Blair Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 4

34 HEROES OF OSSIAN AUTHORITIES.
has a genuine Scottish original been found, and that
none will ever be found I am very certain." If he
means that the Gaelic of 1807 never can be found in
an ancient manuscript, he is certainly right, for the
language must have obeyed the common law of change
incident to all languages ; but he has pointed out some
of the incidents on which the first book of Temora is
founded, in one of the two ancient poems which were
attributed to Oisin in the tenth century ; and it is beyond
question that endless stories and poems about Fionn and
his people have been for centuries, and still are tradi-
tionally preserved in Scotland, as well as in Ireland.
According to Irish authorities, then, Gaelic poems are
preserved in ancient manuscript, and some relate to the
Ossianic heroes, but they were Irishmen, who lived, and
loved, and fought in the third century, and not Scotch-
men ; but according to other Irish authorities, these men
flourished much later. Scotch and British Fenians
are mentioned, and Scotch Oscars ajjpear in Irish
poems, even Danisli Oscars are named in Irish books ;
and the feats attributed to the ancient heroes who bore
these Ossianic names, and whose chief was Finn, are
often the exploits of giants and demigods.
According to MacPherson and " Ossian's poems,"
FiNGAL was king of Morven, and lived about the same
time; according to tradition, which scorns dates (see
Ko. Lxxxii), FioNN was the son of a Scotch king who
came from Ireland, and of a Scandinavian princess,
and drove the Scandinavians from Scotland, having
first passed through many adventures in Ireland. As-
suming that he lived in the third century, he may have