Matheson Collection > Reliquiae Celticae > Poetry, history and philology

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142
THE BOOK OF CLANRANALD.
to say. That it once contained Ossianic poetry is certain ; it now
contains none. The Rev. Donald Mackintosh, who translated it,
speaks of it in the 1807 " Ossian" in connection with the Edin-
burgh MS. 48, which has been printed in Vol. I. of the Reliquice
Celticic. After remarking that the poem " Se la gus an de "
appears in MS. 48, Mackintosh says : — " This poem is also in
Clanranald's book ; it gives a description of Fingal's palace and
heroes. I have compared both this and the other poem (' Cnoc
an Air') with those in Clanranald's book ; but the leaves on which
they were written were loose and detached, five in number, and
given to Dr Donald Smith, when assisting Mr Mackenzie iu
making out the report on Ossian, and who died before the report
was quite finished ; and unless the leaves are found in the
possession of Dr John Smith at Campbelltown, the brother of
Donald, they must be lost. These leaves contained two other
short poems ascribed to Ossian. I have copied these two last
some years ago ; the one is a genealogy of Fingal, th3 other an
account of the ages of the Fingalian heroes."
The leaves referred to by Mackintosh are, of course, lost ; but
fortunately the interesting poem on th3 Ages of the Feinne is
preserved, along with " Cnoc an Air," in the Black Book, and is
printed in our present volume further on. The poem on the
genealogy of Fionn is, we fear, lost.
As at present preserved, the Red Book begins at page 33, and
ends with j^age 310. The first 32 pages, containing the history
and genealogy of the Macdonalds from Mile (1700 B.C.) of Spain
down to the year 1234 a.d., is lost. It is clear that the Edinburgh
MS. 50, which is a congeries of several manuscript debris, has
incorporated in it 6 of the lost Red Book pages, detailing events
from the death of Colla Uas in 335 to the middle of the exploits
of Gillebride, father of Somerled, marked as^ pages 11-16. For
tunately the Black Book furnishes a complete thouglT curtailed
version of all the historical portions of the Red Book, and in the
earlier part it is practically as full as the latter work. The con-
tents of the Red Book as far as page 274 deal with the history
of the Macdonalds, especially of Clanranald, and with the wars of
Montrose and Alaster Colkitto, interspersed with elegies of various
chiefs, one or two poems of praise, and a prose description of the
last Lord of the Isles' ai'ray for battle, after the fashion of the
older romantic school. Pages 275 and 276 contain a satire iu
English on Bishop Burnet ; this is the only English in the l\ed
Book. After some blank leaves, on page 282, appears an Iri.sh
satirical medley of Rabelaisian tinge by Fergal og Mac an Bard ;
it is very indistinct in some parts owing to damage done to several
jiages of the MS. by the action of water. The piece extends to