The Dean of Lismore's Book: A Selection of Ancient Gaelic Poetry
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Title: The Dean of Lismore's Book: A Selection of Ancient Gaelic Poetry
Translator: Thomas Maclauchlan
Contributor: W. F. Skene
Release date: January 27, 2015 [eBook #48099]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEAN OF LISMORE'S BOOK: A SELECTION OF ANCIENT GAELIC POETRY ***
Transcriber's Notes:
Underscores "_" before and after a word or phrase indicate ITALICS.
Equals signs "=" before and after a word or phrase indicate BOLD
Small capitals have been converted to SOLID capitals.
Illustrations have been moved so they do not break up paragraphs.
Obvious spelling mistakes have been corrected.
Old or deprecated spellings have been preserved.
For the poems in Gaelic, the original book put all the poems in
ancient Gaelic on even numbered pages, and the translation to
modern Gaelic on odd numbered pages. In this e-book, the ancient
version is given first in its entirety, followed by the modern
version.
In the INTRODUCTION, there is a reference to a GENEAOLOGY OF THE
MACGREGORS on page 144 which has been changed to the correct
page 161.
THE DEAN OF LISMORE’S BOOK
EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY THOMAS CONSTABLE,
FOR
EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS.
LONDON . . . . . . . . HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.
CAMBRIDGE . . . . . . . MACMILLAN AND CO.
DUBLIN . . . . . . . . W. ROBERTSON.
GLASGOW . . . . . . . . JAMES MACLEHOSE.
[Illustration: GENEALOGY OF M’GREGORS BY
DOUGAL THE SERVITOR P. 161 126-127.]
[Illustration: Fr Schenck. 50, George S^t. Edinburgh.
II. LINES BY COUNTESS OF ARGYLE P. 155. 118-119]
THE DEAN OF LISMORE’S BOOK
A SELECTION OF
ANCIENT GAELIC POETRY
FROM A MANUSCRIPT COLLECTION MADE BY SIR JAMES M’GREGOR,
DEAN OF LISMORE, IN THE BEGINNING OF THE
SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
EDITED WITH A TRANSLATION AND NOTES
BY THE REV. THOMAS M’LAUCHLAN
AND AN INTRODUCTION AND ADDITIONAL NOTES
BY WILLIAM F. SKENE ESQ.
EDINBURGH
EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS
1862.
CONTENTS.
FACSIMILES--(I.) GENEALOGY OF M’GREGOR, BY DOUGAL THE SERVITOR.
(II.) LINES BY COUNTESS OF ARGYLE, _Frontispiece_
INTRODUCTION, BY WILLIAM F. SKENE, ESQ. PAGE i
TABLE OF CONTENTS OF THE DEAN OF LISMORE’S MS., xci
FACSIMILES--(I.) AUTOGRAPH OF DEAN M’GREGOR.
(II.) PART OF OSSIAN’S ODE TO FINN, xcvi
ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF POEMS SELECTED FROM IT,
WITH NOTES, BY THE REV. THOS. M’LAUCHLAN, 1-161
ORIGINAL TEXT, WITH TRANSLATION INTO MODERN
SCOTCH GAELIC, BY THE REV. THOS. M’LAUCHLAN, 2, 3
NOTE BY TRANSLATOR, 129
ADDITIONAL NOTES, BY WILLIAM F. SKENE, ESQ., 137
INDEX, 153
INTRODUCTION.
In the heart of the Perthshire Highlands, and not far from the northern
shore of Loch Tay, there lies a secluded vale of about six miles
long. The river Lyon, which issues from the long and narrow valley of
Glenlyon through the pass of Chesthill, hardly less beautiful than
the celebrated pass of Killichranky, meanders through it. On the east
bank of a small stream which falls into the Lyon about the centre of
the vale, is the Clachan or Kirkton of Fortingall, anciently called
Fothergill, from which it takes its name; and on the west or opposite
bank is the mansion of Glenlyon House, anciently called Tullichmullin.
A stranger stationed at the clachan or little village of Fortingall,
would almost fancy that there was neither egress from nor ingress to
this little district, so secluded and shut in among the surrounding
mountains does it appear to be. It is a spot where one could well
suppose that the traditions of former times, and the remains of a
forgotten oral literature, might still linger in the memories of its
inhabitants; while the local names of the mountains and streams about
it are redolent of the mythic times of the Feine. On the west is the
glen of Glenlyon, the ancient Cromgleann nan Clach or Crooked Glen of
the Stones, associated with many a tradition of the Feine, and where
the remains of those rude forts, termed Caistealan na Feine, crown many
a rocky summit; and the vale is bounded on the south and east by the
ridge of Druimfhionn or Finn’s Ridge.
In the latter part of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth
centuries, there dwelt here a family of the name of Macgregor. They
were descended from a vicar of Fortingall, who, at the time when,
during the century preceding the Reformation, the Catholic Church was
breaking up, and their benefices passing into the hands of laymen,
secured for himself and his descendants the vicarage of Fortingall and
a lease of the church lands.
Of the history of this family we know somewhat from an obituary
commenced by one of his descendants, and continued to the year 1579 by
the Curate of Fothergill, which is still preserved.
His son, whether legitimate or illegitimate we know not, was Ian
Rewych, or John the Grizzled, termed Makgewykar or son of the Vicar.[1]
His grandson was Dougall Maol, or Dougall the Bald or Tonsured, called
patronymically Dougall Johnson, or the son of John.
[1] Obitus Katherine neyn Ayn Weyll Sponsse Johannis M’Ayn Rawych
MacGewykar apud Aychly in Mense Decembris anno Domini Mvcxlij.--Chron.
Fort.
This Dougall Johnson appears in 1511 as a notary-public,[2] and
dwelt at Tullichmullin, where his wife Katherine, daughter of Donald
M’Clawe, _alias_ Grant, died in 1512.[3] He is twice mentioned in the
obituary or Chronicle of Fortingall; in 1526, as repairing the cross in
Inchadin, or the old church of Kenmore, situated on the north bank of
the river Tay, nearly opposite Taymouth Castle; and in 1529, as placing
a stone cross in Larkmonemerkyth, the name of a pass among the hills
which leads from Inchadin to the south.[4]
Of Dougall the Bald, the son of John the Grizzled, we have no further
mention; but of his family we know of two sons, James and Duncan.
James was a Churchman. He appears as a notary-public, an office then
held by ecclesiastics, along with his father, in the year 1511, and
he early attained to honour and influence, through what channel is
unknown; for, in 1514, we find him Dean of Lismore,[5] an island in
Argyllshire, lying between the districts of Lorn and Morvern, which
was at that time the Episcopal seat of the Bishops of Argyll. He was,
besides, Vicar of Fortingall and Firmarius or tenant of the church
lands; and died possessed of these benefices in the year 1551, and was
buried in the choir of the old church of Inchadin.[6]
[2] Charter Robert Menzies of that ilk to Sir Duncan Campbell of
Glenurchy, dated at the Isle of Loch Tay, 18th September 1511.
Inter test. Dugallo Johneson Notario et domino Jacobo M’Gregour
notario-publico.--Reg. Mag. Sig. xvii. 69.
[3] Obitus Catherine neyn Donyll M’Clawe alias Grant uxoris Dougalli
Johnson apud Tullychmollin xxij. die Julij anno domini M^oV^oxj.
[4] Memorandum solium crucis in Inchadin compositum fuit per Dougallum
Johnson. Anno domini M^oV^oxxvj^o.
Crux lapidea fuit posita in Larkmonemerkyth in magno lapide qui alio
nomine vocatur clachur . . . per Dougallum Johnson primo Octobris anno
domini, etc., V^cxxix.--Chron. Fort.
[5] Origines Parochiales, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 161.
[6] Obitus honorabilis viri ac egregii Viri Domini Jacobi (M’Gregor)
filii Dougalli Johnson ac decani Lesmorensis Vicarii de Fortyrgill et
Firmarii dicte ecclesie ... bone memorie in nocte Sancte Lucie virginis
hora ... post meridiem et sepultus in die Lucie videlicet ... Anno
Domini M V^clj^o. in choro de Inchadin.--Chron. Fort.
In 1552, a year after his death, Gregor Macgregor, son of the deceased
Sir James Macgregor, Dean of Lismore, as became the head of a small
but independent sept of the Macgregors, and with a due regard to its
safety, bound himself to Colin Campbell of Glenurchy and his heirs,
“taking him for his chief, in place of the Laird of Macgregor, and
giving him his calp.”[7]
In 1557 Gregor and Dougall Macgregors, natural sons of Sir James
Macgregor, receive letters of legitimation;[8] and, in 1574, Dougall
Macgregor appears as Chancellor of Lismore.[9]
It is unnecessary for our purpose to follow the history of this
family any further; suffice it to say, that the two brothers, James
and Duncan,[10] members of a clan which, though under the ban of the
Government, and exposed to the grasping aggression of their powerful
neighbours, the Campbells of Glenurchy, considered themselves as
peculiarly Highland, and had high pretensions, as descended from the
old Celtic monarchs of Scotland--connected with the Church, and as
such, possessing some cultivation of mind and such literary taste as
Churchmen at that time had, yet born and reared in the farm-house of
Tullichmullin, in the secluded vale of Fortingall, and imbued with that
love of old Highland story and cherished fondness for Highland song,
which manifests itself in so many a quiet country Highlander, and which
the scenery and associations around them were so well calculated to
foster--the one, from his high position in the Church of Argyll, having
peculiar facilities for collecting the poetry current in the West
Highlands--the other, though his brother, yet, as was not uncommon in
those days, his servitor or amanuensis, and himself a poet--and both
natives of the Perthshire Highlands--collected and transcribed into a
commonplace book Gaelic poetry obtained from all quarters.
[7] Black Book of Taymouth, p. 196.
[8] Precept of Legitimation in favour of Gregor and Dougal MacGregors,
natural sons of Sir James MacGregor.--Privy Seal, xxix. 46.
[9] Charter by Dougall Macgregor, Chancellor of Lismoir, with consent
of Sir Colin Campbell of Glenurchy, of the lands of Auchnacroftie,
dated at Balloch, 25th December 1574.
[10] Duncan mcCowle voil vie Eoyne Reawych.--MS., p. 223.
This collection has fortunately been preserved. It is, unquestionably,
a native compilation made in the central Highlands, upwards of
three hundred years ago. It contains the remains of an otherwise
lost literature. In it we find all that we can now recover of
native compositions current in the Highlands prior to the sixteenth
century, as well as the means of ascertaining the extent to which the
Highlanders were familiar with the works of Irish poets.
It is a quarto volume of some 311 pages, and is written in the current
Roman hand of the period. Though much injured by time, the leaves in
part worn away, and the ink faint, it is still possible to read the
greater part of its contents.
With the exception of a short Latin obituary, and one or two other
short pieces, it consists entirely of a collection of Gaelic poetry
made by the two brothers.
At the bottom of the 27th page appears the following note in
Latin:--Liber Dni Jacobi Macgregor Decani Lismoren.
At page 78, there is a chronological list of Scottish kings written in
the Scottish language, which ends thus:--“James the Fyfte reignis now
in great felicitie.” He reigned from 1513 to 1542; and, on page 161,
there is a genealogy of the Macgregors, written by the brother Duncan,
deducing their descent from the old Scottish kings, and he adds a
docquet in Gaelic, which may be thus translated:--Duncan the Servitor,
the son of Dougall, who was son of John the Grizzled, wrote this from
the Book of the History of the Kings, and it was done in the year
1512.[11]
There can be no question, therefore, that this collection was formed
during the lifetime of the Dean of Lismore, and a great part of it
as early as the year 1512. How it was preserved through that and
the succeeding century is unknown. In the last century it passed
into the possession of the Highland Society of London, by whom it
was transferred to the custody of the Highland Society of Scotland,
when a committee of that Society was engaged in an inquiry into the
authenticity of the Poems of Ossian, published by Macpherson. It has
now been deposited, along with other Gaelic MSS. in the possession of
that Society, in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates, and forms
part of that collection of Gaelic MSS. which have been brought together
within the last few years, and contain nearly all the Gaelic MSS. which
are known still to exist.[12]
[11] Agis Duncha Deyr oclych mcDowle vec oyne Reywich di Skreyve so a
loywrow Shenchych nyn reig agis ros zenyt Anno Domini 1512.--MS., p.
144.
Deyroclych is Daoroglach, and is the Gaelic rendering of Servitor.
[12] This collection has been formed within the last few years mainly
through the instrumentality of the writer. When he commenced, the
Faculty of Advocates possessed four Gaelic MSS. The collection now
consists of sixty-five.
The writer formed the plan of collecting the remains of the MS. Gaelic
literature of Scotland, which was rapidly disappearing, into one
place, where they could be preserved, by inducing the possessors of
Gaelic MSS. to deposit them in some public library for preservation;
and as the Faculty of Advocates were already in the possession of some
MSS., their library was evidently the most appropriate depository for
this purpose. The valuable MSS. belonging to the Highland Society of
Scotland formed the basis of the collection; the directors, and their
secretary, John Hall Maxwell, Esq., C.B., having at once responded to
the call, and the fortunate discovery of the Kilbride collection, which
its possessor likewise agreed to deposit, added a large number. The
remainder consists of MSS. deposited by individual possessors, and the
collection now embraces nearly all the MSS. known or believed still to
exist.
It is hoped that, if any Gaelic MSS. still remain in the hands of
individual possessors, they will add to the value of this collection by
making them known, and depositing them in the Advocates’ Library for
preservation.
The MSS. are preserved in a locked cabinet, and a general catalogue of
the whole has been prepared by the writer.
The Dean’s MS. differs from all the other MSS. in that collection in
two essential particulars. It is not, like the other MSS., written in
what is called the Irish character, but in the current Roman character
of the early part of the sixteenth century; and the language is not
written in the orthography used in writing Irish, and now universally
employed in writing Scotch Gaelic, but in a peculiar kind of phonetic
orthography, which aims at presenting the words in English orthography
as they are pronounced.
The peculiar orthography employed is, however, evidently not the mere
attempt of a person ignorant of the proper orthography to write the
words in English letters in an arbitrary manner, so as to present, as
nearly as possible, the sound of the words as they struck his ear when
repeated to him, but bears evident marks of having been a regular and
known system of orthography, which, although we have few specimens
of it left, may not the less have once prevailed in that part of the
Highlands more removed from the influence of Irish teaching.
It is a peculiarity of all the Celtic dialects, that the consonants
suffer a change in the beginning of words, from the influence of the
preceding words, or in forming the oblique cases, and likewise change
their sound in the middle of words by being aspirated.
In the Irish orthography, the original consonant is invariably
preserved; and the change is indicated by prefixing another consonant
when the sound is affected by eclipsis, or the influence of the
preceding word, or by adding the letter _h_, when it is changed by
aspiration.
In the Welsh dialects, however, and in the Manx, which is a dialect
of the Gaelic division of the Celtic languages, a different system of
orthography has always prevailed. Instead of retaining the original
letter, and indicating the change in the sound by prefixing or adding
another, a different letter expressing simply the new sound, is
substituted for the original letter; and hence the orthography bears
more of a phonetic and less of an etymologic character.
Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. In the one, the
original form of the word is preserved, and the primary sounds of the
letters are retained. The alteration in their sound in inflection is
marked by prefixing another letter, or adding the letter _h_. It is by
the application of grammatical rules that the pronunciation of the word
is ascertained, and that pronunciation may deviate from time to time
to a greater degree from the original standard, while the orthography,
always remaining the same, fails to chronicle it.
In the other, a new letter is substituted for the original letter, when
the sound is changed by inflection, or by the position of the word in a
sentence, and the orthography employed expresses the pronunciation of
the word in its inflected, without reference to its original form.
The one presents the language in its etymologic form, without reference
to its pronunciation, and is of value in preserving the original form
of the written speech.
The other stereotypes its sounds as spoken at the time; it is committed
to writing without reference to the original form or primary shape of
the words; and is of value in exhibiting the living dialects as spoken
by the people.
An apt illustration of this is afforded by the English language and its
dialects.
The English orthography exhibits the language as it once was, but
from which it has greatly deviated in pronunciation; and it is hardly
possible to frame rules by applying which, to the orthography, the
present pronunciation can be deduced. It is obvious that if the words,
which are differently pronounced in the Scotch dialect, were spelt
according to the English orthography, no clue would be afforded to
its peculiarities. On the other hand, when the Scotch dialect is spelt
phonetically, as is done, for instance, by Sir Walter Scott in his
Scotch romances, the peculiarities in the pronunciation of a living
dialect are vividly presented, and these elements of the original
language, which may have been preserved in this dialect, are made
available for philological purposes.
The collection of Gaelic poetry made by the Dean of Lismore and his
brother is thus written in an orthography of this latter class. It
attracted some notice when the Highland Society was engaged in its
inquiry into the authenticity of Ossian’s Poems, from its including
among its contents some poems attributed to Ossian. Three of these are
printed in the report, though incorrectly and imperfectly, but little
was known of the other contents of the MS.
A transcript was made of the MS. for the Highland Society by the late
Mr. Ewen M’Lachlan, an accomplished Gaelic scholar, who was employed
to examine their MS. It, however, passed into the possession of the
Rev. J. Macintyre of Kilmanievaig, who allowed it to be examined for
a short time by the editors, but no full or correct account was given
of the MS. till the Rev. T. M’Lauchlan, one of the editors of this
work, read an account of it to the Society of Scottish Antiquaries in
the year 1856, which is printed in their proceedings.[13] This account
attracted considerable notice to the MS., and led to its value being
more appreciated. The present publication has, in consequence, been
undertaken.
[13] Vol. ii. pt. i. p. 35.
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.
It has been found impossible to present so large a collection entire,
but the selection has been made with reference to these two objects.
Each poem selected for publication has been presented entire. There
is a literal translation of the poem made by the Rev. T. M’Lauchlan,
and appended is the original Gaelic text of the poem in the Dean’s
orthography, exactly as it appears in the MS.; and, on the opposite
page, the same Gaelic has been transferred by Mr. M’Lauchlan into
the modern orthography of the Scotch Gaelic, which is nearly the
same as that of the Irish, so as to afford the means of comparing
the one orthography with the other, and the modern spoken dialect in
the Highlands with the language of the poems collected by the Dean
upwards of three hundred years ago, as well as to furnish a test of
the accuracy of the translation, by showing the rendering given to the
Dean’s language.[14]
The present spoken language of the Highlands of Scotland is, as is
well known, a dialect[15] of that great branch of the Celtic languages
termed the Gwyddelian or Gaelic, and to which belong also the Irish
and Manx, or spoken language of the Isle of Man. These three dialects
of the Gaelic branch of the Celtic languages, the Irish, the Scotch
Gaelic, and the Manx, approach each other so nearly, as to form in fact
but one language; and the peculiarities which distinguish them from one
another are not of a nature sufficiently broad or vital to constitute
either of them a distinct language.
[14] It is hardly possible to convey to the reader an adequate
conception of the labour of the task undertaken by Mr. M’Lauchlan,
or of the courage, perseverance, and ability with which it has been
overcome. Mr. M’Lauchlan had first to read the Dean’s transcript--no
ordinary task, when, to a strange orthography, affording no clue to the
original word, was added a careless handwriting of the beginning of the
sixteenth century, faded ink, and decayed paper. He had then to convert
it into the corresponding Gaelic in its modern shape and orthography,
and then to translate it into English, in which he had to combine
the literal rendering of an idiomatic language with an intelligible
exhibition of its meaning in English.
It may be as well to take this opportunity of stating, that Mr.
M’Lauchlan is solely responsible for the selection made from the Dean’s
MS., the rendering in modern Gaelic, the English translation, and the
notes at the foot of the page. The writer of this is responsible only
for the Introduction and the additional notes, to which his name is
attached.
[15] I use the word _dialect_ throughout, in the restricted sense of
the German word _mundart_, for want of a better English word to express
it.
The language spoken by the Highlanders of Scotland is termed by them
simply Gaelic; but the name of Erse has occasionally been bestowed upon
it during the last few centuries by the Lowlanders.[16] As early as the
year 1690 a short vocabulary of Scotch Gaelic words was appended to an
edition of Bedel’s Irish Bible, to adapt it to the use of the Scotch
Highlanders; and a somewhat fuller vocabulary, by the same author, was
published in Nicolson’s Scottish Historical Library in 1702.
In 1741, a more complete vocabulary was published by the Society for
Propagating Christian Knowledge, for the use of their schools in the
Highlands. It was compiled by Mr. Alexander M’Donald, schoolmaster
at Ardnamurchan. Another vocabulary was published in 1795 by Robert
M’Farlane; and, in 1815, a further step in advance was made by the
larger vocabulary of Mr. P. M’Farlane.
In 1825, a large quarto dictionary of the Scotch Gaelic was published
by R. A. Armstrong; and in three years afterwards the splendid
dictionary compiled by the first Gaelic scholars, under the auspices of
the Highland Society of Scotland, appeared. In this dictionary Gaelic
words from all quarters are inserted; but those which belong to the
vernacular dialect of the Scotch Highlands are carefully distinguished.
The small dictionary compiled by M’Alpine, a schoolmaster in Islay,
affords a genuine representation of the Gaelic spoken in that island.
[16] This term is unknown to the Highlanders, who call themselves
Albanaich; and was a term of reproach applied to them by the
Lowlanders, from their language being the same as the Irish. It is
curious that the same reproach was applied by the English to the Scotch
in the twelfth century. Lambarde records that, at the battle of the
Standard, when the Scots shouted _Albany, Albany!_ the English soldiers
retorted with _Yry, Yry!_ “a term of great reproach at that time.”
The only grammar of the Scotch Gaelic which it is necessary to notice,
is the able and philosophic grammar by Alexander Stewart, Minister of
the Gospel at Dingwall, the first edition of which was published in
1801, and the second in 1812. As a first attempt to reduce the spoken
language of the Scotch Highlanders to a grammatical system, it is a
work of rare excellence and fidelity, and all other grammars have been
more or less taken from it.
This grammar, then, and the vocabularies and dictionaries above
referred to, contain the Gaelic language as spoken, at the time of
their compilation, in the Highlands of Scotland, and afford the
materials for judging of the character of those peculiarities which
distinguish it from the Irish and Manx Gaelic.[17]
[17] I reject from this list the grammar and dictionary by the Rev. Wm.
Shaw, published in 1778 and 1780, because, so far as they purport to
be a grammar and dictionary of the Scotch Gaelic dialect, they are a
deception, and not trustworthy.
Shaw was a native of Arran, where a corrupt and Irishised Gaelic is
spoken; and it is well known that he failed in his attempt to compile
his dictionary from the spoken language in the Highlands, where he made
a tour for the purpose, and resorted to Ireland, where he manufactured
his works from Irish sources and authorities, adapting the Irish
grammar to a very imperfect knowledge of the language.
The subscribers complained of the deception, and refused to take the
work, till compelled by a process at law. The evidence taken in this
process is very instructive as to the position of Shaw’s grammar and
dictionary, so far as their Irish element is concerned, towards the
Scotch Gaelic dialect at that period.
The differences between the spoken language of the Scottish Highlands
and the Irish exist partly in the pronunciation, where the accentuation
of the language is different, where that peculiar change in the initial
consonant, produced by the influence of the previous word, and termed
by the Irish grammarians eclipsis, is unknown except in the sibilant,
where the vowel sounds are different, and there are even traces of
a consonantal permutation; partly in the grammar, where the Scotch
Gaelic prefers the analytic form of the verb, and has no present
tense, the old present being now used for the future, and the present
formed by the auxiliary verb, where the plural of one class of the
nouns is formed in a peculiar manner, resembling the Anglo-Saxon, and
a different negative is used; partly in the idioms of the language,
where a greater preference is shown to express the idea by the use of
substantives, and the verb is anxiously avoided; and in the vocabulary,
which varies to a considerable extent, where words now obsolete in
Irish are still living words, and others are used in a different
sense.[18]
The Scotch Gaelic is spoken in its greatest purity in the central
districts of the Highlands, including Mull, Morvern, Ardnamurchan,
Ardgowar, Appin, Lochaber, and that district termed the Garbh
chriochan, or rough bounds, consisting of Arisaig, Moydart, Moror,
and Knoydart. The language here spoken is characterized by a closer
adherence to grammatical rules, by a fuller and more careful
pronunciation of the vowel sounds, by a selection of the best words to
express the idea, and by their use in their primary sense.
In the county of Argyll, and the islands which face the coast of
Ireland, the language approaches much more nearly to the Ulster dialect
of the Irish, there being probably no perceptible difference between
the form of the language in Isla and Rachrin, or in Cantyre and the
opposite coast of Antrim.
[18] A more detailed statement of the differences between Scotch and
Irish Gaelic will be found in the additional Notes.
In the Gaelic of Sutherland and Caithness, again, there are marked
differences of a different and opposite character, a native of
Sutherland and the southern districts of Argyll having some difficulty
in understanding each other; and in Perthshire, on the other hand, the
influence of the English language is apparent, the pronunciation is
more careless, the words selected less pure, and the secondary senses
of many are only used.
The central districts afford the best type of that variety of Gaelic
which forms the spoken language of the Highlands of Scotland.
Of this language two views may be taken. The peculiarities of the
language may have sprung up quite recently, and the language may, at no
very distant period, have been absolutely identical in form and sound
with the Irish, from which it may have become corrupted by the absence
of cultivation, and must be regarded merely as the rude _patois_ of
a people whose ignorance of the cultivated language has led to their
adoption of peculiarities sanctioned by no grammatical rule; or, on the
other hand, these peculiarities may partake rather of the character
of dialectic differences, and enter more deeply into the organization
of the language, and thus may have characterized it from that remoter
period, when geographical separation and political isolation may have
led to the formation, in the Highlands of Scotland, of a dialectic
variety of the common language.
The first is the view taken by Irish grammarians, and if correct, these
differences cannot be considered as of any philological importance. The
question has not, however, been treated by them in a candid spirit, or
with any grasp of the subject; and their opinion must be based upon
a more accurate knowledge of the spoken dialect which is the subject
of it, and upon a sounder and more impartial examination of those
philologic elements which ought to enter into its consideration, before
it can be accepted as conclusive. If the second view is the correct
one, then it is obvious that the Scotch Gaelic is well deserving of
study, as a distinct variety of the Gaelic language which was common
to Scotland and Ireland; and everything that tends to throw light upon
it, and upon the existence and origin of these differences, acquires a
philologic value.
In the study of language, the spoken dialects are of great value. It is
from the study of the living dialects, which are not merely corruptions
of the spoken language, but present dialectic peculiarities, that we
arrive at a full perception of the character and tendencies of the
mother tongue.
It is the destiny of all languages, that they no sooner enter upon the
domain of history than they begin to alter, decompose, and split into
dialects. The formation of the mother tongue belongs to the prehistoric
period; and it is a process which, carried on in the infancy and growth
of the social state, is concealed from observation. When its possessors
first emerge into view, and take their place among the history of
nations, counter influences have already been at work, their language
has already entered upon its downward course, and we can only watch it
in its process of decomposition and alteration, and reach its primitive
condition, through the medium of its dialects.
There are two opposing influences by which all languages are
affected--the etymologic and the phonetic. The etymologic principle
is all-powerful in the formation and original structure of the
language, producing combinations of sounds demanded by the laws of
its composition, but irrespective altogether of the requirements of
harmony, or the tendencies of the human organs of sound. It contains
in it, however, the seeds of its own destruction, and has no sooner
completed its work of formation than a process of modification and
decomposition commences, caused by the respective idiosyncrasies of
its speakers, their craving after harmony of combination and ease of
utterance, and the influence of physical situation and surrounding
agents upon the organs of speech.
These phonetic causes enter at once into conflict with the strictly
etymologic formations of the language, moulding its sounds, decomposing
its structure, and interchanging the organs producing the sounds; and
these effects are perpetuated by circumstances causing the separation
or isolation of the people who have adopted them, while new words
and combinations are added to their vocabulary by new wants arising
in their separate state, by their advance in social condition, or by
the peculiarities of their new condition. Thus innumerable dialects
spring up. Whenever a difference of situation takes place among the
people composing the aggregate by whom the original language was
spoken, a diversity of dialect is at once created. In these dialects
are preserved the bones of the mother tongue; and it is only by a
comparison of these that her full character can be ascertained.
This tendency of the mother tongue, to break up into as many dialects
as there are shades of difference in the position and tendencies
of its speakers, is only arrested by the formation of a cultivated
dialect, created when the wants of an educated or cultivated class in
the community demand a common medium of interchanging their ideas.
This cultivated language is usually first formed by poetry, completed
by writing, and adopted by education. Its first stage is that of the
language in which the songs and poems, the first literature of a rude
people, are recited by its bards, its earliest literary class; and,
by the introduction of the art of writing, it passes over into the
written speech. It then becomes a common dialect, spoken and written by
the cultivated class of the community, and to a knowledge of which a
portion of the people are raised by education.
This cultivated or written language may have been originally one of
the numerous dialects spoken by the people composing the community,
and which circumstances have elevated into that position; or it may
have been introduced from another country speaking a sister dialect,
which has preceded it in cultivation; or it may, like the German,
have been developed from an unspoken variety of the language created
by other causes and for other purposes. In the one case, the language
first cultivated by poetry passes over into the written language. In
the other, it remains an indigenous, cultivated, spoken language, which
is antagonistic to, and contends with, the imported written speech till
the influence of the latter prevails, and it is either extinguished
by it, or remains as popular poetry in the vernacular tongue, while
everything prose is absorbed.
But however it originates, the spoken dialects still remain as the
vernacular speech of portions of the community. They are not the
children or creatures of the written speech, still less corruptions of
it, but are equally ancient, and retain much of the elements of the
original language which the written speech has rejected.
The formation of a cultivated or written language is always an eclectic
process. It selects, it modifies, and it rejects, while the living
dialects retain many of the forms and much of the structure modified
and rejected by it. Hence, for the study of the character and formation
of the mother tongue, the living spoken dialects are of the first
importance; and a restricted attention to the written language, and the
contemptuous rejection of everything in the spoken dialects which vary
from it, as barbarisms and corruptions, is simply to part with much
valuable material for the study, and to narrow the range of inquiry.[19]
[19] Professor Max Müller has the following excellent remarks in his
recent lectures on the Science of Language, p. 49. “The real and
natural life of language is in its dialects; and in spite of the
tyranny exercised by the classical or literary idioms, the day is still
very far off which is to see the dialects entirely eradicated....
“It is a mistake to imagine that dialects are everywhere corruptions
of the literary language.... Dialects have always been the feeders
rather than the channels of a literary language; anyhow, they are
parallel streams which existed long before one of them was raised to
that temporary eminence which is the result of literary cultivation.”
The whole of the lecture in which this passage occurs is well worthy
of perusal, in regard to the proper view and position of the spoken
dialects in the study of language.
Schleicher takes the same view in his masterly work, “Die Deutsche
Sprache.” He says, in relation to the German language, what is equally
true of the Gaelic:
“Die mundarten sind die natürlichen nach den Gesetzen der
Sprachgeschichtlichen Veränderungen gewordenen Formen im Gegensatze
zu der mehr oder minder gemachten and schulmeisterisch geregelten and
zugestutzten Sprache der Schrift. Schon hieraus folgt der hohe Werth
derselben für die wissenschaftliche Erforschung unserer Sprache; hier
ist eine reiche Füllevon Worten und Formen, die, an sich gut und echt,
von der Schriftsprache verschmäht wurden; hier finden wir manches,
was wir zur Erklärung der älteren Sprachdenkmale, ja zur Erkenntniss
der jetzigen Schriftsprache verwerthen können, abgesehen von dem
Sprachgeschichtlichen, dem lautphysiologischen Interesse, welches die
überaus reiche Mannigfaltigkeit unserer Mundarten bietet.
“Wer einer Mundart kundig ist, der hat beim Studium des altdeutschen
einen grossen Vorsprung vor demjenigen voraus der nur in der
Schriftsprache heimisch ist.
“_Nichts ist thörichter, nichts verräth mehr den Mangel wahrer Bildung
als das Verrachten unserer Mundarten._”--P. 110.
Perhaps the English language affords an illustration of these remarks.
As a written and cultivated language, it took its rise in England, but
was introduced from England into Scotland.
In England, the provincial dialects have remained as the spoken
language of the uncultivated class in the respective provinces side
by side with it; but their antiquity and their value for philological
purposes is fully acknowledged. No one dreams of viewing them as
merely corruptions of the written language, arising from rudeness and
ignorance.
In Scotland, the English language has been introduced as the written
or cultivated language, but a different form of the language, the
Broad Scotch, is the vernacular speech of the people, and preceded the
English language as the written language of the country in which its
earliest literature was contained. Its great value, as an early form of
the original Anglic tongue which formed the language of the country,
is so fully acknowledged, that Jamieson’s Dictionary of the Scotch
language has been called the best dictionary of the English language.
It has ceased to be a vehicle for prose composition; but there exists
a ballad literature in the Scotch dialect which has resisted the
absorbing influence of the English.
So it was also in the Scotch Highlands, where the written and
cultivated language did not originate in this country, but was brought
over from Ireland in the sixth century, though in this case the analogy
is not so great, from the various dialects of the Gaelic having
probably at all times approached each other much more nearly than the
provincial dialects of England and Scotland, and been more greatly
influenced by the written language.
In order to determine the philological position and value of the Scotch
Gaelic, it is necessary to form a more accurate conception of the
historical position of the people who spoke it, and of the influences
to which they have been exposed, and by which the language was likely
to be affected.
Two races seem to have entered, as original elements, into the
population of Ireland and of the Highlands of Scotland. These were the
race of the Scots and the people termed by the early Irish authorities
the race of the Cruithne. The latter appear everywhere to have
preceded the former.
Prior to the sixth century, the Cruithne alone seem to have formed the
population of the Scotch Highlands. In Ireland they formed the original
population of Ulster and the north part of Leinster. Connaught, the
rest of Leinster, and Munster, were Scottish. The east and north of
Ireland appear to have been most exposed to external influences, and to
have suffered the greatest changes in their population. In the south
and west it was more permanent; and from Connaught and Leinster the
royal races of the Scots emerged, while their colonies proceeded from
south and west to north and east.
The traditionary history of Ireland records an early settlement of the
Scots among the Cruithne of Ulster, termed from its mythic founder
Dalriada, and likewise the fall of the great seat of the Cruithnian
kingdom, called Emania, before an expedition, led by a scion of the
Scottish royal race, who established the kingdom of Orgialla on its
ruins. It is certain that, while we have reason to believe that the
Cruithne formed the original population of the whole of Ulster, we find
them in the historic period confined to certain districts in Ulster
only, although their kings retained the title of kings of Ulster.
In the beginning of the sixth century, the Scots, who are frequently
recorded by the Roman writers as forming part of the predatory bands
who, from time to time, assailed the Roman province, and finally
overthrew their empire in Britain, passed over to the opposite coast
of Argyll, and effected a permanent settlement there, which, from its
mother tribe, was also called Dalriada. This settlement is recorded,
by the oldest authority, to have taken place twenty years after the
battle of Ocha, which was fought in the year 483, and, therefore, in
the year 503. The territory occupied by this settlement of the Scots
was the south part of Argyllshire, consisting of the districts of
Cowall, Kintyre, Knapdale, Argyll-proper, Lorn, and probably part of
Morvern, with the islands of Isla, Iona, Arran, and the small islands
adjacent. The boundary which separated them from the Cruithne was on
the east, the range of mountains termed Drumalban, a mountain chain
which still separates the county of Argyll from that of Perth. On the
north, the boundary, which probably was not very distinct, and varied
from time to time, seems to have been coincident with a line extending
from the Island of Colonsay through the Island of Mull to the centre
of the district of Morvern, through which it passed to the shores of
the Luine Loch opposite Appin.[20] The rest of the Highlands was still
occupied by the Cruithne, who were Pagans, while the Dalriadic Scots
were Christians.
[20] In the Island of Colonsay there is a cairn called Carn cul ri
Erin. In Bleau’s Atlas, the map of the Island of Mull marks, on the
high mountain which separates the north from the south of the island,
two cairns, called Carn cul ri Erin and Carn cul ri Allabyn. These
seem to mark some ancient boundary; but as they are exactly in a line
with Iona,--which seems to have lain so nearly on the boundary as
to be claimed by both races, and also with the line which separates
the ancient parishes of Killintach and Killcholumkill in Morvern,
and Killintach is said, in an old document, to be in Garwmorvaren,
a district which extended as far north as Loch Hourn, while
Killcholumkill is said to be in Kinelbadon, which belonged to the
ancient kingdom of Lorn,--there seems much reason to conclude that this
may have been the line of the boundary between the Dalriad Scots from
Erin and the Cruithne of Alban.
In the year 563, an event took place which was destined to exercise
a powerful influence both on the condition and the language of the
population. This was the mission of Saint Columba, a Scot from Ireland,
to convert the Cruithne to the Christian faith, and the consequent
foundation of the Monastery of Iona, which became the seat of learning,
and the source of all ecclesiastical authority, both for the Cruithne
and the Dalriadic Scots, from whence innumerable Scottish clergy
issued, who spread over the country and founded churches among the
Cruithne under its influence and authority.
The platform occupied by the two populations, embracing both Ireland
and the Highlands of Scotland, in the sixth century, thus showed in the
south and west of Ireland pure Scots; in the north and east settlements
of Scots among the Cruithne, gradually confining the latter to isolated
districts; in Argyll, a Scottish settlement among the Cruithne of
Alban; and in the rest of the Highlands pure Cruithne; but over both
Scots and Cruithne in Alban a Scottish clergy, who brought a cultivated
and literary language with them.
In Ireland the Gaelic spoken in the different provinces varies, and
probably has always varied from each other. They differ in words,
pronunciation, and idiom; and in grammatical construction and idiom
there is a marked difference between the Gaelic of the northern and
of the southern half of Ireland. The written language resembles most
the language of the south and west of Ireland. It seems to have been
formed from it, and to have become the common language of the literary
and cultivated class, while the other dialects remained as the spoken
language of their respective populations.
This written language was brought over to Scotland in the sixth century
by Columba and his clergy, who introduced it, with Christianity, among
the Cruithne; where, however, the native dialect must have received
some cultivation, as we find that he was opposed by Magi, which implies
a literary class among the Pagan Cruithne. At this time there was so
little political separation between the two countries, that the Scots
of British Dalriada remained subject to the Irish Dalriada, from which
they emerged, till the year 573, when Aedan, son of Gabran, became
king of Scotch Dalriada, and, at the great Council of Drumceat, it was
declared independent of Irish Dalriada, and he was crowned as its first
independent monarch. The Cruithne of Ireland, likewise, formed part of
that great Cruithnian kingdom, which had its head-quarters in Scotland,
till the reign of Fiacha mac Baedan, King of Ulster, who ruled over the
Irish Cruithne from 589 to 626, and probably in the year 608, when they
threw off the yoke of the Cruithne of Scotland.[21]
[21] There were thirty kings of the Cruithne over Eri and Alba,
viz., of the Cruithne of Alba and of the Cruithne of Eri, _i.e._,
of Dalaraidhe. They were from Ollamhan to Fiachna mac Baedain, who
fettered the hostages of Eri and Alba.
Book of Lecan, as quoted in Irish Nennius, lxxii.
A.D. 608. Bass Fiachrach chraich mic Baedan la Cruithnechu.--(Tigh.
An.)
The Cruithne and the Scots of Ireland and of Scotland then first
became separated from, and independent of, each other, and a complete
political separation took place between the two countries.
The Cruithne of Scotland remained under the influence of the Scottish
clergy till the beginning of the eighth century, when their king,
Nectan, adopted the usages of the Romish party, and in 717 expelled
the Scottish clergy out of his dominions across the boundary of
Drumalban,[22] which separated them from the Scots of Dalriada, and
a new clergy was introduced into that part of the country, occupied
by the Cruithne, from the Anglic kingdom of Northumberland. In 731,
we learn from Bede, who then closes his history, that the Scots of
Dalriada were still confined within the same limits; and that no change
had up to that date taken place in the relative positions of the two
populations, the Cruithne and the Scots. After this date we know little
of the history of the population of the Highlands till the middle
of the ninth century, when we find that a great change had, in the
interval, taken place in their political condition. The two populations
had now become united in one kingdom, and a family of undoubted
Scottish race ruled over the united people.
[22] A.D. 717. Expulsio familiæ Ie trans dorsum Britanniæ a Nectano
rege.
Of the events which brought about this great change, authentic history
tells us nothing--of the fact there can be no doubt; and the question
arises of how the Gaelic language originated in the undalriadic part
of the Highlands. Prior to this date, it was exclusively occupied by
people of the race of the Cruithne, first Pagan under native Magi,
then Christian, and for 150 years under clergy of Scottish race, who
were, however, driven out in the year 717. Either then these Cruithne
spoke a Gaelic dialect, or, if they spoke a different language, we
must suppose that the language of Gaelic Dalriada had, subsequently to
the ninth century, spread, with the rule of a Scottish king, over the
whole of the Highlands not embraced in that limited territory. We have
no materials for determining this question. The latter supposition has
always been assumed by the Irish historians, but without proof; and
they have never attempted to account for the entire disappearance of
the previous language, and the expulsion of the previous population
of so extensive a district, so mountainous and inaccessible in its
character, and so tenacious of the language of its early inhabitants in
its topography, which such a theory involves.
If the first supposition be the correct one, and the Cruithne spoke
a Gaelic dialect, we can easily understand how, though originally
different from the Gaelic dialect of Dalriada, it may, by the influence
of the written language, and its vernacular use by their clergy for
so long a period, have become modified and assimilated to it; and
if, as is probable, their dialect had been so far cultivated, as the
existence of popular poetry, the first literature of a rude people, was
calculated to effect, the influence of the clergy would probably be
antagonistic to such literature, and be employed to suppress it; and
the language in which it was conveyed might remain for some time in
opposition to the written language, as a vernacular and popular form of
the language, the type and symbol of the anti-Christian party, till it
was finally amalgamated with, or assimilated to it as the party itself
was ultimately overcome.
But another event had taken place during this obscure period, extending
to little more than a century, and in which the union of the two
populations under a Scottish royal race had been effected, which
must have interposed an obstacle to the spread of an influence from
Ireland into the nondalriadic portion of the Highlands, and greatly
counteracted that arising from a dominant royal family of Scottish
descent. This was the destruction of Iona by the Scandinavian pirates,
and their subsequent occupation of the Western Isles and western
seaboard of Scotland. Towards the end of the eighth century, these
hordes of Vikings or sea-robbers, issuing from Norway and Denmark, had
appeared in the western sea, ravaging and plundering the coasts and
islands, and their course was everywhere marked by the burning and
sacking of the monasteries and religious establishments. In 794, the
ravaging of the islands and the destruction of Iona by these Gentiles,
as they were termed, is recorded in the Irish annals. In 802, the
Monastery of Iona was burnt by them, and in 806 the community or family
of Iona, as it was termed, slain, to the number of sixty-eight. In
consequence of the insecurity of Iona, the abbot eventually retired
to Kells, another foundation of St. Columba, and the reliques of St.
Columba were subsequently taken to Ireland, when Derry became the head
of the Columbian houses in Ireland, while a part of the reliques were
removed to Dunkeld, which represented the Columbian clergy in Scotland.
The influence of Iona, as the nucleus and centre of Gaelic learning,
and of its Scottish clergy upon the population of the Highlands, thus
ceased for ever.
The islands were, by degrees, occupied by these pirates, till
eventually the Norwegian Kingdom of Man and the Isles was formed; and
after they had passed over from Paganism to Christianity, and their
power became constituted, the bishopric of the Isles became included in
the Norwegian diocese of Man. During this period, which lasted till the
middle of the twelfth century, while the Western Isles and the western
shores of the mainland were in the occupation of the Norwegians,
and a royal family of Scottish race was on the throne of the united
population, all that remained intact of the Gaelic population of the
Highlands was mainly represented by the great province of Moray, which
contained the mainland part of the modern counties of Inverness and
Ross, and whose chiefs or maormors are found, during the whole of
this period, maintaining a struggle for local independence against
the ruling powers, whether Scottish or Saxon, till they were finally
suppressed in the year 1130 by the great battle in which Angus, the
Celtic Earl of Moray, was defeated and slain by David the First.
The Norwegian Kingdom of Man and the Isles was now approaching its
fall, and a new power arose on the ruins of that of the Maormors of
Moray, which soon became paramount in the Western Highlands, and
exercised a very different influence upon its language and population.
This was the dynasty of the Celtic kings or Lords of the Isles, which
took its rise under Somarled, the founder of the race in the twelfth
century, and maintained a powerful sway in the West Highlands till the
Lord of the Isles was forfeited at the close of the fifteenth century;
and, after several ineffectual attempts to maintain their ground
against the Government, finally fell in the middle of the succeeding
century.
Whether the race of the Lords of the Isles was of Irish descent or not,
is a question which depends upon the precise degree of credibility to
be given to a Celtic pedigree which reaches back to the beginning of
the fourth century; but certain it is, that the spirit and tendency
of the whole race was essentially Irish. The history of Somarled, the
founder of the family, who may, from female connexion, have possessed a
Norwegian name, is quite incompatible with the idea of his representing
a Norwegian house, or deriving his position by inheritance from them.
The names of his father Gillabride, and his grandfather Gillaagamnan,
are purely Celtic. The interest of his family was antagonistic to that
of the Norwegians; their efforts were to supplant and drive them out,
and to elevate a Gaelic kingdom upon their ruins. In the foundation
of this kingdom, Irish aid and Irish interest entered largely, and
the connexion of the family with Ireland became always more and more
closely connected,--an influence and connexion extending to the
powerful Celtic families who rose under their auspices and owned their
sway.
Somarled, the founder of the race, first appears in history as regulus
or petty king of Oirirgaidheal, or, as it is given in the Irish form,
Airergaidheal, and, in the Latin, Argathelia, a name which had sprung
up subsequently to the ninth century, signifying the coast-lands of the
Gael, and embracing the entire west coast from Cowall to Loch Broom.
To this district he must have had hereditary claims; and an ancient
sennachy of the race thus details the steps by which he recovered
possession of it:--
Gillabride, the son of Gillaagamnan, the son and grandson of the
Toiseach of Argyll, and descendant of Colla, being amongst his kindred
in Ireland, the clan Colla, that is, the Macguires and Macmahons, held
a great meeting and assembly in Fermanagh, the country of Macguire,
regarding the affairs of Gillabride, how they might restore him to his
patrimony, from which he had been driven by the power of the Lochlans
and Finngalls. When Gillabride saw such a large body of men assembled
together, he besought them to embark in his cause, and to assist the
people of Alban, who were favourable to him in an attempt to win
back the possession of the country. The people declared themselves
willing to go, and four or five hundred put themselves under his
command. With this company Gillabride proceeded to Alban, and landing
there, commenced a series of skirmishes and sudden assaults, with
the assistance of friends, for his name was then very powerful. The
Lochlans possessed the islands from Man to the Orkneys; but the Gael
retained possession of the woods and mountains in the districts,
extending from Dumbarton to Caithness, north of the two oirirs,[23]
and in Mar. Somarled, the son of Gillabride, was now becoming manly
and illustrious, and a band attached themselves to him, who had
possession of the hills and woods of Ardgowar and Morvaren. Here he
came upon a large army of Lochlans and Fingalls, and assembled round
him all the soldiers he could muster and the people engaged in herding
the flocks, and ranged them in order of battle. He practised a great
deception on his enemies, for he made the same company pass before
them three times, so that it appeared to them as if there were three
companies, and then attacked them. The enemy were broken by Somarled
and fled, till they reached the north bank of the river Shiell, and
part escaped with their king to the Isles. Somarled did not desist
from his efforts till he had cleared the whole west side of Alban from
the Lochlans, except the islands of the Finnlochlans, called Innsegall.
[23] The two oirirs were the Oirir a tuath and the Oirir a deas, which
make up the district known as Oirir Gaedheal, or Oirir Alban, and in
Latin, Argathelia.
Having married the daughter of Olave the Red, the Norwegian king of
Man and the Isles, he succeeded in 1154 in obtaining one-half of
the Western Isles for his eldest son Dougall, the ancestor of the
M’Dougalls, Lords of Lorn, in right of his mother. The portion of
the Isles thus added to the Gaelic kingdom of Oirirgaidheal were
those south of the point of Ardnamurchan, including Mull, Isla, and
Jura. Ten years afterwards, in 1164, he showed still further his
close relation with Ireland, by placing the Monastery of Iona under
the Abbacy of Derry, and in the same year he was slain in Renfrew,
in an attempt which he made to subvert the Scottish throne itself,
with Irish assistance. His successors remained in possession of this
territory, consisting of Oirirgaidheal, or the western districts,
from Cowall to Loch Broom, and the southern half of the Isles, till
1222, when Alexander the Second took possession of Argathelia, and
annexed the north part of it to the earldom of Ross, and the central
portion to the district of Moray, leaving the districts of Morvaren and
Garwmorvaren, and parts of South Argyll, with the south half of the
Isles, to the descendants of Somarled. On the conquest of the Norwegian
kingdom of Man and the Isles by the King of Scotland in 1266, Skye
and Lewis were annexed to the earldom of Ross, the rest of the Isles
went to Somarled’s family, their possessions were further increased
by grants from Robert Bruce, and in the end of the fourteenth century
they inherited the possessions of the earldom of Ross, by which they
regained possession of the Oirir a tuath. A petty kingdom was thus
formed, consisting of Argathelia, or the western districts, from Cowall
to Loch Broom and the Western Isles, nominally subordinate to the
Scottish throne, but in reality all powerful among the population of
the Highlands; the clans of the centre and north Highlands, which had
once looked up to the almost equally powerful Maormors of Moray, alone
representing a different interest.
The marriage of the Lord of the Isles, the head of this race, with a
daughter of the great Irish house of O’Cathan, princes of an extensive
territory in the north of Ireland, towards the close of the thirteenth
century, still further cemented the connexion with Ireland. Tradition
records that twenty-four families followed this lady from Ulster to
the Scottish Highlands, and founded as many houses there, and, in the
subsequent century, a scion of the House of the Isles acquired land in
the north of Ireland, and founded the Antrim family. In all the Irish
wars this race took generally a part, and, in their own wars at home,
were rarely without assistance from Ireland.
The struggle between this great Celtic family and the Crown assumed
an aspect at length which could only terminate in the ruin of the
former or the humiliation of the latter, and at length resulted in
the forfeiture of the Lord of the Isles in 1478, and his subsequent
submission, when he resigned his hereditary Celtic title, and received
in exchange the feudal dignity of Lord of the Isles; a humiliation
which gave deep offence to his subjects, and was not acquiesced in
by them, and produced such internal dissensions, that the Crown took
advantage of them to enforce the final forfeiture of the Lordship
of the Isles in the year 1493. A series of insurrections followed
in favour of the descendants of the forfeited Lord, which finally
terminated in the utter extinction of the kingdom of the Isles in the
year 1545.
During this period, which extends to nearly four centuries, there was
not only a close political connexion between the Western Highlands and
Islands and Ireland, but the literary influence was equally close and
strong; the Irish sennachies and bards were heads of a school which
included the West Highlands, and the Highland sennachies were either
of Irish descent, or, if of native origin, resorted to bardic schools
in Ireland for instruction in the language and the accomplishments of
their art.
The annals of the four masters record the following Irish sennachies as
being recognised masters in the Highlands:--
In 1185 died Maclosa O’Daly, ollav, or chief sage or poet of Erin and
Alban; a man illustrious for his poetry, hospitality, and nobility.
In 1328 died the blind O’Carril, chief minstrel of Erin and Alban in
his time.
In 1448 died Tadg og, son of Tadg, son of Giollacoluim O’Higgin, chief
preceptor of the poets of Erin and Alban.
In 1554 died Tadg, son of Aodh O’Coffey, chief teacher of poetry in
Erin and Alban.
The oldest of the Gaelic MSS., preserved in the Library of the Faculty
of Advocates, belong to this period. They are all written in the
Irish character; the language is the written language of Ireland; and
they contain numerous specimens of the poetry of these Irish masters,
especially of Tadg og and the O’Dalys.
The Betons, or, as their name was in Gaelic, Macbheatha, who were
hereditary physicians in Isla and Mull, and who were also sennachies of
the Macleans, were of Irish descent, being O’Neills, and are said by
tradition to be one of the families who accompanied O’Cathan’s daughter
to Scotland; and many of these MSS. belonged to them. The M’Vurichs,
who were hereditary sennachies to Clanranald, were likewise of Irish
descent, and are said “to have received their education in Irish
Colleges of poetry and writing.”[24] Many of these MSS. were compiled
by them; and the earliest are likewise written in the Irish character
and idiom. The sennachies of the other great families, comprised within
the dominions of the Lords of the Isles, appear likewise to have all
resorted to Ireland for instruction and training in their art.
A powerful influence must thus have been exercised upon the language
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.
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;[34] 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.
[34] A passage in one of the oldest of the MSS., deposited in the
Library of the Faculty of Advocates, shows that the term Lochlan was
anciently applied to the districts east of the Rhine. “Cæsar came with
some entire legions of the ruthless youth of Italy into the rough land
of Gallia, and the wide and long country of Lochlain. For these are one
and the same country; _but for the interposition of the clear current
of the Rhine, which divides and sunders the two lands_.”
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 Jr 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;
_Huasein_ 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.[35]
[35] It is unnecessary here to repeat these references. They will be
found in the Report of the Highland Society, page 21.
The quotation from Barbour shows that the name of Fingal was known
long before the time of Macpherson; and as most Gaelic proper names
had a corresponding name in English which resembled it in sound, and
was held to represent it, as Hector for Eachin, or Hugh for Aodh, it
is not unlikely that Fingal may have been known as the recognised
representative in English of Finn.
In fact, Finn and Fingal are both real names, and closely related to
each other.
_Gal_ is a syllable of unknown origin and meaning, which enters largely
into the composition of Gaelic proper names. Thus we have Aedgal,
Aelgal, Angal, Ardgal, Artgal, Bodgal, Comgal, Congal, Donngal,
Dubhgal, Dungal, Feargal, Fingal, Gormgal, Leargal, Maengal, Riagal,
Saergal, Smiorgal. Some also take the form of _galach_; as Congalach,
Dungalach, Fiangalach, Irgalach.
Those in which the first syllable expresses a colour appear both alone
and with the affix _gal_, as Dubh and Dubhgal, Finn and Finngal, and
are really the same name. The annals of the Four Masters mention
several persons of the name of Finn, and, in 741, Finghal of Lismore.
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,
Rouse whom you reach to pure and godly strains;
Hail the generous land of the Feinne,
The Roughbounds and the Western Isles.
The Roughbounds 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.[36]
[36] It is remarkable that the ancient legends of Cuchullin and the
sons of Uisneach connect them with those remarkable structures termed
vitrified forts. Dun Scathaig, Dun mhic Uisneachan, and Dundheardhuil,
are all vitrified forts, and the latter is a common name for them.
There is probably a mythic meaning under this.
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 an 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.[37]
[37] This poem, with a translation, is given in the Additional Notes,
pp. 143, 144.
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 shuile
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 bhaoi
.i. mo dhorn fam chluais
agus mo dhuais fam o
.i. aislinge .i. tarla
Adhbhul fisi ar mo ta
.i. dar leiges .i. mo chu
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 broigh
Triocha treathan damh gun naibh
.i. go moing a srona
iona taoibh go a tul moing tuinn
.i. orladh .i. na fiacuil
Triocha nena Finn na feic
.i. a sa cionn amach
asseicsi tuas re fa thuinn
.i. coimed re coire gach sul di
Meidis re habhron a dherc
meidis re mes afert fo
.i. tesgus mo cladhiomh a muineal
Sealus mo ghenam a muin
.i. mo chu as a cluais
agus mo chuibh as a ho
.i. muic
Criobais mhara Tallann tair
.i. ria cloic ris ambenann tonn
benus ria hail tairges tnu
.i. 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.[38]
[38] The scene of this poem is in Scotland, the sea of Tallann being
said to be in the east, and it must have been written in Scotland, as
the accent is placed on the first syllable of the name Oisin.
The Highlanders call a whale _muic mhara_, and, from the description,
this creature appears to have been a whale.
On communicating this curious poem to Professor O’Curry, he informs
me that there is a copy of it in the Book of Leinster, an MS. of the
thirteenth century. The text is the same, but the glosses a little
different.
I may take this opportunity of calling attention to Professor O’Curry’s
admirable Lectures on the MS. literature of Ireland, just published.
They are most interesting and instructive, and for the masterly and
complete survey taken of the subject, as well as for accurate and
minute detail, they are almost unexampled in the annals of literature.
They will well repay perusal.
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 contain 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.
O 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! O Coillchuan!
Where Ainnle would, alas! resort;
Too short, I deem, was then my stay
With Ainnle in Oirir Alban.
Glenlaidhe! O 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! O Gleneitche!
There was raised my earliest home.
Beautiful its woods on rising,
When the sun struck on Gleneitche.
Glen Urchain! O 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! O 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![39]
[39] The oldest copy of this tale, which was the foundation of
Macpherson’s Darthula, is in the Glenmasan MS., in the collection
in the Advocates’ Library, which bears the date of 1238, and this
translation is made from it.
The scenery is all in Argyllshire. Inis Draighen is Inistrynich
in Loch-awe; Dun Suibhne, Castle Sween; Glenlaidhe is now called
Glenlochy, where is Benlaoidhe; Glenmasan still bears the name;
Gleneitche, in another copy called Loch Eitche, is Glenetive and
Loch Etive; Glenurchain is Glenurchay; and Glendaruadh is now called
Glendaruail.
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.
W. F. S.
CONTENTS OF THE DEAN OF LISMORE’S MS.
NOTE.--The figures on the left hand refer to the
pages in the original MS.; and those added
on the right--to the poems selected for
publication--refer to the pages in this volume
where the translation and the original text will
be found.
P. of MS. Eng. Gaelic.
The first four pages illegible.
5. Earl Gerald. 6 lines. Indistinct.
6. Author’s name defaced. 38 lines on John,
son of Sir Robert Stewart. Illegible.
7. Duncan M’Dougall Maoil. Quatrain on John,
son of Colin Campbell.
8. Anonymous. Obscure--apparently on O’Ruark. 34 lines.
10. Duncan Campbell. 12 lines. Satire on Women.
11. Earl Gerald. 6 lines. Indistinct.
11. Duncan O’Daly. 6 lines. Religious.
12. ---- fynn O’Daly. 88 lines. Religious.
15. Anonymous. 20 lines. Indistinct.
16. Cochondach Mac Thearlaich bhuidh. 65 lines.
On Irish Chiefs.
19. Muireach Albanach. 14 lines, 157 120 121
19. Do. 8 lines, 158 120 121
20. Muireach Lessin Dall O’Daly. 60 lines.
Counsels to Chiefs.
23. Duncan Mor from Lennox. 10 lines, 93 68 69
23. Gilchrist Taylor. 32 lines, 93 68 69
25. Anonymous. Ossianic. 14 lines, 71 50 51
26. Do. 15 lines. Illegible.
27. Six lines in Latin on the Scotch Kings.
27. Scotch. A legal deed.
27. Dean’s Autograph. _Vide_ Fac-simile, inserted at p. xcvi.
27. Anonymous. A Quatrain.
28. Duncan M’Dougall Maoil. 9 lines.
28. Gilliecallum Mac an Ollaimh. On the Macdonalds, 95 70 71
30. Anonymous. 31 lines. An Ursgeul, or Tale.
31. Ossian. 8 lines. The household of Finn, 1 2 3
32. Anonymous. 36 lines. On M’Glass M’Gluaire.
33. Do. 23 lines. Satire on Women.
35. Dougall. Dialogue with his Wedder.
36. Anonymous. 33 lines. Eulogy on a Lady.
37. Duncan M’Cailein. 16 lines.
38. Scotch. The three perilous days in each season.
39. M’Eachag. On John M’Leod, 140 106 107
41. John Mor O’Daly. 84 lines. On Tuathal Teachdmhar.
44. Anonymous. Note on the hanging of Cochrane in 1480.
45. Do. 14 lines. On Conall M’Scanlan, 98 72 73
48. Notes of purchases in Perth, etc., in Scotch.
48. Lines on Marriage, in Scotch.
49. Anonymous. 18 lines. Indistinct.
50. Ossian. A Lament, 3 2 3
51. Maoldonaich M’Aonghuis Mhuilich. 50 lines.
To the Virgin Mary.
53. Gorrie Finn O’Daly. 30 lines. In praise of Gormlay.
54. Gilliepatrick M’Lachlan. A Quatrain.
55. John of Knoydart. On O’Cairbar, 99 72 73
55. Gormlay Ni Fhlainn. Lament for Nial Glundubh, 100 74 75
56. Nial M’Eoghain bhig. A Quatrain.
57. Gormlay Ni Fhlainn. Lament for Nial Glundubh, 101 74 75
57. Anonymous. 30 lines. On Tabblisk (Tables).
58. Do. A Quatrain, 104 78 79
59. Do. 8 lines, 102 76 77
59. Phelim M’Dougall. Aphorisms, 102 76 77
60. Anonymous. A Quatrain, 108 82 83
61. John M’Murrich, 108 82 83
62. William M’Lachlan. A Quatrain.
62. Gormlay Ni Fhlainn, 118 90 91
63. Ossian. “Sliabh nam ban fionn,” 4 4 5
64. Duncan M’Dougall Maoil. A Quatrain.
64. Duncan M’Pherson, 110 82 83
64. Anonymous.
65. Gille Thuirse O’Sluabhainn. 57 lines. Indistinct.
68. Anonymous. Aphorisms, 104 78 79
68. Earl Gerald. A Satire, 105 78 79
69. Andrew M’Intosh, 106 80 81
70. The Bard M’Intyre, 107 80 81
71. Allan M’Dougall bain. 32 lines. A Satire on Women.
73. Astronomical Notes.
73. Colin Earl of Argyle. 12 lines. Satire on Women.
74. Notes of purchases in Dunkeld, etc.
75. Anonymous. 49 lines. On Muircheartach, an Ulster Prince.
77. Scotch. Satirical. 13 lines.
77. Two anonymous Quatrains.
78. List of Scottish Kings, from Boece.
84. Eoin M’Dhunchaidh Ruaidh. 12 lines. Indistinct.
85. Anonymous. On Alexander the Great, 110 84 85
87. Song of the Three Brothers. 32 lines. Moral.
88. Gerald. 6 lines. A Satire on Women.
88. Fearchar M’Phadruig Grannd (Grant). 6 lines. Do.
88. John M’Murrich. A Quatrain, 112 84 85
89. Duncan M’Pherson. 4 lines. On Eoin Riabhaich.
91. List of Names. Genealogical. Robert “clarsair Leoid,”
“harper of Lude,” among them.
No number. Fragments on Astrology, etc.
93. Ossian. “Cath Fionntraigh,” 7 6 7
97. Anonymous. 81 lines. On M’Ricard of Connaught.
101. Duncan Mor O’Daly. 26 lines. On Cathal’s Belt.
103. Finlay, the red-haired bard. M’Gregor’s Horse, 112 84 85
104. Do. do. On M’Gregor, 114 86 87
106. Teague òg O’Huggin. 49 lines. Religious.
106. Sir Duncan M’Kermont. 20 lines. Satire on Women.
109. Duncan M’Cailein. On a Miser, 116 88 89
111. Do. Satire on Donald donn. 14 lines.
112. Dermod O’Heffernan. 36 lines. An Eulogy.
113. Muireach Albanach. A Quatrain.
114. Ossianic. “Am brat,” 72 50 51
115. Eoin Liath M’Aonghuis. 6 lines.
117. Author’s name defaced. 80 lines. Indistinct.
On John Lord of the Isles.
120. Gilchrist Taylor. 48 lines. An Ecclesiastical Legend.
122. Duncan Mor O’Daly. 36 lines. Do.
124. Gorry finn O’Daly. 44 lines. On O’Brien.
126. Ossian. “Feeble this Night,” 13 10 11
128. Earl Gerald. On Death. 27 lines.
129. Duncan M’Cabe. On the Macdougalls, 119 90 91
130. John M’Ewen M’Eacharn. Do. 121 92 93
133. Caoilte M’Ronan, 62 42 43
141. Continuation from page 215, 122 123
143. Finlay M’Nab. On the Book of Poems, 125 94 95
144. Earl Gerald. 6 lines.
144. Genealogy of Writer, and date 1512, 161 124 125
145. Fergus the Bard. “Rosg Ghuill,” 43 28 29
147. Allan M’Rory. “Bàs Dhiarmaid,” 30 20 21
148. Eafric M’Corquodale. Elegy on M’Niel, 126 96 97
149. Duncan M’Cailein. 16 lines.
150. Muireach Albanach. 81 lines. Hymn to the Virgin.
153. Gilchrist Bruilingeach, bard an Lymin. 43 lines.
155. Dougall M’Ghille ghlais. 48 lines. On M’Gregor, 128 98 99
157. Duncan Campbell, the good knight. 12 lines.
158. Gillepatrick M’Lachlan. 78 lines.
On James, son of John. Indistinct.
161. Anonymous. 14 lines. A Lament.
161. Do. The Clans. 131 100 101
163. Notes on Adam’s Family.
164. Ossianic. The Expedition of Eight, 74 52 53
165. Gorry finn. 21 lines. Moral.
166. Teague Og. 72 lines. Religious.
170. Robert M’Lamont “a Gassgaitr.” 16 lines. Moral.
171. Ossianic. “Binn guth,” 80 58 59
171. Date 12th February 1526. Indiction 15.
4th year of Pope Clement VII.
171. Anonymous. 6 lines.
172. Ossianic. The Banners of the Feinn, 76 54 55
174. Do. “Which is the sweetest Music?” 80 58 59
174. Do. Finn’s Feast, 82 60 61
176. Anonymous. A Quatrain on “Ruaraidh Rodasach.”
177. Do. 20 lines. On a Harp.
179. Baron Ewin M’Comie. On Sickness, 133 102 103
179. Ossian. “Here I saw the Feinn,” 15 10 11
181. Fili fuge ebrietatem.
181. Three Quatrains. The authors of two,
Andrew M’Intosh and Gillespick M’Niel.
182. Latin Genealogy of our Lord.
183. Scotch. The divisions of Ireland.
184. Verses in Scotch.
185. Physiological Notes in Latin.
185. Et ego Jacobus Gregorii.
186. Chronicle in Latin, beginning with the death of Malcom Kenmore.
199. Measurements of Noah’s Ark.
199. Domhnull liath M’Dhughaill Mhic Grigoir. 62 lines. Satire.
202. Duncan Campbell, the good knight. 26 lines. On Old Age.
204. Author’s name wanting. To Archibald Earl of Argyle, 134 102 103
208. Dunchadh M’Dhughaill Mhaoil. The M’Gregors, 137 104 105
209. Mac Gille Fhiontaig, the poet. The M’Gregors, 141 108 109
212. Ossianic. Dialogue with St. Patrick, 84 62 63
215. Ossian. “Urnuidh Oisiain,” 17 12 13
216. Finlay, the red-haired bard. On Allan M’Ruarie, 143 110 111
217. Two Quatrains by Finlay M’Nab.
217. Anonymous. On the M’Leods of Lewis, 146 112 113
219. Latin Notes.
220. Ossian. “Fainesoluis,” 20 14 15
223. Dunchadh M’Dhughaill Mhaoil. 29 lines. Satire.
225. Duncan Campbell. 12 lines. Satire on Women.
225. Anonymous. 6 lines.
226. Gillebride beag M’Conmidhe. 85 lines. On M’Eachain.
230. Fergus the bard. “Cath Ghabhra,” 48 32 33
232. Allan M’Rory. “Cath Ghabhra,” 35 24 25
236. Gilliecallum Mac an Ollaimh. “Bàs Chonlaoich,” 50 34 35
239. Duncan Og. The Seven Mortal Sins, 155 128 129
240. Gilliecallum Mac an Ollaimh.
On John Lord of the Isles, 148 112 113
242. Genealogy of Malcom Kenmore.
244. Gilchrist Bruilingeach, bard an Lymin. 48 lines. On Irish Chiefs.
246. Turn O’Meilchonor. 84 lines. On Irish Chiefs.
249. Quatrain by Finlay the red.
250. Fragments. Two lines on St. Patrick.
251. Contissa Ergadien, Isabella. 8 lines.
251. Duncan Campbell, the good knight. On Priests.
252. Teague òg O’Huggin. 63 lines. On the Cross.
255. Muireach Albanach. 111 lines. Do.
260. Teague òg O’Huggin. 92 lines. Religious.
263. Arthur dall M’Gurkich. Attack on Castle Sween, 151 116 117
266. The Bard M’Intyre. A Ship on Loch Rannoch.
267. M’Pherson. 28 lines.
269. O’Meilchonor. 51 lines. On Nial frasach.
271. Gilchrist Taylor. 36 lines. Moral.
271. M’Cailein mòr, _id est_, Cailean maith. An Epigram.
273. Duncan òg Albanach. 37 lines. A Dream.
275. Gilchrist Taylor. 62 lines. On the Host.
278. Gille glas Mac an Tàileir. 48 lines. On M’Gregor.
279. Earl Gerald. 10 lines.
280. Ossianic. The Greatness of the Feinn, 87 64 65
281. Finlay the red. 26 lines. On M’Gregor.
282. The Bard M’Intyre. 26 lines.
284. Muireach Albanach. A Prayer, 159 122 123
285. Isabella Ni vic Cailein. 6 lines.
286. Anonymous. 36 lines. Indistinct.
287. Ossianic, 88 64 65
291. Latin. The Ages of the World.
292. Isabella Ni vic Cailein, 155 118 119
293. Teague òg O’Huggin. 26 lines.
294. Ossian. Eulogy on Finn, 26 18 19
296. Duncan mor O’Daly. 54 lines. To the Virgin.
301. An caoch O’Cluain. “Fraoch,” 54 36 37
303. Earl Gerald. 20 lines.
304. Finlay, the red-haired bard. 39 lines. On M’Diarmad. Illegible.
306. Duncan M’Cailein. 8 lines.
307. Anonymous. 15 lines. Indistinct.
307. Muireach Albanach. A Lament. 98 lines. Indistinct.
[Illustration: I. AUTOGRAPH OF DEAN M’GREGOR]
[Illustration: II. PART OF OSSIAN’S ODE TO FINN P. 26.,18-19.]
THE BOOK OF THE DEAN OF LISMORE.
The author of this is Ossian,[40] the son of Finn:[41]
I’ve seen the household of Finn.
No men were they of coward race.
I saw by my side a vision
Of the hero’s household yesterday.
I’ve seen the household[42] of Art,[43]
He with the brown-haired son of gentle speech;
No better man I ever saw.
I’ve seen the household of Finn.
Who ever saw what I have seen?
I’ve seen Finn armed with Luno’s son.[44]
How sad the mournful memory.
I’ve seen the household of Finn.
Never can I recount the ills
Which now do crown my head.
Do thou free us for ever from pain.
I’ve seen the household of Finn.
I’ve seen, etc.
[40] The name of this poet has given rise to some controversy between
the Scotch and Irish Gael. By the latter it is pronounced _Oisìn_, the
accent falling on the last syllable; by the former it is pronounced
_Ossian_, the accent falling on the first. Dean M’Gregor spells the
word sometimes _Ossan_, but usually _Ossin_. It is manifest from the
use of the _ss_ that he intends the accent to fall upon the first
syllable, according to the Scottish mode. The Scottish pronunciation
would appear to have been the same in his days as now. This form of the
word we have retained in our translation. We do not mean to institute
any comparison between the Irish and Scottish mode. The difference
clearly arises from the peculiarity of each dialect, the Irish almost
uniformly, in words of two syllables, laying the accent on the last,
and the Scottish upon the first syllable.
[41] The Dean’s Finn is the Fingal of some writers. “Fionn,” pronounced
“Fiŭghn,” genitive, “Fhinn,” pronounced “Ighn,” is the present Scottish
and Irish form of the word, and we have preserved this in M’Gregor’s
own orthography. Scottish writers have, however, been unjustly accused
of manufacturing the term “Fingal.” It is not, as some Irish scholars
have maintained, a modern corruption of Fin mac Cùil, but a word known
and in use for centuries. John Barbour, who wrote his metrical life of
King Robert Bruce in 1375, uses it as a familiar term:--
“He said, Methinks Martheoke’s son
Right as Gow-mac-Morn was won,
To have from Fingal his menzie.”
It would appear, from the analogies of the Gaelic language, to be the
complete form of the word. “Fionn” means _fair_, being in reality an
adjective noun; “Gal” is a common termination of Celtic proper names.
Hence, “Fionn Ghal,” or “Fingal,” means the “fair-haired one.“ In like
manner, we have “Dubh,“ _black_, “Ghal,” “Dubhghal,” or “Dugald;”
“Donn,” brown, “Ghal,” “Donnghal,” _Dungal_, _Donald_, the brown-haired
one. Hence, Fionn is a contraction of the name. It is remarkable as
an instance of the changes which take place in the use of words, that
in modern times “Fionnghal” is the name of a woman, and is usually
translated “Flora.“
[42] In the original the word translated here, “household,“ is
“tylych,“ or “teaghlach,“ a _family_. The literal translation would
be, “the family of Art.” But this would not convey the idea in the
original, the Celtic _family_ in such a case as this implying the
military followers of the head or chief. It seems probable that these
ancient Celtic chiefs, like chiefs in more recent times, had their
armed followers in constant attendance on them.
[43] Art was King of Ireland, according to Irish authorities, in the
beginning of the third century. Tradition says that he was the father
of Grainne, the wife of Finn, whose defection and escape with Diarmad
led to the event so famous in ancient Celtic poetry, the death of
Diarmad. A poem relating the event will be found in this collection.
[44] “Mac an Loinn,” or “Luno’s son,“ was the famous sword of Fingal,
manufactured by Loinn mac Liobhaidh, the celebrated smith, or “Vulcan,“
of the Celts. The sword was so effective that in no case was it ever
required to give a second stroke. The Gaelic words are, “Cha d’ fhàg
e fuigheall beuma,”--It left no remnant for its stroke. We have heard
of a remarkable instance of the effective use of this phrase in the
pulpit by a distinguished Highland minister, Mr. Lachlan M’Kenzie of
Lochcarron. In illustrating the completeness of the one sacrifice of
our Lord, he said, and to a Highland audience it was electrifying,
“Chuala sibh mu ’n chlaidheamh bh’ aig Fionn, nach d’ fhàg riamh
fuigheall beuma,”--_You have heard of Fingal’s sword, which never
needed to give a second blow._ “Loinn mac Liobhaidh,” the “Vulcan” of
the Celts, is in reality _Brightness, the son of polishing_, a fact
which would go far to prove the mythical character of this famous
artisan.
The author of this is Ossian:[45]
Long are the clouds this night above me;
The last was a long night to me.
This day, although I find it long,
Yesterday was longer still.
Each day that comes is long to me,
Such indeed was not my wont.
Now is no fight, or battle-field,
No learning noble feats of arms
Without maiden, song, or harp;
No crushing bones or warlike deeds,
No studious learning any more,
No hospitable heart or board,
No soft wooing, and no chase,
In both of which I took delight.
Without the battle-march or fight,
Alas! how sorrowful life’s close;
No hunting of the hind or stag,
How different from my heart’s desire!
No trappings for our hounds, no hounds.
Long are the clouds this night above me.
No rising up to noble feats,
No mirthful sport as we would wish,
No swimming heroes in our lakes.
Long are the clouds this night above me;
In this great world none is like me,
So sad, how sad my case!
A poor old man now dragging stones.
Long are the clouds this night above me,
The last man of the Feine am I,
The great Ossian, the son of Finn,
Listening to the sound of bells.[46]
Long are the clouds this night above me.
Find, O Patrick, from thy God
What our eternal state shall be.
Freed may we ever be from ill.
Long are the clouds this night above me.
Long are the clouds, etc.
[45] This piece is extracted and printed in the report on the Poems
of Ossian, published by the Highland Society. Dr. Smith, however,
who made the extract, appears not to have read it with much care
or accuracy, and the concluding portion, from the twentieth line
downwards, is suppressed altogether. This seems to have arisen from a
desire to suppress all the references in those poems to St. Patrick,
and thus to establish by all possible means their Scottish origin.
If any of the Poems are the genuine compositions of Ossian, there is
sufficient evidence that the references to the Saint are of more recent
introduction, in the fact, that if Ossian saw Art, who lived in the
opening of the third century, as he tells us in the preceding fragment,
he could hardly hold a dialogue with St. Patrick, who flourished in the
fifth. In the present publication the poems of every kind are given
just as they stand, without any reference to the effect on existing
systems and theories, Scotch or Irish.
[46] The bells used in Christian worship. “Patrick of the bells,” is a
common appellation of St. Patrick in these compositions.
The Author of this is Ossian:
Once on a time when Finn my loved
Went to hunt on the “Fair maids’ hill,”[47]
With three thousand nobles of the Feine,
Their shields aloft o’er their heads.
Ossian! thy words are sweet to me,
My blessing on the soul of Finn.[48]
Tell us the number of the deer
That fell on the “Fair maids’ hill.”
[47] “Sliabh nam ban fionn,” or the “hill of the fair-haired women,” is
said to be one of the mountains of Tipperary, in the neighbourhood of
Clonmel. It is now called “Sliabh nam ban,” and has several traditions
of the Feine associated with it. The writer is not aware of any
mountain of the name in Scotland; besides, although the word “Sliabh”
is well known and in common use among the Scottish Highlanders, it is
seldom found in the topography of the country, in which the almost
uniform term for a mountain is “Beinn,” the English “Ben.” This is
one of the marked differences between Irish and Scottish topography.
The term under consideration has sometimes been called in Scotland
“Sliabh nam beann fionn,” “the hill of the fair hills,” a manifest
mistake, which the meaningless tautology should be enough to prove.
Topographical phrases in the Gaelic language are usually not only
grammatically accurate, but of remarkable elegance in their structure.
The interpretations often put upon them are a monstrous outrage upon
this sound and invariable principle.
[48] It is obvious that parts of these compositions are dialogues, for
the most part between Ossian and St. Patrick. The dialogue portion in
these editions of Dean M’Gregor’s is generally either prefixed or added
to the body of the poem. This is quite consistent with the genuineness
of the work, and can be explained upon the supposition, that these
portions were either prefixed or adjoined at an after period by some
other hand to serve a purpose. This cannot be said of those poems which
are in the form of dialogues throughout.
How vigorously we shook our spears,
For never hast thou sung the deer
Slain on the “Fair maids’ hill,”
By the hand of Finn of the feasts.
Tell them the tale in full,
My blessing on thy guileless lips.
Had you your dress and your armour
When you went forth to the chase?
We had our dress and our armour
When we went forth to the chase;
There was no Fian amongst us all
Without his fine soft flaxen shirt,
Without his under coat of substance soft,
Without a coat of mail of brightest steel,
The covering for his head adorned with gems,
And in his hand he bore two spears,
Besides a fierce and conquering shield,
And sword that never failed to cleave the skull.
Wert thou to search the universe
Thou would’st not find a braver man than Finn;
Of noblest race and fairest form,
No arm from him could carry victory.
As he went forth to try his snow-white hound
Who ’mongst us all was like to Finn?
Westward we went, an ordered band,
To hunt on the “Fair maids’ hill.”
O Patrick, pupil of the church’s head,
Bright was the sun above us,
As in the midst of us sat Finn.
Eastward and westward sweetly rung,
From hill to hill the voice of hounds,
Arousing boars and harts.
Then Finn and Bran[49] did sit alone
A little while upon the mountain side,
Each of them panting for the chase,
Their fierceness and their wrath aroused.
Then did we unloose three thousand hounds
Of matchless vigour and unequalled strength.
Each of the hounds brought down two deer,
Long ere ’twas time to bind them in their thongs.
That day there fell six thousand deer,
Down in the vale that lies beneath the hill;
There never fell so many deer and roe
In any hunt that e’er till this took place.
But sad was the chase down to the east,
Thou cleric of the church and bells,
Ten hundred of our hounds, with golden chains,
Fell wounded by ten hundred boars:
Then by our hands there fell the boars,
Which wrought the ill upon the plain.
And were it not for blades and vigorous arms,
That chase had been a slaughter.
[49] Bran was the famous hound of Finn. The word means “a raven,” but
used as an adjective it signifies “black,” which is apparently the
origin of the name. Another of his dogs was called “Luath,” or “Swift,”
also an adjective. These are common names for staghounds in the
Highlands at this day. Reference is made a few lines before this to a
white dog, “achoin ghil,” translated “snow-white,” “geal,” implying the
most intense whiteness.
O Patrick of the holy crosier,
Eastward or westward, hast thou ever seen,
Another chase, in all thy days,
Greater than that of Finn and of the Feine?
This then was the hunt of Finn,
Thou son of Alpin[50] of the holy relics,
More than thy howling in the church
Do I love to tell the day.
Once on a time, etc.
The author of this is Ossian:[51]
Once on a time as Patrick of the holy crook
Betook him to his cell,
He sought as his companion
Ossian of gentle mien.
Now let me hear, he said,
Ossian, whose courage has made foes retreat,
Who of all those whom thou ne’er sang’st,
Most vexed the Feine of Finn?
Priest of the spotted crook,[52]
Thy lifetime it would take
To tell in human speech
The glory of the Feine of Finn.
[50] The Irish call this word “Arpluinn,” in Latin, “Calphurnius.” In
the Highlands the name is uniformly “Alpin,”--“Padruig mac Alpain.”
[51] This composition the Irish call the battle of “Ventry Harbour,” a
place in the county of Kerry in Ireland. There are, however, Fintrays
in Scotland, which are apparently the same name, and Mr. Skene has
called the attention of the writer to the fact, that there is a Sgùir
Dhaire dhuinn, “the hill of Daire donn,” in Duror in Argyleshire.
Irish Antiquaries say the battle was fought in the third century
between the Féine of Ireland and Daire donn, or Daire the brown, King
of the world. It will be seen in this copy that Daire is introduced
as King of Lochlin or Scandinavia, although afterwards called King of
the world. It is very probable that both to the Scotch and Irish Celt
Scandinavia was at this period synonymous with the world. This poem is
here attributed to Ossian, although it is very doubtful whether it is
so in the MS. The writing is so indistinct, that it is impossible to
read the title correctly. It is hardly necessary to remind the reader
that the poem is in the form of a dialogue between the bard, whoever
he may be, and St. Patrick. The name of the saint seems to have been a
favourite one with the bards, and was used no doubt to give consequence
and currency to their compositions.
[52] The crozier of St. Patrick. Several ancient Celtic croziers are
still in existence. Two are well known in Scotland. One of them is the
Quigrich, or crozier of St. Fillan, now in possession of a family of
the name of Dewar in Canada, to whose progenitor it was intrusted by
Robert Bruce at the battle of Bannockburn. An interesting notice of
this relic has recently been published by Dr. D. Wilson of Toronto.
Another is the crozier of St. Munn, now in the Museum of the Society of
Antiquaries in Scotland, and long in possession of a family called the
Barons of Bachul (a _crozier_, from the Latin _Baculus_), in the island
of Lismore. A notice of this relic will be found in the transactions
of the Scottish Antiquaries, from the able pen of Mr. Cosmo Innes. The
word “breac,” or _spotted_, applied to the crozier, must refer to its
ornamentation. The term will be found elsewhere applied to spears or
swords.
Since without guile thou art,
And now that they are dead, dost live,
Watch thou for ever on,
And tell the deeds done by the Feine.
Should I be spared for fifty years,
Hearing thy music in thy cell
Till my death’s day, I could not tell
The noble deeds of the Feine of Finn.
The kingdoms of the earth in all its breadth
Belonged to us on every side.
Tribute we raised from all of them for Finn,[53]
Else filled them with the shout of war.
In this wide earth there was not one
That dared refuse us,
Not ev’n in Alve[54] of the spotted spears,
With all its power and its untold renown.
[53] This is a curious piece of Bardic exaggeration. But there may be
some history hidden within its folds. There is sufficient evidence to
prove that the Féine, whoever they were, were not confined to Ireland.
We have numerous ancient Celtic compositions in which reference is made
to the Féine of Scotland, and the Féine of Britain, meaning either
Wales, or England and Wales together. The truth with regard to Finn and
his Féine seems even yet to be a long way off.
[54] This is said to be “Almhuin,” or Allen, the residence of Finn,
according to Irish accounts, in the county of Kildare. The word has
a strong resemblance to “Alba,” the Gaelic name for Scotland; and in
reading ancient Gaelic MSS., care must be taken to distinguish the two.
We give the name in the Dean’s orthography, whatever the place may be.
Would’st thou but tell them now,
Ossian, of the fierce assaults,
Which was the stoutest arm
Among the men that followed Finn.
Thou sett’st me to a painful task,
O Priest, thou pupil of the heavenly king,
I could not till the judgment day,
Tell of the Feine, the men and deeds.
Yet since it so fell out that thou outliv’st them
Ossian of sweet and pleasing songs,
Which would’st thou chuse of all the Feinn,
To stand in battle by thy shield?
Oscar and Caoilte and Gaul,
And Luthy’s son, of sharpest swords;
Round Cumhal’s son,[55] they well might stand,
No nobler band in battle fought;
Bloody Fargon, son to the king,
And Carroll with the murderous spear;
Dermin, brave and fair, who nothing feared,
And bore his pointed shield aloft,
Coll Caoilte’s son, so gentle at the feast;
Corc, a warrior of no tender blows;
Ryno, son to the king;--
A band than which no braver fought.
The fair-haired Fillan, who was son to Finn,
And Garry, than whom no bloodier foe;
The guileless Dyrin, Doveran’s son,
Hugh, son of Garry of the powerful arm,
I, myself, and Gaul the son of Smail,
And Daire of oaken frame, brave Ronan’s son;
The armourer’s three sons, men without guile,
Whose ruddy armour gleamed, adorned with gold.
Now that I tell my tale to thee,
Cleric that dwell’st at Port-na-minna,
No man of all the Feine was known to me
But one, to whom all other men must yield.
But, now, do thou be seated in thy chair,
Take up thy pen, we’ll number all the host,
The host of brave and noble men
Who came, well-ordered bands, unto the Feine.
Across the sea the King of Lochlin came,
The brown-haired[56] Daire of famous shield,
From Conn to wrest the tribute paid by Erin,
A mournful tale for us and all our host.
Our Feinn had friends who came to give them aid,
Men from the sides of every hill,
Led on by Cairbar of the sinewy arm.
Of these four bands came safe to land.
Of the Feinn themselves came seven bands,
Three from the east, the half of Erin called from Conn.[57]
The greater number in the battle fell,
But few escaped the bands of Daire donn.
Down with his fleet lay Daire donn
Himself and all his host.
Of these were thirty score[58]
Who ne’er again did see their native land.
There watched them near the shore
Conn Crithear of the well-aimed strokes.
He seized the men of India there,
And raised the king’s head on the mountain side.
This famous Conn, the son of Ulster’s king,
And Dollir, no less famed for warlike deeds,
We left upon the strand,
Drowned in mutual clasp beneath the waves.
Dathach’s three sons, no braver men,
Ascending from the place where lay the ships,
Feartan and Kerkal, he with the large round head,
We left their bodies naked on the strand.
Owar,[59] the armed daughter of the King of Greece,
And Forna of the heavy sturdy blows
We left, a vacant grin upon their faces.
We knew no sorrow as we left them there.
Four of the King of Lochlin’s sons we left,
Slain by our fierce, resistless arms.
The three Balas from Borrin in the east,
Hardly escaped our murderous blows.
Great as was the king of the world,
Daire donn, with shield of purest white,
We left his body, too, upon the strand,
Slain by the blows of the victorious Feine.
Of all the world’s hosts, brave though they were,
None did escape the slaughter
Except the King of France alone,
Who, like a swallow as it grasps the air,
Fled from fear of noble Oscar,
And even once his sole ne’er touched the earth
Until he got to Glenabaltan, as men relate;
Then and there only did he find him rest.
It was on Fintray’s strand, down at the sea,
Our people made this slaughter,
Of these, the kings of all the world,
And drank our full of vengeance.
Our fierce and conquering arms
Laid many a noble warrior low;
Many a sword and shield
Lay shattered on the strand,
The strand of Fintray of the port;
Many dead bodies lay upon the earth,
Many a hero with a vacant grin.
Much was the spoil we gathered in the fight.
Patrick, son of noble Alpin,
Even of the Feine themselves, none did escape
The fierce and murderous fight
Except two ordered bands,
Nor were their bodies whole.
The sons of Boisgne[60] made one band of those,
A race, with hands that knew no tender grasp,
Then came the sons of Morn,[61] who with the sons of Smail
Made up the second band.
By thy hand, O noble Priest
In that sore fight, there perished of our Feine
Five well-trained bands
Who left us for the strand.
Thirty luckless bands,
A thousand score in each,
We numbered of the men of Daire donn,
That never reached the waves.
Were I to answer thee, O Priest,
As thou desir’st to hear my every tale,
Down to the time we[62] Gawra’s battle fought,
We never lost our power.
Then did we seize the ships;
We took the heavy silver of the king,
The gold, the garments, and the other spoil;
Each half of Erin had its share.
Holy Patrick of the relics,
Shall I meet death within thy house of prayer?
Cover thou my form with earth,
Since thou knowest well my tale.
Ossian, since thou art wearied now,
Make thy peace, that thou may’st die,
Take up thy prayer and ask for mercy,
Early each day call on thy God,
And when, on the judgment day, thou reachest Sion,
Where all men shall be gathered,
May Michael, Mary, and the Son of God
Take thee kindly by the hand.
May the Twelve Apostles, with their song of praise,
Each holy cleric, and each prophet,
Me save from hell,
For I’ve been very sinful in my day.
Once on a time.[63]
[55] Finn was Cumhal’s son. The word is pronounced “Finn mac
Cúil,”--very much as M’Dougal is pronounced in the speaking of Gaelic.
The writer has been led to think that traces of “Cual” (Cumhal) might
be found in the King Coil of Ayrshire. The whole region about the scene
of Coil’s territory and sepulchre has been purely Celtic, and the grave
itself bears marks of being constructed in the early Celtic method.
[56] As already observed, Daire donn, or “Daire the brown,” is called
here the King of Lochlin.
[57] Ireland was divided into two great sections: the northern, called
Leth Chuinn, or Conn’s half, from Conn of the hundred battles, King of
Ulster; the southern, called Leth Mhogha, or Mogh’s half, called from
Mogha Nuadhat, King of Munster, both in the second century.
[58] The Celts always count by twenties up to 400. When a Highlander
speaks of 340 or 360 of anything, he uniformly says seventeen score or
eighteen score. The numbers given here are an instance of the poetic
license.
[59] This daughter of the King of Greece is well known in Celtic
tradition. In Mr. J. F. Campbell’s _Tales of the West Highlands_, vol.
ii. p. 470, it will be seen that traces of her existence are found
still in the island of Barra. Greece was not unknown to the ancients.
Cæsar tells us that the Gauls, although not committing their religious
mysteries to paper, in common writing which was familiar to them, used
the Greek letters. This is a remarkable statement, and one of which
too little use has been made in discussing the social condition of the
early Gael. At the same time, we learn from the history of the Gallic
war that the literature of Gaul was drawn from Britain, at least her
priests studied there, which can have no other meaning.
[60] The race of the Féine to which Finn belonged. The Irish say they
occupied Leinster and the eastern part of Ulster.
[61] The race to which the famous Gaul belonged. They are said to
have occupied Connaught and the west of Ireland. These are the Irish
accounts, and must be taken as contributions to a correct elucidation
of the history of these events, if they have a real history.
[62] A poem on this famous battle will be found in a subsequent part of
this collection.
[63] It will be seen in this and the previous pieces, that the first
few lines are repeated at the close of every poem. This practice
is uniformly followed in all ancient Celtic Poetry, and is a sure
indication that we have reached the end of the piece.
The author of this is Ossian:
Feeble this night is the power of my arm,
My strength is no more as it was;
No wonder though I should mourn,
Poor old relic that I am;
Sad that such should be my lot,
Beyond all men who tread the earth,
Wearily dragging stones along
To the church on the hill of the priest.
I have a tale which I would tell
Regarding our people, O Patrick:
Listen to Finn’s prediction.
Shortly ere thou cam’st, O Priest,
The hero was to build a fort,
On Cuailgne’s[64] bare and rounded hill.
He laid it on the Feine of Fail[65]
Materials for the work to get.
Two-thirds of all his famous fort
He laid upon the sons of Morn;
The other third he laid on me,
And on the other sons of Boisgne.
I answered, but not aright,
The son of Cumhal, son of Trenmor.
I said I would cast off his rule,
And would submit to him no more.
Then for long Finn held his peace,
The hero hard to vanquish,
He who knew no guile nor fear,
When my answer he had heard,
His words to me were these,
The words of Finn, prince of the Feine:
[64] A hill said to be in the county of Armagh, celebrated in the
ancient poem of “Tain bo Chuailgne,” or “The cattle spoil of Cuilinn.”
It is said to have been here that Cuchullin resided, whence probably
his name, Cu Chuailgne, or Cuchullin, the Hound of Cuillinn. In Irish
History Cuchullin is said to have lived a couple of centuries previous
to the era of Fingal.
The reader may be reminded that there is a mountain in Skye called
Cuilinn, one of the grandest of the Scottish mountains. The person
from whom both this and the Irish hills of the name were called, is
said to have been Cuilionn, a Druidical priest of great fame. The word
means also the Holly tree, from whence the derivation is sufficiently
probable.
[65] “Fail” is an ancient name for Ireland. The word signifies _fate_;
hence “Innisfail,” or the “Island of fate,” or, more probably, “the
sacred island.”
Thou shalt be dragging stones awhile
Ere to thy mournful home thou goest.
Then did I rise up in wrath,
From Cumhal’s son of bloody sword.
There followed me of all the Feine,
The fourth battalion, hardy and brave.
Then was I long with the Feine,
On all things I my judgment gave.
Many were there with me then,
But now, alas, I’m feeble, feeble;
I was counsellor to the Feine,
In all emergencies, how feeble.
How many men that do not know
That on this earth I’m feeble, feeble.
This night my body’s frame is feeble,
Patrick, I believe thy words.
My hands, my feet, and head,
All of them are feeble, feeble.
Feeble, etc.
The author of this is Ossian:
Here have I seen the Feine,
I have seen Conan and Gaul,
Finn, and Oscar my son,
Ryno, Art, and brown-haired Diarmad,[66]
Brave M’Luy,[67] he of noble mien,
The red-haired Garry,[68] also Hugh the less,
Hugh Garry’s son, who never quailed,
The three Finns, and with them Fead,
Glass and Gow and Garry,
The long-haired Galve, and the impetuous Conan;[69]
Gaul and Crooin, Gaul’s son,
Socach, the son of Finn, and Bran;[70]
Caoilte, the son of warlike Ronan,[71]
Who swiftest ran, and leaped o’er valleys,
The readiest to scatter gold,
One of them of sweetest voice;
Bayne, son of Brassil of the swords,
The son of Cromchin, son of Smail,
And Oscar, son of powerful Garry,[72]
The three Balas, and the three Skails,
Three battalions from Glenstroil,
Three bands from Monaree;
Caoilte’s seven sons best trained to fight;
The three named Glass from Glassrananseir;
The three Beths from Cnokandurd,
Three of unfailing excellence;
Deach Fichid’s son from Borruinn mor,
Of them who always conquered.
Here have I seen the Feine
Whose liberal hand did music buy,[73]
Ranged around Ossian and Finn,
Traversing valleys to dispense their gold.
Fearton and brave Carroll were there,
Who never fought but where they won.
I sing them, and generous Felan,
All of whom here have I seen.
Here have I seen.
[66] Diarmad was the Adonis of the Feine. He is celebrated for his
beauty, which led finally to his death, as will be seen in a future
poem. He is said to have been the Ancestor of the clan Campbell, who
are hence called “Clann Diarmaid,” or the “children of Diarmad.” The
M’Diarmads, as well as some other subordinate clans, are also said to
be of the same stock.
[67] A grandson of Finn by his son Daire dearg. His mother’s name was
Luigheach, whence he was called the son of Luigheach, pronounced Luy.
He was a famous man among the Feine, according to Irish authorities.
[68] There were several among the Feine of this name. The name is
widely known in the topography of Scotland. There are two Rivers Garry,
two lochs, and two large rivers. These are found in Inverness-shire and
Perthshire.
[69] Conan is usually called “Conan maol,” or “Conan the bald,”
and was known among the Feine for his thoughtless impetuosity. He
was, in consequence of this peculiar temperament, ever getting into
difficulties, and exposing himself to the ridicule and reprehension of
his companions. There are both a river and valley in Scotland called
after him, the River Conan and Strathconan in Rosshire.
[70] “Bran,” the name of Finn’s celebrated hound, is here obviously the
name of a man. There is a “strath” or valley in Rosshire which still
retains his name, Strathbran. The extent to which Fenian names are
found in Scottish topography, goes far to show the close connexion of
the Feine themselves with that country.
[71] Caoilte was one of the most famous of the Feine. He was
distinguished for his swiftness, and not without reason, as is shown
in his chase of Loinn mac Liobhaidh, the Fenian blacksmith, whom he
overtook, although he could cross a valley at a stride.
[72] This Oscar must be distinguished from the famous Oscar, the Poet’s
son. Of the latter he never speaks without applying to him some term of
endearment, as “my son,” “my own son,” etc.
[73] This line refers to the liberal rewards which the Bards usually
received among the Celts. A eulogy was sometimes rewarded by the Chief
with a silver cup. Even poetry had need to be purchased; and probably
were it not for the hope of reward of some kind, many of the noblest
Poems which have adorned human history would never have seen the light.
At a meeting of Skye gentlemen on some public occasion some years
ago, the question was put, “Where are the bards?” One of the company
replied, “They are gone.” “No,” said Nicolson of Scorrybreck, “they are
still with us; but the men who fostered them are gone.”
The author of this is Ossian, the son of Finn.[74]
[74] This piece is what is usually called “Urnuidh Oisiain,” or
“Ossian’s prayer.” There are many such colloquies in the Gaelic, many
of them bearing no marks of great antiquity. It will be found that
in the Gaelic the poem is divided. This arose from a misplacing of
different parts of it in the MS., which was not observed till the first
part was printed off. In the English the whole is given consecutively.
Tell us, O Patrick, what honour is ours,
Do the Feine of Ireland in heaven now dwell?
In truth I can tell thee, thou Ossian of fame,
That no heaven has thy father, Oscar, or Gaul.
Sad is the tale thou tellest me, Priest,
I worshipping God while the Feine have no heaven.
Shalt thou not fare well thyself in that city,
Though ne’er should thy father, Caoilte, and Oscar be there?
Little joy would it bring to me to sit in that city,
Without Caoilte, and Oscar, as well as my father.
Better see the face of heaven’s son each day,
Than all the gold on earth, were it thine to possess.
Tell us, thou Priest of the Holy city, the tale;
In return I’ll recount thee the battle of Gaura.
If the tale of that city thou desir’st, old man,
No thirst, no hunger, want, reproach are there.
Who are heaven’s sons? more noble are the Feinn:
Are they hard of heart? have thou mercy, Cleric;
Unlike them are the Feine, unlike them altogether,
Never on the green plain did they seek the chase.
For thy love’s sake, Patrick, forsake not the heroes,
Unknown to heaven’s King, bring thou in the Feinn.
Though little room you’d take, not one of your race,
Unknown to heaven’s King, shall get beneath his roof.
How different Mac Cumhail, the Feinn’s noble king,
All men, uninvited, might enter his great house.
Sad is that, old man, and thy life’s close so near,
That thou should’st so unjustly judge of my great king.
Better the fierce conflict of Finn and his Feinn,
Than thy holy master, and thyself together.
Mournful, poor old man, that thou should’st folly speak,
Better God for a day than all of Erin’s Feinn.
Though few be my days, and my life’s close near,
Patrick defame not the nobles of clan Boisgne.
Thou can’st never tell, Ossian, son to the Queen,
How different your nobles from those of my Lord.
Were even Conan living, the least of the Feinn,
He would not suffer thy insolence, Cleric.
Speak not thus, Ossian, savage are thy words,
Take thee now thy rest, and guide thee by my rule.
Did’st thou see the fight, and the noble banners,
Never would’st thou think but of the glory of the Feinn.
Ossian, Prince’s son, ’twill be thy soul’s great loss
That thou now think’st only of the battles of the Feinn.
Did’st thou hear the hounds, and the sounds of the hunt,
Thou would’st rather be there than in the holy city.
That is sad, old man, if the glory of the chase
Be greater than all which Heaven above can yield.
Say not so, Patrick, empty are thy words,
Indeed and in truth, better Finn and the Feinn.
By thy hand, Boisgne’s son, not empty are my words,
Better is one angel than Finn and the Feinn.
Were I only now as I was at Gaura’s fight,
I would punish thy reproach of Erin’s noble Feinn.
Thy pride is all gone, for all thy future days,
None are now left of thy band but thyself.
Were my men in life I’d not hear thy howling,
And I’d make thee to suffer in return for thy talk.
Though all of these yet lived, and were now joined together,
I’d still not speak only of the Feinn’s seven bands.
Seven times the number that thou hast of priests,
Fell all in battle by Oscar alone.
Thou’rt now in thy last days, old and senseless man,
Cease now thy speaking, and come away with me;
Did’st thou see the men of cowls, Finn’s son, in Alve,
Thou would’st not as thou dost reproach the men of heaven.
No less was our great band, when we were met in Taura,
Reproachful are the words thou speak’st of the great king,
I will forgive thee, Cleric, although thou dost not tell.
Tell.
The author of this is Ossian.[75]
I know a little tale of Finn,
A tale that we should not despise,
Of Cumhal’s son, the valorous,
Which our memory still preserves.
Once we were a little band,
At Essaroy,[76] of gentle streams,
Near the coast was under sail,
A currach, in which sat a maid;
Fifty men stood by the King,
Brave in any fight or field,
Sad for them who faced their right arm,
For we ruled in every land.
All of us rose up in haste,
Save Finn of the Feine and Gaul,
To welcome the boat as it sped,
Cleaving the waves in its course.
It never ceased its onward way
Until it reached the wonted port.
Then when it had touched the land,
The maid did from her seat arise,
Fairer than a sunbeam’s sheen,
Of finest mould and gentlest mien.
Then before this stranger maid,
We stood and showed courtesy;
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