Ossian: The Poems Of Ossian

The Poems of Ossian relate the great Celtic epics of the third and beginning of the fourth centuries CE. These Celts were specifically Caledonians, that is, Caels, meaning Celts, and Don, meaning hill. To wit, these were the Highland Scots. These were also a people whose men were strapping, whose women, white-bosomed. The bards sang of their soaring triumphs and somber failures, their battles, their friendships, their romance; and those songs have passed to us as these poems.

At the time of these tales, families were cohering and fidelity to chief and tribe was paramount. And herein lies the brilliance of Ossian’s poems, for although the times were barbarously brutal, his poems reveal an amazing tenderness.

The characters in these poems are many and splendid. There is the great leader Fingal, and the hero Cuthullin. And Ossian, one of Fingal’s son. This is also the age of ghosts, airy and awful, who show their dreadful wounds and warn of disaster. Other players are the Irish, the Scandinavians, and even the Romans, whose Emperor is called the King of the World.