Laoch a thuit leis an garbh-chòmhrag,
’N uair a thàinig fear-coimhid a’ chuain,
Luath mhac Fhithil nan ceum àrd.”
The English in both the versions—that of 1760 and that of 1762—is a pretty accurate rendering of this. In some cases the Gaelic expletive is awanting, as in “garbh-chòmhrag,” and the name Moran is, in the last line, substituted for the Gaelic description, “The swift son of Fithil, of bounding steps.” These, however, are allowable liberties in such a case. The variations are, however, more considerable as the several versions proceed, but that of 1760 turns out to be a mere fragment of the first book of the great epic of 1762. The other fragments have also their representatives in the larger work. Some of them appear in the poem called “Carrickthura,” and some of them in the epic of “Fingal,” but in all these cases the later compositions are great expansions of the shorter poems given in the earlier work. A comparison of these versions is full of interest, and in the hands of fair and acute criticism, is capable, as already said, of shedding much light on the whole question of Macpherson’s Ossian. One thing is beyond question, that the names of Ossian’s heroes were familiar to the Scottish Highlanders from the earliest period; that they knew more of their deeds, and spoke more of them than of those of Wallace and Bruce; that the country was teeming with poetical compositions bearing to have these deeds as their subjects; that the topography of the country was in every quarter enriched with names drawn from Fingal and his men; and that to say that the whole of this was the invention of Macpherson, is nothing but what the bitterest national prejudice could alone receive as truth.
There are many of the pieces in Macpherson’s Ossian of marvellous power. The description of Cuchullin’s chariot in the first book of Fingal is equal to any similar composition among the great classical epics. It proceeds:—
“Carbad! carbad garbh a’ chòmhraig,
’Gluasad thar ’chomhnard le bàs;
Carbad cuimir, luath, Chuchullin,
Sàr-mhac Sheuma nan cruaidh chàs.
Tha ’earr a’ lùbadh siòs mar thonn,