Event Category: Folklore

Ossian 2: James Macpherson’s Epic Journey

In the middle of the eighteenth century, the landscape of Scotland and the way of life of its inhabitants were changing fast, under the influence of the Enlightenment and the ingenious innovators of the Agricultural Revolution. In thinking about and trying to understand these changes, contemporary Scots turned to accounts from other lands, and accounts from history, in the hope that these comparisons might tell them about themselves and where they stood.

Lowland thinkers also looked at their neighbours in the Highlands. Some of them at least viewed the Scottish Gaels who lived there as ‘contemporary ancestors’, the original Scots, supposedly still living in a patriarchal, primitive, semi-barbarian clan-based society. But how to find out more about the mysteries of their history?

In 1760 the literary nation was electrified by the claims of a twenty-four-year-old from Badenoch in the eastern Highlands: that in his native Gaelic oral tradition he had collected fragments of an epic dating back one and a half millennia. Over the next three years James Macpherson would publish what he claimed were authentic prose translations of these ancient poems, telling of fierce, heroic battles fought by Highland warriors in a gloomy, sublime landscape. But Macpherson’s characters, women as well as men, were strangely contemporary too: noble, sensitive, emotional, even civilised. These warriors fought, and died, for love as well as for glory. With his poems of Ossian, it seemed that Macpherson had given Scotland, and all of northern Europe, literature to rival the Mediterranean classical epics of Homer and Vergil.

In this talk we’ll investigate the life, work, and legacy of James Macpherson. How did he create his epics – and who helped him? What poems did he draw upon for inspiration, from his own Gaelic culture? What impact did Macpherson’s poems have, in Britain and beyond—and on Scottish Gaelic culture too? And, of course, how did the fierce Ossianic controversy over the epic’s authenticity first begin?

Speaker Bio:

From the Isle of Lewis, Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart is a leading scholar of Scottish Gaelic language, folklore, and oral tradition. He is Associate Professor at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, University of the Highlands and Islands, where he lectures in Scottish Highland history and material culture, and Gaelic literature and folklore. He has written numerous academic articles, and is often interviewed on radio and television.

Curated & Hosted by:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Ossian 3: Ossian’s Last Stand?

For over a century after the publication of James Macpherson’s Ossianic epics, controversy raged over their authenticity. Had the young man really discovered precious heroic poems handed down in Highland oral tradition for nearly 1,500 years, or was Macpherson nothing more than a forger, a chancer guilty of an audacious literary confidence trick that misled readers across the globe?

In this concluding talk, we’ll look at how the literary battle lines were drawn on both sides, and how the controversy was fought out, in books, magazines, letters, and reports. We’ll examine the arguments and evidence used—especially how some supporters tried to convince themselves and others that Macpherson’s claims held water. For them, nothing less than the reputation of the Scottish Gàidhealtachd and its people was at stake.

In this talk, we’ll meet a motley cast of characters, including Church of Scotland ministers, a forgotten female Gaelic writer, Agricultural Sir John Sinclair, an emigrant bishop, an enthusiastic Canadian student, a high-flying civil servant, and a penniless Highland aristocrat—before trying to answer the enduring question: ‘how much of Macpherson is the real thing, and how much of it an epic hoax?’

Speaker Bio:

From the Isle of Lewis, Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart is a leading scholar of Scottish Gaelic language, folklore, and oral tradition. He is Associate Professor at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, University of the Highlands and Islands, where he lectures in Scottish Highland history and material culture, and Gaelic literature and folklore. He has written numerous academic articles, and is often interviewed on radio and television.

Curated & Hosted by:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Ossian 1: The Scottish Highlands: Epic Mode

In this opening talk we’ll investigate the heroic stories and ballads of the Scottish Highlands telling of the adventures of the warrior band known as the Fèinn, and their leader Fionn mac Cumhail or Finn MacCool. These exciting, complex, and often moving stories are part of the common heritage of Scotland and Ireland. The earliest texts of the ‘Finn Cycle’ were composed well over a millennium ago, and the tales have been told and retold, written and read (and filmed!), added to and adapted, from then till now.

The stories can sparkle with life and creative energy. The Fèinn fight enemy invaders: mortal kings of Lochlann, or Greece, or even of the Entire World. They struggle to defeat otherworldly hags on land and sea. Again, disagreements among the heroes themselves can sometimes lead to quarrels and even murder. But these tales are about far more than violence alone: they tell of romantic encounters and love-affairs, of hunts and heroic quests, of romance, enchantment, and foolishness.

For previous generations, these tales were not counted as fiction, but as historical fact. The stories of these warriors were entwined with Scottish Highland genealogies and local landscapes, with proverbs and everyday life. Looking beyond the performances of the tales, we can appreciate just how deeply the lore of the Fèinn was woven into Scottish Gaelic culture.

Speaker Bio:

Dòmhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart is a leading Scottish scholar of Gaelic language, folklore, and oral tradition. He is Associate Professor in Celtic and Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh and has long been associated with School of Scottish Studies, where he has contributed extensively to research on narrative tradition, belief, and vernacular culture.

His work focuses particularly on Gaelic storytelling, popular belief, charm traditions, and the cultural worlds of the Highlands and Islands, combining rigorous scholarship with a deep respect for living oral heritage. Stiùbhart is known for his ability to bridge academic research and community knowledge, often working closely with tradition bearers and archival materials alike.

In addition to his academic publications, he has played an important role in public folklore work in Scotland, including education, heritage projects, and the preservation and interpretation of Gaelic intangible cultural heritage. His scholarship is marked by clarity, cultural sensitivity, and a strong commitment to keeping Gaelic voices central to the study of Scotland’s past and present.

Curated & Hosted by:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Good Dragons are Rare: An Inquiry into Dragons Old and New

Prof. Tolkien once noted: “There are in any case many heroes but very few good dragons.” (M&C 17) Modern readers may wonder what he meant by ‘good dragons’ – certainly not virtuous or ‘morally good’ dragons, which are, basically, a modern invention. As Tolkien himself points out, a ‘good dragon’ is a beast that displays the typical characteristics of draco without becoming a mere (allegorical) representative of draconitas (i.e. the vice of avarice). Yet ‘death by allegory’ is not the only danger literary dragons have to face. My talk looks at the symbolic and narrative functions of dragons in Germanic literature throughout the ages. As will be shown, most dragons before (but also after) Tolkien do not live up to their full literary potential as protagonist, but remain either allegorical figures of evil, devices for testing the hero’s qualities, steeds, or Disney-pets. It is only such dragons as Smaug in The Hobbit or Chrysophylax Dives in Farmer Giles of Ham who live up to Tolkien’s idea of what a ‘good dragon’ should be: a dangerous protagonist in its own right partaking in the rich symbolism of the different traditions without being reduced to these ‘symbolic’ functions only.

Speaker Bio:

Thomas Honegger is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the Institut für Anglistik/Amerikanistik, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena. His research focuses on medieval English and Germanic literature, myth, monsters, and the afterlives of medieval narratives in modern fantasy. He is internationally recognised for his work on dragons, legendary creatures, heroism, and the complex relationship between symbolism and storytelling from the Middle Ages to Tolkien and beyond. A gifted lecturer and sharp cultural historian, Honegger is particularly interested in how medieval imagination continues to shape modern fantasy worlds, refusing simple allegory in favour of richly ambivalent, intellectually challenging interpretations.

Curated & Hosted By:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Heroine or Succubus? Blodeuwedd, Taliesin, and Artificial Life

‘Blodeuwedd is one of the unforgettable heroines of Welsh mythology. In the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi (c.1100) she is created out of flowers to be the wife of the hero Lleu of the Skilful Hand, whom she ultimately betrays. A century of commentators and creative people have seen her as a feminist figure, who follows her own heart and desires and who suffers a cruel and unjust punishment by being turned into an owl. This talk ranges widely over the theme of the artificial women in western literature – Pandora, Pygmalion’s famous statue – to suggest ways in which the original audience of the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi might have interpreted the story—ways which might be strikingly different and less approving than the one which has become normal in our own cultural context. Is she a misunderstood heroine—or a succubus?!

Speaker Bio:

Dr Mark Williams is Fellow and Tutor in English at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, and a specialist in the Celtic literatures and languages. He is the author of Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth (2016) and The Celtic Myths that Shape the Way We Think (2021). He is also a qualified Jungian psychoanalyst in private practice in Oxford.

Curated & Hosted by:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

Image: Drawing by Lena HB

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day