The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

AND NOTES] OF SCOTLAND 407
as Patricius, because he was of noble birth. His sphere in Ireland was the
north, and the later Romanisers make him bishop of Armagh. He was
a Briton, but no relation of St. Martin of Tours (p. 126, 1. 22).
Page 126, line 5 from end. The monks were laymen under monastic
rule, as usual ; but bishops were also monks, and nothing more. It was not,
as Bede says, necessary that the abbot should be a bishop.
Page 130, line 3. There really was no episcopacy at Armagh to transfer
to lona.
Page 132, line 21. There were no dioceses apart from the monasteries.
There was only one bishop for Scotland— the Bishop of St. Andrews—
till King Alexander's time. They really were not needed, as there were no
dioceses till the Celtic Church fully conformed to Rome.
Page 134. The Ossianic Poetry. It is needless to enter upon the question
of the authenticity of Macpherson's Ossian. Celtic scholars are agreed
that it is all Macpherson's own work, both English and Gaelic. Indeed, the
Gaelic was translated from the English, and is for the most part very
ungrammatical and unidiomatic. These very faults—
showing its extremely
modern character— have been always regarded as marks of antiquity.
Ordinary Gaelic readers do not understand it at all. The English is better
done, because it is the original. He has little or no foundation in Gaelic
legend for his so-called : poems he used only about a dozen stories— and
these, too, much abused— of the old literature, forming only a very small
fraction of the English work. The latest scholarly views on the subject may
be found in Dr. Ludwig Stern's paper on the "Ossianic Heroic Legends,"
translated in the 22nd vol. of the Inverness Gaelic Soc. Trans. Dr. Skene
makes no reference to Finn or Ossian in Celtic Scotland. Again here he
confuses the older Ulster with the smaller Ulster, called Ulidia or Dalaraidhe,
and containing Picts. The list of kings on p. 137 shows to what straits a
theory drags a man. Macpherson in "Temora" gives a further corrected list.
Page 138, line iS. The history of Ireland iinknoivti! Why, both Keating
and O'Flaherty were already 1 published Macpherson used them for the
1763 volume.
Page 141, line 23. The Bagpipe: "origin unknown." That is not so.
It came to Scotland in the 14th century and reached the Highlands in the
1 6th century, where it was hospitably received. Major (1521) does not
mention it among Highland musical instruments, but Buchanan, fifty years
later, says the Highlanders used it for war purposes.
it by adding
They also improved
the big drone, whence the " Piob Mhor." It is thoroughly non-
Gaelic by origin.
Page 142, Chapter IX. The Highland Dress. About all the information
possible in regard to the Highland dress is here given ; yet curiously the
modern Highland dress of plaid and philabeg are not accounted for. The
old dress was a Csaffron) leine or shirt, a plaid thrown over the shoulders and
brought to the knees all round in plaits and also belted, a bonnet (sometimes),
and brogues made of skm, sometimes with hose ; knees always bare. This
is really a Southern Europe dress, not the "garb of old Gaul,"
which was
breeches. The modern kilt is merely the lower half of the breacan or feile
cut off from the upper, a jacket being made of the upper. When this