Trans. Rev. Thomas M'Lauchlan
Direct to the poems.
INTRODUCTION (extracts)
by WILLIAM F. SKENE
"The Dean's MS. has a double value, philological and literary, and is calculated to throw light both on the language and the literature of the Highlands of Scotland. It has a philological value, because its peculiar orthography presents the language at the time in its aspect and character as a spoken language, and enables us to ascertain whether many of the peculiarities which now distinguish it were in existence three hundred years ago ; and it has a literary value, because it contains poems attributed to Ossian, and to other poets prior to the sixteenth century, which are not to be found elsewhere ; and thus presents to us specimens of the traditionary poetry current in the Highlands prior to that period, which are above suspicion, having been collected upwards of three hundred years ago, and before any controversy on the subject had arisen."
[...]
"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 Gillecalluin 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.
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.
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.
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 Con an 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
2d, 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.
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.
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 Lorras 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 contemporary. 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, cedit quest io. 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 Uy'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 Eechtgidh 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?
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 Nuadhat.
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 Maolnmra, 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.
Again
Boinne, the son of Breacal, exclaimed,
With quickness, fierceness, and valour,
I and the Fians of Breatan,
Will be with Oscar of Eamhain.
There were thus in this battle, besides Feinne of Erin, Feinne of Alban, Breatan, and Lochlan.
Alba or Alban was Scotland, north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde.
Breatan was not Wales, but the southern districts of Scotland, of which Dunbreatan, now Dumbarton, was the chief seat.
Lochlan was the north of Germany, extending from the Rhine to the Elbe ; and the name of Lochlanach was originally applied to the ancient traditionary pirates termed the Fomorians. When the Norwegian and Danish pirates appeared in the ninth century, they were likewise called Lochlanach ; and the name of Lochlan was transferred to Norway and Denmark, from whence they came. There is every reason to believe that the Low German race were preceded, in the more ancient Lochlan, by a Celtic people.
The Feinne then belonged to the pre-Milesian races, and were connected, not only with Erin, but likewise with Alban, Breatan, and Lochlan. Now, there are just two people mentioned in the Irish records who had settlements in Ireland, and who yet were connected with Alban, Breatan, and Lochlan. These were the people termed the Tuatha De Danann, and the Cruithne.
The traditionary migration of the Tuatha De Danann brings them from Lochlan, where they possessed four cities, to Alban, where they inhabited a district termed Dobhar and Ir Dobhar; and from thence they went to Erin, where they drove out the Firbolg, to be subdued in their turn by the Milesian Scots.
The Cruithne are likewise brought from Lochlan to Erin and from Erin to Alban, where they founded a kingdom, which included, till the seventh century, the Cruithne of Ulster, and which was subverted in the ninth century by the Milesian Scots.
These two tribes were thus the prior race in each country. Both must have been prior to the Low German population of Lochlan. The Cruithne were the race prior to the Scots in Alban, and the Tuatha de Dannan the prior colony to the Milesian Scots in Erin. The Feinne are brought by all the old historic tales into close contact with the Tuatha De Danann ; a portion of them were avowedly Cruithne ; and if they were, as we have seen, in Erin, not of the Milesian race, but of the prior population, and likewise connected with Alban, Breatan, and Lochlan, the inference is obvious, that, whether a denomination for an entire people or for a body of warriors, they belonged to the previous population which preceded the Germans in Lochlan and the Scots in Erin and Alban. This view is corroborated by the fact, that in the old poems and tales the Feinne appear, as we have said, in close connexion with the Tuatha De Danann. They are likewise connected with the Cruithne, as in the Lamentation of Cuchullin over the body of his son Conlaoch, in Miss Brooke's collection, where he says
Alas ! that it was not in the land of the Cruithne
Of the Feinne bloody and fierce,
That thou didst fall, active youth,
Or in the gloomy land of Sorcha.
While the traditions of the Cruithne, in narrating their migration and the names of their leaders, mention, as the mythic poet of their race, a name singularly like that of Ossian
Cathmolodar the hardknobbed,
And Cathmachan the bright,
Were glorious youths ;
The two valiant sons of Cathluan,
His hardy puissant champions ;
Heavy, stern was their trampling,
Cing victorious in his victory.
Im, son of Pernn, were their names ;
Ruasein was the name of his poet,
Who sought out the path of pleasantry.
In answering, then, the preliminary questions of who were the Feinne ? and to what period do they belong ? we may fairly infer that they were of the population who immediately preceded the Scots in Erin and in Alban, and that they belong to that period in the history of both countries, before a political separation had taken place between them, when they were viewed as parts of one territory, though physically separated, and when a free and unrestrained intercourse took place between them ; when race and not territory was the great bond of association, and the movements of their respective populations from one country to the other were not restrained by any feeling of national separation.
It was natural that the deeds and events connected with this warrior race, associated as they must have been with the physical features of the country in which they dwelt, should have formed the subject of the early poems and legendary tales of their successors, and that a body of popular poetry should have sprung up in each country, which occupied itself with adventures, expeditions, and feats of bravery of this previous race, which were common to both countries, and which, attributed to their mythic poets, and full of the names of heroes, and of the scenes of their exploits, would be appropriated by the bards of each country to their own districts. The names of the places connected in tradition with these events would, as they were localized in the respective countries, be identified with its scenery and physical features, and thus a species of Fenian topography would spring up in each country, which, having a common origin, would bear the same character, and possess a mutual resemblance. Each country would thus claim the Feinne as their exclusive property, and could point to a body of popular Ossianic poetry in support of their claim, and to the Fenian names of their localities, in proof of the events which form the subject of the poems having there occurred.
The allusions to Fingal in the older Scottish historians who wrote long before Macpherson's Ossian appeared, or the controversy arose, show that stories of the Feinne were current in Scotland, and that they were regarded as belonging to this country as much as to Ireland, while the Fenian names of localities in charters and other documents evince that a Fenian topography likewise existed in Scotland before that period.
Kirke, in his Psalter, published in 1684, adds the following address :
Imthigh a Dhuilleachan gu dan,
Le dan glan diagha duisgiad thall ;
Cuir failte arfonn fial nab fionn,
Ar-gharbh chriocha is Inseadh Gall.
That is,
Little volume go boldly forth,
House whom you reach to pure and godly strains ;
Hail the generous land of the Feinne,
The Southbound and the Western Isles.
The Earthbound were the districts from Morvaren to Glenelg, which, with the Isles, are thus called the land of the Feinne.
The districts in which the Fenian names enter most largely into the topography of the Highlands are Atholl, Lochaber, Lorn, and Morvaren, Glenelg, and the districts about Loch Ness ; and the antiquity of this topography in the Highlands of Scotland is proved by an old gloss to a charter by Alexander the Second to the monks of Kinloss of the lands of Burgyn, within the ancient Celtic province of Moray, which is preserved in the Chartulary of the Bishopric. The boundary of the lands passes by a place called Tuber na Fein, meaning literally the well of the Feinne, and the gloss is " or feyne, of the grett or kempis men callit ffenis, is ane well"
Cuchullin was of the race of the Cruithne, and belongs both to Ulster and to Scotland. In Ulster his seat was Dundealgan, and the scene of his exploits the district of Cuailgne and the mountains of Sleave Cuillin ; but even Irish tradition admits that he was reared by Sgathaig, in the Isle of Skye, and here we have Dunsgathaig and the Cuillin Hills.
The children of Uisneach were likewise Cruithne, and must have preceded the Scots, for the great scene of their Scotch adventures are the districts of Lorn, Loch Aw, and Cowall, afterwards the possessions of the Dalriadic Scots; thus, in the vicinity of Oban, we have Dun mhic Uisneachan, now corruptly called in guide-books Dun mac Sniachan, a fort with vitrified remains ; and here we have on Loch Etive, Glen Uisneach, and Suidhe Deardhuil. The names of the three sons of Uisneach were Ainle, Ardan, and Naoise ; and it is remarkable that Adomnan, in his life of St. Columba, written in the seventh century, appears to mention only three localities in connexion with St. Columba's journey to the palace of the king of the Picts, near Loch Ness, and these are Cainle, Arcardan, and the flumen Nesae. Two vitrified forts in the neighbourhood of Lochness are called Dundeardhuil.
The hunt of Diarmed O'Duine after the boar on Bengulbain, and his death by measuring his length against the bristles, enters into Scotch topography in three different localities ; in Glenshee, where there is a hill called Bengulbain, also in Glenroy, where we have also a Bengulbain and in Eassroy, and also on the south bank of Loch Ness. Daire donn, who appears in the Cath Finntragha identified by the Irish with Ventry, has also deposited his name on a mountain in Ardgour, close to the west sea, called Meall Dayre donn.
The mountain streams and lakes in these districts of the Highlands are everywhere redolent of names connected with the heroes and actions of the Feinne, and show that a body of popular legends connected with them, whether in poetry or in prose, preserved by oral recitation or committed to writing, must have existed in the country when this topography sprung up, though it does not follow that the events, though now associated with the scenery of the country, originally happened there any more than does the Fenian topography of Ireland.
These legendary poems and tales seem to have passed through three different stages.
In the first and oldest form they were pure poems, of more or less excellence, narrating the adventures and deeds of these warrior bands, whose memory still lingered in the country ; each poem being complete in itself, and constructed upon a metrical system which brought the aid of alliteration and of rhyme, or correspondence of sounds, to assist the memory in retaining what had been received by oral recitation, and to render it less easy to forget or lose a part. These poems seem generally to have been attributed to one mythic poet of the race they celebrate.
Then, as the language in which these poems were composed became altered or modified, or as the reciters were less able to retain the whole, they would narrate, in ordinary prose, the events of the part of the poem they had forgotten, and merely recite the poetry of what they recollected ; and thus they would pass into the second stage of prose tales, interspersed with fragments of poetry.
Bards who were themselves composers as well as reciters, besides composing poems on the subjects of the day in which they lived, would likewise select the Fenian legends as their themes, and become imitators of the older Ossianic poetry. The prose narrative would form the basis of their poem ; and thus would arise the third stage of their poems, in which they were reconstructed from the prose tales, and again appear as long poems, the names and incidents being the same as in the older poems, and the fragments of them preserved in the prose tale, imbedded in the new poem.
The poems of the first stage were probably common to Ireland and to Scotland, and traces of them are to be found wherever the Feinne were supposed to have once existed ; though, in countries where their successors were of a different race, and spoke a different language, the continuity of the tradition would be at once broken.
Among the ancient poems in the Welsh language which have been preserved, there exists an Ossianic poem called Marwnad Coire map Daire, or the death-song of Curoi, son of Daire, the traditionary head, according to Irish history, of the Fenian militia of Munster, but who, as we have seen, appears to belong to the body called the Feinne of Breatan; and the poem, no doubt, belongs to the northern Cumbrian kingdom, which had Dunbreatan for its chief seat. Curoi is called Chief of the Southern Sea, and the contest between him and Cuchullin is mentioned.
Poems of the same character seem also to have been known in the Isle of Man, as O'Connor, in his catalogue of the Stow MS., mentions a MS. containing " Finn and Ossian, a Manx coronach, with Manx on one side of the page, and Irish on the other".
The oldest which has been found in any MSS. preserved in the Highlands is a poem of five quatrains, at the end of a glossary contained in a MS. written prior to the year 1500. It is in old Gaelic, and there is an interlineal gloss, explaining the meaning of the expressions in more familiar language. At the end there is a line stating that Ossian was the author of the poem.
It may be not uninteresting to insert here the text of the poem, with its glosses :
.i. do chodladar mo simile
Tuilsither mo dherca suain
.i. mo sleagh .i. mo sgiath
mo ruibhne mum luibhne ar lo
.i. mo cladhiomh um dhorn
mo ghenam um dhuais ro Lhaoi
.i. mo dhorn fam chluais
agus mo dhuais fam o
.i. aislinge .i. tarla
Adhbhul fisi ar mo ta
.i. dar leiges .i. mo clin
dar cinnius go dian mo chuib
.i. ar mhuic
ar criobhais a leirg ar art
.i. saill go fiacuil a carbui
fo cheird bracht go feic a cuil
.i. throigh .i. gun broigli
Triocha treathan damh gun naibh
.i. go raoing a srona
iona taoibh go a tul moing tuinn
.i. orladh .i. im fiacuil
Triocha nena Finn na feic
.i. a sa cionn amach
asseicsi tuas re fa thuinn
.i. coimed re coire gach BU! di
Meidis re habhron a dlierc
meidis re mes afert fo
.i. tesgus mo cladhiomh a muineal
Sealus mo ghenam a muin
a. mo chu as a duals
agus mo chuibh as a ho
.i. muic
Criobais mhara Tallann tair
a ria cloic ris ambenann tonn
benus ria hail tairges tnu
a. mo bhoill as comairce diob nert
mo leo uam fhaosamh domniadh
.i. ni lag mar tu
mar tusa ni triath mar tu
Oisin ro chan ann sin attraigh mara tallann.
ar nia na muice.
TRANSLATION.
My eyes slumbered in sleep,
My spear was with my shield,
My sword was in my hand,
And my hand under my ear.
A strange dream happened to me,
I set swiftly my dogs
On a sow in the plain upon flesh.
She was fat to the tusk in her jaw,
Thirty feet for me with my shoes
In her side to the beard of her snout.
Thirty inches for Finn in her tusk
Fat above on her under her hide.
Large as a caldron was each eye,
Large as a vessel the hollow beneath.
My sword hewed in her neck,
And my dogs fixed on her ear.
Sow of the sea of eastern Tallann,
Which strikes the rock where the wave touches.
My limbs were to me a protection to me strong,
As thyself not weak like thee.
Ossian sung this at the shore of the sea of Tallann,
for the champion of the sow.
The tales of Cuchullin and Conlaoch, and the tale of the Sons of Uisneach, are good specimens of the second class. The latter is one of three tales, called the Three Woes, the two others relating to families of the Tuatha De Danann ; but though these tales may be Irish, and of this period, they contains fragments of poems probably much older, and which may have been derived from another source. One of the poems in the tale of the Children of Uisneach contains such a tender recollection of and touching allusion to Highland scenery, that it is hardly possible to suppose that it was not originally composed by a genuine son of Alban.
It is the lament of Deirdre or Darthula over Alban, and the following is a translation :
Beloved land that Eastern land,
Alba, with its wonders.
that I might not depart from it,
But that I go with Naise.
Beloved is Dunfidhgha and Dun Finn ;
Beloved the Dun above them ;
Beloved is Innisdraighende,
And beloved Dun Suibhne.
Coillchuan ! Coillchuan !
Where Ainnle would, alas ! resort ;
Too short, I deem, was then my stay
With Ainnle in Oirir Alban.
Glenlaidhe ! Glenlaidhe !
I used to sleep by its soothing murmur ;
Fish, and flesh of wild boar and badger
Was my repast in Glenlaidhe.
Glenmasan ! O Glenmasan ;
High its herbs, fair its boughs.
Solitary was the place of our repose
On grassy Invermasan.
Gleneitche ! Gleneitche !
There was raised my earliest home.
Beautiful its woods on rising,
When the sun struck on Gleneitche.
Glen Urchain ! Glen Urchain !
It was the straight glen of smooth ridges.
Not more joyful was a man of his age
Than Naoise in Glen Urchain.
Glendaruadh ! Glendaruadh !
My love each man of its inheritance.
Sweet the voice of the cuckoo on bending bough,
On the hill above Glendaruadh.
Beloved is Draighen and its sounding shore ;
Beloved the water o'er pure sand.
O that I might not depart from the east,
But that I go with my beloved !
The third class of Ossianic poems belongs principally to that period when, during the sway of the Lords of the Isles, Irish influence was so much felt on the language and literature of the Highlands, and when the Highland bards and sennachies were trained in bardic schools, presided over by Irish bards of eminence. It was at this period mainly that the Irish poems assumed so much the shape of a dialogue between the Ossianic poets and St. Patrick, the apostle of Ireland ; and the Highland bards imitated this form, often adding or prefixing a few sentences of such dialogue to older poems, or composing poems in imitation of Ossian in this form ; but the imitation, in this respect, of Irish poems by native bards is apparent from this, that Patrick is in the Irish poems correctly called Mac Calphurn or M'Alphurn, his father, according to his own "Confessio", having been Calphurnius, but the Highland bards, to whom Patrick's history was strange, and this epithet unintelligible, have substituted the peculiarly Scotch form of Alpine, and styled him Patrick Mac Alpine.
One of the poems in Macpherson's fragments has been one of these the sixth fragment, which begins and ends with a dialogue between Ossian and the son of Alpin.
It was at the same period that the collection of Gaelic poems was made by the Dean of Lismore, and it includes many poems in which this dialogue occurs, but in most the saint is termed Macalpine, showing its non-Irish source.
The Ossianic poems in this collection attributed to Ossian, Fergus Filidh, and Caoilte, the three Fenian bards, and those which are either anonymous or composed by imitators, as Gillecalum Mac an Olla and Allan Mac Ruadhri, with the other poems which are not Ossianic, afford a fair specimen of the poetic literature current in the Highlands of Scotland at the close of this period, and before the fall of the Lords of the Isles, and the Reformation again severed that country from Ireland, and ushered in a period of reaction and return towards the native dialect and literature.
On the whole, then, we fully admit the claims of Ireland to Fenian legends and tales, and their attendant poems, but not to an exclusive possession of them.
We admit that its Fenian topography is authentic, but it is not the only one.
We admit its claim to an early written and cultivated speech, but not to the only dialect of Gaelic in which such poems once existed.
We hold that Scotland possesses likewise Fenian legends and Ossianic poetry derived from an independent source, and a Fenian topography equally genuine ; and we consider her dialect of the common Gaelic tongue not undeserving of the attention of philologers. "
WILLIAM F. SKENE
création : 30/08/2009
Sources : Rev. Thomas M'Lauchlan, The Dean of Lismore's Book, a selection of ancient gaelic poetry
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