Who was the Ancient Scottish Warrior Fingal?
The introduction to Donald J. Macdonald’s history of Clan Donald quotes from The Works of Ossian about Fingal’s battles with the Lochlainn (Norse). Donald J. Macdonald also suggests the Black & Red Books of Clanranald verify the Works of Ossian’s authenticity. I recently discovered an online copy of the original 1765 Works of Ossian, son of Fingal by James MacPherson. MacPherson said he compiled the Poems of Ossian from oral legends and manuscripts he gathered throughout the Scottish Highlands. This was during enforcement of the Act of Proscription that made virtually everything of Highland culture illegal and punishable by “Transportation”, which was a politically correct way of saying you were taken from your home and banished to one of the British colonies. Copies of MacPherson’s work inspired world leaders such as Napoleon Bonaparte, Sir Walter Scott, and Franz Schubert, but most British condemned it as a fraud. The 1871 British Academy Literary Review concluded the Works of Ossian
