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GLENLYON and Fortingall people were not
behind
other Highlanders in defending Macpherson's
"Ossian" against Dr Johnson and other assailants.
They boasted that they had twelve forts of the
Feinne and Dun-Ossian named after the great bard
in their glen. Eight of the forts, which they' called
Castullau nam Fiann not "caistealan," as they
called the Castles of Meggernie and Garth, Weem
and Taymouth, and the like are still visible, and
so, of course, is Dun-Ossian. They had screeds of
Ossianic poetry to place all the poetic ancient
poetry under one label and prose tales handed
down through many generations, which contained
the personal names and most of the incidents which
Macpherson had manipulated; so how could the
genuineness or authenticity of his English "Ossian"
be doubted by anyone less pigheaded than that
"Ollamh Maclan," who wrapped himself in a mantle
of prejudice and invincible ignorance to such a
degree that he denied the existence of documents
written in Gaelic which were older than a few score
years before his own time? They knew that James
Macgregor, Vicar of Fortingall, before he became
Dean of Lismore, and his brother Duncan, had put
down in writing between 1500 and 1530 a great
deal of the Ossianic poetry then current in the
Highlands, and which with little change had
remained current until Macpherson had made his gathering of manuscripts and
materials. They admitted that his "Ossian" did not in all respects
agree with their traditional poetry and prose tales,
but they readily jumped to the conclusion that in
the Western Isles Macpherson had got hold of
manuscripts that contained the poetry and tales in
fuller and better form than did their traditional lore.
It was only after Macpherson's death and the publication of his Gaelic "Ossian" that they were reluctantly driven to doubt his good faith. As for his
having located the Feinne in Alba instead of in
Ireland, that had been done long before his time.
And truly the localisation in Ireland is open to
much the same objection as the Albania one. The
mythological and prehistoric belongings of the Celtic
race were in both countries freely used to invest
new scenes and personages with romantic glamour
and ancient drapery. Dr Johnson was utterly
wrong in maintaining that there was no ancient
Gaelic literature; but he was right in saying that Macpherson's English "Ossian" as presented to the
world was an imposture. The Gaelic "Ossian" is
not an original but a translation of his English one
into good eighteenth century Gaelic. He was a
man of genius, but an unprincipled manipulator of
materials which, in the main, were undeniably
genuine. Subsequent publications of really old
Celtic literature have equally confounded him and
his John Bull assailant, Dr Johnson. |
