Kingussie (12mi/19km southwest of Aviemore) was the birthplace of James Macpherson (1736-1796). This son of a Spey valley peasant claimed to have produced the first translation of a Gaelic manuscript ascribed to Ossian, the son of the Scottish king Fingal. Fifteen years after a disastrous defeat at Culloden, he provided the Scots with a heroic
epic shrouded in mysticism, a monument of literature that soon won enthusiastic acclaim throughout the whole of Europe among artists and literati. Many of the latter including Herder, Brahms, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Turner and others found inspiration in the writings of Ossian. Although Macpherson failed to produce the original manuscripts, his Ossian verses sold well and he was able to afford a mansion in the Scottish Highlands. After his death the controversial Scot was granted a place alongside Britain's most celebrated poets in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner. However, it later transpired that MacPherson had been a brilliant forger. He had closely studied the Gaelic sources of the Fingal legend and combined them with his own composition.
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