Among the mountains and on the wild shores of Western Ireland are still recited, in the Gaelic, to eager listeners legends relating to Fionn Mac Cumbal and his son Oisin, known to the English reader chiefly under the names of Fingal and Ossian. Some of these “rhapsodies” have been recently published, with an English version, by the Irish “Ossianic Society,” and others by Mr. Hawkins Simpson, in a valuable volume called Oisin, the Bard of Ireland. Many poems on the same subject are included also in The Dean of Lismore’s Book, a work consisting of ancient Gaelic poetry, selected from a MS. collection made about A.D. 1514, by Sir James MacGregor, Dean of Lismore, an island in Argyllshire. The early Irish settlements in Western Scotland are largely referred to by the chroniclers and archæologists of Scotland. W. F. Skene, Esq., in his learned Introduction to the Dean’s book, informs us (though for Scotland, also, he claims Ossianic poetry) that, during the four centuries in which the great Celtic house of the “Lord of the Isles” held sway, there existed “not only a close political connection between the Western Highlands and Islands and Ireland, but the literary influence was equally close and strong; the Irish sennachies and bards were heads of a school which included the Western Highlands, and the Highland sennachies were either of Irish descent, or, if of native origin, resorted to bardic schools in Ireland for instruction in the language and accomplishments of their art.” ... “The oldest of the Gaelic MSS. preserved in the library of the Faculty of Advocates belongs to this period. They are all written in the Irish character; the language is the written language of Ireland; and they contain numerous specimens of the poetry of these Irish masters.”

Among the Ossianic poems still chanted in Ireland, not a few consist of dialogues between Oisin and Saint Patrick. They descend from a very remote antiquity, though they have been much modified in the course of ages. The bard, last of his race and clan, is represented as the guest of Saint Patrick in one of his convents. He accepts the Christian faith, though with misgivings, for he fears that he is thus false to the friends of his youth, and now and then his wrath blazes out against the monks, who have no faith in the chiefs of Inisfail. The saint beguiles his outbreaks by praying him to sing the old glories of the land.

Fionn, the father of Oisin, was the great commander of the Irish Feine, a standing army elected from all parts of the country, and invested with privileges which made it almost a kingdom within a kingdom. Individually, he belonged to the Feine of Leinster, the celebrated “Baoigne Clan.” Alarmed by the regal attributes assumed by Fionn, all the provincial kings of Ireland banded themselves together against him, and the battle of Gahbra, near Tara, in Meath, was fought, A.D. 286. In that battle almost all the chiefs of both sides perished, including Oscar, Oisin’s son, who commanded the Feine. Oscar is always represented as the gentlest, not less than the bravest of the Feine—the Hector of the Irish Troy.

Fionn and Oisin flourished, despite these poetic disputations, nearly two centuries before the time of Saint Patrick! Some have supposed, accordingly, that the Patrick of the Ossianic poems was some precursor of the Irish apostle. But the chronological discrepancy would probably have proved no counterweight to the strength of that instinct which made the national imagination insist on connecting the heroic with the saintly period of Ireland. A theme full of pathos and interest was presented by the blind old warrior bard, divided between his devotion to his father and his son on the one hand, and his reverence, on the other, for the teachers of the better faith—between old affections and new convictions—patriotic recollections and religious hopes.

I.

THE CONTENTION OF OISIN WITH PATRICK.[55]

[FROM ANCIENT IRISH SOURCES.]

When Patrick the faith to Oisin had preached,
He believed, and in just ways trod;
Yet oft for old days he grieved, and thus
Stormed oft at the saint of God.

“Woe, woe, for the priestly tribe this hour
On the Feine Hill have sway!
Glad am I that scarce their shapes I see;
Half-blind am I this day.

“Woe, woe, thou Palace of Cruachan!
Thy sceptre is down and thy sword,
The chase goes over thy grassy roof,
And the monk in thy courts is lord!