Ossian Collection > Report of the Committee of the Highland Society of Scotland, appointed to inquire into the nature and authenticity of the poems of Ossian

LETTERS TO MR. MACKENZIE, \^C. 63
In answer to the first query, the committee will please to
know, that about the year 1740, I heard John Fleming, a
taylor, who in the manner of the country, worked with
his journeymen at my father's house, repeat, in a kind of
chiming measure, heroic strains relating to an arrival or
landing of an host and a subsequent battle, with a single
combat of two chiefs. This I took down in writing, and
kept for some time ; but was not in possession of when
Mr Macpherson's publications appeared. I had no doubt,
however, in recognizing the same passage in the arrival of
Swaran, and the single combat with Cuchullin, in Mac-
pherson's translation of Fingal.
The few words I can recal, are, 1st, in relation to the
hosts engaged :
" lomma colan, iomma skia, iomma tria, is lurigh
gharibh.
And in relation to the chiefs who grappled, and in whose
struggle —
Bha cloghin agus talamh trom moscle fo bhonn an
cos.
The Committee will be so good as excuse my spelling, and
guess at the words as they best can. As John Fleming was
then an oldish man, he is probably long since dead.
As to the second query — the Committee will please to
know that I have, at different times, heard other scraps or
fragments repeated ; but the principal use I made of them
was, to tell my friend and companion at CoUege, Mr John
Home, that there were such relicks of ancient poetry in
the Highlands, and which led him to the inquiries which
produced Mr Macpherson's communications.
The fragments I afterwards saw in Mr Macpherson's
hands, by no means appeared of recent writing : the paper
was much stained \\ith smoke, and daubed with Scots
snufF.