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

Ossian after the Fians. loi
In this way the poet Ossian has worked the irrecon-
cilable elements of storm and sunshine into a poem
associated with the warrior band of which he himself
was a leadinp^ and prominent member.
The following poem never appeared before in print,
and the person from whom it was written down [Allan
MacDonald, Mannal, Tiree] thought himself the sole
possessor of it.^ The writer has not fallen in with any-
one else who knew it, or heard of anyone likely to know
it. According to the preamble prefixed to it, Ossian
had become old and blind. The poem is evidently, as
stated in the preamble, the work of an old blind man ;
there is a presumption created that it might be the work
of Ossian. The vividness of the description of a cold and
stormy night shows the author to have been observant
in earlier and better days, and to have had his attention
taken up with Nature in her waste and wildest forms,
and to have retained a power of description worthy
of previous and better days. The poem is here given
without alteration, and left to the reader's own judg-
ment.
1 A very similar incident and a very similar poem are preserved
in two Irish 12th century MSS., LL. loZa, and Rawl. B. 502. It is
told of Finn and his servant Mac Lesc, i.e., Lazy Lad, how, finding
themselves one night on Slieve Gullion, Finn orders Mac Lesc to
seek for water ; Mac Lesc excuses himself on the ground of the
terrible state of the weather, in a poem beginning : —
"Cold till doom !
The storm has spread over all,
A river in every bright furrow.
And a full loch in every ford.''
The same poem is also found in connection with the 15th cent.
Ossianic tale, Uath beinne Etazr, and has been printed by Prof.
K. Meyer, Revue Celt., xi, 125 et seq. — A. N.