The literature of the Highlanders

INTRODUCTION.

The Celts and the Teuton started westward from the cradle of the human race, spreading themselves over Europe; while other members of the same stock went eastward, extending themselves over wide tracts of Asia. From the Celts, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Teutons have sprung the chief nations in whose possession Europe still remains. It is interesting to think that the brothers who parted thousands of years ago, somewhere in teeming Asia, the one going east and the other west, are now meeting again on the plains of Hindostan. Their movements during those thousands of years have encircled the whole earth. Fiercely have they fought and disputed over every inch of the ground which one or other of their tribes at one time or other occupied. Theirs has always been the chief ruling power in the world. They begin to know one another again. From the extreme west of Europe, across the New World, the Anglo-Celt arrives in India and recognises the Hindoo as his brother.

The Aryans migrated into Europe in a somewhat advanced state of civilisation. According to Sayce their advent was from the north, a theory which subverts nearly all previously accepted opinions on the subject. Some of them, however, such as the Greeks first and the Romans afterwards, favoured by the maritime countries in which they settled, made more rapid progress than the others. It was largely their self-conceit that led the Greeks and Romans to describe all the nations beyond their bounds as “barbarian.” Our ancestors in these islands, whether Celtic or Teutonic, were never mere savages. They had a religion, if not radically the same, fully as enobling in its tendency as that of Greece and Rome. They evidently made some progress in the useful arts, while in the days of Rome’s greatest splendour they were in possession of military weapons which were not much inferior to her own. The form of government among the Celts was patriarchal, and this continued for a long time among the Gaels of Scotland. There was the king or chief, who was regarded as the father of the clan, tribe, or nation. With him was associated a council of chieftains or elders, and in important matters the mot of the whole people. But with all this political organisation they could not make such progress in civilisation as the Greeks and Romans, who mostly dwelt in cities. The Gaels who along with the Germans acted the part of pioneers on the plains of Europe, and living a rural life, could not compete successfully in the race for higher civilisation with the brother races who inhabited the maritime cities of Greece and Italy, and who, besides, obtained much of an earlier civilisation from Phœnicia and Egypt.

The early migrations of the Gael are involved in much obscurity. By the study of topography, however, we can follow many of his footsteps westward. This study, however, is rendered very difficult, and at times very uncertain, because the discoverable traces of the presence of the Celt lie embedded in the soil of the life of the powerful pre-Celtic races. The Celt and the Teuton have always been close neighbours. The progress of the two westward appears to have been somewhat simultaneous, at least on the Continent. The geographical positions of France and Germany at the present day represent not inaccurately the attitude of the Gaelic and Teutonic races towards one another in their earlier movements from the east. It has been said that the Celts came too soon into Europe, just as the Slaves came too late. It would be difficult to verify this remark in the light of history and in the face of existing facts. While admitting that the remark may have an element of truth in it, we must remember, with regard to the Slaves, that it is premature to anticipate what they may become. We see them a mighty threatening wave on a westward course. The Chinese hordes, who are already a trouble, press behind the Russians; and the growing power of the latter in Europe is a matter of serious concern to our statesmen. The struggle between Celt and Teuton again cannot be said to be at an end as long as France and Germany maintain their present watchful and hostile attitude. As to their racial composition respectively the former may be said to be as much Celtic as the latter is Teutonic. But on the other hand, in the United Kingdom, Celt and Teuton may be said virtually to agree. They have so blended for centuries that, notwithstanding boasts on both sides, which science cannot sustain, it is impossible almost to produce a pure Saxon or a pure Gael. It cannot certainly be done in Scotland. This intermingling of races in the British Islands has produced a national character very unlike our Continental neighbours. The Anglo-Celtic power of the British Empire is not so immobile or sluggish as the German, nor so light and airy as the French; and its rule appears almost to have arrived at the incipient stage of universal dominion.

Great Britain was peopled in the north and in the south simultaneously from the Continent, and Ireland was similarly peopled from the north and south of Britain. The Gaels of Ireland and of Scotland were the same people, having the same language and music; and all the elements of civilisation about them were the common property of both. At the same time there are evidences that the Gaels of the North of Ireland stood in closer relationship to those of Scotland than those in the South of Ireland. And this holds true even to this very day. It should always be borne in mind that there have been different tribes of pre-Celts, Celts and Teutons in Ireland, which has hitherto prevented that national cohesion in the time of danger which alone could secure the independence of the country. Ireland being peopled at a later period, has taken a longer time in developing a full-orbed nationality. On the other hand there has been an earlier homogeneity among the Scottish Celts; whether called Picts, Gaels, Scots, or Albanaich, they were always one against the common foe, whatever might be the feuds among themselves. In more recent days the reformation of religion in the 16th century helped to produce in the Scottish Gael a distinctively different character from that of the Gael of Ireland; it also destroyed in Scotland many of the old Gaelic things which were associated with a religion that was regarded as superstitious. Thus much of the history and the literature of the Scottish Gael was lost. In Ireland, where no violent changes took place in the condition and religious beliefs of the people, we find very extensive manuscript literature—rich with interesting spoils of the past—as well as more relics even of earlier Gaelic life in Scotland.

Chiefly through the great labours of Zeuss, the distinguished Bavarian, the Gael is now, as already remarked, universally admitted to belong to the Aryan family. No student of the science of language will now contend that he has any special affinity to the Semitic race. The Keltae of the Greek, the Galli of the Roman, and the Gàidheil of Scotland and Ireland, are the same people. In the east and in the west Galatia, or in Gaelic [Gaidhealtachd, contracted] and pronounced Gaeltachd, is the Celtica, or land of the Celts or Gaels. Gaeltachd or Galatia is literally Gaeldom, or the country of the Gaels. The term “Gael” is the same as “Celt,” the only difference being that the original Gaidel comes to us through Latin in the former and through Greek in the latter. So the two may be used indiscriminately, although some writers have endeavoured to preserve a distinction, using “Gaelic” for the language spoken in Scotland and Ireland, and “Celtic” as a more generic term, embracing all the Gaelic Brythonic dialects. “Gael”—the Roman “Gaul”—and the original “Gaidel,” aspirated into “Gaidhel,” which in its aspirated form at last drops the dh, and becomes “Gael” or Gaul, is just the same word. The Gael stands in the same relation to the Welsh, the Cornishman, and the Armorican, that the Englishman and German, the Roman and Greek, stand to one another. The Gael, the Manx, and the Irish constitute one branch of the stock, while the Welsh, the Cornish, and the Breton constitute the other.

The Celtic element enters largely into the population of the United Kingdom. Just as Celtic dialects were spoken at one time throughout the whole of the British Islands, so to the present day a powerful Celtic element pervades the people of Great Britain and Ireland from the lowest to the highest classes. John Knox and Robert Burns, two representative Scotchmen, were more Celtic than Teutonic. The national perfervid spirit and genius are so still. The name of the great Reformer is from the Gaelic Cnoc. Ireland can produce many Anglo-Celtic names, among which we find that of the Duke of Wellington. The mothers of the greatest epic poet and the greatest general that England ever produced were Celts. Sarah Caston, the mother of Milton, was the daughter of a Welsh gentleman; and Elizabeth Steward, the mother of Cromwell, was the daughter of William Steward, in Ely, a descendant of the Celtic Stewards of Scotland. Professor H. Morley says:—“The main current of English literature cannot be disconnected from the lively Celtic wit in which it has one of its sources. The Celts do not form an utterly distinct part of our mixed population. But for early, frequent, and various contact with the race that, in its half-barbarous days, invented Ossian’s dialogues with St. Patrick, and that quickened afterwards the Northerner’s blood in France. Germanic England would not have produced a Shakespeare.” It is only the other year that a Cambrian Celt disappeared from our midst—one of the greatest names in English literature—Mary A. Evans, better known by her assumed name of George Eliot. This other quotation from Professor Morley’s “Library of English Literature” is as true as it is suggestive:—“The Celts are by nature artists. Mr Ferguson has felt this in his own art, and said in his ‘History of Architecture:’—‘The true glory of the Celt in Europe is his artistic eminence. It is, perhaps, not too much to assert that without his intervention we should not have possessed in modern times a Church worthy of admiration or a picture or a statue we could look at without shame.’ It would be far too much to assert this of books; but certainly Teutonic England could not have risen to the full grandeur and beauty of that expression of all her life in all her literature ... without a wholesome blending of Teutonic with Celtic blood. The Celts are a vital part of our country, and theirs were the first songs in the land.”

Before parting with this subject let me note three remarkable facts which the history of Gaelic Scotland presents. They have not always been fully recognised. The first is that the Caledonians were never fully conquered by the Roman Power which brought almost all other nations of the world into subjection. The second is that a Gaelic people gave its present name to the country. The third is that a Gaelic King has given us the line of monarchs which we have still represented in the present sovereign of the British Empire. To these another fact might be added—that the earliest modern literature is to be found among the Scoto-Irish Gael. After the decadence of Greece and Rome the Celts were the first of the European tribes to cultivate letters. While the Germans and the Northmen were yet roving heathen tribes the Gael in Ireland and in Scotland had their seminaries of learning, where literature was loved and cherished. And from the Colleges of Durrow and Iona missionaries, whose well-trained minds and zealous hearts fitted them for their great undertaking, went forth to Christianise the people of England and the Teutonic tribes on the Continent. The extant manuscripts in Gaelic and Latin which came from their pens are monuments of their learning and piety, as well as of the reverence in which they were held by the people to whom they brought the light of the Christian truth. Some of these manuscripts, now studied with such rich results by Continental Celtic scholars, are to be found in some of the great libraries on the Continent; in St. Gall, Milan, Wurtzburg, and Carlsruhe, Zeuss found those Gaelic ones on which he based his great work the “Grammatica Celtica,” published in 1853. These facts ought to make the study of Gaelic interesting—the oldest living language in Europe that can boast of such early relics of culture.

It is now necessary that some remarks should be made on the language in which the literature we are to examine is to be found. The Celtic forms a branch of the Indo-European group of languages. It is divided into two nearly distinct languages, which are thus classified:—

	{		{	Gaelic.
	{	The Gaidelic,	{	Irish.
	{		{	Manx.
CELTIC	{		{	Welsh.
	{		{	Cornish (extinct).
	{	The Brythonic,	{	Breton.
	{		{	Gaulish (extinct).

The differences between Gaelic, Irish, and Manx are merely dialectic. The Cornish became extinct last century. The Gaulish is also extinct; and what remains of it is found only in the names of places.

To Zeuss is due the credit of having assigned its proper place to Celtic in the family of languages. The problem before his great publication in 1853 was the relationship in which the Gaels, the Welsh, and the old Gaulish people stood to one another and to the other nations of the world. Numerous publications on this question appeared during the last two centuries. But from a scientific point of view they are of very little value. Errors and unscientific theories abound in every work. At that time the scholars of France and Germany never mastered the Celtic languages; indeed, there were few reliable grammars by which they could be acquired. The native scholars were deficient in linguistic training, in common sense, and frequently in common honesty. No Gaelic scholar was conscientious enough to learn Welsh, no Welsh scholar to learn Gaelic; but each and all were ready enough to compare their languages with Phœnician, Persian, Etruscan, Egyptian, Hebrew, Arabic, &c., of which, again, they knew in reality next to nothing; though a few of them might know a little Hebrew. There was one remarkable exception, however, to this—the great Welsh scholar Edward Llhuyd, of whom it may be said that he lived a century and a half before his time; but, incapable of following him, the native school of philologists sank into chaotic and puerile etymological dreams. The Celtic problem became more hopeless than ever, and Gaelic philology became distasteful to sober minds.

At the same time many Celts insisted “on the lofty claim they used to advance of speaking the primeval language.” It is only recently that they have learned “to submit to the logic of facts and listen to the voice of science.” A Gaelic poet, in an elaborate poem on his native language, thus declares his conviction on the much-debated subject, what language was spoken in Paradise—

Some fifty years ago the science of comparative philology began to make itself felt, and Celtic scholars tried to apply its principles to Celtic. Pritchard, Bopp, Diefenbach, Pictet, and others worked in the right direction, but they failed fully to solve the Celtic problem. J. Caspar Zeuss, a Bavarian Highlander, at last succeeded, by combining with a mind of unusual power a devotion to the subject which amounted well-nigh to a sacrifice of his life. This devotion might not even have been sufficient if he had not possessed what no one before him possessed—the really oldest manuscripts of both the Irish and Welsh dialects. The labours of Zeuss have shown:—That the Gaelic and Welsh languages were originally one; that dialectic differences in Cæsar’s time were so small that an old Gael would be at once understood in Wales; and that the Gaels and Cambrians were identical with the Celts of the Continent—with those of Spain, Gaul, Lombardy, and the Alpine countries; that this Celtic tongue is one of the branches of the Aryan stock of languages.

The consequence of these established facts is to put an end to all attempts at connecting the Celtic with the Semitic class of tongues.

We know the Gaelic language now in three stages:—

The softening caused by excessive aspiration is the greatest change which the language has undergone.

As spoken in Scotland at the present day the chief dialectic differences are:—

In Arran and Perthshire, and to some extent in Caithness and Sutherland, the people in speaking cut off the terminal syllables of many words. In the North Highlands they speak with a slow, sometimes swinging emphasis; in the South Highlands they are more hurried in their utterance. Any Highlander, speaking distinctly, will be readily understood, North and South.

Gaelic appears to possess wonderful vitality. While English has stamped out Gaelic among the Celts of Galloway and Ayrshire, Gaelic has stamped out the Norse language in the Western Isles, where the people are largely of pre-Celtic and Norse origin. It is remarkable that although of the same family of languages, Gaelic and English, like oil and water, cannot readily commingle.

Other subjects associated with early Gaelic literature are the Druids and the Féinne. That dim, indefinite, prehistoric period of our annals which terminated in the contact of heathenism with the living forces of Christianity may be termed pre-Celtic. In the dawn of the historical period a mysterious class of men called Druids, and a mysterious body of heroes called the Féinne or Fianna, emerge into view, just as we mark the vanishing or absorption of the pre-Celtic peoples. Whatever they were, a certain class of Magi existed once in these islands. But their sudden disappearance in history, like that of the Féinne, has induced many to question whether such an order of men ever lived. But it is historically certain that a class of men, answering to the description, met and tried to oppose Columba from Iona when he visited King Brudeus at Inverness. They have been called Druids, but that term should be regarded in a general or conventional sense. They were without doubt the priests of learning and religion among the ancient Scots. In possession of some knowledge, meagre as it probably was, they were invested with mystic importance by the ignorant and superstitious. With the introduction and enlightenment of Christianity it would be seen that this exclusive order and priestly caste found their supremacy undermined. Their teaching, whatever it was, appears to have had a beneficial influence on the formation of the national character. They do not seem to have indulged in any enervating services or gross idolatry in the kind of worship which was maintained among the people. We see the moral significance of their influence more fully when we contrast the ancient Gaels with the ancient Greeks. With all their fine ethical and æsthetic perceptions, we find that the latter throughout their whole history were never a very moral people. Just as their bodily senses were enslaved by their keen sense of the beautiful in form, colour, &c., so were their moral energies by many vices. The sensual and luxurious life of the Romans also soon sapped the foundations of the empire, and made it a prey to the less civilised nations around. But from the earliest times down to the present we find among the people once influenced by the Druids a very high moral tone. Guilty as they might be of plundering other races with whom they openly waged warfare, strict honesty among themselves as neighbours was inculcated and observed. The internecine quarrels and the mutual plundering of the later periods arose from the dissensions purposely sown by the Scottish kings. To weaken the clans and the bond of union existing between them unrighteous charters were granted to certain lands in favour of pretenders that could present no valid claim. Hence the majority of the clan feuds which frequently drenched the Highland hills and glens with blood.

One particular result of the early teaching has been the national respect for woman. It is one of the finest moral traits in the character of the Gael. At this day it is among the Gael of the Outer Hebrides and of the more recognised Celtic districts of Ireland, such as Munster and Connaught, that the Registrar General finds the smallest percentage of illegitimacy. The high-toned morality which the poems of Ossian exhibit in this respect has been used as an argument against their authenticity. And yet it should be no argument at all for one who can trace out and analyse the early sources whence developed the moral elements of the national character.

The Celt has been generally very religious. The religion of the Gael of Scotland, like that of the Kymry of Wales, whether in ancient or in modern Christian times, has always flourished in an atmosphere of deep severity. The rigid ethics of the early religion, combined with a hard life at a distance from enervating centres of civilisation, help to explain this. This sternness of doctrine also, no doubt, prepared the modern Gael to accept with such absolute entirety, and with such earnest heartiness, the Calvinistic system of Christian truth which many regard as severe and harsh. The higher results of the literary and moral culture of the Druidic religion we have embodied in the relics of Ossianic poetry. The order of Druids, with their ideals of philosophy and religion, have vanished; but their power for good remains embedded in the foundation of the national name, with its educating influences and its inspiring associations. In this power lay the moral strength of our early ancestors. Christianity, in its early Celtic and Reformed stages, developed into higher and purer issues this national virtue; and the character of the people is exponent of the results of the process. Other tribes and communities have had Christianity among them too, but with different results. This line of thought suggests an explanation of why, as has been already remarked, the Irish Gael appears to be somewhat unlike the Scottish Gael.

A glance may now be appropriately bestowed upon that other somewhat mysterious body—those heroes called the Féinne.

Chief among the early Gaelic inhabitants was the renowned order of heroes known as the Féinne, the Fianna, or the followers of Fingal, or Finn, the leader. They are supposed to have lived in the second and third centuries of our era, and to have been the Caledonians who checked the progress of the legions of Rome. Very little reliable help can be found regarding this question in the extant annals of the Gael. In general it may be held that this race of Finn came from the shores of the Baltic to North Britain, and that they were not unrelated to the ancient Norse. Recently a new theory has been adopted by some, like Mr Campbell of Islay, whose views are entitled to much respect. They argue that the existence of the Féinne is only a myth—part and parcel of an old world system, not unconnected with the classical and oriental—a system of which we have the same with variations in the Militia of Ireland, and in the Knights of the Round Table of the ancient British. It is held that Fingal and King Arthur are the same personages; that Graine, the faithless wife of Fingal is the same as the faithless Guinevere, the spouse of Arthur; and that the unhallowed love of Diarmad and Graine has a suggestive similitude in that of Sir Launcelot and Guinevere. On the other hand, it is argued that the similarity of these relations, however systematic in appearance, may still be adequately explained by the fact that human nature is much the same in all lands and amongst all races; that this symbolic theory does not seem to be supported by the well-grounded conviction of the people in whose traditions the memory of the heroes of the Féinne has been handed down to us; that it is not at all probable that the names of merely fictitious heroes would live in the topography of a hundred hills, like the name of Finn; that it does not find support in the more philosophic theory regarding the heroes of ancient peoples—that all the mythological characters are only exaggerations of real ones; that human nature is never satisfied with the barely mythic and unreal, and that the patriotic and other affections never derive sustenance from false and unbelievable characters.

Can a vague statement of this character not satisfy the inquiring student? To the patriotic Celtic inquirer, next in importance to the evangelisation of the Highlands by Columba, stands the great question of the Féinne, who have so indelibly impressed their individualities on the Gaelic imagination of Scotland. To the more inquiring spirits of recent times these brilliant heroes have appeared very strange and mysterious indeed. They have had a Melchisedec kind of existence in our traditional history; no one has been able to suggest whence they came, or whither they have gone. The names of their leaders have become woven with fable, song, and story; with the hills and glens of Albin and Erin; with the warlike struggles which the various conflicting races have fought on our Ero-Albinic shores. So vague and romantic however, has their history been, that a few clear-sighted writers, conversant with comparative mythology, have come almost to the conclusion that the Féinne were, as we have already seen, a mere Gaelic expression of a world-wide mythus, whose various component elements can be found from Japan to the Hebrides. The popular tales and the bardic ballads have been regarded as the debris that may be still collected on the shores of the ages.

The plain Highlander living in the mere tents of history and literature, has been reluctant to accept so vague an account of a very heroic ancestry. Has not he the poems of Ossian still in his hands? Are not the names of Finn and fellow-heroes stamped on a thousand hills in Albin and Erin? So the invariable conclusion has been that in some mysterious way and during some mysterious period “Fingal lived and Ossian sang.” The disappointing question all along has been, however, where can any account be found of these people in our accredited national histories? The inquiring spirits among our patriotic youth examine recent histories in vain. Our antiquaries write of names and places, but they have failed to assign a local habitation and a name to the Finian people. The only approach to a definite representation of the race we have in the famous mystifications of James Macpherson in his dissertations, notes, and poems. But the geography of Macpherson appears to have been as mistily convenient for himself as it has been perplexing to his commentators. Not even the genius of Dr Waddell in his goodly volume has been able to identify the localities of Macpherson, or remove the veil of ghost-like existence in which the Ossianic heroes are enshrouded.

Our ordinary historians appear to have avoided treating of so perplexing a period or class of men. Browne is satisfied with a statement on the Ossianic question. He does not touch on the history of the Finnic period. Keltie ignores the whole question. MacLauchlan in his “Early History of the Scottish Church,” which embraces the Ossianic age, has nothing to say of the Finnic environment. In his introduction to his edition of Ossian, Clerk is equally silent as to the accurate identification of the people of whom Ossian became the laureate bard. Nor is anything very definite to be found even in the learned works of Skene. When such admirable authorities are almost universally silent, it becomes a very hazardous matter to attempt any statement on the question.

It must be admitted that hitherto the sources of much of our definite accounts have been Irish compilations. Notwithstanding Macpherson’s comparative contempt for the character of the Irish Finian heroes, and for the Irish Ossianic compositions, yet much of the ground work of his own historic ideals was furnished by Irish productions. But any historic truth the Irish compositions may have had perished in the using in the hands of Macpherson. The result has been a system of chronology that neither he nor his friends have ever been able to explain.

The question still remains, Who were the Féinne? The answer in general has been that they were Gaelic heroes of the second and third centuries of the Christian era; who fought with Romans, with Danes, and with one another; and finally struggled with the converting powers of Christianity. In Ireland they have appeared under the guise of a Milesian militia, a conception which is thoroughly in harmony with the chivalrous ideals of that interesting island. The following sentences contain the gist of all the information that is now available:—“It is quite a mistake to suppose Finn Mac Cumhaill to have been merely imaginary or mythical character. Much that has been narrated of his exploits is, no doubt, apocryphal enough; but Finn himself is an undoubtedly historical personage; and that he existed about the time at which his appearance is recorded in the annals, is as certain as that Julius Cæsar lived and ruled at the time stated on the authority of the Roman historians. I may add here that the pedigree of Finn is fully recorded on the unquestionable authority of the Book of Leinster, in which he is set down as the son of Cumhall, who was the son of Trenmor, son of Snaelt, son of Eltan, son of Baiscni, son of Nuada Necht, who was of the Heremonian race, and monarch of Erinn about A.M. 5090, according to the chronology of the Four Masters, that is, 110 years before Christ. Finn himself was slain, according to the Annals of the Four Masters, in Anno Domini 283, in the reign of Cairbre Lifeachair.” Little can be added to this statement by O’Curry. The great battle of Gabhra—Garristown in Meath—took place in 284; and the ballads represent the brave Oscar, and Cairbre Lifeachair as falling by each others’ hands in the deadly struggle. Oscar was the beloved son of Ossian, and his grandfather Finn, who died a year before the battle of Gabhra, is brought back to life by the Romancists to pronounce a eulogy on the fallen Oscar.

Irish annalists are satisfied that the fatherland of Finn and his heroes was Ireland; but no one appears to be able to point out the territories over which Finn reigned. It is an undoubted fact that Cairbre Lifeachair was the monarch of Erin when Finn died, and when the battle of Gabhra was fought. What can be more natural then than to suppose with Macpherson that Finn was monarch of Albin? In Macpherson’s works Finn is represented always as going from Albin to Erin, a rendering of history which the Irish authorities refuse to accept. When we look for the Kingdom of Finn in Scotland where Macpherson has located it, we certainly fail to ascertain its boundaries by means of his mystifying phrases. That his Morven is not the Morvern of Argyllshire has been pointed out long ago; nor is much satisfaction to be found in Dr Clerk’s interpretation of Mor Bheanna, the Great Hills, as a general characteristic of Scotland. It is another illustration of Macpherson’s prudent indefiniteness behind which the secret of his works has been preserved.

Now it appears to me that I am led aright in my studies of this period of Albin’s history, when I regard the Féinne as the last leaders of the great race in Albin and Erin who disappeared in history before the extension of the Gaelic conquest and supremacy. The spirit of their struggle is truly recorded in the ballads when it is repeatedly declared that they went forth to the battle, but that they always fell. This is the melancholy key-note of the Ossianic poetry. This is the passionate patriotism—a brave, resolute and chivalrous race, ever ready for the fight, ever ready to go forth to battle—and has always appealed to the popular heart. The brave Finians, however, seemed to go forth to die. The fate of possible extinction appears to have pressed heavily on the heart of the people. And when the leaders were all dead and gone, Ossian the immortal singer of their exploits and enterprises mourned in his blindness and solitude the departure of his brother heroes and hunters,—dwelling with pathetic tenderness on the oft-recurring refrain: “The last of my race!”

The Albinian monarchy, whose head-quarters were situated near Loch Ness, exercised rule over various tribes. Early in our era its sway appears to have extended, to use the proverbial sayings, from the Ord of Caithness to the Rhinns of Islay, from the Hen of Lewis to the Cock of Arran: O’n Ord Ghallach gus an Roinn Ilich, ’s o’n Chirc Leoghaisich gus a’ Choileach Arranach. This Albinian kingdom was, no doubt, the scene of the Finian exploits which have formed the subjects of poetic romance. It was frequently assailed by the Norse on the north-west and east; and by Celts on the south-east. The latter finally prevailed, bestowing their Celtic tongue on the conquered Albinians. The Féinne appear to have been the last leaders of the national cause. They were probably bilingual, as the more educated classes were in the days of Columba. Many of them may have been fully Gaelicised, while resisting the encroachments of an alien civilisation. Ossian and his fellow-leaders would be of this class. And just as many patriot bards in our own time in Ireland and Britain, lament the decay of Celtic nationalities in the language of the Teutonic conqueror, so the laureate bard of the Albinian people has sung of “the last of his race” in the tongue of the conquering Gael.

The kindred of these remarkable heroes appeared in those early ages in various lands. They were the immediate predecessors, not only of the Celtic, but in some cases also of other races. They were the most ancient Lochlins that ploughed the German Ocean with their trembling barks. They were the earliest Vikings that sailed round the Orkneyan skerries; that visited their kindred and fought with them on the shores of Albin, of Erin, and of Breatun. And clearly it is their connections we have in the north-east of Europe, where they survive in a trying climate with shrunk proportions and exhausted national energies. The famous ballad on the Battle of Gabhra represents four companies of Finians as engaged in the terrible fight—the Féinne of Albin, the Féinne of Erin, the Féinne of Breatun, and the Féinne of Lochlin.

The names of these heroes are still to be found in Lochlin, Erin, and Albin, the lands in which their celebrated deeds were chiefly performed. We find them in the pages of Adamnan like the shadows of a departing people. Finn or Fionn, appears in various forms, as in Findchanus, Fintenus, &c. Here we have also the first, or most ancient, written form of the name of the great bard himself, in Latin disguise, “Oisseneo nomine.”

The territory of the Caledonians lay from Loch Long eastward to the Firth of Tay and the German Ocean, and northward in later times to the Moray Firth. The Caledonian Forest is represented as extending in a north-eastern direction from Loch Lomond to the river Isla. The Caledonian territories, however, were always shifting. Like the Celtica of the Continent of Europe, the Gaeltachd of the British Islands was always under a process of change, but at the same time it was ever the region or the land of the Gael. Lands were won from the tribes whom the Gaels conquered, while territories were surrendered to those who pressed on behind them. At first the Gaeltachd was in South Britain; but as the Gaels moved northward, Albin contracted, and the land of the Gael extended. Finally, the Caledonians became the general term for all the Gaelic clans who opposed the legions of Rome.

The etymology of Caledonia has not been satisfactorily explained. The celebrated James Macpherson explains it as follows:—“When South Britain yielded to the power of the Romans, the unconquered nations to the north of the province were distinguished by the name of Caledonians. From their very name, it appears that they were of those Gauls, who possessed themselves originally of Britain. It is compounded of two Celtic words, Gael, signifying Celts or Gauls, and Dun or Don, a hill; so that Gael don, or Caledonians, is as much as to say Celts of the hill country.” In the very next sentence Macpherson unconsciously suggests quite a different and better etymology: “The Highlanders to this day call themselves Gael, their language Gaelic or Galic, and their country Gaeldoch, which the Romans softened into Caledonia.” Consideration for Latin Inflections would readily transform Caeldachd into Caledonia. A rival explanation has found place in many school books—Coille-daoine, rendered Men of the Wood. This, however, is not the accurate translation. The compound is absurd and unnatural. It reads to a Gael like Men-Wood in English. Another explanation has been Gaedhil dhonna, brown-haired Gaels; but physiological facts and the laws of phonology do not support this derivation. The Welsh have given us its meaning from a Cymric standpoint; and as the word is unknown in Gaelic in its historic form the Welsh suggestions appear very reasonable. The Caledonian Forest in Welsh has always been Calydin or Celydin, a term which means Wood. Its Gaelic cognate would be Coilltean, which also supplies the representative consonants of Caledonia. The great forest of the Central Highlands would be very naturally spoken of as the Woods, Coiltean; Caledonii being only a Latin derivative.

With the spread of Christianity the Caledonians became the great people in Albin. In the later ages they consisted of Gaelicised Albinians, Gaels, and Brythonised Gaels. Among them appeared those who stand first on the roll of literary Scots: the poetry and tales of the Féinne developed into their present shape in the hands of the ancient Christian Gaels of our land. The poetic compositions which relate to this period furnish us with gleams of life from the borderland of decadent heathenism and Christianity.

From the first proclamation of the latter onwards the outlines of Scottish story become continually clearer, shining more and more until the day of national freedom and independence shone on a brave and struggling people. In glancing very briefly at the history of the Gael of Albin we find that it naturally suggests the following periods, described by terms which indicate the fresh elements introduced on fresh changes taking place:—

I. The Pre-Celtic Period embraces the unrecorded ages which partially terminated in the third century, when the influence of Christianity began to be felt. The Roman province in Scotland became nominally Christian by the Imperial adoption of Christianity by Constantine in the year 313.

II. The Celtic Period extends from the third century to the year 1068. During these dark and unsettled times there was much intercourse carried on between the old inhabitants of Albin and the people of Lochlin; generally the intercourse took the form of a fierce struggle for supremacy. In 1068 Malcolm III. married an English princess, known afterwards as the saintly Queen Margaret; Gaelic afterwards ceased to be the language of the Scottish Court. At that time Picts and Scots being united under one monarchy the sway of the Northmen in the north-west became much enfeebled. The power of the latter was completely broken by the disastrous defeat of Haco, at Large, in 1263.

III. The Norman or Feudal Period extends from 1068 to 1567. Few of the Gaelic preachers, or representatives of the early Scottish Church, survived the repressing influence of Queen Margaret, who was a zealous Roman Catholic. The Norman conquest of England caused many Saxons to seek refuge in Scotland, where they were welcomed by the Queen and her royal husband, Ceann-Mor. Norman influences also began to be felt in Scotland. The lands of Celtic chiefs were chartered away by the King to Norman barons, of whom many became as Celtic and as identified with the Gaelic inhabitants as the Celtic mormaers whom they supplanted. The patriarchal system began to decay, and feudalism was gradually introduced.

IV. The Protestant and Jacobite Period extends from the middle of the sixteenth century to the year 1745, when Jacobitism on Culloden Moor received its death-blow. The nominal first, afterwards the actual, acceptance of the Reformation doctrines by the Scottish Celts in the sixteenth century has very vitally affected their literature, as well as completely changed their relations with the Irish Celts.

V. The Anglo-Gaelic Period begins in 1745. The influence of the English language and English thought has been extending in the Highlands since then; while through the general intermingling of races, and a better mutual understanding, the prejudices of Celt and Saxon respectively have been everywhere dying away, especially among the classes by whom the force of the democratic tendencies of our age has been felt and acknowledged.

The dates assigned to the above periods are only approximately accurate, but they may serve to shadow forth some of the chief influences which have been at work in the history of Celtic Scotland, and of which we have traces in the literary annals of the Gael. Perhaps the surprising thing in connection with these meagre annals is the fact that there are any literary remains at all, when it is remembered how frequent and how violent have been the changes which have occurred in the course of the history of Albin.

The Anglo-Gaelic era of Highland history commences, as has been pointed out, with the decay of the Jacobite cause. The changes that have taken place since 1745 have deeply affected the destiny and character of the people. In some respects the contact with the fresh forces brought into play was beneficial, in other respects it was a moral loss; but it is to be hoped that on the whole there has been considerable gain, and that not altogether material.

Under the social and educational changes that have been taking place during the last century the Highlanders have shown wonderful adaptableness in the course of the process they have been undergoing. The revival of a more earnest spirit of Christianity in many districts has completely altered the social habits of the people, while the influence of educational agencies has reached the most secluded glen and remote headland.

The English language is everywhere taught, the people, knowing its use in the sphere of secular success, preferring to have their children educated in a purely English rather than in a Gaelic school. The present rising generation all understand and talk a little Saxon of some sort, but Gaelic will be the language of the mass of the population for some generations yet. English thought and culture also reach the people through the hundreds of University-bred ministers who preach Gaelic in Highland pulpits.

These important changes in the Celtic world are not effected without many venerable regrets being uttered by sentimentalists both in Ireland and Scotland. If we look across the channel we find that the Irish Gael indulges in the same unpractical wail over an irrevocable past, that we find so prevalent with his brother of Albin. The cry of the sentimentalist there is even more intense, more persistent. The unpromising present of the Gael there appears to attract like a magnet all the revolutionary sympathies of the usually stolid Teutonic heart, after a little contact of the races. Just as in their political difficulties the Irish have always looked for help from Spain, France, or America, so unless the gods somehow interfere to preserve their native tongue, all they can or will do, waiting for external or divine deliverance, is to take up the refrain—“It is dying.” This is how an Irish poet, the Rev. M. Mullin, Clonfert, sings with incomparable sadness:—