pherson in the game he played so adroitly. It was he who converted Finn, or Fingal, from an Irish chief into a Scottish king; who invented the kingdom of Morven, of which nothing was known before 1760, which is not mentioned in any Highland record or any ancient Highland lay. Before Macpherson the Scots had accepted the Fenian Saga without dispute as Irish, and its heroes were spoken of as Irishmen when mention of them first reached the Lowlands. In the sixteenth century Gavin Douglas, in his Palace of Honour, introduced by name "Greit Gowmakmorne and Fyn Makcoul, and how Thay suld be goddis in Ireland as they say," the legend he cites having come from some Highland Scottish source.1 The direct evidence of Highland writers is to the same effect. About 1706, thirty years before Macpherson was born, a certain Alexander Campbell was employed by the Duke of Argyll to examine archives and charters at Inveraray. He found Gaelic documents among them, and wrote from such sources an account of the clan's genealogy, which was preserved in manuscript. In this narrative the 1 To set off this quotation controversialists have relied on a passage in Boece, who speaks of Fyn MakCoul as "virum, uti ferunt, immani statura, Scotici sanguinis." But in medieval Latin Scoticus means Celtic in general, and Irish rather than Scotch. In Adamnan's Life of Columba the saint "enavigavit de Scotia ad Britanniam," when he crossed from Ireland to the Hebrides, and the language spoken in Ireland is called "Scotica lingua." Fians are said to have been "an Irish militia, raised in the ninth century, under the command of Fion MacCouill, who was appointed by the provincial kings of Ireland General-in-Chief." Of the kingdom of Morven and the halls of Selma not a word. The same tradition remained when J. F. Campbell listened to the tales of the Hebrideans. "Finn, Diarmid and the rest," he says, "6 are generally represented as Irish worthies." For other testimony we may consult the Dean of Lismore's Book. The hero of its poems is Finn MacCumhail, not Macpherson's Fingal. The scene of one event is laid on a mountain in Tipperary, of another on the Erne near Ballyshannon, and of another at Ventry Harbour, or Dingle Bay. In several places the followers of Finn are definitely called "the Feine of Ireland," "Erin's noble Feinn."2 And concerning the verses themselves Dr. M'Lauchlan, the translator, has made the important remark that-"Many of these pieces will not read as poetry at all, unless read in accordance with the Irish method of accentuation." 3 Little of this evidence was actually before Macpherson. He did believe, however, and repeatedly declared, that Ossianic poems which circulated in the Scottish Highlands had been composed by Irish bards. In placing beside them another Ossian, 1 Popular Tales of the West Highlands, iv. 235. independent, earlier, more to be honoured, and genuinely Scottish, in praising one collection of poems and decrying the other, he constructed a mystification, an elaborate system of make-believe. The Scottish Ossian was none other than himself. But by this skilful strategy he enlisted upon his own side the patriotism and partiality of his countrymen, and made his defence seem a national duty. CHAPTER III AUTHENTIC TRADITION THE date of Finn's life is quite unknown. The annalists of Ireland, whose account varied so much from Macpherson's, agree with him in placing it in the third century, during the reigns of the Irish kings Cormac and Cairbre. Some authorities deny the historic existence of Finn altogether, making him a figure of pure mythology. But the most elaborate hypothesis is that of Professor Zimmer, who has tried with much ingenuity to fix his very place and time.1 He was a chieftain of Leinster, leader of a band of native Irish mixed with Norwegians, who made head against the Danish invaders that had settled. in Dublin: in the year 857 he was slain by them in combat. From Leinster, its first home, the tale of Finn passed into Ulster, where it was known in the eleventh century, as the references in the Book of the Dun Cow show. Ulster was then closely related to the Scottish Highlands, and the 1 Zeitschrift für Deutsches Alterthum, Band 35, 1891. An English summary of Professor Zimmer's essay, by Alfred Nutt, is prefixed to vol. iv. of Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition, 1891. Professor Zimmer's theory in the form he presented has failed to win the adherence of any scholar of note. legend, once established there, easily spread northward. The first certain reference to it in any Scottish work is in Barbour's Bruce, of which the date is about 1375. Others seek to assign Finn to an earlier period, and believe that some at least of the tales concerning him had been known before the Viking invasions began. But we are here concerned only with the literature of which he is the hero; and everything in the tales and poems, as we now have them, points to a medieval origin. The age of chivalry and romance has left upon them the strongest imprint. In the story of Finn and his followers we have a Gaelic counterpart to the Welsh tales of Arthur and his knights, influenced perhaps in its development by Welsh models. In the Dean of Lismore's Book the mythic Ossian thus sings the praise of his father : |