, whose name means _fair_, the leader, and king of the Féinne,

is the most remarkable figure in the annals of the Gael. The popular

conception of his prowess may be gathered from the following grand

passage of Highland poetry:—

“With loud-sounding strides he rush’d westward

In the clank of his armour bright;

And he looked like the Spirit of Loda, that scatters

Dismay o’er the war-way and fight!

“Like a thousand waves on a crag that roll, yelling,

When the ugly storm is at its height,

So awful the clash of mail and his weapons,

While his face wore the winter of fight!

“His smooth claymore glittered aloft,

In his champion hand it was light;

And the snoring winds kept moving his locks

Like spray in the whirlpool’s might!

“The hills on each side they were shaken,

And the path seemed to tremble with fright!

Gleamed his eyes, and his great heart kept swelling—

Oh! cheerless the terrible sight!”

This is a picture of Fingal going to battle, and a “terrible sight,”

indeed it must have been, especially to his foes. The leader of

the Féinne was surrounded by a worthy band of followers. The bards

and senachies, or oralists, agree in the character, outlines, and

abilities of these heroes. Ossian, the son of Fingal, was himself

a hero; but, being generally a supposed narrator, gives us little

insight into his own distinctive character. He was a great bard,

a brave warrior, but an unobtrusive man. His son Oscar was the

pride and hope of Selma, peerless as to strength and skill in arms,

generous to a fallen foe, and ever ready to meet the fiercest

champion that ever came from Lochlin. Gaul or Goll is stout and

valiant, and next to Oscar in prowess, but is at times morose. He

is never worsted, but he never courts danger for its own sake. The

beautiful and brown-haired Diarmad cannot be seen by any woman

without being loved. He is devoted to his brothers in arms, and when

necessary he can combine sleight of hand with heroic daring. Cailte

is a poet, and celebrated for his swiftness of foot. Then there is

the hardy Rayne, the majestic Cochulin, and the faithful though

rash Conan. Fingal himself has been limned from more than one point

of view by the oralists. His greatness and courage in battle are

indisputably pre-eminent. He is a prudent, cautious general, and

disapproves of unnecessary bloodshed. In affairs of the heart he is

relentless towards a rival, generous though he is in other respects.

The worst thing that can be recorded of him is his unfeeling and

revengeful conduct towards his nephew, the gallant Diarmid, when the

latter eloped with Queen Gràine. These were the principal warriors of

that gallant band of Finian heroes whose names are indelibly engraven

on the hills and straths of their native land, while their deeds are

recorded in a thousand songs. They lived at a time when the world was

undergoing a mighty metamorphosis. Tribes were beginning to assume a

national cast, and as organised nations to develop an individuality.

They were preparing to run the race sketched out to them by

destiny, the path of each bounded by a particular line or limit of

sea, stream, mountain, or valley, and were throwing aside all the

encumbrances of superseded customs and laws that might clog their

progress. Fingal and his followers appeared in immortal brilliance,

crowned with the laurels of deathless heroism on the stage of the

world, and soon they disappeared from the scene. They were seen but

for a short time like the sun in a wintry day. And the picture is

beautifully brought before us in the following verses translated by

Pattison:—

“Like a sun-gleam in wild wintry weather

That hastens o’er Lena’s wide heath,

So the Féinne have faded together,

They were the beam the showery clouds sheathe,

When down stoops the dark rain-frown of heaven,

To snatch from the hunter the ray,

And wildly the moaning bare branches are driven,

While the weak herbs all wither away.

“But the sun, in his strength yet returning,

The fair-freshened woods will espy,

In the springtime that laugh for their mourning,

As they look on the Son of the sky,

Kindly unveilling his lustre,

Through the soft and the drizzling shower,

All their wan heads again will he muster,

From their drear and their wintry bower.

“Then with joy will their small buds keep swelling;

Not so they who sleep in the tomb—

No sunbeam that darkness dispelling,

Shall waken them up from their gloom.”

Ossian, the blind warrior-poet, survives them all. And now, as he

muses on the departure of his kindred heroes and hunters, and on the

loneliness of his own state, led by the white-armed Malvina, the

betrothed of his fallen son Oscar, he seeks their former haunts,

and breathes as he rests in the well-known shades the pathetic

lamentation, “the last of my race!”

“Chula tu bàrda nam fonn:

’S taitneach, ach trom do ghuth;

’S taitneach a Mhalmhìne nan sonn;

Leaghaidh bròn am bochd an am tha dubh.”

_Croma._

From the picture of Ossian in his shadowy Pagan domain it is

refreshing to turn to those names which have played a great part in

connection with our earliest Christian civilization and literature.

They are the names of Patrick of Strathclyde, Bridget of the South

Gaels of Albin, and Columba of Donegal, subsequently of Iona.

The first glimpse we have of Albin on the canvas of written record

is a very confusing one. The one outstanding fact is the Roman

occupation. The next fact that strikes and enchains the eye is

the presence of Christianity in the land. Among the Gaels of the

south-west of Scotland we mark the person of Ninian, around whom we

see across the ages the light of the gospel shining. This preacher

of the cross, of whose labours in Galloway very interesting traces

were discovered quite recently, appears to have carried the gospel

not only to the Gaels of the south-west, but also to the southern

Picts north of the Forth and Clyde. His labours began as early as

the year 397, and resulted in the first church organization known in

Scotland. The evengelisation of Ninian extended over probably the

whole of Romanised Scotland towards the end of the fourth century.

The races embraced in his sphere of operations were Latin-speaking

peoples of various nations, Brythons, and Gaels.

Among the last-mentioned, the Gaels of the Strathclyde kingdom, whose

chief seat was Alcluaidh, now Dumbarton, there appeared the family

of Patrick, whose name has shed holy lustre on the early annals of

that period. This family had been Christians for two generations. The

father of Patrick was a _decurio_, one of the council or magistracy

of a Roman provincial town. His name was Calphurnius, which some have

rendered by the familiar form of MacAlpine. Being recognised as a

Roman magistrate he thus took his place among the local aristocracy

of Banavem in Taberniæ, where villas of the Roman style could be

seen, and the sonorous Latin could be heard mingling with the kindred

accents of the ancient Gaelic. This place was probably not far from

that attractive spot on the banks of the Clyde where a topographical

monument has been reared to the celebrated Irish apostle in

Kilpatrick. Calphurnius was not only a magistrate; he was also a

deacon in the Christian church. His own father, the grandfather of

Patrick, was called Potitus, and filled the office of Presbyter in

the Strathclyde church. It is also stated that this family cultivated

a small farm.

As there is a great deal of literature extant on the nativity of

Patrick which conflicts with the results of recent discussion, it may

be satisfactory to many to have the latest authoritative declarations

on the subject before them. No one has ever attempted to deprive the

north of Ireland of the honour of having supplied the Highlands with

the great gospel preacher who evengelised the north-west; who revived

the Christianity of the Lowlands; whose earnest disciples supplied

the north of England with the teachers who converted its people

to the power of Christ. But while Protestant Scotland has made no

attempts to deprive Ireland of its Columban honours Catholic Ireland

has persistently endeavoured to denude Scotland of its legitimate

claims to the honour of being the fatherland of Patrick. Ireland’s

misrepresentations have been acquiesced in by Scotsmen, especially

by timid historical writers, of a certain ecclesiastical type, who

have made needless concessions to Romanist claims in connection with

a question which is purely historical. It is with peculiar pleasure

that we are now able to assign Patrick, the son of the Gaelic Church

of Strathclyde, his true place on the roll of Gaelic Scots; and to

regard him as a link in the Gospel succession which Columba brought

with him to the West Highlands.

In the _Catholic Dictionary_, issued a few years ago, and compiled

by Addis and Arnold of the Royal University of Ireland, with the

approving seal of his Eminence Cardinal Manning on its publication,

the following satisfactory sentence occurs: “The general conversion

of the Irish nation was reserved for St. Patrick, who was probably

born at the place now called Kilpatrick on the Clyde whence he was

carried as a slave into the north of Ireland while still a youth.”

To this there is appended a foot-note referring to the excellent

article of an Irish bishop on St. Patrick in one of the Irish

periodicals: “Dr Moran, Bishop of Ossory, who formerly leant to

the opinion that the place was near Boulogne in France, has lately

written convincingly in favour of the Scottish site.” The Bishop’s

article has finally decided the question; and has enabled the Gaels

of Scotland, with the tacit consent of their Irish brethren, to add

to the list of their heroic Christian missionaries, a name whose

brilliant halo of holy effort is unsurpassed in the ancient annals of

the Christian Church of these islands.

We are thus enabled to point out the first home of Christianity

among the Gaels of Scotland. We find it on the banks of the Clyde,

where many Christians of the same people, still talking the same

tongue, may still be found, rejoicing in the same Gospel. The picture

of this early Gaelic Church of Strathclyde from whose bosom the

devoted Patrick came forth, is in itself a sufficient reason why the

Early History of the Gaels should be re-written. It is a chapter

added to the Celtic civilisation of the Highland people, which has

been hitherto ignored or hidden through Roman, Teutonic, or Norman

influences.

A good deal has been written about Patrick’s visit to Rome, where

it was necessary to take him by the Romanist writers of later

times in order that he might receive consecration from an order

of Ecclesiastical Fathers which had scarcely yet developed. The

_Catholic Dictionary_, already quoted, is forced to confess,

after reference to Patrick’s autobiography in his _Confession_ as

follows:—“He does not mention the Pope or the Holy See.” We thus

find that in his own authentic writings Patrick makes no reference

to, or acknowledgment of, the Roman Bishop of his day. The reason for

this is not far to seek.

Patrick does not appear to have come in contact with any Christianity

except that which he was taught on the banks of the Clyde in the

Gaelic Church of his fathers. He had neither been to Rome nor known

the Roman Bishop (Celestine) of his time, so he makes no reference to

either in his genuine writings. On this question his own words in his

_Epistle to Coroticus_ deserve quotation—_Ego, Patricus, indoctus,

scilicet, Hibernione, constitutum episcopum me esse reor: a Deo

accepi, id quod sum._ “I, Patrick, an unlearned man, to wit, a bishop

constituted to Ireland: what I am I have received from God.” Thus in

the establishment of his Church Patrick in no instance appeals to any

foreign Church, Pope, or Bishop. On authority received from God he

superintended the Irish Church for 34 years. These clear statements

of his are utterly at variance with the fabricated ones which adorn

the lives of him which appeared centuries afterwards, and which are

now regarded as authorities by the fabulously inclined.

In his own writings Patrick gives us in a somewhat unconscious manner

a beautiful picture of his devoted character:—“I was born free. I

was the son of a father who was a decurio. I sold my nobility for

the advantage of this nation. But I am not ashamed, neither do I

repent; I became a servant for Jesus Christ our Lord, so that I am

not recognised in my former position.” Elsewhere he says—“I was

about 16 years old; but I knew not the true God, and was led away

into captivity to Hibernia, with a great many men, according to our

deservings.” His occupation for six years in Antrim was keeping

cattle. But the spirit of the Eternal took possession of him. “My

constant business was to keep the flocks; I was frequent in prayers,

and the love and fear of God more and more inflamed my heart. My

faith and spirit were enlarged, so that I said a hundred prayers

in a day and nearly as many at night, and in the woods and on the

mountain I remained, and before the light I arose to my prayers, in

the snow, in the frost, and in the rain; and I experienced no evil at

all. Nor was I affected with sloth, for the spirit of God was warm

in me.” This was the man that the Gaels of Strathclyde gave for the

conversion of Ireland to Christianity.

There are several interesting questions suggested by the nativity and

life of Patrick. The land of his birth is now clearly ascertained;

but there are subsidiary questions in connection with that fact

which require further consideration. Was Patrick a Gael, a Brython or

one of non-Aryan races which as recently as the fifth century were a

powerful people? What language did he speak, or what language did he

acquire in his Christian conquest of Ireland? Who were the Irish as

a race, and how far they had been Christianised before his arrival?

As to the question of race, the evidence appears to lean distinctly

in favour of the conclusion that he was a Gaidel and not a Brython,

notwithstanding the Brythonic suggestiveness of the letter =P= in

his name. It ought not to be forgotten also in connection with this

question that the radical differences between the Brythonic and

Gaidelic dialects at this time were far less important than they are

now; and that the capital of the district of Patrick’s birth-place

had its earlier Gaidelic designation of Alcluaidh before it received

its Brythonic name of Dunbretton. Philologists tell us of the loss

of the letter =P= in the Gaidelic dialects; but the phonologists

on this question have not fully cleared up the difficulties which

are suggested by the fact that in some of the most north-westerly

districts of the Highlands at the present time many of the

non-Anglicised natives are incapable of making a clear distinction

between the letters =P= and =B=, and hard =C= and =G=. If we take the

evidence afforded by literature, we can come to no other conclusion

than that Patrick was of the Gaidelic or Gaelic race; for if we

have not actual compositions in the Gaelic language by him we have

productions in that language ascribed to him by ancient countrymen

who must have known what his native tongue had been.

The language which Patrick appears to have acquired in course of

his missionary labours for Ireland’s conversion could have been no

other than that of the non-Aryan races, or _Cruthnic_—the prevailing

_Erinic_—probably related closely to the _Albinic_, which at

that time was spoken all over the north-west of Scotland. In the

north-east of Ireland he no doubt found considerable numbers of the

Gaidelic race, his kinsmen who had preceded him. But the language

of those who had been already partly converted by Palladius, a

semi-mythic saint, who is at least as much connected with Albin as

with Erin, was certainly different from that of the large mass of

the Irish people. To extend the conquests of Christianity over the

fair fields of Erin south as well as north, it was necessary that

Patrick should master the tongue of the non-Aryan races. There can

be no doubt that his labours in this direction helped also to extend

the area of the Gaelic-speaking regions,—the more literary language

of the incoming saint and his race making natural acquisitions in

every direction. Similar results followed the Gospelising efforts of

Columba in the Highlands in a subsequent age.

The conclusions fairly deducible from a consideration of Patrick’s

life point to many interesting matters in connection with the

History of the Highland People. We obtain first a clear conception

of a living Christian church existing among the Romanised Gaels of

Strathclyde. We also learn that from the bosom of the Gaelic Church

of Ninian, decayed as it possibly may have been, there came forth

the great messenger of the Cross, who recalled to life if he did not

originate the forces of Christianity in Ireland. Again we find the

gospel succession of the spirit of truth, coming back in a generation

or two into the Highlands of Scotland in the person of Columba. The

lamp of heavenly wisdom, lighted on the banks of the Clyde, which

Patrick flashed over the fields of Erin, became the holy beacon which

the fervid fingers of Columba planted on the shores of Iona.

The Scottish missionary that went to Ireland and became its patron

saint is often referred to in the early ballads, Irish and Scottish.

His Creed-Prayer is given here. It is a curious mixture of dogma and

poetry; but undevotional as it may seem to us had the “green” and

other coloured Finians of the day appropriated its earnest petitions

and aspirations they would be saved the troubles of many “Pursuits.”

It begins thus in prose: “Patraicc dorone innimmunsa.” _Patrick made

this hymn._ It then states that it was made in the time of Leogaire,

son of Neill. The cause assigned to its composition was the need of

“protection with his monks against the mortal enemies who were in

league against the clerics.” It was to be a corslet of faith for

soul and body against demons, men, and vices. Demons could not stand

before the face of him who sang it; envy and poison could do no harm;

in this life it would be a safeguard against sudden death; and it

would be a covering of defence (_lurech_ in Gaelic, from the Latin

_lorica_) after death. When Patrick sang it as he went forth to sow

the faith the opposition of Leogaire gave way.

Then the hymn properly begins: The singer declares his belief in the

Trinity—in Threeness—confession of Oneness in the Creator of the

world.

I bind myself to-day—

To the power of the TRINITY;

To belief in the all-gracious Three;

To confession that the Three are one

In the Maker of the world and sun.

I bind myself to-day—

To the power of the birth of CHRIST;

To the truth that Jesus was baptised,

To the fact that path of death He trod,

That three days He lay beneath the sod;

To the pow’r of Resurrection morn,

That from the earth to heaven he was borne;

To the power of His Judgment call,

When final state shall be assigned to all.

I bind myself to-day—

To the power of the CHERUBS high;

In obedience of the angels nigh;

In attendance of archangels’ might;

In the hope of resurrection’s light;

In the prayers of the sires of eld;

In the visions that the seers beheld;

In the precepts the apostles taught;

In the faith by which confessors wrought;

In the innocence of virgins pure;

In the deeds of just men that endure.

I bind myself to-day—

To the power of HEAVEN,

To the lustre, sun-given;

To the pureness, snow-driven;

To fiery flames brightening;

To the swiftness of lightning;

To the speed of the breeze;

To the depth of the seas;

To the firmness of land,

And the rocks that there stand.

I bind myself to-day—

To God’s pow’r to be controlled;

To His might me to uphold;

To His wisdom me to bow;

To His eye the path to show;

To His ear to hear my cry;

To His word to speak my sigh;

To His hand me to protect;

To His way me to direct;

To His shield as my defence;

To His host till I go hence.

Against demons’ dire devices;

Against allurements of all vices;

Against strong solicitations

Of our nature’s inclinations;

Against all the bad desires

With which sin men’s hearts inspires,

Afar or near where’er I be

In solitude or company.

Thus I have sought protection from on high

Against the powers of ill and cruelty;

Against deceitful prophets’ incantations;

Against the black laws of the gentile nations;

Against the false laws of all heretics;

Against the craft of the idolator’s tricks;

Against the spells of druids, smiths, and women;

Against all lore that taints the spirit human.

Let Christ protect me to-day against poison—

Against burning, drowning, against wound,

Until abundance of reward comes round.

Christ be with me, Christ before, behind,

Christ without me, Christ within my mind,

Christ above me, and in breadth, length, height,

Christ below me, at my left and right.

Let Christ in all who think of me reside,

And on all lips that speak to me abide;

Christ be in every eye that sees my walk,

Christ be in every ear that hears my talk.

I bind myself to-day—

To the power of the Trinity,

To belief in the all-gracious Three,

To confession that the Three are One,

In the Maker of the earth and sun.

Dr Cameron, who has a learned article on “St. Patrick’s Hymn” in _The

Scottish Celtic Review_, and to whose accurate prose translation as

well as to Dr Stokes’s in his Goidelica. I am so much indebted in the

above rendering, makes the following remark:—“This hymn forms one of

the Irish hymns in the ‘Liber Hymnorum,’ a MS. belonging to Trinity

College, Dublin, and written, as Dr Stokes conjectures, about the end

of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century. The hymn

itself, however, belongs to a much earlier date.”

The chief dates in the life of Patrick, who was probably born about

387, are his landing in Ireland in 432 when he is represented as

attending the assembly of the Irish Kings and Chieftains which was

held on the hill of Tara that year; his celebrated letter against

Coroticus in 453 to regulate church discipline; and his death which

occurred in 493.

A very remarkable incident, related in the “Book of Armagh” and

quoted in Todd’s “Life of Patrick,” which bears internal evidence of

high antiquity, and now evidently written at a time when paganism was

not yet extinct in the country, illustrates the way in which Patrick

set before the Celtic mind the faith which he proclaimed. One

morning he and his attendants repaired to a fountain called Clebach

at Cruachan, now Rath-croghan, an ancient residence of the kings of

Connaught. Thither came the two daughters of King Laogharie, and on

seeing the strangers supposed them to be Duine Sidhe fairies, “men

of the hills,” and said to them, “Who are ye?” And Patrick said unto

them, “It were better for you to confess to our true God, than to

inquire concerning our race.”

‘The first Virgin said,—

“Who is God?

“And where is God?

“And of what nature is God?

“And where is his dwelling place?

“Has your God sons and daughters, gold and silver?

“Is He everliving?

“Is He beautiful?

“Is He in Heaven or in earth?

“In the sea?

“In rivers?

“In mountainous places?

“In valleys?

“Declare unto us the knowledge of Him?

“How shall He be seen?

“How is He to be loved?

“How is He to be found?

“Is it in youth?

“Is it in old age that He is to be found?”

‘But St. Patrick, full of the Holy Ghost, answered and said,—

“Our God is the God of all men.

“The God of heaven and earth, of the sea and rivers.

“The God of the sun, the moon, and all stars.

“The God of the high mountains and of the lowly valleys.

“The God who is above heaven, and in heaven, and under heaven.

“He hath an habitation in the heaven, and the earth, and the sea,

and all that are therein.

“He inspireth all things.

“He quickeneth all things.

“He is over all things.

“He sustaineth all things.

“He giveth light to the light of the sun.

“And he hath made springs in a dry ground.

“And dry islands in the sea.

“And hath appointed the stars to serve the greater lights.

“He hath a Son co-eternal and co-equal with Himself.

“The Son is not younger than the Father.

“Nor is the Father older than the Son.

“And the Holy Ghost breatheth in them.

“The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost are not divided.

“But I desire to unite you to the Heavenly King, inasmuch as you

are the daughters of an earthly king—to believe.”

‘And the Virgins said, as with one mouth and one heart,—

“Teach us most diligently how we may see Him face to face, and

whatever thou shalt say unto us we will do.”

‘And Patrick said,—

“Believe ye that by baptism ye put off the sin of your father and

your mother?”

‘They answered, “We believe.”

“Believe ye in repentance after sin?” “We believe.”

“Believe ye in life after death? Believe ye in the resurrection at

the Day of Judgment?” “We believe.”

“Believe ye the unity of the Church?” “We believe.”

‘And they were baptized, and a white garment put upon their heads.

And they asked to see the face of Christ, and the Saint said unto

them, “Ye cannot see the face of Christ except ye receive the

sacrifice.” And they answered, “Give us the sacrifice, that we may

behold the Son, our Spouse.” And they received the Eucharist of

God, and they slept in death.

“The articles of the Creed recited in this extract are those

alone, it has been observed, which are to be found in symbols of

the very highest antiquity, and the dialogue illustrates, what has

been already noticed, the Celtic belief in genii or aerial beings,

inhabiting mountains, plains, rivers, lakes, and fountains, and the

existence of nature-worship in its simplest form.”—_See_ the works

of SKENE, TODD, CUSACK, HENNESY, FOSTER, SHERMAN, and for special

purposes WHITLEY STOKES, MISS STOKES, G. T. STOKES, along with

MACLEAR’S “CELTS.”

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