Ossian Collection > Waifs and strays of Celtic tradition > Volume 4

84 The Fid us
He did so, and Ossian took out its liver and lungs,
and killed it.
He then told the servant lad to kindle a fire and boil
water in the cauldron. This was done, and when the
water boiled he told his grandson to go away before he
did him any injury. "For", he said, "I am outrageously
hungry" (" Tha confhadh orm gu biadh").
When he ate the meat, he said to the servant lad :
" Now take as much as you want."
The boy then returned where he was, and Ossian
said to him: "Three third parts of my hearing and
three third parts of m}^ sight arc restored to me. Go
home, your grandfather leaves you his blessing.'^
The boy left him and went home, and no one ever
saw or heard Ossian after that (^s cJidn fJiacadh 's cJia
clmaladh duine Ossian riamJi tuilleadh 'na dheigh).
In his hours of recreation from religious services,
according to a lay in existence, Patrick was in the habit
of coming to see Ossian, for well he liked his glorious
talk {O'n sann his bu bhinn a gloir). Ossian used to tell
Patrick tales of the {Feinne) Fians, and these were all
put into writing by Patrick. When, however, he heard
about the bone of the huge deer, in the marrow-hole of
which an unusually large bone of the deer then in exist-
ence could turn, he thought that the whole stories told
by Ossian were mere inventions, and in his indignation
he threw the writings into the fire. It was in this way
that the history of the Fians was lost, and this was
deplored by Patrick himself when the bones of the {Lou
dubh) Black Elk were brought home by his son, the
grandson of Ossian. This breed of deer had a brown
stripe along their back {slat dhonn 'nan druiin), and
was called the race of the Two Stick Kine {Siolachadh
Bo Da Bhiorain).
They used to have warm discussions about religion,
in which Ossian always maintained that Fionn and the