Premium Only Content

Oscar's Ghost - A Bodleian Ballad Halloween - #5
Oscar's Ghost is the 2nd ballad on this sheet, and only occurs once in the archive:
http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/view/edition/18576
Interestingly, the words are different to those that appear in this 1776 tourist book about Scotland:
https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_observations-relative-ch_gilpin-william_1789_1/page/n167
These word's claim to have been seen by William Gilpin as an inscription in Ossian's Cave in Dunkeld. Most tourist guides now say that the inscription no longer exists:
https://www.showcaves.com/english/gb/subterranea/Ossian.html
The song is undoubtably about the Poems of Ossian, by James Macpherson:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossian
The entry at the top of this page clearly inspires the final half-stanza about grey stones and hunters:
https://archive.org/details/cu31924013188960/page/n185/
The Bodleian version, and this one that attributes the poem to Ann Murray Keith, both miss the final lines (which are what makes the song clearly about a ghost):
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Scottish_Song/Oscar%27s_Ghost
There is a tantalizing inference here that Ann had converted much more of Ossian into verse:
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:XcCq3wYcTOYJ:https://electricscotland.com/webclans/families/keiths.htm&cd=13&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au&lr=lang_en|lang_zh-CN|lang_zh-TW
Blog post about this song:
https://www.folklounge.org/ossians-cave-mystery/
#Halloween #Scotland #Ossian
Purchase my music:
Bandcamp: https://ozfolklounge.bandcamp.com/
-
LIVE
I_Came_With_Fire_Podcast
12 hours agoSecret Origins of Transhumanism & The New Atlantis
457 watching -
LIVE
GritsGG
1 day ago36 Hour Stream! Most Wins 3420+ ðŸ§
1,396 watching -
1:12:40
Wendy Bell Radio
9 hours agoPet Talk With The Pet Doc
36.4K27 -
LIVE
FusedAegisTV
13 hours agoStreet Fighter 6 FINALS, CS2 Semifinals | $1,250,000 | Riyadh, Saudi Arabia EWC 2025 !estv
178 watching -
40:42
SouthernbelleReacts
1 day ago $0.06 earned😂 American Pie (1999) Reaction | Iconic Teen Comedy, High School Chaos & 90s Nostalgia 🥧
18.7K2 -
LIVE
LumpyPotatoX2
4 hours agoBecome a HellDiver Today - #RumbleGaming
225 watching -
4:52:02
Midnight In The Mountains
5 hours agoGaming w/ PER·SE·VER·ANCE | Sassy Saturday Fortnite | with the Midnights!
17.6K3 -
LIVE
shyboyking
4 hours agoThe Bots Of The Bots !!!😎
167 watching -
24:06
True Crime | Unsolved Cases | Mysterious Stories
5 days ago $0.19 earnedShe Traveled Alone… and Never Came Back – 5 Mysterious Unsolved Cases (Part 6)
20K6 -
27:23
Clickbait Wasteland
17 hours ago $0.04 earnedAsking New Yorkers Who They Support For Mayor: Staten Island
24.3K12