Matheson Collection > Popular tales of the west Highlands > Volume 4

30 HEROES OF OSSIAN — AUTHORITIES.
and poems of various sorts, and " numerous Ossianic
poems relating to the Fenian heroes, some of them of
great antiquity." The earliest writing is Latin, and at-
tributed to the time of St. Patrick, about 480 ; others
are attributed to St. Colum Cillè and the sixth century,
others to the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and following cen-
turies, and these are generally assumed to be Irish, not
Scotch, because of their language and the character in
which they are written. Most of them probably were
written in Ireland, but such documents must be judged
by their contents. I received a letter this year from a
Scotch highlander in Glasgow, part of which was
written in the old hand. A song composed by Duncan
Macintyre, the Breadalbane bard, was written in the old
character in 1768. It was commonly, though not
always, used before that time ; inscriptions on the cross
at Inverary and other old stones in Scotland are in
old letters and in obsolete language. St. Colum Cillè
founded Iona ; and if St Patrick's churchmen used
old letters, the saint is accused of having been born in
Scotland. Those who only understand modern Irish
or Scotch Gaelic cannot, without study, read or under-
stand the old written language, which is and always
has called itself Gaelic. So Scotchmen and Irishmen
would do well to make peace, and help each other to
use these old records, and call their language Gaelic,
instead of Irish or Earse, which words are only used in
speaking English, and produce discord.
Now these ancient Irish documents and those
which are preserved in Scotland, like Scotch and
Irish traditions, are pervaded by the variously spelt
names of Fionn or Finn and his worthies. There is
hardly a grown highlander who is not familiar with
their names — they are household words at the fire-