Alas! that it was not in the land of the Cruithne Of the Feinne bloody and fierce, That thou didst fall, active youth, Or in the gloomy land of Sorcha.
While the traditions of the Cruithne, in narrating their migration and the names of their leaders, mention, as the mythic poet of their race, a name singularly like that of Ossian—
Cathmolodar the hardknobbed, And Cathmachan the bright, Were glorious youths; The two valiant sons of Cathluan,
His hardy puissant champions; Heavy, stern was their trampling, Cing victorious in his victory. Im, son of Pernn, were their names; Huasein was the name of his poet, Who sought out the path of pleasantry.
In answering, then, the preliminary questions of who were the Feinne? and to what period do they belong? we may fairly infer that they were of the population who immediately preceded the Scots in Erin and in Alban, and that they belong to that period in the history of both countries, before a political separation had taken place between them, when they were viewed as parts of one territory, though physically separated, and when a free and unrestrained intercourse took place between them; when race and not territory was the great bond of association, and the movements of their respective populations from one country to the other were not restrained by any feeling of national separation.
It was natural that the deeds and events connected with this warrior race, associated as they must have been with the physical features of the country in which they dwelt, should have formed the subject of the early poems and legendary tales of their successors, and that a body of popular poetry should have sprung up in each country, which occupied itself with adventures, expeditions, and feats of bravery of this previous race, which were common to both countries, and which, attributed to their mythic poets, and full of the names of heroes, and of the scenes of their exploits, would be appropriated by the bards of each country to their own districts. The names of the places connected in tradition with these events would, as they were localized in the respective countries, be identified with its scenery and physical features, and thus a species of Fenian topography would spring up in each country, which, having a common origin, would bear the same character, and possess a mutual resemblance. Each country would thus claim the Feinne as their exclusive property, and could point to a body of popular Ossianic poetry in support of their claim, and to the Fenian names of their localities, in proof of the events which form the subject of the poems having there occurred.
The allusions to Fingal in the older Scottish historians who wrote long before Macpherson’s Ossian appeared, or the controversy arose, show that stories of the Feinne were current in Scotland, and that they were regarded as belonging to this country as much as to Ireland, while the Fenian names of localities in charters and other documents evince that a Fenian topography likewise existed in Scotland before that period.[35]
Kirke, in his Psalter, published in 1684, adds the following address:—
Imthigh a Dhuilleachan gu dan, Le dan glan diagha duisgiad thall; Cuir failte arfonn fial nab fionn, Ar-gharbh chriocha is Inseadh Gall.
That is,—