THE heroic tales, poetry and songs which James Macpherson was invoking had been around for centuries. They really existed and still do. The people of those tales, known as the Fenians or Fianna, are referred to in Gaelic law tracts from the seventh to eighth centuries AD – 1300 years ago.

They take their name from their leader, Finn/Fionn/Fingal and lived a fair bit of their lives in the wild, outside normal society. They owned no land, but could be called upon to defend landowners and avenge misdeeds. The two main Irish political parties take their names from them – Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.

Besides Finn himself, their most famous warrior heroes were Ossian, Caoilte and Oscar. Ossian was the son of Fionn and an enchanted deer. He was believed to be buried in the Sma’ Glen in Perthshire under the rock of his name. When, in the 1730s, General George Wade’s new road through the glen forced the rock to be moved, the local community rose up in anger, rescued Ossian’s bones, and reburied them. This is 30 years before Macpherson’s “fraud”: “The people of the country, for several miles around, to the number of three or four score of men, and venerating the memory of the Bard, rose with one consent, and carried away the bones, with bagpipes playing, and other funeral rites, and deposited them with much solemnity within a circle of large stones, on the lofty summit of a rock, sequestered and of difficult access, where they might never more be disturbed by mortal feet or hands.”

Of course, Ossian was buried all over the place. As with many a saint, everyone wanted a piece of him – except, perhaps in Ibrox where they are less keen on Fenians. Whatever their origins, historical or mythological, the Fenian heroes were and are remembered in Scotland in many different ways through the centuries. Back in 1567, John Carswell translated the Book of Common Order into Gaelic, protesting in the preface: “And great is the blindness and darkness of sin and ignorance and of understanding among composers and writers and supporters of Gaelic, in that they prefer and practise the framing of vain, hurtful, lying, earthly stories about the Tuatha De Danann, and about the Sons of Mil, and about the heroes, and Fionn mac Cumhail with his Fianna.”

For Carswell these legends were a threat to Christianity. In the early 16th century, An Barun Eoghan MacCombaigh’s list of what he would give to regain his health consists solely of items of Gaelic legendary value, including the sword and horn of Fionn mac Cumhaill.

Contemporary with Carswell, Timothy Pont was making his outstanding maps, and on one of them is Kory-Finmackoul (Coire Finn MacCool) on Tiree. It is a rock gong – one that rings when struck with a small stone. Finn’s grandson was Oscar and Clach Oscar, near where I live on the Isle of Skye, is also a rock gong. So we have Finn and Ossian and Oscar commemorated in Scottish rocks of ancient and continuing significance.

The stories of the Fianna that survive in the tradition today can often be related to the same stories in mediaeval manuscripts; but what is especially wonderful is that in Scotland these stories survive as lays – stories told in song of which we have several recordings.

We also have music manuscripts or publications of them from the later 18th century. The melodies tend to share consistent features suggesting a long-established tradition. You didn’t sing a Fenian lay to any old tune that might do; you picked it with care from a repertoire that seems to have been fitted for the purpose of telling a dramatic story.

The story’s often associated with supernatural beings or powers – a smith who can stride across a glen in a single step; a sword which never fails to cut through whatever is in its way; a dreadful hag who can scarcely be overcome and whose “essence” is taken to the high king.

Your tune needs to prioritise storytelling, sometimes intoning on one note, low or high. Often there’s a wide leap in the tune to give a hint of drama and vertical space, and it’s good not to end the tune the way sentences end. Better is to lead the listener on to the next verse – sometimes very many verses – so the “sentence” of the tune will have no full stop. All this happens in the Lay of Fraoch, describing how Fraoch was killed by a water monster through the machinations of Queen Maeve. This is storytelling of a kind that has parallels with the great mediaeval ballads in Scots, which often use the same techniques.

The lays were also recited, sometimes accompanied by music. There’s a very lovely tune, Fonn gnathaichte do bhriathraibh Oisein – a tune to which Ossian was recited – published in 1816 by Simon Fraser.You can hear it beautifully played on Bonnie Rideout’s Celtic Circles CD.

As for Laoidh Fhraoich that’s on the Tobar an Dualchais website, Track ID 14865, sung by Willie Matheson.

Don’t miss it.

Next week, Ossian after Macpherson