Ossian: Warrior Poet

Ossian: Warrior Poet
by Eileen Budd
246 x 189 mm
326 pages
Full colour print
Available in hardback or paperback edition

These are the sagas of Scotland’s ancient past: tales of battles, of unrequited love, betrayal, tragic loss and glorious victory.

James Macpherson first published his Poems of Ossian in the late 1700s, collecting fragments of oral storytelling, folklore and deep cultural memory that survived in the Gaelic tongue. Many at the time doubted the text’s authenticity, claiming that the ancient Scots were too savage to have woven such beautiful stories. Yet Ossian was embraced by artists and writers, and became central to ideas of Scottish nationhood and culture.

Eileen Budd's new illustrated edition rekindles these stories for a new generation.

Ossian: Warrior Poet includes:
> 12 full-page illustrations bursting with detail, based on years of research into the archeological, linguistic and geological records.
> 14 hand drawn maps, showing the locations and routes of the poems, based on cartographic research.
> Many more illustrations of archaeological objects and patterns.
> Fresh introduction and commentaries for each chapter.
> Family trees for the main characters, setting out their inter-connections.
> An index of hundreds of characters and locations, to help readers keep track!

The hardback comes with black endpapers, a real collector's edition.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
"I first read the Poems of Ossian as a young teenager and ever since then they have lingered in my imagination. Growing up in the rolling hills of Perthshire, I imagined these warriors racing across the land and raising the stones for long-forgotten heroes fallen in war. The battles were epic and the language so lyrically linked with the natural landscape of Scotland it felt like discovering a portal into our country’s ancient past.

The poems correlate with historical events during the Roman occupation of the UK, showing the Caledonians to be far more civilised than the image painted by Roman historians. Yet it is the Roman accounts which continue to be used as a basis for learning about our ancient past. I want these stories to be known by a new generation because they are so important to the history and culture of Scotland.

However they originated, the main thing is that these stories are given a future, because they are dramatic, intense and bold tales of conflict, heroism and survival."

Eileen Budd is a fine artist and illustrator. Over the last 20 years her artwork has been shown in galleries, publications and private collections across the globe. Her interest in interdisciplinary, collaborative, creative and practice-based research has led her to work as a rescue scuba diver in Tasmania, Papua New Guinea and Australia, a shark tagger in Fiji and a cowgirl in the Australian Outback - experiences which have been major influences on her work as an artist. Eileen now lives in a restored cottage in Angus, with her partner and collaborator Max Cant and their son.