Ossian Collection > Leabhar na Feinne

GAELIC TEXTS. 0. P.
Glenlron, Dunkeld, &c., from the recitations of far-
mers," fai-m servants, fos-hunters, &c., aud from the
dictation of one man, at least, who could not read.
Copies of certain fragments were got from ]Mr. ilao
Diarmaid of Weem, whose name is mentioned m the
' Eeport on Ossian,' 1805, and from Captain Morrison
of Greenock, who helped Mac Pherson. Some are
copied from ' ]\Iac Ivor's MS.' In other cases the
poems have no pedigree. One at least seems to come
from Mac Pherson' s text. The collection seems to
be one result of the circular issued by the Committee
of the Highland Society. See page 2 of their Report,
1805. The following note at the end of the manu-
script shows that some one considered these poems to
be evidence in support of the authenticity of Mac
Pherson's Ossian. It certainly proves its o^^^l authen-
ticity by comparison with the other texts from A. to
]Sr — 'There is a collection of Os.sianic and other
Gaelic poems, by Dr. Irvine of Little Dunkeld, a copy
of which has been deposited with the Highland
Society of London, which Dr. Smith never saw, and
which clearly demonstrates, as many others have
affirmed, that poems ascribed to Ossian, UUin, and
others equal in merit to those collected and translated
by Mr. :Mac Pherson and Dr. Smiti., existed in the
Highlands. These are written just as collected dur-
ing' a period of nearly forty years, and any competent
judge may at once see how old and new poems were
mixed together ; that is, the attempt made by the
successive Bards to supply what was lost, or to model
the story so as to please the taste of their hearers.
An account of this last collection would of itself fur-
nish an iiTcfragable evidence that Mac Pherson never
could have been the author of the poems which
he ascribed to Ossian.— ' Edinburgh Encyclopedia,'
edited by Brewster, Vol. XVI., Article 'Ossian,'
This writer seems to mean the collection copied
for me by ISIac Phail, and printed below. Mr. Laing,
who is the owner of the MS., the Rev. Dr. Irvine's,
says he has no objection to its being copied and pub-
lished. He believes the MS. has been copied from
Dr. Irvine's original MS. for Mr. Grant of Laggan,
and he understood that it was amongst a lot of books
sold by the son of Mrs. Grant some years ago. A list
of the contents is given above. Of poetry orally col-
lected in Mac Pherson's country from farmers'
servants, fox-hunters, &c. ; 3,459 lines are not in Mac
Pherson's Ossian ; 181 lines are in the Gaelic which
■was printed in 1807 ; 49 lines were got from Mac
Diarmaid, who was Mac Pherson's schoolfellow, and
Captain Morrison, who was his assistant.
A note at the end, apparently by the scribe who
copied the manuscript, D. Mc D., says in Gaelic that
it was collected by Dr. (' OUamh ') Irvine.
A list of contents is given above ; the ballads are
incorporated with the text.
Here, at the beginning of a new phi-ase, lot me
point to the bearing of these facts.
From Texts A. to N., 1512 to 1789, in fourteen col-
lections, only one sample of Mac Pherson's Gaelic text
is known now to exist in manuscript. It is D. 30., 57
lines. See p. 214.
In Test 0. are 236 lines, which belong to Mac
Pherson's Ossian of 1759, &c., got from his friends
and helpers, or from people living in his immediate
neighbourhood, by a gentleman who also collected
;-} 450 lines which are not in Mac Pherson's text. This
m 1808 After 48 years, in 1807, appeared 10,232
lines of span new vernacular Scotch Gaelic, equiva-
lent to the English translations, but of which, so far
as I can discover, only these 293 lines had ever been
found by anybody else anywhere, at any time, up to
that date. A great deal of Mac Pherson's English
has no Gaelic equivalent now. Thereupon all the
old texts from A. to 0., which stick together as Scotch-
men are said to do, were pronounced to be ' spurious'
and ' coiTupt,' or ' Irish ' versions of the genuine
poems of that Scotch Ossian who lived in the tlnae
to the Romans, and spoke modern Scotch Gaelic
of ancient Caledonians. The genuine papers were
shoved into drawers and forgotten. T rom that day
to this men fight on for their ' Ossian's Poems ' as if
their own and the national honour were involved in
their antiquity, while a different class of men, who
have no education, go on spouting the old stuff wher-
ever they dare to delight in such ' lies.'
In all literary history I do not know of a stronger
exhibition of human cleverness and gullability, of
educated men condemning manifest truth as a lie
and sticking to fiction as fact. Over and over again
have I wheedled and coaxed old Highlanders to sing
old Fenian ballads to me privately, because they
dreaded persecution from their neighbours if they
told those old lies. Mac Pherson was greater than
Ossian, if he earned all the praise lavished upon his
author, under a mask, after his own poetry had been
condemned. If he deceived all Europe and set critics
by the ears for more than a century, he must have
been a great man, but that is no good reason for be-
lieving his single testimony when opposed to all other
evidence of all dates.
TEXT P.
' Ossian's Poems and Music, collected in 1801, 2, 3.
By Mac Donald of Staffa. No. 2. No. 18.' A
quarto paper MS., in the Advocates' Library.
This collection as it stands is a fair sample of broken
tradition. By itself it is not good for much, but
sorted with other fragments it can be used in mend-
ing other texts. The collection is headed by a pre-
face of which the following is a translation : —
' Foresaid — Thelittle that here follows of the crumbs
of the history of the Felnne is now taken in writing
from the oral utterance of Donald Mac Lean, who was
born in the year fifteen' (1715).
' This man got the greater part of the old lore
(Seanachas) from Calum Mac Phail, his grandfather,
who made up three score great Nollugs (New Tear's
Days) and two, in a farm whose name is Rothill in
the parish of Torasay.
' By John Mac Mhuirich (or Mac Pherson), school-
master, in the Isle of Mull, one of the servants of the
honourable Society that is for spreading the know-
ledge of Christ through the Gacldom and Isles of
Alba.' April, 1803.
Page 1. ROIMH-EAITE.
An beagan soi leanas do spruidhleach Eachdraidh
na Feinne ; Ata nols air a ghabhail ann an sgriobhadh
o bheuludas Dhomhnuill Mhic an Leathain, a rugadh
Bliadhna cuig deug. Thuair an duinsa chuid a's mo
da t- seanachas o Chalum Mac Phail a th' sheau-athair
sa rinn tri-fichld NoUuig mhòr sa dhà ann am Balle
gan ainm Rothill ann an Sgiothreachd Thorasay.
Le Iain Mhac Mhuirich Maighistir —
so-oil san Ellein Mhuileach ; aon do th' seirbhisich na
cuideachd Urramich 'fa chumeolas Chroisda sgaolidh
feadth Gadhealtiachd agus Eileana na h' Albanu.
April, 1803.
This scribe thought that he knew better than his
uneducated authorities, and altered their stories.
For example, he writes ' Cuhiial,' and makes the
proper name mean Fionn's another, apparently because
' handmaid ' is the biblical rendering of the word
which he spelt. ' Cumall ' was the spelling in 1100.
' Cwmhail ' is the usual orthography, and all other
authorities, from the ' Book of Leinster ' down to living
Mull men, say that Cumhall was the faiJier of Fionn.
In particular an old man of 8G, who was servant to
Mac Donald of Staffa in his youth, told me a great
deal of the Fenian story in 1870 and 1871 in Mull,
and gave me the usual pedigree.
The use of orthography in support of theory is
common to this day.
In Argyll the name of the county is pronounced as
if it were spelt Arghaidheal (Land of the Gael).
In the annals of Loch Ce the name was written
' Oircr GaeidheV Oirear means a district according
to O'Donovan, who quotes a triad.
Deich mbliadhna Joarn Icir bhladh a bhflaitheas
oirir Alban.