Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

Ossiaii the Bard. 2^7
Ross, Inspector of Schools, wrote in 187;— "A careful
analysis of the thought of the West Highland Tales (by
T. E. Campbell) points to an antiquity beyond the introduction
of Christianity into Scotland/'
The Rev. Dr. Waddell, in his Ossia7i and the Clyde, had
no difficulty, in spite of some apparent geological changes,
in identifying some of the localities mentioned in die
poems. "In Ireland," says he, "the joint tombs of
Lamderg, Ullin, and Gelchosa, with the adjoining tomb
of Orla and Ryno, might be identified on the northern
slope of the Carrickfergus ranges, between the upper and
lower Carneals (Ossian's Cormul), and Lake Mourne."
Yet, as he adds, " The topography of Ossian was a mystery
to Johnson, to Pinkerton, to Laing, and a wilderness of
error to Macpherson himself"
The Homeric dispute as to authenticity is recalled by
the Ossianicone. Thoreau thought Ossian "of the same
stamp with the Iliad itself" Homer appears to us in
connection with blind reciters, as does Ossian.
The subject of Homer has had exhaustive treatment
under the genius and research of a Gladstone. Yet not a
few learned men detect a different author in the Odyssey
to that of the Iliad. The two poems depict different
conditions of civilization, the Iliad being the older, with
different ideas as to the Future Life. If, then, there be
such difficulty in deciding upon Homer, obscurity may be
imagined in relation to Ossian. In both cases, probably,
there was need of a compiler of the scattered bardic lays,
the Macpherson of the period.
Dr. Shaw's Gaelic Dictionary asserts that—" Fion is not
known in the Highlands by the name of Fingal. He is
universally supposed to be an Irishman." King James, in
1613, in a speech, said— " The ancient Kings of Scotland
were — descended from the Kings of Ireland." Of the several