LOST VOICES: MACPHERSON’S FAREWELL

By Stephen Wilson

Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong,

The wretch’s destinie!

MacPherson’s time will no be long

Below the gallow’s tree.

Verse from Robert Burn’s version of MacPherson’s Farewell.

Once you lose something priceless it’s difficult to recover. It can be irrevocable. It could be a language, and reputation. A whole language can be erased such as Scottish Gaelic. It can be the devastating loss of the voice of a marginalised people following the decline of the oral poetic tradition. Perhaps this loss is best exemplified by the two poignant cases of the MacPhersons. History has done them a great disservice. Jame MacPherson, a legendary fiddler, was unjustly hanged in 1700 in Banff, Scotland, and another James MacPherson, a poet and author of Ossian, has gone down in history as ‘a literary fraud.’ For centuries both MacPhersons have had their reputations abused. Just drop into a Scottish library and peruse most of history books on this subject and you’ll get the picture. It’s no accident that Napoleon Bonaparte described ‘History as a fable written by others.’ Napoleon, being an incurable romantic preferred to read poetry. He carried around a copy of MacPherson’s Ossian. He read this and also wrote long romantic poets to his wife which would make contemporary observers blush. However, in recent years, a few brave authors are attempting to rectify those two cases of injustice.

The first case was made famous by the poet Robert Burns. Burns rewrote a ballad telling the story of how James MacPherson made a speech before being unjustly hanged. But who was James MacPherson ? James MacPherson {1675 - 1700} was a great fiddler and gypsy who was hanged on the spurious grounds that he was the leader of a gang of outlaws who allegedly robbed the rich to give to give to the poor. Some dubbed him a ‘Scottish Robin Hood.’ One day, while visiting a market a woman from a window threw a bed cloth over him allowing the authorities to arrest him. He was later arrested, and sentenced to death by the authorities. There is a legend that the Duke of Gordon had sent a messenger carrying a reprieve which would have prevented his hanging. But the town authorities discovering this put the hands of the town clock forward so his hanging would take place before the messenger arrived to save him.

It is now clear to anyone who wishes to consult the historical archives that the Hanging of James MacPherson represented one of the greatest miscarriages of justice. The prosecution could not come up with a shred of evidence that MacPherson robbed anyone. The real reason for his execution was plain : he was a gypsy. As one author Euan MacPherson has written - ‘MacPherson had been found guilty of being an Egyption {i.e, Gypsy} a vagabond, for conducting himself in a ‘Bangstrie {violent manner,} for going up and down the country armed , for being a thief and infamous.’[see page 46 ,Euan Macpherson, Scotland’s Robin Hood, from Scottish Field.co.Uk. 2026,.} Being armed was not a capital offence. But just being born a gypsy was a capital offence. For in 1609, the Scottish parliament had passed a law demanding all gypsies leave Scotland or face the death penalty. This was the beginning of a campaign of genocide against the gypsies in Scotland. Unfortunately harsh discrimination against the travellers relentlessly continues. And at present the Home office continues to deport their own British citizens who cannot furnish documents confirming their origins.

Fortunately James MacPherson’s story survives due to ballads. They tend to romanticise his case where he gives a last farewell just before his execution. He played a last song and then asked if anyone would take his fiddle. Nobody took it. So he broke it.

The second James MacPherson, was a poet who won fame as collector of Gaelic stories and author of Ossian. He was denounced as a fraud on the grounds he could not come up with all his sources. { An impossible feat when those stories were often handed down orally over centuries and libraries of Gaelic sources were destroyed.} But MacPherson was not a fraud. In fact a Commission established by the Highland Society of Scotland in 1805 to investigate his sources found that many were reliable sources. He was vindicated. But people such as Doctor Johnson led a campaign to villify him. In fact the claim that MacPherson was a forger who made up all his stories does not stand up to any scrutiny. The historian Peter Berresford Ellis commenting on the accusation of fraud states - ‘I feel this is unfair. When the Highland Society of Scotland set up a special committee to investigate the charges of MacPherson’s critics, and it reported back in 1805, the work was declared to represent a genuine tradition, even though MacPherson had probably not merely translated from oral tradition, rather than written sources, but embellished and retold stories. To fill out the plots and adapt the text is the lot of anyone engaged in retelling folktales. Indeed, what was wrong with that?’{page 232, Peter Berresford Ellis, Celtic Myths and Legends, Robinson, London, 2002.} Ellis goes on to mention how MacPherson’s task was made highly problematic by the fact whole libraries of Scottish Gaelic were destroyed following the Reformation and repression of the Jacobite rebellions. Ellis stands up for MacPherson. He wrote - ‘ Nevertheless, the literary argument has continued to this day and poor MacPherson is branded with the unjustifiable label of being a forger. If he is a forger, I, too, am a forger, because I have adapted and retold these stories as he apparently did.’ {page 232, Peter Berresford Ellis, Celtic Myths and Legends, 2002, Robinson, London. }

It is fortunate that ballads present an alternative way of interpreting history that rarely reaches mainstream history books. As Calum Maclean once said - ‘There are two histories of every land and people- the written history that tell what is considered politic and the unwritten history that tells all.’ Edward Cowen wrote perceptively that - ‘ Oral tradition has been largely ignored in favour of the supposedly more scientific and less subjective historical evidence of record and charter statute and account.’ {page 31, Edward Cowen, The People’s Past, Scottish Folk Tradition, Scottish History, Polygon, Edinburgh, 1991}

Doctor Johnson doesn’t have the last word. Both MacPherson’s are honest. Neither of them were either forgers or thieves. On the contrary, they were outstanding poets. They stand vindicated !