The Battle Of Gaura

This was the battle in which Cairbre and Oscar, the son of Ossian, were killed. It was fought in Ireland about the fifth century, and from the poem or ballad, in which Ossian describes the battle and the circumstances of his son’s death, and which is still extant in popular tradition, has always been the most celebrated of Celtic battles. Macpherson has worked up the popular accounts in the first Book of Temora, but not very successfully.

One night a little man, of the name of Campbell, was going home from the smithy, with the ploughshare and coulter on his shoulder, and in a narrow glen encountered a gigantic figure, that stood with a foot resting on each side of the valley. This figure asked him, “What is your name?” He answered boldly (as became one of the clan), “Campbell.” It then asked, “Were you at the Battle of Gaura?” He answered “Yes.” “Show me your hand, then, that I may know if you were at the Battle of Gaura.” Instead of his hand, Campbell held out the ploughshare and coulter, and the figure grasped them so tightly, that they were welded together and had to be taken back to the smithy, to be separated. “I see,” said the apparition, “that you were at the Battle of Gaura, for your hand is pretty hard.”

Two men were during the night on their way, it is said, to steal sheep. One beguiled the way by telling the other about the Battle of Gaura. Two figures of immense size appeared, one on the top of each of two high hills in the neighbourhood. The gigantic apparitions spoke to each other, and one said, “Do you hear these men down there? I was the second best hero (_ursainn chath_, lit. door-post of battle) at the Battle of Gaura, and that man down there knows all about it better than I do myself.”