18th-Century Scottish Epic Reveals Ties to Ireland

In 1760, Scottish poet James Macpherson published a volume of poems he claimed to have translated from the Gaelic works of a third-century Scottish bard named Ossian. They may also have been fakes — or, at least, far less authentic than Macpherson claimed. Early critics, including English poet Samuel Johnson, pointed out the poems' similarities to Irish mythology and that Macpherson never produced any ancient documents indicating the origin of the works.