The Ossian Poems

[redraven]

Has anyone here looked at these? I read that they have been dismissed by the "authorities" as a fraudulent invention by James Macpherson, but reading some of the West Highland tales from the late nineteenth century, they are not dismissed as strongly as the academic authorities concluded. I have read the various posts on wiki etc, I'm interested if anyone here has read them for themselves or have the opinions of someone else who has.

RR

[Heron]

It is quite well established that Macpherson created the Ossian poems in the way that Iolo Morgannwg created some early Welsh material. Macpherson was found out when he couldn't show anyone the manuscript sources he claimed to have used (Iolo got away with it for longer because he also forged manuscripts!). There is a whole range of ways to publicise a tradition, from interpreting existing material, re-cycling it in imaginative ways or even inventing the bits you think ought to be there. If the latter is done with sufficient imaginative ability, and based on a sound knowledge of what is actually exists and what might have existed if it hadn't been lost, then you could argue that this is a valid activity. But if you forge stuff and claim it to be an authentic historical record, you are always going to get found out and those who are seeking to establish what can be regarded as actual historical data will villify you. It happened to Macpherson, it happened to Iolo. Interestingly though, Iolo is now becoming regarded as an interesting historical figure in his own right. And as a foundation stone of Welsh national identity. So if Macpherson's tales resonate, then that is not surprising. But if we want to know what is original creation and what is 'traditional' we might get confused. But all 'traditions' were once original creations. So we could just be content with saying that they are resonant for us, whether they are 'traditional' or not.

[redraven]

I have just started reading this ... www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/ptwh.htm which on the face of it, seems an admirable attempt to record, without prejudice, the oral tales of the west coast of Scotland. There seems a wealth of information here and it is a huge undertaking to try to read all of these, but it has bothered me for a while, that the majority of our resources have a Welsh background and without wanting to sound disparaging or dimissive of such material, it has been my opinion that there must be other sources of Brythonic material and Scotland would appear to me to be a relatively untapped resource.
It will be interesting to establish the similarities and otherwise presented in the Scottish materials.

RR

[potia]

The problem with a lot of the Scottish tales is that they include such a wide mixture of cultures within them. Some of them draw on material that is Irish in origin, some include material that is more closely aligned to Scandinavian tales and some include aspects that do seem to be uniquely Scottish. And then there's the stories in the Traveller communities many of which have only been recorded in the last century or so but who knows how much further back they could go - one of the problems of the oral traditions Many tales have several variations too linked to different areas of Scotland in some cases.

Needless to say I have a reasonable collection of Scottish folk and fairy tales but I haven't read all of them by any means.

[redraven]

Without wanting to appear "anti-druid" here, I have just come across this testimony in the aforementioned work, printed in 1890 with the contributor referring back to his childhood 50 odd years previously and it makes some interesting inferences here as to his understanding of the role of the Druids in Scotland. It's something I have not actually come across before, Druidry in Scotland, do we know if there is much material regarding Druids from Scotland?

It appears likely to me, that some of these tales (Ossians poems) was invented by the Druids, and told to the people as sermons; and by these tales the people was caused to believe that there was fairies which lived in little conical hills, and that the fairies had the power of being either visible or invisible, as they thought proper, and that they had the power of enchanting people, and of taking them away and make fairies of them; and that the Druids had charms which would prevent that; and they would give these charms to the people for payment; and maney stories would be told about people being taken away by the fairies, and the charms which had to be used to break the spell, and get them back again; and others, on account of some neglidgeance, never got back aney more.

Also that there was witches; people which had communication with an evil spirit, from which they got the power of changing themselves into aney shape they pleased; that these witches often put themselves in the shape of beasts, and when they were in the shape of beasts, that they had some evil design in view, and that it was dangerous to meet them. Also that they could,

p. liii

and did, sometimes take away the produce of people's dairy, and sometimes of the whole farm. The Druidical priests pretended that they had charms that would prevent the witches from doing aney harm, and they would give a charm for payment. When the first day of summer came, the people was taught to put the fire out of their houses, and to place it on some emince near the house for to keep away the witches, and that it was not safe for them to kindle a fire in their house aney more, until they bought it from beil's druide. That fire was called beil-teine (beils-fire), and the first day of summer was called beil-fires day; and also when the first night of winter came, the people would gather fuel and make blazing fire for to keep away the witches, or at least to deprive them of the power of taking away the produce of the farm, and then they would go to the Druid and buy a kindling of what was called the holy fire. The Druids also caused the people to believe that some families had been enchanted and changed into beasts, and as the proper means had not been used, the spell was never broken; and that swans, seals, and marmaids had been different beings, familys that had been enchanted.
Beil or Beul was the name which the Druids gave their god, and the Druids of Beil pretended to be the friends of the people; they pretended to have charms to cure different kinds of diseases, and also charms to prevent fairies, ghosts, and witches, from annoying or harming people. It is a well-known fact, that the superstitions of the Druids has been handed down from generation to generation for a great maney ages, and is not wholy extinct yet; and we have reason to believe that some of the tales, which was invented in those days for to fright the people, has been told and kept in remembrance in the self and same manner. The priests of Beil was the men that was called Druids, the miracles which they pretended to perform was called meur-bheileachd (beil-fingering), and their magic which they pretended to perform was called druichd (druidisem), and we have plenty of reason to believe superstitious tales as well as superstition, originated among the Druids.

Superficially this sounds like a Christian character venting his spleen against the earlier perspectives, but I still find it interesting that Druidry is mentioned this far north.

RR

[potia]

Not that odd really at all. Remember it's the Gaelic tales that were being collected here and those tales were heavily influenced by the Irish and in many cases would have been brought over with the early Irish migrants - the Dal Riada (sp?). Irish mythology has plenty of druids mentioned.

[Heron]

It has always seemed to me that the distinctive nature of Scottish tales is the blend of Norse and Celtic influences. It's also worth noticing that what is now Southern Scotland was a Brythonic area with tribes such as the Votadini becoming 'Gododdin' and giving rise to the earliest poem in Welsh. Add to the the Goidelic traditions further north, and the influence of Scandinavian settlements and you have an eclectic mix. Modern 'Scots' is, as far as i can make out, actually a quite conservative dialect of Middle English, as my current researches in the the 'Thomas the Rhymer' material is underlining.