[ [155] The fragments of Ossianic or Fenian poetry in the miscellany of Dean Macgregor are now exhausted. They afford some idea of the amount of such poetry in the Highlands at the time he lived. We now proceed with those pieces which profess to be of a more recent date. These will be found to consist chiefly of compositions of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The first short composition here given is one by a poet hitherto unknown to modern fame. Duncan the big, from Lennox or Dumbartonshire, might be a man of some note in his day, but time has obliterated all knowledge of him. His composition is of a class well known in his day, and highly popular, being aphoristic. Several compositions, consisting of a series of aphorisms, will be found in the sequel.
[ [156] There are several pieces by this poet in the Dean’s MS., but we know nothing of his history. He was probably an ecclesiastic.
[ [157] The piece is extremely obscure, but the reference to Mac Robert and the Athole Stewarts would seem to indicate that the subjects of the poem were the murderers of King James the First. The infamous persons whom the poet denounces are said to have done evil to the race of kings.
[ [158] This bard has been met with already as an imitator of Ossian. He was in all likelihood an ecclesiastic. Several of the early Lords of the Isles were liberal benefactors to the Church, and it is not unlikely that this liberality called forth the praises of our bard. The word “bochd,” poor, associated in one of the lines of this composition with “brontachd,” bestowing, is often by early Gaelic writers applied to monks and hermits, who lived upon the beneficence of the wealthy, and became finally enriched by their gifts.
[ [159] Mr. O’Curry says regarding this Conull Mac Scanlan, “I don’t know any person in our history whose name would agree with his but Congal Claen, son of Scanlan, Prince of Ulster, who fought the battle of Magh Rath in A.D. 634, in which the Four Masters say he was killed. The old account says he was disabled, and disappeared no one knows where. It would be curious if your elegy could be traced up to this hero.”
[ [160] Of the author of this fragment we have no tradition. All we learn here is that he was a Knoydart man, that mountainous region lying between Loch Hourn and Morar, on the west coast of Inverness-shire, till lately possessed by the Macdonells of Glengarry.
[ [161] In a transcript of a MS. history of the Macdonalds, published in the Transactions of the Iona Club, it is said that Angus Og of Isla, or of the Isles, who fought against his father in the battle of the Bloody Bay, was assassinated by Art O’Carby, an Irish harper, instigated by M’Kenzie, whose daughter had captivated the impressible musician. In the Irish annals this harper is called Diarmad. This lay seems to commemorate the event by commemorating the punishment of the assassin, which was inflicted by drawing him between horses. The lines being composed shortly after the event, which took place about the year 1490, and being taken down by the Dean, are sufficient evidence of the historical accuracy of the statement.
[ [162] Gormlay was the wife of Nial Glundubh, Nial of the Black Knee, who succeeded to the throne of Ireland in 916. He was of the northern O’Neills, hence called “Righ Tuaisgearta,” or King of the North.
[ [163] The famous Cormac M’Cuilenan, the King-bishop of Munster and Cashel, to whom M’Geoghagan says Gormlay was first married.
[ [164] Nial Glundubh was killed in battle by the Danes in 919, having reigned only three years.