SOURCE: "Fingal: The Garbh mac Stáirn and Magnus Ballads," in The Gaelic Sources of MacPherson's 'Ossian,' Folcroft Library Editions, 1973, pp. 13-20.

Here, Thomson surveys the Gaelic sources he believes Macpherson used in composing Fingal. Thomson maintains that Macpherson drew on twelve identifiable passages for "hints for his plot" in Fingal, but that in the case of Temora, which suffers from an almost non-existent plot, Macpherson appears to have drawn on only one Gaelic passage.

Fingal is probably to be regarded as Macpherson's magnum opus. Some of the shorter pieces may claim a greater felicity, and indeed the lack of architectonic power which Arnold attributed, with some justice, to the Celts, and particularly to Ossian, may be attributed to Macpherson also. But when Fingal is compared with Macpherson's other essay in epic, Temora, the measure of his success in the former becomes more apparent. His theme, at...