A noble moral tone pervades the whole. Courage, affection, and truth are native to all who live in this world. Under the dramatic image of Ossian wrangling with the Talkend, [Note: St. Patrick, on account of the tonsured crown.] the bards, themselves vainly fighting against the Christian life, a hundred times repeat through the lips of Ossian like a refrain—
"We, the Fianna of Erin, never uttered falsehood,
Lying was never attributed to us;
By courage and the strength of our hands
We used to come out of every difficulty."
Again: Fergus, the bard, inciting Oscar to his last battle—in that poem called the Rosc Catha of Oscar:—
"Place thy hand on thy gentle forehead
Oscar, who never lied."
[Note: Publications of Ossianic Society, p. 159; vol. i.]
And again, elsewhere in the Ossianic poetry:—
"Oscar, who never wronged bard or woman."
Strange to say, too, they inculcated chastity (see p. 257; vol. i.), an allusion taken from the "youthful adventures of Cuculain," Leabhar na Huidhré.
The following ancient rann contains the four qualifications of a bard:—
"Purity of hand, bright, without wounding,
Purity of mouth, without poisonous satire,
Purity of learning, without reproach,
Purity, as a husband, in wedlock."
Moreover, through all this literature sounds a high clear note of chivalry, in this contrasting favourably with the Iliad, where no man foregoes an advantage. Cuculain having slain the sons of Neara, "thought it unworthy of him to take possession of their chariot and horses." [Note: P. 155; vol. i.] Goll Mac Morna, in the Fenian or Ossianic cycle, declares to Conn Cedcathah [Note: Conn of the hundred battles.] that from his youth up he never attacked an enemy by night or under any disadvantage, and many times we read of heroes preferring to die rather than outrage their geisa. [Note: Certain vows taken with their arms on being knighted.]