Malvina (Ossian)

Ossian and Malvina; Oil painting by Johann Peter Krafft , 1810

Malvina dies in Fingal's arms; Oil painting by Ary Scheffer , early 19th century.

Malvina is the fiancée of Oscar (also Oskar) in the work Ossian by the Scottish poet James Macpherson . The name is derived from the Scottish Gaelic mala mhin ("beautiful forehead").

In the allegedly traditional Celtic epic Ossian , which was actually written by Macpherson himself, Malvina is the daughter of the noble warrior Toscar. Living in Temora, the historical Temair (Tara), she is engaged to Oscar, the only son of the poet Ossian . When her fiancé dies early, she takes care of his blind father until his death.

“My son has disappeared. The roaring winds have blown away his portrait in the distance. The father's soul mourns him. O lead me, my Malvina! " (Ossian: Poems of Songs, duan na nlaoi )

Malvina is a fictional character from Macpherson and has no equivalent in the Celtic tradition.

literature

• Helmut Birkhan : Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-7001-2609-3 , p. 7.
• Helmut Birkhan: Post-ancient Celtic reception. Praesens Verlag, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-7069-0541-1 , p. 354.
• Bernhard Maier : Lexicon of Celtic Religion and Culture (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 466). Kröner, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-520-46601-5 , p. 223.

Web links

• James Macpherson, Michael Denis ( transl .): The Poems of Ossian, An Ancient Celtic Poet . Trattner, 1768 (today Bayerische Staatsbibliothek)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ James Macpherson, Michael Denis (trans.): The poems of Ossian, an ancient Celtic poet . Pp. 167, 186.