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

46 THE TESTIMONY OF
their predecessors. The poems of Ossian, whose superi-
ority over all bards was never called in question, were their
peculiar care.
Hence we are under some obligations to Macpherson,
whose industry, at a very critical period, has saved some of
the poems of Ossian, which must otherwise have probably
perished. The race of our bards is, however, extinct,
and much of our poetry is lost, though a great deal still
remains.
We have certain evidence of the fact, that bards were
always kept in the great Highland families. There are
many men still living, who have seen bards residing on
lands which they held of our chiefs as an inheritance, and
a consideration for their services. I remember some of
them myself. The names of the bards, and of the lands
they enjoyed, I can tell on this very day. In Macdonald's
family, the last bard was John Mac Codrum, who had
lands and maintenance from Sir James Macdonald, and
from his brother and immediate successor, the late Lord
Macdonald. John Mac Codrum's predecessor in the office
of bard to the family of Macdonald, was Duncan Mac
Ruari, who- possessed as bard, and by inheritance, the
lands in the district of Trotternish, in Sky, called Acha
na ''m Bard, (or Sard's fields) ; and his descendants, aS
well as the collateral branches of his family, are to this
very day called Clann a Bhaird, the bard's children or
posterity.
The Mac Vurich's were, for many generations, family
bards to the Macdonalds of Clanranald. They held their
possessions on the special condition of educating their heirs
for the office of bard, and of qualifying them to transmit^
/// writing, the history and poetry connected with the fami-
ly and their country. There is still extant a poem, com-
posed by one of them, by Niel Mor Mac Vurich, to the
Macdonalds; immediately before the battle of Garioch or