Ossian Collection > Dissertation on the authenticity of the poems of Ossian

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DISSERTATION.
They may he
mythical,
but are proba-
bly historical.
Evidence of
Mr Skene ;
vivid imagination to give some colour to this theory. The great
hero Fingal may be " white-white" — i.e., "dazzling." He is, accord-
ing to the tales, a son of the " Claim Baoisgne," " the children of
brightness ;" his sword, which never sought a second stroke, is the
son of Luno, or of " shining;" his great standard, irresistible when
" she spread her wing on the wind," was Deb-greine, or " sun-
beam;" his wife was Ros-greine, Roscrana, or Graine, also signify-
ing " sunbeam," or the " eyelid of the suu." According to the tales,
she eloped with Diarmad* in whose name we have at least " light
and atmosphere," whatever more, possibly "the god of the court
of the sky" (?) This Diarmad is wounded and deprived of his para-
mour for a time by a grim giant called Ciuthach, or Citheach,
very like Ceathach, the common name for " mist." Diarmad at
last destroys him, but is himself, through the contrivance of
Fingal, slain by a venomous boar — " on Ben Gulbin," or " the
pointed hill," "the Ben of peaks ;" and etymology would find it
no hard task to connect several other Ossianic names with the
sky. All this looks astronomical and mythical. And Professor M.
Miiller says that " the story of Helen is a dawn myth ; " f while
elsewhere he says, " the siege of Troy has no historic basis." \
It is certain that the 'iEneid' has no historic basis; and it
appears to me that the real value of the Ossianic poems is very
slightly affected by either view as to their historical character.
But a statement will be found in Mr Skene's 'Essay on the
Highlanders,' vol. i. p. 206-216, which is of very great im-
portance in deciding this question. The sum is as follows :
The account given of the Irish kings in Ossian is diametrically
opposed to that given by the Irish historians, who quoted from
the monkish chroniclers of the fourteenth century. But the
Annals of Tighernac, first published in 1825, agree entirely
with Ossian. These Annals, written in the eleventh century,
* The following account of the perseverance and ingenuity of this lady in
carrying off Dermid is given in some of the tales : He had repeatedly rejected her
proposals for an elopement, and at last declared that he would not accompany her
on foot, or on horseback, indoors or out, by night or by day ; when lo and be-
hold ! on the following morning, mounted on a foal, and standing midway in his
door, she called to him just at the dawn of day, and told him that here she was,
neither on foot nor on horseback, neither indoors nor out, neither in night nor in
day. Overcome by this appeal he yielded — to his final undoing.
t Science of Language, second series, p. 472. % Ibid., p. 399.