Ossianic ballads

Ossianic ballads

Irish Gaelic and Scottish lyric and narrative poems dealing with the legendary Finn MacCumhaill and his war band. They are named for Oisín (Ossian), the chief bard of the Fenian cycle. Part of a common Scots-Irish Gaelic tradition, the ballads consist of more than 80,000 lines dating from the 11th to the 18th century. Unlike earlier Fenian literature, which reflected mutual respect between pagan and Christian tradition, they are stubbornly pagan and anticlerical, full of lament for past glories and contempt for the Christian present. Most of the poetry claimed for Oisín was in fact written by Scottish poet James Macpherson (1736–1796).