Myths and legends ; the Celtic race . harm which has for many centuries kept them alive bythe fireside of the Gaelic peasant. St. Patrick, Oisin, and Keelta Before we leave the Colloquy another interestingpoint must be mentioned in connexion with it. To thegeneral public probably the best-known things in Ossianicliterature—I refer, of course, to the true Gaelic poetrywhich goes under that name, not to the pseudo-Ossianof Macpherson—are those dialogues in which the paganand the Christian ideals are contrasted, often in a spirit ofhumorous exaggeration or of satire. The earliest of thesepieces a
Myths and legends ; the Celtic race . harm which has for many centuries kept them alive bythe fireside of the Gaelic peasant. St. Patrick, Oisin, and Keelta Before we leave the Colloquy another interestingpoint must be mentioned in connexion with it. To thegeneral public probably the best-known things in Ossianicliterature—I refer, of course, to the true Gaelic poetrywhich goes under that name, not to the pseudo-Ossianof Macpherson—are those dialogues in which the paganand the Christian ideals are contrasted, often in a spirit ofhumorous exaggeration or of satire. The earliest of thesepieces are found in the manuscript called The Dean ofLismores Book, in which James Macgregor, Dean ofLismore in Argyllshire, wrote down, some time before theyear 1518,all he could rememberor discover of traditionalGaelic poetry in his time. It may be observed that up tothis period, and, indeed, long after it, Scottish and IrishGaelic were one language and one literature, the greatwritten monuments of which were in Ireland, though they288. The Fianna raised a pillar stone with her name in Ogham letters 288 ST* PATRICK, OISIN, AND KEELTA belonged just as much to the Highland Celt, and thetwo branches of the Gael had an absolutely commonstock of poetic tradition. These Oisin-and-Patrickdialogues are found in abundance both in Ireland andin the Highlands, though, as I have said, The Dean ofLismores Book is their first written record now relation, then, do these dialogues bear to theKeelta-and-Patrick dialogues with which we make ac-quaintance in the Colloquy ** ? The questions whichreally came first, where they respectively originated, andwhat current of thought or sentiment each represented,constitute, as Mr. Alfred Nutt has pointed out, a literaryproblem of the greatest interest; and one which no critichas yet attempted to solve, or, indeed, until quite lately,even to call attention to. For though these two attemptsto represent, in imaginative and artistic form, the conta
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