and literature of the Highlands, which must have become by degrees more
and more assimilated to that of Ireland; and it may well be doubted
whether, towards the close of this period, there existed the means
of acquiring the art of writing the language except in Ireland, or
the conception of a written and cultivated literature, which was not
identified with its language and learning.
[24] Highland Society’s Report, App. p. 6.
We have no reason, however, to conclude, on that account, that there
was not a vernacular Gaelic, which preserved many of the independent
features of a native language, and existed among the people as a
spoken dialect; or that a popular and unwritten literature may not at
the same time have existed in that native and idiomatic Gaelic in the
poetry handed down by tradition, or composed by native bards, innocent
of all extraneous education in the written language of Ireland. It
is, in fact, in poetry, or rather in popular ballad poetry, that the
nervous and idiomatic vernacular of the people is usually preserved.
Prose readily assimilates itself and succumbs to the influence of a
cultivated and written language, but the tyranny of rhythm and metre
preserves the language in which poetry is composed in its original form
and idiom.[25]
The fall of the great House of the Isles was coincident with another
event, destined to effect a great change in the position of the
Highland population and of their literature. This was the Reformation
of the sixteenth century and its attendant events, the establishment of
a Reformed Church, the introduction of printing, and the translation of
the Scriptures and religious works for the instruction of the people.
From this source sprung up a religious literature, which, commencing in
the written or Irish Gaelic, gradually approached nearer and nearer to
the spoken dialect of the country, and, accompanied by the preaching of
the clergy in the vernacular dialect, tended to preserve and stereotype
the language spoken in the Highlands in its native form and idiom.
[25] Prose originally written in a vernacular dialect readily adapts
itself to the changes in the language, or passes into a new and
cultivated form of it; but not so ballad poetry. The poems of Burns,
for instance, could not be written in English without sacrificing, to a
great extent, the rhyme and cadence of the verses, and almost entirely
their nerve and power.
The first printed book was a translation of the Form of Prayer issued
by John Knox, which was made by John Carsewell, the Protestant Bishop
of the Isles, and printed at “Dunedin darab comhainm Dunmonaidh,” that
is, at Dunedin or Edinburgh, otherwise called Dunmonaidh, 24th April
1567. Bishop Carsewell was a native of Kilmartin, in the southern part
of the country of Argyll. He prefixes to his translation an address,
which is written in the Irish orthography, and in the pure Irish or
written dialect. In it he says, that “we, the Gael of Alban and Erin,
have laboured under the want that our dialects of the Gaelic have never
been printed;” and he alludes to the dialects of the language and to
the manuscript literature then existing, “written in manuscript books
in the compositions of poets and ollaos, and in the remains of learned
men,” and characterizes them not unjustly as full of “lying, worldly
stories concerning the Tuatha de Dannan, the sons of Milesius, the
heroes, and Finn mac Cumhal with his Feine.”
The second printed book was a translation of Calvin’s Catechism, which
was published, along with an English edition, in 1631. This translation
seems likewise to have been made in Argyllshire, and is in the Irish
orthography and idiom.
In 1659, the Presbyterian Synod of Argyll took up the work of issuing
translations into Gaelic of the metrical Psalms and of the Scriptures,
and commenced with a portion of the Psalter, which was completed in
1694. This also is in the Irish dialect; but, in 1753, an amended
version was published by the Rev. Alexander Macfarlane, minister of
Kilninver and Kilmelford, who had previously, in 1750, published a
translation into Gaelic of Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted, adapted to
the Gaelic of the central and north Highlands; and, in 1787, another
version was issued by Dr. J. Smith, minister of Kilbrandon, and
afterwards of Campbelltown, who had in 1781 translated Alleine’s Alarm
into Gaelic, and in this version the north country words and Irishisms
were thrown out, and the metre suited to the west country dialect; and,
finally, in 1807, an edition of the Psalter was published by Thomas
Ross for the use of the northern districts, in which the Irish words,
unintelligible to them, are explained at the bottom of the page by
synonymous words used in that part of the Highlands.
In 1690, the first Bible was published for the use of the Highlands. It
was simply an edition of the Irish version of the Bible, by the Rev.
Robert Kirke, minister of Balquhidder, to which he appended a short
vocabulary.
In 1767, the first translation of the New Testament was published.
It was translated by the Rev. James Stewart of Killin. It was then
considered as pure Scotch Gaelic, and free from Irish idiom; and, in
1796, it was revised and altered by his son, Dr. Stewart of Luss. In
1783, a translation of the Old Testament was undertaken by the Society
for Propagating Christian Knowledge in Scotland, and completed in 1787,
and various editions subsequently appeared. In 1816, a memorial was
presented to the General Assembly of the Church, urging the necessity
of a final revision of the Gaelic Scriptures, and a committee of the
best Gaelic scholars appointed to superintend it, under whose auspices
an amended edition was published of the Old Testament in 1820, and
of the whole Scriptures in 1826, which may now be considered as the
standard of the orthography and idiom of the Scotch Gaelic.
It will be seen that the earlier printed books emanated entirely from
Argyllshire, where the spoken dialect approaches more nearly to the
Irish; and the work of translating and publishing the Psalter and
Scriptures into Gaelic being a new and difficult task, the translators
resorted to Ireland and to the written and cultivated dialect of the
Irish as the medium through which to convey it; but as subsequent
editions were issued, they were brought more and more near to the
spoken language of the Scotch Highlands in its purest form and idiom,
and the Irish orthography by degrees adapted to it, till at length the
Scotch Gaelic became clothed in that orthography in which we now find
it, and elevated to the position of a written and cultivated language.
Throughout the whole of this period, however, there existed, side by
side with this printed religious literature, another literature in
the popular poetry of the uncultivated native bards, removed from the
influence of Irish training, whose compositions were expressed in the
pure idiom of the spoken dialect; and in the poems of Ian Lom, the
Lochaber poet of the Wars of Montrose; Duncan Ban Macintyre, whose
exquisite poem of Bendoran is a beautiful specimen of pure Gaelic, and
whose poems were printed in 1778; Ailen Buidhe Macdougall, W. Ross,
and Allan Dall Macdougall--all natives of the central districts of the
Highlands,--we find ample evidence of the existence and character of
a vernacular dialect, in which the people interchanged their homely
ideas, and their favourite bards composed their poems which found an
immediate access to the hearts and imagination of the people; while the
language in which their scriptures and formularies were conveyed was
looked upon as a sort of sacred dialect, through which they received
their religious teaching.
There was thus, throughout, a double influence exercised upon the
language and literature of the Highlands. One from Ireland, which was
associated with the written and cultivated dialect of Gaelic which had
there been formed, and brought over with Christianity to Scotland. With
it came the Irish orthography. It was mainly connected with learning
and religious teaching, and its influence was most powerful in the
western districts and islands, and the territories subject to the power
of the Lord of the Isles. The other, indigenous and antagonistic to it,
falling back upon a literary influence from the south and east, when
not predominant, and associated more with the popular poetry of the
Highlands. Its orthography seems to have resembled that of the other
Celtic languages, the Welsh and the Manx; and its influence prevailed
in the central and north Highlands, where the best and purest type of
the Scotch Gaelic is still to be found.[26]
[26] Mr. Donald Macintosh, the Keeper of the Highland Society’s MSS.,
in his list of MSS. then existing in Scotland in 1806, mentions
that “Mr. Matheson of Fernaig has a paper MS., written in the Roman
character, and in an _orthography like that of the Dean of Lismore_,
containing songs and hymns, some by Bishop Carsewell.” This MS. has not
been recovered; but if we had it, we might find that, while the Bishop
resorted to Ireland for his prose translation of Knox’s Liturgy, his
original poetry was in a different dialect and orthography.
The literary history of the Highlands falls into periods as these
influences respectively prevailed.
The first period is prior to the seventh century, when there was
no political separation between Ireland and Gaelic Scotland. The
great divisions of the people were regulated by race rather than by
geographical distribution. The Cruithne everywhere were united by
common origin and ties of race; and the Scots, wherever settled, owned
the Milesian Ardrigh in Ireland. The countries were simply viewed
as the east and the west, and were known as Erin and Alban, and the
communication between them was free and unrestrained. The second period
commences with the separation of the Scotch Dalriada from the Irish in
573, and of the Irish Cruithne from the present race, some thirty years
later, when a political as well as a geographical separation between
the Celtic tribes of the two countries took place; but, for upwards
of a century afterwards, the church and clergy of the Highlands were
Irish, and the written Irish dialect imported by them must still have
remained in use, and exercised its accustomed influence on the spoken
language.
After the expulsion of the Scotch clergy in 717, a period of great
obscurity in the history of Scotland occurs, extending to nearly a
century and a half, during which the ecclesiastical influence exercised
was from the south, taking its origin from the Anglic kingdom of
Northumbria; some revolution also took place, which placed a Scottish
royal family upon the throne of a kingdom consisting of the united
tribes situated to the north of the Forth and Clyde. But during the
same period another event took place, of great significance in the
literary history of the country; the Monastery of Icholumkill or
Iona, the time-honoured seat of Gaelic learning, went down amidst the
troubled waters of Scandinavian piracy, and its position, as head of
the learning and religion of the country, was gone for ever.
During the fourth period, which lasted for three hundred years, the
Norwegian kingdom of Man and the Isles, which likewise embraced the
western seaboard of the Highlands, interposed itself between the
Highlands and Ireland; and the influence from the latter country must
for the time have been paralysed, while the indigenous and native
influence maintained itself in the extensive Highland province of Moray.
At the close of this period we have a hint of the existence of an
Albanic dialect of Gaelic in the Life of St. Kentigern, first Bishop
of Glasgow, by Jocelyn, the biographer also of St. Patrick, who wrote
in the year 1180. He says that the name of Kentigern was justly given
to one who might be called their dominus capitaneus; “nam _ken_ caput
Latine, _tyern Albanice_, dominus Latine interpretatur.” This is nearly
a phonetic orthography, and not unlike that of the Dean of Lismore’s
MS. In Irish orthography the words would be _cend_, signifying caput,
or a head; _tigerna_, dominus, or lord; but in pronunciation the _d_ in
_cend_ is quiescent, and the aspirated _g_ in _tigerna_, so that the
sound is exactly represented even as now pronounced. Jocelyn seems to
recognise the existence of a native dialect designated by _Albanice_;
and one of the peculiarities of Scotch Gaelic is also present in the
omission of the final _a_ from the word _tigerna_.[27]
[27] In the older life of St. Kentigern, written prior to 1164, it is
said that Servanus, at Culross, when he heard of Kentigern’s birth,
exclaimed, “_A dia cur fir sin_, quod sonat Latine O utinam sic esset.”
In modern Scotch Gaelic the phrase would be, _A dhia gur fior sin_.
The fate of the great Celtic earldom of Moray, and the decay of the
Norwegian power in the Isles, was followed by the powerful sway of the
Celtic Lords of the Isles, who, during the fifth period, extending from
three to four centuries, were dominant in the western districts; and,
as far as their sway extended, the spirit, influence, and literature
were all Irish, and it was only when the fall of the almost independent
kingdom of the Isles, and the Reformation again separated the country
from Ireland, that a reaction towards the vernacular and spoken Scotch
Gaelic took place, which has resulted in a clear development of its
grammatical rules and construction, and the establishment of a fixed
orthography.
It was at the close of the fifth period, during which the Lords of the
Isles were all-powerful in the west, and just before the middle of the
sixteenth century ushered in the Reformation, that the collection,
of which selections are now published, was made by the Vicar of
Fortingal, who was also Dean of Lismore. It is a collection, formed
upwards of three hundred years ago, from all quarters, and presents
to us a specimen of the literature which was current in the Highlands
during this period. There are poems by the Irish bards, whose schools
extended also to the Highlands, by the O’Dalys, who lived during the
fifteenth century; by Teague og O’Higgin, who died in 1448; by Dermod
O’Hiffernan; and by Turn O’Meilchonair, Ollav of the Sil Murray, who
died in 1468. There are poems by Allan M’Ruadrie and Gillecallum Mac
an Olla, who seem to have been native bards; by John of Knoydart, who
celebrates the murder of the young Lord of the Isles by his Irish
harper in 1490; by Finlay M’Nab, called the Good Poet; and by the
transcriber of the greater part of the manuscript, Duncan, the Dean’s
brother, who wrote in praise of the M’Gregors.
The great value of this collection, as regards the language, arises
from the peculiar orthography used, which presents it as it must have
been pronounced, and affords a means of testing one of the chief
differences which characterize the different provincial dialects, the
vowel and consonantal sounds, and the presence or absence of eclipsis
and aspiration.
It has been found impossible to print the whole of the contents of the
MS., but the selection which has been made, chiefly with reference to
the literature of the Highlands, will also afford a fair specimen of
the shades of difference which characterized the language in which
the poems are written. Some are in pure Irish, and must have been
transferred from the Irish orthography into that used in the MS. Others
are in pure Scotch Gaelic, as the poems of Duncan, son of Dougall Maol,
Finlay M’Nab, the bard roy, and John of Knoydart. Others are in a
mixed dialect, in some of which the Irish idiom, in others the Scotch,
predominates.
In general, it will be found that the language approaches more or less
nearly to the Irish, as the writers appear to have had more or less
cultivation in the written language, or were more or less removed from
Irish influence; and the MS. may be viewed as the only known record
of those vernacular dialects of Gaelic in the sixteenth century which
differed in any degree from the written and cultivated language.
But while the Dean of Lismore’s MS. has in this respect a philological
value, it has likewise no mean literary value, from the circumstance
that it contains no fewer than twenty-eight Ossianic poems, extending
to upwards of 2500 lines, nine directly attributed to Ossian, two to
Farris or Ferghus Filidh, and one to Caolte M’Ronan, the three bards of
the Feine; two to Allan M’Ruadri, and one to Gillecallum Mac an Olla,
bards hitherto unknown; and eleven poems, Ossianic in their style and
subject, to which no author’s name is attached.
The circumstances under which the controversy regarding the
authenticity of the poems of Ossian, published by James Macpherson,
arose, and the extent to which it for the time agitated the minds of
the _literati_ of England and Scotland, are well known.
In the summer of 1759, Mr. John Home, the author of Douglas, met Mr.
James Macpherson, then a tutor in the family of Graham of Balgowan,
at Moffat. Mr. Home had previously been told by Professor Adam
Fergusson, a native of Atholl, and acquainted with Gaelic, that there
existed in the country some remains of ancient Gaelic poetry. Mr. Home
mentioned the circumstance to James Macpherson, also a Highlander, and
a native of Badenoch, and was told by him that he had some pieces of
ancient Gaelic poetry in his possession. After some difficulty, Mr.
Home obtained translations of them from Macpherson, and took them to
Edinburgh, and showed the translations to Drs. Blair, Fergusson, and
Robertson, by whom they were much admired. Macpherson was importuned
to translate all he had, and the translations furnished by him
were published in a little volume in June 1760, under the title of
“Fragments of Ancient Poetry collected in the Highlands of Scotland.”
There seems little reason to doubt that these translations were
made from genuine fragments in Macpherson’s possession. If they
existed at all, they were in his possession before any talk had
arisen of translating Gaelic poetry. There was no pretext of going
to the Highlands to collect them. There was no idea, at the time the
translations were produced, that such poetry could have any value in
the eyes of the literary world, and there seems no motive for any
deception. In the fragments, or rather short poems, contained in this
little work, the proper names are smoothed down from their original
Gaelic form to suit English ears; and Macpherson had already hit upon
that happy prose version, the conception of which has great merit,
and had no little share in the popularity which immediately attached
to them; but, in other respects, they have every appearance of having
been translations from short Gaelic poems which really existed. The
admiration which they excited in the minds of men of the great literary
reputation of Home, Blair, Fergusson, and Robertson, must have first
astonished, and then greatly flattered, a man of the disposition of
Macpherson. He was urged to undertake a journey to the Highlands,
to collect all that remained of poetry of this description, and a
subscription was raised to defray the expense. This proposal must
have raised a prospect sufficiently dazzling before the poor Highland
tutor, who seemed likely to exchange a life of poverty, obscurity,
and irksome duty, for one of comparative independence and literary
fame; and he acceded to it with affected reluctance. At that time,
anything like that spirit of severe and critical antiquarianism,
which attaches the chief value to the relics of past ages from their
being genuine fragments of a past literature, and demands a rigid and
literal adherence to the form and shape in which they are found, was
totally unknown. That feeling is the creation of subsequent times. At
that time literary excellence was mainly looked to, their authority
was usually taken on trust, and it was thought that the claims of
such criticism were sufficiently satisfied when the remains of the
past were woven into an elegant and flowing narrative. With Homer and
other classical epics before him, such a proposal as the publication
of the ancient poetry of the Highlands, assuming, as we now know to be
the fact, that Ossianic poetry of some kind did exist, and looking to
the high expectations formed, must have at once suggested to him the
idea that he should not do justice to the task he had undertaken if
he could not likewise produce a Gaelic epic. This idea seems early to
have suggested itself to Macpherson’s mind; it is obscurely hinted at
in the preface to the Fragments; and Macpherson seems to have started
on his tour with the preconceived determination to view any short poems
and fragments he might find as parts of longer poems, and, if possible,
by welding them together, to produce a national epic which should do
honour to his country, and confirm his own reputation as its recoverer
and translator. He was accompanied, in the earlier part of his journey,
by a countryman of his own, Mr. Lachlan Macpherson of Strathmashie,
who was a better Gaelic scholar than he was himself, and an excellent
Gaelic poet. It is certain that, in this tour, a number of MSS. were
collected by them, and poetry taken down from recitation; and that he
was joined in it by another Gaelic scholar, Captain Alexander Morrison,
who likewise assisted him. On his return, he proceeded to Badenoch,
his native place and that of Lachlan Macpherson, and here he remained
till January 1761, engaged, with the assistance of Lachlan Macpherson
and Alexander Morrison, in preparing the materials for the next
publication of Ossian; and then proceeded to Edinburgh, from whence
he writes to the Rev. James M’Lagan, in a letter dated 16th January
1761,--“I have been lucky enough to lay my hands on a pretty complete
poem, and truly epic, concerning Fingal.... I have some thoughts of
publishing the original, if it will not clog the work too much.”
His task, whatever it was, had then been accomplished; and after
remaining some time in Edinburgh, engaged in preparing the English
version for the press, he went to London, and early in 1762 issued a
quarto volume, containing the epic poem of Fingal, in six books, and
sixteen other poems. In the following year another quarto appeared,
containing another epic poem in eight books, called Temora, and five
other poems. This volume also contained what was called “a specimen of
the original of Temora,” being a Gaelic version of the seventh book,
and the only Gaelic bearing to be the original of any of the poems
which appeared.
The English version, contained in these two quartos, possessed the same
character as the English of the Fragments; the same accommodation of
the Gaelic proper names to the supposed requirements of English ears,
and the prose style, originated by Macpherson, sustained with equal
spirit; the poems, however, were longer, and more elaborate.
The literary public, who had welcomed the Fragments with admiration,
received the volume containing the epic of Fingal with startled but
silent acquiescence, and exploded under the eight books of Temora. It
seemed incredible that poems such as these could have been handed down
by oral recitation from the supposed age of Ossian; the refined manners
described, and the allusions to the Roman Emperors, awakened suspicion,
and a storm of adverse criticism and questioning incredulity arose, in
which Dr. Johnson--at that time in the zenith of his reputation--took
the lead.
Macpherson, who found the fair breeze of flattery and laudation,
before which he had been sailing so smoothly on his heavy quartos,
without a suspicion that he had not attained the full success he
aimed at, so suddenly changed into an adverse storm of criticism and
depreciation, knew not how to meet the crisis. He had not courage to
avow the truth, and state candidly to the world how much of his work
was based on original authority, and to what extent he had carried the
process of adapting, interpolating, and weaving into epic poems. He
took refuge first in sulky silence, and eventually seemed to find a
sort of compensation for his denunciation, as a detected forger, in the
necessary alternative, the credit of having been a successful composer,
and by half hints encouraged that view.[28]
[28] In 1778 and 1780 a collection of Ossianic poems, in the original
Gaelic, was made by Duncan Kennedy, schoolmaster. His MS. collection
was purchased by the Highland Society, and is now in the collection of
MSS. in the Advocates’ Library. There is appended to it a list of the
persons from whose recitations the poems were taken down.
In 1780, Dr. Smith, of Campbellton, published a quarto volume, entitled
Gaelic Antiquities, containing versions in English of poems attributed
to Ossian, Ullin, etc.; and in 1787 the originals were published under
the title of Sean Dana.
Unhappily, Dr. Smith, instead of publishing the poems as he got
them, with a literal English version, was ambitious of shining, like
Macpherson, as an editor of Ossian, and of sharing in his notoriety;
but the poems of the latter had already lost their lustre, and Smith
did not possess the wonderful tact and originality Macpherson really
showed in producing his English version, and which alone made them
bearable; his version was diffuse, heavy, and turgid, and his book fell
dead from the press.
The Sean Dana showed that he had largely made use of Kennedy’s
collection.
Kennedy, with the strange desire that all of these collectors of
Ossianic poems showed to be supposed capable of composing them, and
thus to acquire literary credit at the expense of their honesty, laid
claim to the authorship of part of them, and furnished the Highland
Society with a statement of those parts of the poems he had really
taken down from recitation, and those he claimed to have composed.
It is strange that the passages he claimed as his own composition are
just those which have been most clearly established to be genuine.
Thus, lines which Kennedy marked as his own composition, are found
_verbatim_ in the Dean’s MS.
I believe that there was little or no truth in Kennedy’s assertion,
which was dictated by vanity, and that his collection is, on the whole,
genuine.
The journey which Dr. Johnson took to the Hebrides, in order to examine
the question, and of his Journal of which, one passage seems to have
adhered to men’s recollections almost as pertinaciously as that of
Ossian’s Address to the Sun did to the Highland reciters of his
poems--the celebrated description of Iona--was not likely to do much in
the way of solving the question.
A man of the obstinate prejudices and overbearing temper of Dr.
Johnson, with a firm belief that no Ossianic poems really existed, and
that Gaelic was not a written language, with an entire ignorance of
that language, and a colossal reputation as a critic, bursting suddenly
among the frightened Highland ministers, who believed in him, and
trembled before him, could hardly return with any other result than
that he had found no poems of Ossian, and no one bold enough to avow,
in his presence, that he believed in their existence; and most men now
subsided into the conviction that the whole thing was an imposture, an
opinion embodied and elaborately worked out by Malcolm Laing.
This led to the Highland Society of Scotland undertaking an inquiry
into the authenticity of the poems of Ossian published by Macpherson,
which involved the subsidiary inquiry of whether such poems existed
in the Highlands in the original Gaelic. The result of this inquiry
is contained in the elaborate report prepared by Henry Mackenzie, the
author of the Man of Feeling, and published in 1806.
The inquiry was conducted with much candour. The committee were aided
by receiving from Mr. John Mackenzie, Secretary of the Highland Society
of London, and executor of Mr. James Macpherson, all the Gaelic MSS.
in his possession, including those which Macpherson had left behind
him; and they resorted to every means within their reach to obtain
information.
The whole of the materials for forming a judgment which they had
collected were placed impartially before the public; and the subject,
so far as such materials then existed or were at their command, is
really exhausted by this report.
The committee were cautious in giving an opinion, but the result they
arrived at seems to have been--
_1st_, That the characters introduced into Macpherson’s poems were not
invented, but were really the subjects of tradition in the Highlands;
and that poems certainly existed which might be called Ossianic, as
relating to the persons and events of that mythic age.
_2d_, That such poems, though usually either entire poems of no very
great length, or fragments, had been handed down from an unknown
period by oral recitation, and that there existed many persons in the
Highlands who could repeat them.
_3d_, That such poems had likewise been committed to writing, and were
to be found to some extent in MSS.
_4th_, That Macpherson had used many such poems in his work; but by
joining separated pieces together, and by adding a connecting narrative
of his own, had woven them into longer poems, and into the so-called
epics.
No materials existed, however, to show the extent to which this process
had been carried, and the amount of genuine matter the poems, as
published by Macpherson, contained.[29]
[29] A comparison of the poems in the Fragments, with those in the
first quarto, containing the epic of Fingal, shows indications of the
mode in which Macpherson dealt with his materials.
There are sixteen poems in the Fragments, all short; and some bearing
the usual mark of a complete poem, by the first line being repeated at
the end.
Thus, the second fragment begins with the sentence, “I sit by the mossy
fountain; on the top of the hill of winds.” And the same expression is
introduced at the end--“By the mossy fountain I will sit; on the top of
the hill of winds;” marking a complete poem.
The first and fourth fragments we find in the quarto volume, containing
Fingal, forming part of a longer poem termed Carrickthura, and here
they are joined together by intermediate passages of some length,
evidently interpolated by Macpherson.
The sixth and twelfth fragments contain dialogues between the poet
and the son of Alpine. This was no doubt, in the original, the usual
dialogue between Ossian and Patrick, always called in Scotch Gaelic
poems Macalpine. The sixth fragment appears also in the quarto, in
the so-called Epic of Fingal; but the dialogue is omitted, and the
translation greatly altered.
To the fourteenth fragment there is appended the following note:--“This
is the opening of the epic poem mentioned in the preface. The two
following fragments are parts of some episodes of the same work,” and
they accordingly appear in the quarto, in the epic poem of Fingal.
The fourteenth fragment, however, relates to Cuchullin alone; and in
those tales and poems which we know to be genuine, Cuchullin and Fingal
are never brought together.
Macpherson seems, at this stage of his collection, to have conceived
the idea of weaving the short poems into one epic; but his unskilful
junction of Cuchullin and Fingal in the same transactions, betrays its
artificial construction.
Such was the result to which the committee appeared to come, and which
may fairly be deduced from this inquiry; all intelligent inquirers
seemed now to adopt this result, and the unbiassed public generally
acquiesced in it,--the only difference of opinion being as to the
greater or less extent to which Macpherson carried his process of
adaptation and amalgamation.
The publication in 1806 of what was called the original Gaelic of
Ossian, did not affect this conclusion, or tend to alter the general
acquiescence of the public in it. Instead of consisting of genuine
extracts from old MSS., or copies of pieces taken down from oral
recitation, it proved to be a complete version in Gaelic poetry of the
English version transcribed under James Macpherson’s eye, and left by
him in a state for publication. It was a smooth and polished version
in Gaelic verse of the entire poems, in the same shape as they were
presented in English, and written in the modern Gaelic of that time.
It is very difficult, however, to believe that this Gaelic version had
been composed subsequently to the publication of the English Ossian,
and translated from it. To any one capable, from a knowledge of Gaelic,
of judging, such a theory seems almost impossible; and it is difficult
to acquiesce in it. A review of all the circumstances which have been
allowed to transpire regarding the proceedings of James Macpherson,
seems rather to lead to the conclusion that the Gaelic version, in
the shape in which it was afterwards published, had been prepared in
Badenoch, during the months Macpherson passed there, after his return
from his Highland tour, with the assistance of Lachlan Macpherson of
Strathmashie, and Captain Morrison, and that the English translation
was made from it by Macpherson in the same manner in which he had
translated the fragments,--a conclusion which is the more probable, as,
while James Macpherson’s acquaintance with the language seems not to
have been sufficiently complete to qualify him for such a task, there
appears to be no doubt of the Laird of Strathmashie’s perfect ability
to accomplish it.[30]
[30] Some years ago I happened to pass a couple of months in the
immediate neighbourhood of Strathmashie, and I recollect having been
informed at that time, but by whom I cannot now tell, that, after
Lachlan Macpherson’s death, a paper was found in his repositories
containing the Gaelic of the seventh book of Temora, in his
handwriting, with numerous corrections and alterations, with this
title,--“First rude draft of the seventh book of Temora.”
Mr. Gallie sent to the Highland Society a part of the Gaelic of Fingal,
which afterwards appeared in the Gaelic version subsequently published.
He said he had taken it from a MS. he had recovered, written by a
friend “who was at that time with Mr. Macpherson and me, a gentleman
well known for an uncommon acquaintance with the Gaelic, and a happy
facility for writing it in Roman characters.”
On being pressed to say who this friend was, he says, “his name was
Lachlane Macpherson of Strathmashy. He died in 1767.”
This Gaelic version seems, therefore, to have been put together before
1767; and if before 1762, it will account for the original of the
seventh book of Temora having been published in that year, and also
for an advertisement which appeared soon after the publication of the
second quarto, that the originals were lying at the publisher’s, and
would be published if a sufficient number of subscribers came forward;
but as few subscribers appeared, and fewer came to look at them, they
were withdrawn.
The so-called originals were, no doubt, this Gaelic version, which
there is every reason to believe had preceded the English version in
its preparation.
But while from this date the controversy in England may be said to
have terminated, with the exception of an occasional reproduction of
old arguments and of criticism long superseded, by enthusiastic young
Highlanders, and occasional discussions at young debating societies, it
broke out from a new quarter, and in a different shape.
The Irish, who had been long murmuring under the neglect of their
claims to literary notice, and the absorbing attention obtained by
the Highlands, suddenly burst forth with a succession of violent and
spasmodic attacks, of which the partial detection of the Ossian of
Macpherson afforded a favourable opportunity.
In 1784 Dr. Young, afterwards Bishop of Clonfert, a good Irish scholar,
had made a tour in the Highlands, with the view of collecting Gaelic
poems, and ascertaining from what materials Macpherson had constructed
his Ossian. He published an account of his journey in the first volume
of the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, in which he maintained
that any poems that existed were Irish, and that Macpherson had founded
his Ossian on some of these, “retrenching, adding, and altering as he
judged proper.”
In 1789 a collection of Irish Ossianic poems was published by Miss
Brooke, termed Reliques of Irish Poetry. They consisted of short
poems, either attributed to Ossian or on Ossianic subjects, and
were accompanied by the original Irish version from which they were
translated. Where that was obtained is not stated.
In 1807 the Dublin Gaelic Society was formed, for the purpose of
publishing the contents of Irish MSS.; and in the only volume of
transactions published, the subject of Ossian was taken up. The prose
tale of Deirdre, the original of Macpherson’s Darthula, interspersed
with fragments of poetry, is there given; and the volume likewise
contains strictures upon Macpherson, in which his work is boldly
denounced as an entire fabrication and imposture from beginning to end,
and the assertion made, that no poems of Ossian ever existed in Gaelic
except those in Ireland.
In 1827 the Royal Irish Academy offered a prize for the best essay
on the poems of Ossian. The subject proposed was “to investigate the
authenticity of the poems of Ossian, both as given in Macpherson’s
translation and as published in Gaelic (London, 1807), under the
sanction of the Highland Society of London.” The prize was awarded in
1829 to Dr. Drummond, their librarian, whose essay is published in the
sixteenth volume of their Transactions. In this essay the arguments of
Dr. Johnson and Malcolm Laing are adopted; and the assertion of the
former is re-echoed, that “there does not exist in the whole Highlands
a person who can repeat one poem of Macpherson’s Ossian.” Another
essay, given in by Edward O’Reilly, the author of an Irish dictionary
of no great repute, is printed in continuation of Dr. Drummond’s, also
asserting the modern fabrication of the whole of the poems published by
Macpherson, and that the Gaelic poems of Macpherson contain in them the
substance stolen from Irish poems.
In 1853 a society was formed in Dublin, “whose object should be the
publication of Fenian poems, tales, and romances illustrative of the
Fenian period of Irish history, in the Irish language and character,
with literal translations and notes explanatory of the text.” This
society was termed the Ossianic Society, and they have already issued
six volumes of Transactions.
In the fifth volume there is an essay on the poems of Ossian by
Macpherson, which may be considered as a summary of the case of Ireland
against Scotland as to these poems.
This essay is, like the others, violent in language and uncandid
in spirit. It deals with the controversy as it existed in the last
century, and its strength consists in simply ignoring altogether the
inquiry made by the Highland Society of Scotland, the whole of the
great mass of facts collected by them being passed over in silence, and
in imputing to the Scots of the present day the views and feelings of
those of a century back, before the rise of a true spirit of historic
inquiry and genuine criticism had led them to a just appreciation of
their national history, and of the claims of Macpherson’s Ossian to be
viewed as an authentic work.
The publications of the Dublin Gaelic Society and of the Ossianic
Society have, however, not merely assailed the Ossian of Macpherson as
a fabrication, and denied to Scotland the possession of any Ossianic
poems whatever; they have at length given to the world those genuine
Ossianic poems alleged to exist solely in Ireland.
The former contains the prose tale of Deirdre, interspersed with short
poems. The latter have presented to the public a number of poems in the
original Irish, with literal translations. The first volume contains
a poem extending to no fewer than 180 quatrains, termed the Battle of
Gabhra, to which is added a short poem termed the Rosg Catha of Oscar
son of Ossian; but, strangely enough, though there is an elaborate
introduction, no hint is given of where the originals of these poems
were obtained. The second volume, besides a short poem given in a
long and elaborate introduction, contains a prose tale called the
Festivities of the House of Conan of Ceann-sleibhe; and in this volume,
for the first time, the source from which this tale and the poem in the
previous volume was taken is stated. They are from a MS. collection
made by a celebrated scribe named Foran, who resided at Portland, in
the county of Waterford, in the year 1780, that is, twenty years after
Macpherson had published his Ossian.
The third volume contains a long prose tale, interspersed with poetry,
termed the Pursuit of Diarmaid and Grainne; another prose tale, termed
How Cormac mac Art got his Branch; and a poem, termed the Lamentation
of Oisin after the Feinne. And the sources of these tales are stated
to be--_1st_, The collection made by Laurence Foran in 1780, termed
Bolg an tsalathar; and _2dly_, A closely written quarto of 881 pages,
from the pen of Martan O’Griobhta or Martin Griffin, an intelligent
blacksmith of Kilrush, in the county of Clare, 1842-43, called an
Sgeulaidhe, and containing thirty-eight Fenian and other legends, some
of which are said to have been transcribed from MSS. of 1749.[31]
The fourth volume contains ten poems, which, with the exception of two,
were taken from the collection of 1780, from another collection made in
1812 by the Rev. Thomas Hill of Cooreclure, and from the volume of the
intelligent blacksmith in 1844.
The fifth volume contains a long prose tale termed the Proceedings
of the Great Bardic Institution, an essay on the poems of Ossian,
published by Macpherson, and several short poems which are ancient, but
not Ossianic.
And the sixth and last contains nine Ossianic poems, which are stated
to be taken from Foran’s collection in 1780, from that of Mr. Hill in
1812, and from the intelligent blacksmith of 1844.
No information whatever is given as to the sources from whence these
respectable collectors obtained their poems; they are all posterior
to the publication of Ossian’s poems by Macpherson; and, so far as we
are yet informed by the Irish editors, the Ossianic poems published
by them stand in no better position in regard to their antiquity or
authenticity than those of Macpherson.[32]
[31] In vol. iv. p. 230 of these Transactions, it is admitted that some
of the poems transcribed in 1749 were the composition of the writer,
Michael Comyn.
[32] Those poems published by the Ossianic Society which are of any
length, and especially the poem termed the Battle of Gabhra, show
evident indications of the same process of patching and dovetailing
together of shorter poems which characterize Macpherson’s Ossian.
Professor O’Curry, in his valuable lectures on Irish literature,
with that scrupulous accuracy which always distinguishes him, admits
that there exists in Ireland only eleven Ossianic poems prior to the
fifteenth century--seven ascribed to Fionn himself, two to his son
Oisin, one to Fergus Filidh, and one to Caoilte. Most of these are
extremely short, and are found principally in the book of Leinster,
supposed to be compiled in the twelfth century, and in the book of
Lecan in the fifteenth.
The theory, that Macpherson stole his poems directly from Ireland,
is obviously untenable and inconsistent with all that we know of
his proceedings, for he never was there, and had apparently no
communication with Irishmen, or access to their MSS. What he obtained,
he got in the Highlands of Scotland, and the collection of poems made
by the Dean of Lismore and his brother tends to confirm the result
which had been attained by the inquiry made by the Highland Society
of Scotland, for it contains poems attributed directly to Ossian and
others which may be called Ossianic, collected in the Highlands of
Scotland upwards of three hundred years ago. The persons named, and the
subjects, are of the same character with those in Macpherson, and such
poems must have been handed down by oral recitation, as many of the
poems obtained from recitation during the Highland Society’s inquiry
are the same as those in this MS.
Assuming, then, that Ossianic poems existed in the Highlands of
Scotland, and were both preserved by oral tradition, and transcribed
in MS. collections, the question arises, What is their real position
in the literature of the Highlands? and this question leads to a
preliminary question which will materially aid its solution.
Who were the Feinne of tradition, and to what country and period are
they to be assigned?
To this question the Irish historians give a ready response.
They were a body of Irish militia, forming a kind of standing army,
employed for the purpose of defending the coasts of Ireland from the
invasion of foreign foes. They were billeted upon the inhabitants
during winter, and obliged to maintain themselves by hunting and
fishing during summer. Each of the four provinces had its band of these
warriors, termed Curaidhe or champions. Those of Ulster were termed the
Curaidhe na Craoibh Ruaidhe, or champions of the red branch, and were
stationed at Eamhain or Eamania, near Ulster. To this body belonged the
celebrated Cuchullin and the sons of Uisneach. The militia of Connaught
were the Curaidhe or champions of Jorras Domnan, otherwise called the
Clanna Morna, to which belonged Goll Mac Morn, stationed at Dun Domnan,
in Mayo. The militia of Munster were the Curaidhe Clann Deaghadh, to
which belonged Curigh Mac Daire, stationed at Cathair Conrigh, in
Kerry. The militia of Leinster were the Curaighe Clanna Baoisgne,
to which belonged the renowned Finn Mac Cumhal, his sons, Ossin and
Fergus Filidh, his grandson Oscar, and his relation, Caoilte Mac
Ronan. Cuchullin lived in the first century, in the reign of Conaire
Mac Eidersgeoil, King of Ireland, and Conchobar Mac Nessa, a king of
Ulster; and at the same period lived Curigh Mac Daire, who was slain by
him. Finn Mac Cumhal lived in the reign of Cormac Mac Art, who ruled
from A.D. 227 to 266, and whose daughter Graine he married, and Goll
Mac Moirna was his cotemporary. Finn was slain in the year 285, his
grandson Oscar having fallen in the battle of Gahbra, fought in the
following year. Oissin and Caoilte survived to the time of St. Patrick,
whose mission to Ireland fell in the year 432, and related to him the
exploits of the Feinne; one conversation between these aged Feinne and
the apostle of Ireland having been preserved, and is termed Agallamh na
seanorach or the Dialogue of the Sages.
Such is the account of the Feinne given by the Irish.
If this is history, _cadit questio_. The ancient Irish militia, like
their more modern representatives, could not, it is presumed, be called
upon to leave their country, except in case of invasion; and poems
narrating their adventures and exploits must have been as Irish as the
heroes which were the subject of them.
But we cannot accept it as history in any sense of the term. It is
as illusory and uncertain as are the dates of St. Patrick, and the
narrative of which the one forms a part, is as little to be regarded as
a veracious chronicle, as the life of the other can be accepted as a
genuine biography. The chronology of the one is as questionable as the
era of the other.
Prior to the year 483, the Irish have, strictly speaking, no
chronological history. The battle of Ocha, fought in that year, which
established the dynasty of the Hy’Neills on the Irish throne, and the
order of things which existed subsequent to that date, is the great
chronological era which separates the true from the empirical, the
genuine annals of the country from an artificially constructed history.
Prior to that date, we find the reigns of a long succession of monarchs
recorded, with a strange mixture of minute detail, chronological
exactness, and the wildest fable, a wonderful structure of history
palpably artificial, and ranging over a period of upwards of 3000
years. Passing over the arrival of Casar, Noah’s niece, who landed in
Ireland forty days before the deluge, on the fifteenth day of the moon,
the so-called Irish history records the arrival of four colonies before
that of the Milesians. First, that of Partolan and his followers, who
landed at Inversceine, in the west of Munster, on the 14th day of May,
in the year of the world 2320 or 2680 years B.C., and who all perished
by a pestilence in one week to the number of 9000 on the Hill of Howth,
thirty years after their arrival. Secondly, the Nemedians, under their
leader Nemedius, thirty years after, who, after remaining 217 years
in the island, left it, in consequence of the tyranny and oppression
of the pirates, termed the Fomorians, in three bands,--one going to
Thrace, from whom descended the Firbolg; the second to the North of
Europe or Lochlan, from whom descended the Tuatha De Danann; and the
third to Alban or Scotland, from whom descended the Britons. The third
colony were the Firbolg, who returned to Ireland 217 years after the
arrival of the Nemedians, and consisted of three tribes, the Firbolg,
the Firdomnan, and the Firgailian under five leaders, by whom Ireland
was divided into five provinces. With Slainge, the eldest of the five
brothers, the Irish historians commence the monarchy of Ireland and the
list of her kings. The fourth colony were the Tuatha De Danann, who
went from Lochlan to Alban or Scotland, and from thence to Ireland,
where they landed on Monday the 1st of May, and drove out the Firbolgs,
after they had been thirty-six years in Ireland, to be in their turn
driven out by the Scots, under the three sons of Milesius, Eremon,
Eber, and Ir, who, with their uncle’s son Lughadh, the son of Ith, led
the fifth and last colony from Spain to Ireland. The island was divided
between the two brothers Eremon and Eber, the former having the north,
and the latter the south half of Ireland; Ir obtaining Ulster under
Eremon, and Lughadh a settlement in Munster under Eber.
From the sons of Milesius to the reign of Lughadh, who was placed on
the throne by the battle of Ocha, there proceeded a line of monarchs
amounting to 116 in number, and extending over a period of upwards of
twenty-one centuries, the descendants of the different sons of Milesius
alternating with each other from time to time, and the reign of each
given with an exactness of date and minuteness of event which betrays
its artificial character. As part of this narrative is introduced the
existence of these bands of Fenian militia, with the dates at which
their leaders are said to have lived.
Is it possible, however, to accept this extraordinary bead-roll of
shadowy monarchs during Pagan times, with their exact chronology,
and the strange and almost ludicrous peculiarities by which each are
distinguished, as serious history, or even to attempt to discriminate
between what may be true and what is false? Are there any materials, or
any data upon which we can even fix upon a date, within a reasonable
compass of time, and say all before that is fable, all after may be
history, till we arrive on firm ground, after the introduction of
Christianity? Professor O’Curry is right when he says, in his admirable
lectures on the MS. materials of ancient Irish history, that he cannot
discover any ground on which the annalist Tighernac was able to say,
“omnia monumenta Scotorum usque Cimbaoth (a king of Ulster, who
flourished in the seventh century, B.C.) incerta erant.”
From Slainge, the first king of the Firbolgs, who began to reign 1934
years B.C., and ruled only one year, or even from Eremon, the first
monarch of all Ireland of the Milesian race, who began to reign 1700
years B.C., down to Dathy, who was killed by a flash of lightning at
the foot of the Alps in the year 428, and Laogare, his successor, who
was slain by the elements for refusing obedience to St. Patrick’s
mission which is said to have taken place during his reign, every
reign is stamped with the same character; and what to accept and what
to reject is a problem, for the solution of which the history itself
affords no materials.
If this narrative is to be submitted to historic criticism, is the
later portion less an object of such criticism than the earlier? There
seems no reason why we should accept the history of Neill of the nine
hostages, who reigned from 379 to 405, and had subjected all Britain
and part of France to his sway, and reject that of Ugony More, who
reigned 1000 years earlier, and whose conquests were equally extensive
and equally unknown to European history, or why Ugony’s twenty-five
sons are less worthy of credit than the thirty sons of Cathoirmor, who
reigned 750 years later. Why the division of Ireland into the two great
portions of north and south, between Conn of the hundred battles and
Modha Nuadhat, in the second century, is to be accepted in preference
to the original division into the same districts between Eremon and
Eber, the sons of Milesius; or which of the divisions of Ireland into
five provinces, that by Tuathal the acceptable, or Eochaddh, called
Feidhlioch, from the deep sighs which he constantly heaved from his
heart, or that by Slainge, the first king of the Firbolgs, is to be
held to represent the event which produced it.
Are the conquests in Scotland by Crimthan mor, and Dathy in the fourth
and fifth centuries, to be accepted, and these equally detailed battles
of Aongus olmucadha and Rechtgidh righ-derg, some centuries earlier, to
be rejected because they occupy a different place in this succession
of unreal monarchs? Are we to accept the reign of Conchobar Mac Nessa
in the first century--to whom the death of Christ upon the cross was
revealed by a Druid at the time it happened, and who became Christian
in consequence, and died from over-exertion in attacking a forest of
trees with his sword which he mistook for the Jews; and the reign of
Cormac Mac Art, called Ulfada, either from the length of his beard
and hair, or because he drove the Uladh or Ultonians far from their
country, where, however, they are ever after found notwithstanding; who
was also miraculously converted to Christianity two centuries before
the supposed arrival of St. Patrick, the apostle of Ireland, and died
by choking upon the bone of an enchanted fish, or, according to other
accounts, was strangled by a number of infernal fiends,--as history,
in preference to the reigns of scores of older monarchs, the events of
whose reigns cannot be said to be less probable.
Must we hold that the chronology of Cuchullin and Corroi, of Finn Mac
Cumhal and Goll Mac Morn, is fixed, because the two former are placed
in the reign of Conchobar Mac Nessa, and the two latter in that of
Cormac Ulfada, or that their Irish character is demonstrated because
they are woven into this Milesian fable?[33]
[33] The following passage is quoted by Petrie (_Round Towers_, p. 96)
from an ancient tract termed the Senchas na Relec, preserved in the
leabhar na h’uidhre, a MS. of the year 1100:--
“Cormac Mac Art was the third person who had believed in Erin before
the arrival of St. Patrick; Conchobar Mac Nessa, to whom Œtno had
told concerning the crucifixion of Christ, was the first; Moran, the
son of Cairpre Cinncait, was the second; and Cormac was the third.”
Cairpre Cinncait was the leader of the Attachtuatha in the insurrection
above referred to; and it is remarkable that the reign of Conchobar,
in which Cuchullin and Curoi are said to have flourished, the era of
the occupation of the country by the Attachtuatha, the descendants of
the ante-Milesian population, and the reign of Cormac Mac Art, in which
Finn Mac Cumhal and Goll Mac Morn are said to have lived and fought,
should be connected by the link of a conversion to Christianity. It
seems to synchronize these three periods in tradition with each other,
and with the first introduction of Christianity into Ireland.
The same tract states, that the mythic King Cormac Mac Art “was slain
by Siabhras, _id est_, the Tuatha De Danann, for they were called
Siabhras.”
In fact, the whole of this history presents a structure so artificial,
so compact, and so alike in all its features, that it is impossible
for any one, like Samson, to withdraw any two pillars without bringing
the whole edifice about his ears, and crushing the entire bead-roll of
unbaptized monarchs beneath its ruins.
The truth is, that notwithstanding the claims of the Irish to an
early cultivation and to a knowledge of letters in Pagan times, the
art of writing was unknown in Ireland till after the introduction of
Christianity, and written history there was none. The only materials
that existed for it were poems, legends, historic tales, and pedigrees,
handed down by tradition; and from these, at a subsequent period, when,
as in all countries, the leisure hours of monks and ecclesiastics
were employed in constructing a history of ante-Christian times, in
imitation of more classical histories, a highly artificial system
was by degrees constructed, embodying the substance of traditions
and myths, real facts and imaginative poems, with bardic and monkish
creations, and the whole based upon the classical model, by which the
different ethnological elements which entered into the population of
the country were cloaked under an artificial and symbolical genealogy.
But it is not chronological history. The dates are quite artificial,
and the whole creation melts and resolves itself into its original
elements upon investigation. The pre-Milesian colonies are found
existing and occupying large tracts of the country down to a late
period of the ante-Christian history. The provincial kings, when
closely examined, lose their Milesian name, and are found ruling
over Firbolgs, Firdomnan and Cruithne; and notwithstanding that the
Milesians had been for 1600 years in possession of the country, and a
flourishing monarchy is supposed to have existed for so long a period,
we find, as late as the second century after Christ, the Attachtuatha,
as the descendants of the Firbolg, Firdomnan, and Tuatha De Danann
were termed during the Milesian monarchy, in full possession of the
country for nearly a century, and in close alliance with the Cruithne
of Ulster; during which time the Milesian kings were in exile, and
the process of subjugating these tribes, supposed to be completed
1600 years before by Eremon and Eber, is again repeated by Tuathal
teachtmhar, who arrives with an army from Alban.
The descendants of the different sons of Milesius likewise assume
foreign characteristics. The race of Ir, son of Milesius, who possessed
the whole of Ulster till the Heremonian settlements almost within
the domain of history, are found calling themselves on all occasions
Cruithne. The descendants of Ith called themselves Clanna Breogan,
and occupy the territory where Ptolemy, in the second century, places
an offshoot of British Brigantes. Eremon and Eber seem to represent
the northern and southern Scots distinguished by Bede, a distinction
reproduced in Conn of the hundred battles, and Modha Nuadha.
The legend of St. Patrick, too, in its present shape, is not older than
the ninth century; and, under the influence of an investigation into
older authorities, he dissolves into three personages; Sen-Patricius,
whose day in the calendar is the 24th August; Palladius _qui est
Patricius_, to whom the mission in 432 properly belongs, and who
is said to have retired to Alban or Scotland, where he died among
the Cruithne; and Patricius, whose day is the 17th of March, and
to whom alone a certain date can be assigned,--for he died, in the
chronological period, in the year 493,--and from the acts of these
three saints the subsequent legend of the great apostle of Ireland was
compiled, and an arbitrary chronology applied to it.
The Feine also, when looked at a little more closely, emerge from under
the guise of a Milesian militia, and assume the features of a distinct
race. Cuchullin, Conall cearnach, and the children of Uisneach belong
to the race of Ir, and are Cruithne. Goll Mac Morn and his Clanna
Moirne are Firbolg; Curigh Mac Daire and his Clanna Deaghadh are Ernai;
and though they are called Heremonians in Irish history, yet they
are also said to be a Firbolg tribe of the same race with the Clanna
Morna; and in the poem of Maolmura, who died in 884, they are said to
be of the race of Ith, and, therefore, probably Britons,--a conjecture
singularly corroborated by the fact that there exists, in Welsh, a poem
on the death of Curigh Mac Daire; and, finally, Finn Mac Cumhal and
his Clanna Baiosgne, although a Heremonian pedigree is given to them,
it is not the only one known to the old Irish MSS. There is a second,
deducing him from the Clanna Deaghaidh, the same race with that of
Curigh Mac Daire; and a third, and probably the oldest, states that he
was of the Ui Tairsigh, and that they were of the Attachtuatha, as the
descendants of the non-Milesian tribes were called, a fact corroborated
by Maolmura, who says--
Six tribes not of Breoghan’s people
Who hold lands,
The Gabhraighe Succa, _Ui Tairsigh_,
Galeons of Leinster.
The fact is, when the fictitious catalogue of Milesian kings was
extended over so many centuries, and the Milesian monarchy drawn
back to so remote a period, it became necessary to account for the
appearance of non-Milesian races in the old traditional stories, and
they were either clothed with a Milesian name and pedigree, or some
device hit upon to account for their separate existence; and thus the
Feinne, a pre-Milesian warrior race they could not account for, appear
under the somewhat clumsy guise of a standing body of Milesian militia,
having peculiar privileges and strange customs.
The Irish Ossianic poems, as well as those in the Dean’s MS., indicate
that the Feinne were not a body of troops confined to Ireland, but
belonged, whoever they were, to a much wider extent of territory.
Thus, the poem on the battle of Gabhra, published in the first volume
of the Transactions of the Ossianic Society--a battle in which Oscar
the son of Ossian was slain, and the Feinne from all quarters took
part--we find the following verses:
The bands of the Fians of Alban,
And the supreme King of Breatan,
Belonging to the order of the Feinne of Alban,
Joined us in that battle.
The Fians of Lochlin were powerful.
From the chief to the leader of nine men,
They mustered along with us
To share in the struggle.