Ossian and the Birth of Romance

When Madonna married film director Guy Ritchie at the palatial 19th Century Skibo Castle in Dornoch, the global media described it as the celebrity wedding of the year. Catherine Zeta Jones pronounced the 200-room castle in Sutherland, 'the most romantic place on earth.'
The Gothic chapel of the stunning Mount Stuart House in Rothesay was next up, in 2003, as the setting for the marriage of celebrated fashion designer Stella McCartney and Alasdhair Willis.

Wild, scenic Scotland has for centuries drawn the glitterati to its shores and the allure of the landscape remains as strong among the discerning as it has ever been.

However, it is not just the world's rich and famous who have endorsed Scotland as a country of peerless beauty and romance throughout time. Nor did this reputation stem from the generations of eloping lovers from England who crossed the border to Gretna Green to wed under the more liberal Scottish marriage laws. Scotland, proud and constantly evolving, stands at the very beginnings of the Romantic movement itself. To trace those origins, we must descend the timeline to the 1760s, traverse the rugged, mist-shrouded mountains to find Ossian and the Celtic epic which was to shape Europe's view of what romance was all about.

Lands of Mist and Magic

James Macpherson's Ossian cycle of poems, a collection of rhythmic translations from Gaelic recounting the heroism of the warrior Fingal by his son, Ossian, literally took 18th Century Europe by storm. Few could have predicted the permanent hold the adventures of Fingal would assert upon the collective imagination. A public growing weary with the dry rationalism of Enlightenment art were suddenly stricken by these 'other worldly' folk tales of feeling and poetic melancholy from a magical land far away.

Macpherson, born in Ruthven in Badenoch, had taken the image of Scotland as an uncivilised, rebellious country and turned that representation on its head. What emerged, in glorious illumination, was a Scotland, hauntingly beautiful, where lofty spirits of heroes soared unfettered. Critical interest in Macpherson's controversial publications has declined over the past 250 years but, even today, Scotland has lost nothing of the romantic imprint Macpherson bestowed upon it.

Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns embellished this perception of Scotland as a place where human acts of love and loss were played out in evocative and stirring settings, in their own writings. It is this idea that lingers on in the minds of the amorous, seeking unforgettable locations to tell their sweethearts, 'I do.'

Early stirrings of Romance

The Ossian effect was not just to transform the public's image of Scotland and the Scots. The Ossian tales would prove pivotal in the evolution of the Romantic movement and give rise to some of the most cherished books, paintings and symphonies ever to be created.

In November 1854, Lady Jane Wilde wrote to her friends to announce the birth of her second son. "He is to be called Oscar Fingal Wilde. Is not that grand, misty and Ossianic," she inquired. The Irish playwright's mother was later to add the additional names of O'Flahertie and Wills but the fact she chose Ossianic nomenclature, almost a century after Macpherson published the poems, is an illustration of the enduring influence his controversial writings enjoyed.

Very quickly after publication, the Poems of Ossian were reprinted in French, German, Polish, Russian, Danish, Spanish, Dutch, Bohemian and Hungarian. Napoleon was so moved by their noble sentiment, he carried a translation of the poems into battle and also commissioned great painters to produce artworks depicting scenes from the collections. These results can still be seen at Malmaison. Gerard's 'Ossian evoking Spirits on the Banks of the Lora' portrays silhouetted figures against dramatic highland backdrops. Ingres' 'The Dream of Ossian' was a favourite of Napoleon, who was inspired by the military prowess of the mythological Fingal. He described the poems as containing, “the most animating principles and examples of true honour, courage and discipline, and all the heroic virtues that can possibly exist."

Macpherson's Gifts to Time

While it was Fingal's valour in battle that resonated with Napoleon, the vivid natural descriptions of the Scottish countryside and the musicality of Macpherson's prose struck a chord with fellow writers and artists. Leading English poet of the time, Thomas Gray, claimed he had, 'gone mad' about them. The battle scenes, in which Fingal finally defeats the leader of an invading army, are punctuated by memorable emotive depictions of fractured love and isolation. It is this very human quality within the texts which led them to be viewed as defining works in the creation of Romanticism.

The three volumes; Fingal: An Ancient Epic Poem in Six Books, together with several other poems composed by Ossian, son of Fingal, translated from the Gaelic language (1761), Temora (1763) and The Works of Ossian (1765) were to win hearts and minds, particularly in Germany. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe assimilated Ossianic text in his
Sorrows of Young Werther, a novel regarded as seminal in the Sturm und Drang (Storm and Struggle) movement.

From this new school of literature, where emotions and feelings were given free reign, came Romanticism. From the 1780s to 1840, this new expression throughout Europe heralded the end of the confinement of the Enlightenment and a daring new breed of writers, painters and composers emerged. Mozart, Beethoven, Franz Schubert; all of these musicians revelled in the freedom of Romanticism that Macpherson's Ossian poems had paved the way for. Felix Mendelssohn was inspired by Ossian, so too were the poets, Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth and Yeats.

By the time the great authenticity debate about Macpherson's poems reached fever pitch, the words of Ossian were already under the skin of Europe. The criticism that the poems were more the creation of Macpherson's mind than collected fragments of 3rd century Gaelic poetry was, by this time, an issue for academics. Ossian had kick-started a Romantic movement across Europe and the highlands of Scotland were viewed as the fertile ground from which these magical myths had sprung.

And it wasn’t just in Europe. Third US President Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, was so touched by Macpherson's work, he started to learned Gaelic in an attempt to read the original texts.

Glasgow and Valentine's Day

Scotland's place in the history of romantic thought has waned little since Ossian. In modern times, the city of Glasgow has laid claim to the title of 'the city of love.' It may have reasonable cause to do so. It is thought that the remains of St. Valentine - long associated with love and romance - are buried in the church of Blessed St John Duns Scotus in the Gorbals. Gretna Green's connection with marriage has spanned centuries and the village on the border is still world renowned for romantic, traditional unions.

Former supermodel and socialite Honor Fraser wed photographer Stavros Merjas in the Gretna Register Office in 2004. Once a favoured wedding location for runaway brides, the popularity
of reciting the vows at the famous Marriage Anvil in the Blacksmith's Shop remains strong. In the 18th Century, couples from England travelled to the village, the first stop over the border on the coach route north, to escape the 1754 English Marriage Act. As Scotland had, and still has its own marriage laws, people could marry under the age of 21 and without consent in Scotland, returning to England as a legally bound couple.

The business of joining hearts is still the major financial generator in the area, with 4632 weddings taking place there in 2009. Following the introduction of legislation to permit same sex marriages in Scotland, civil partnerships have added to the loving karma of Gretna Green.

Unforgettable Days

Because Scottish Law allows a minister to marry a couple anywhere, more and more foreign visitors are looking to Scotland as the place to stage the happiest day of their life. While church weddings were previously the norm, couples are now choosing historic Scottish castles, surrounded by panoramic loch-side vistas. The country's mountain tops are perfect backdrops for romance, just as they were when Fingal roamed their precipitous peaks. The amorous are making commitments on cruises down Loch Lomond or even getting hitched in mid-air, in innovative new 'leap of faith' ceremonies.

Whatever the taste or requirement, Scotland maintains an ability to lure the lover or the lovelorn to its shores. These days, movie star hearthrobs such as Sir Sean Connery, Ewan Macgregor, and Gerard Butler are enhancing the dreamy feel enveloping Scotland. Ossian's romantic country, it seems, was more than mere myth.