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

No. XIX.
JÌCCOUNT
Of the Principal Manuscripts now in the Possession of
the Highland Society ^ relating to the Stibject of the Com-
mittee's Inquiries,
BY DR. DONALD SMITH.
i HE oldest Manuscript in the possession of the Society ap-
pears to be one of the late Major John M*Lachlan's of Kil-
bride, written on vellum, and marked Vo. A. No. I.
On the margin of its fourth leaf is the followi:ig remark ;
Oidche bealtne ann a coimhtech mo Pupu Muirclusa agus
as olc Hum nach marunn diol in linesi dom dub Misi Fithil
ace furnuidhe na scoile. The English of which is this : —
The night of the first of May in the Coenobium of my
Pope Murchus, and I regret that there is not left of my ink
enough to fill up this line. I am Plthil an attendant on the
school.
The sense in which the word Pupu, equivalent to Pope oi
Papa, is here used, may lead one to form a judgment of the age
of the MS. The primitive signification of Papa is Father,