Page:Poems of Ossian.djvu/66

lxiv School, about 1864, made a careful examination of the stone circles at Tormore in the island of Arran. In the chapter on "ancient remains" in his well-known book upon that island, he gives the results of his search. In most of the circles he found stone cists containing urns, flint weapons, human remains, and portions of deer's horns. All the cists he found lying roughly north and south, and he observes, "their construction may therefore be inferred to have been anterior to the early Christian times in this country, when a superstitious regard began to be cherished for a direction pointing east," He further hazards the conjecture, "Shall we rather say that the direction had reference to the mid-day sun?" It should be added that the remains found had been burned, another proof of pre-Christian interment.

Comparing these discoveries with the "deer's horn" allusions of the poems, it would appear that the heroes of these compositions were buried before the customs of Christianity had made their way into the country. Ossian himself, therefore, who was their companion, must have lived and sung before the dawn of the Christian era in Scotland.

By way of settling the date, Macpherson himself pointed out the fact that the Celtic bard makes no mention whatever of any divine Being worshipped