673). As to Oisin or Usheen's identity with Ossian, see O'Curry's"Lectures on the Manuscript Materials for Ancient Irish History" (Dublin,1861), pp. 209, 300; John Rhys's "Hibbert Lectures" (London, 1888), p.551. The latter thinks the hero identical with Taliessin, as well as withOssian, and says that the word Ossin means "a little fawn," from "os,""cervus." (See also O'Curry, p. 304.) O'Looney represents that it was astone which Usheen threw to show his strength, and Joyce follows thisview; but another writer in the same volume of the Ossianic Societytransactions (p. 233) makes it a bag of sand, and Yeats follows thisversion. It is also to be added that the latter in later editions changesthe spelling of his hero's name from Oisin to Usheen.V. BRANThe story of Bran and his sister Branwen may be found most fully given inLady Charlotte Guest's translation of the "Mabinogion," ed. 1877, pp. 369,384. She considers Harlech, whence Bran came, to be a locality on theWelsh seacoast still known by that name and called also Branwen's Tower.But Rhys, a much higher authority, thinks that Bran came really from theregion of Hades, and therefore from a distant island ("Arthurian Legend,"p. 250, "Hibbert Lectures," pp. 94, 269). The name of "the Blessed" camefrom the legend of Bran's having introduced Christianity into Ireland, asstated in one of the Welsh Triads.
Pages:
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179