Another Personal Matter Wyndham Lewis’s Second Aunt

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6851, 5 March 1929, Page 4

Another Personal Matter Wyndham Lewis’s Second Aunt

D, S. Wyndham Lewis, English humorist, writing in the “Daily Mail,” claims in another of his brilliant nonsense-articles that an aunt of his had a hand in writing the poems of Ossian.

“Nor Gormal’s mossy towers, nor Stamo shall Fingal behold. Deaths wander, like shadows, over his fiery soul! Duth-maruno, arm of death! Crommaglas, of Iron shields! Struthmor,'dweller of battle’s •'wing! Cormar, whose ships bound on seas careless as the course, of a meteor, on dark-rolling clouds! Arise around me, children of heroes!’’— Early Scottish reply to a dinner invitation.

■ COPY the above very carefully from the Poems of Ossian. It represents Fingal’s answer to the King of Lochlin, when the King of is, I think, rather neat, I mention it to-day because I have just been reading some correspondence in a review reviving the Ossian controversy, The general concensus of opinion is still that these ancient Highland poems were written by a Mr, James Macpherson in the late 18th icentury.

Actually, as I happen to know, they were not They were written partly by Ossian and partly by an aunt of mine, his contemporary.

She was, judging by a picture in an old Gaelic manuscript, a tall, handsome girl, accustomed to bound over the hills in pursuit of the roe, the red deer, the stag and the badger. Her name was "the daughter of Conloch.” She had no other. “Daughter of Conloch!” or simply, “Hoi, sweetie!” would bring her dashing out of her father’s halls in a moment, brandishing a spear and ready for anything, i She was engaged to Duth-maruno, 'one of Fingal’s chiefs. Her diary, which I have freely consulted for the purposes of this critical article, is full of interest. It .was she, for example, ;who dictated Fingal’s reply, as above. Fingal said to her, doubtfully, “You don’t think it's a bit on the curt side? After all, this won’t cost me anything.” ‘•You don’t mean tp say,” asked my aunt, lifting her eyebrows, “he’s giving you a dinner for nothingt" Fingal nodded. “Then,” said my aunt, thoughtfully biting the top of her spear, "take it from me, big boy, there’s a catch in it.”

•And so there was. The King of Lochlin had arranged to have Fingal assassinated after dinner, as was the Scottish custom. It was my aunt who suggested instead that Fingal should call the tribe to arms and sock him one.

“These streams,” she added, pointing down the glen, "ought to be running blood.” (That, by the way, tyas rather a thing with her. The poet Ossian says of one of her friends; “Blood, to him, was a summer stream that brings joy to withered vales from its mossy rock.” So with my aunt; yet she was the kindest of girls actually, and would never plunge a spear without bursting into tears and tearing a lock from her hair. “Sensibility Sadie," they called her in the tribe.)

Incidentally, I must correct Ossian In one passage where he makes somebody say, obviously hitting at my aunt, in his sly old way: •‘Sleep descended on the foe. I rose, like a stalking ghost. I pierced the side of Corman-trunar. Nor did Foind-bragal escape. She rolled her ; white bosom in blood.” L‘ v

The facts as given in the diary are otherwise. Foina-bragal (better known as Mrs. J. H. MacClachan) was known and disliked throughout the whole of Scotland for her whimsy manner. She would go Barrieish (as we say to-day) for nothing at all, and be all quaint and pawky and elfish in a rich contralto. The word with her was fairies. “Everrrrrry time,” she would say, holding up a finger, “everrrrrry time a fairrrrrry blaws its wee nose a wee babby is borrrrrrn.” She used to call my, aunt “Mrs. Winkipop Winsome,” which made my aunt go all warm and confused. ' Nevertheless, it was not she who was responsible for Mrs. J. H. MacClachan’s end. It was a Miss Tavish.

My aunt did not disbelieve in fairies, but she went in chiefly (as. I perceive from the diary, and also from Ossian) for ghosts. Dead warriors would rise like grey mists from the hillside apd glare at her. Cold, cold were their breasts of clay. Their eyes were red with anger* Their voices were like the rushing wind over Dun-, mora’s heath. “Well, I like them,” my aunt would say, on the defensive. “You odd girl,” said Duth-maruno, her flancd, to her one day, laughingly. “One never knows how to please you! Yesterday afternoon about five there was a splendid battle. All spears were red, every breast smoked with blood, lightning poured from angry steel. And where were you, Angel Face? Up on the hills with your old ghosts, you little silly.”

Then my aunt would make a defiant moue and bound away after a roe. (She liked hard roes.) And then she would bound back and say to Duthmaruno wistfully, “Dear, am I a minx really? Am I a little silly temperamental thing?” He would answer, bending to her, “Whatever you are, >ou will always be my Highland Honey Babe.” They would then sing together softly as follows:

(He): In all my dreams I seem to hear you calling-, I seem to see the love-light In your > eyes; (She): You gave me roses, dear, but ah! until love’s waking, Until you came I never seemed to realise: (Refrain): Highland Honey Babe, across the heather, Dawns a day of love for me and you. . . . (etc.). • * *

Then my aunt would run off and compose some charming poetry, for which—since she always used the pseudonym or pen-name of “Heartsease”—Ossian got all the credit. He was as spiteful and dishonest as a monkey—but you know what these poets are. Fully half the verse in his collection is actually the work of my aunt. The paper in the “Edinburgh Review,” “The Short-Arm Jab; its Use and Limitations, Critically and Exegetically Considered,” is also hers. On such occasion? she signed her articles by the name of a Druid, because she got more money for it (even then! How small the world is!) that way. I can only add, in conclusion, that if the Scottish Archaeological Society are still under the impression that they are getting my aunt’s MS. diary for nothing, they are woundily in error. My price remains fifteen shillings and sixpence; surely they can raise a National Subscription? Dr. “Tishy” McGravlns, and the other “boys,” it’s “up to you”.!.