Series 1 > Loyall dissuasive

Ixiv THE LOYALL DISSUASIVE
Clan Chattan, though its name be accounted for otherwise,
did come with the Aborigines of Scotland from Germany.
They were a part of the great Gaelic or Celtic race which
moved West, South, and East from somewhere, say Ararat,
the Alps, the sources of the Danube, or other centre. There
was a settlement of these people between the Rhine and the
Elbe long ere Teutons following in their tracks established
themselves there. The restless Gaels migrated to these islands
and spread themselves over our Scotland and great part of
Ireland. In Scotland and Ireland they called themselves, and
were called by other Celts, Cruthnigh; by the Romans they
were called in Scotland Caledonians, and Piets. It should
be realised that these Piets were spread over Scotland north
of the Forth, over Galloway, and over a good part of Ireland.
They were one people, and to them belong the vitrified forts,
great sepulchral cairns, and the stone circles of our antiquities.
To them too belong the heroic traditions and the poetry
going under the name of Ossian. Fenian is not a pleasant
name in English ears, but the Feine were the heroes of the
Cruthnigh, whether in Scotland or Ireland; and Fingal,
Cuchullin, and Conlaoch, with the sons of Uisneach, were
the subjects of poems handed down for generations. These
poems passed into prose tales, and from the need of giving
locality to story, the topography of Scotland and Ireland is
largely marked by names arising out of the legends, tales,
and attendant poems of the Feine. The preface and notes to
the Dean of Lismore’s Book of Ancient Gaelic Poetry, by
Mr. W. F. Skene and his fellow-labourer, the Rev. Thomas
M‘Lauchlan, will give the reader abundant authority for these
statements. This collection of Gaelic poetry was made by
Dean M‘Gregor about 1514, two and a half centuries before
the date of Macpherson’s Ossian. The poems are not from
the pens but from the lips of Ossian, Murdach Albanach,
and numerous senachies of early days. The spirit of these
ancestors of ours may be gathered from the Lament attri-