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

OSSIAN — TRADITIONS, WRITINGS, ETC. 87
3. Nach eisteadh tu tamul sgeala
. j Air an ffhein
" ( Nach cual thu riamh.
The poet is speaking to a churchman, "Padrac," and
his exordium might have been addressed to Bishop
Carswell, and those who have followed him in striving
to extirpate Gaelic lore.
Thou clerk that utterest psalms,
To me it seems
Thy wits are bad,
Wouldst thou not hearken to a story
Of the Feine
Thou hast never heard.
Some of these are in the form of dialogues between
Oisein and his father-in-law "Peter MacAlpain," and
sometimes Oisein represents the Fein as warriors of
Eirinn. Some one appears to have thought this anti-
Scotch, and has improved upon the original by import-
ing from another poem ; for example, the following line
is struck out in ink —
" Nur thional Fiann Eireann gu trai,"
When gathered the Fiann of Eirinn to the strand, and
a line is written in the margin, in a more modern hand,
which means —
" Our heads are bent in the strife."
"Padruig" has been struck out, and other words sug-
gested, which make the passages which follow apply to
the Feine, and not to the saint, of Kennedy's authority.
The stanza is given at the bottom of the 248th page of
the H. S. Appendix, and is there made up from pas-
sages taken from two other versions, in which Padruig