The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. Ossian and Fingal's Cave

Remarks following a performance of Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides Overture”

[ 1 ] The sounds of this overture have just led us spiritually to the coast of Scotland, and in doing so have taken us on a journey within our souls, setting us on a path that has been deeply influenced by the mysteries of karma throughout the course of human development. For peoples were once transplanted from entirely different regions of our Western world to the vicinity of those areas to which these sounds have led us, and into these areas themselves, as it were, by a karmic force. And mysterious destinies are reported to us. We are told—both through what occultism reveals and through external historical documents—of what these peoples experienced on this soil in the distant past.

[ 2 ] A memory of the mysterious fates of those people was, as if in a new awakening, reawakened, so to speak, when, around 1772, people came upon that cave on the island of Staffa, which belongs to the Hebrides: Fingal’s Cave. One was reminded of the mysterious fates of antiquity when one saw how nature itself seemed to have erected something described as a marvelous cathedral. In long rows, erected with great regularity, towering, countless columns, above them a vaulted ceiling of the same stonework, below the bases of the columns washed by the surging, crashing sea flowing in, which continually surges and swells within this cathedral to the sound of thunderous music. Water dripping from stone formations, constantly striking the stalagmite stumps in melodic, enchanting music. Such a thing exists there. And those who—upon discovering this—had a sense for the mystery that once unfolded on that ground must have been reminded of the hero who, as one of the famous figures of the West, once guided destinies here in a most unmistakable way, and whose deeds were sung of by his son, the blind Ossian, who appears like a Western Homer: a blind singer.

[ 3 ] When we look back at the impression this news made on people, we can understand that Macpherson’s revival of these songs in the 18th century had a powerful impact on Europe. Nothing can compare to this impression. They listened intently: Goethe, Herder, Napoleon, and all believed they could hear in these sounds something of the magic of ancient times. One must understand that a spiritual world rising in the hearts of people—as it still existed back then—could be drawn to what was being expressed in those sounds! What was it, then?

[ 4 ] We must take a look at the period coinciding with the early days of Christianity and the first century that followed. What was happening up there in the Hebrides, in Ireland, Scotland, and in ancient Erin—which encompassed all the neighboring islands between Ireland and Scotland and the northern parts of Scotland? It is there that we must seek the core of those peoples of Celtic descent who had preserved the most of the ancient Atlantean clairvoyance in its full originality. The others, who had migrated eastward, had developed further and were no longer connected to the ancient gods. Completely immersed in personality and individuality, these people had preserved the capacity for the ancient art of seership. People who were drawn to this land as if on a special mission, where a structure met them—mirroring their own musical inner being and architecturally formed entirely from the spiritual world itself—that which I have just attempted to characterize in a few words: Fingal’s Cave. One can properly imagine the process by thinking that the cave functioned as a center, reflecting what lived in the souls of these people, who were driven here by their karma as if to a temple built by the gods themselves. Here were prepared those who were to receive the Christ impulse with full humanity only later, and who were to undergo something highly peculiar here as a preparation. We can imagine this if we consider that it was precisely that ancient institution of the peoples that was preserved here, through which the tribes were divided into small, family-like communities. Those who were blood relatives felt they belonged together; everything else was perceived as foreign, as belonging to another group-ego. And like a harmonizing force, what the Druid priests—who had remained in the West when the migration of peoples from Atlantis to the East took place—could offer the people poured out over these individual groups. What they could offer still lived on in the bards. But we can only truly imagine what worked through these bards if we realize that the most elemental passions met with the ancient power of looking into the spiritual world, and that the people, who as representatives of their groups fought against other groups with life-force, at times furiously and passionately, saw how impulses from the spiritual world were at work, guiding them in the battles. Such a collaboration of the physical and the spiritual is unimaginable today. When the hero raised his sword, he believed that a spirit from the heavens was guiding him, and in this spirit he saw an ancestor who had once fought on this very field and had ascended to now work from there. In their battle lines they felt their ancestors at work, their ancestors on both sides, and they not only felt them, they also heard them clearly! This was a wonderful belief that lived among these peoples: that the heroes had to fight on the battlefield, had to shed their blood, but that after death they would ascend into the spiritual world, and that then their spirit would vibrate forth as sound, resonating through the air as the spiritual.

[ 5 ] And those, then, who were indeed familiar with battle but chose instead to develop the ability to listen to what echoed from the skies as the voice of antiquity—who became blind to the physical world, who could no longer see the flash of swords, who were blind to the physical plane—they were highly revered. And one of these was none other than Ossian. And as the heroes swung their swords, they were aware that their deeds would echo on in the spiritual world, and that bards would be found to preserve them in their songs. This was a living conviction among those peoples.

[ 6 ] But this also offers a completely different view of humanity as a whole. It offers the view that human beings are connected to the spiritual forces that resound from all of nature. One cannot see a storm or lightning, cannot hear the thunder or the roar of the sea, without sensing that spirits are at work in all natural phenomena, spirits who are in communion with the souls of antiquity, with the souls of one’s own ancestors. There, what is a natural phenomenon becomes something quite different. That is why those very sounds were so significant—sounds that now resounded once more and, having previously lived only in tradition, were revived by the Scotsman Macpherson, so that they impart an awareness of the connection between human beings and the souls of their ancestors and with natural phenomena.

[ 7 ] One can understand that that Scotsman must have felt a certain kinship when he describes how a battle line storms forward, driving darkness before it, like spirits marching into battle. It is indeed something that could make a great impression on intellectual Europe. And the entire style of the depiction, even if presented in somewhat free verse, awakens in us a sense of the worldview that lived among those ancient peoples. Within them lived a living knowledge, a living wisdom of the connection between the spirit world and the natural world in which the spirit world operates.

[ 8 ] Based on this wisdom, the finest sons of the various tribes—that is, those who were most closely connected to the spirits of antiquity, those who most fully embodied the spirits of antiquity in their deeds—were chosen to form an elite group. And those with the strongest clairvoyant powers were placed at the head. This band was tasked with defending the core Celtic people against the surrounding peoples. One of these leaders was the clairvoyant hero whose story has come down to us under the name of Fingal. How this Fingal worked in the defense of the ancient gods against those who sought to endanger them—this has been passed down through ancient songs, as heard from the spiritual world, the ancient songs of the bard Ossian, his son, so that it remained alive well into the 16th and 17th centuries. What Fingal accomplished, what his son Ossian heard after Fingal had ascended into the spirit realm, and what would then inspire future generations to action through the sounds of Ossian—that was what still exerted such a powerful influence even in the 18th century. And we get a sense of this when we hear how Ossian gives voice to his father Fingal in his songs. The heroes find themselves in a difficult situation; they are nearly defeated—then new life comes into the ranks.

[ 9 ] “The king stood by the Stone of Lubar; thrice he raised his terrible voice, the stag startled from the springs of Cromla, the rocks trembled upon all their mountains. Like the roar of a hundred mountain streams bursting forth, roaring, and foaming, like the clouds gathering into a storm on the blue face of the sky, so Fingal’s terrible voice struck the sons of the wilderness all around. Pleasant was the voice of the King of Morven to the warriors of his land. Often had he led them into battle, often did he return with the spoils of the enemy. Come to the battle, said the king, “you children of resounding Selma! Come to the death of a thousand! Konnal’s son will see the fight! My sword shall wave upon the hill in defense of my people in war—but may you never need it, warriors, while the son of Mornis fights, the chieftain of mighty men. He shall lead my battle, that his fame may rise in song! O spirits of departed heroes, you riders of the Storm of Cromla, receive my fallen people with joy. Bring them to your hills, and may the breath of Lena carry them across the sea, and may they come into my silent dreams and gladden my soul in sleep!”

[ 10 ] Now, like a dark, stormy cloud, surrounded by the red lightning of the sky, fleeing westward from the morning light, the King of Selma withdrew. The gleam of his armor is terrifying. Two spears were in his hand, his gray hair fluttering in the wind. He often looks back at the battle. Three bards accompany the Son of Glory, to carry his words to the chieftains. High on Cromla’s slope he sat, waving the flash of his sword. And as he waved, we set ourselves in motion...

[ 11 ] Fingal suddenly rose to arms. Three times his terrible voice rang out, and Cromla answered all around. The Sons of the Wilderness stood still; they bowed their agitated faces to the ground, ashamed by the king’s presence. He came like a rain cloud on a sunny day, when it drifts low over the hill and the fields await the shower. Silence accompanied their slow march, but the storm is ready to rise. Swaran saw the terrible King of Morven. He paused in the midst of his stride. Gloomy, he leaned on his spear, rolling his red eye all around. Silent and lofty, he resembled an oak on the banks of Lübar, whose branches had been scorched by the lightning of the heavens in its old age; it bends over the stream, the gray moss whispering in the wind. Thus stood the king. Then he slowly turned back toward the rising heath of Lena; his thousands poured around the hero. Darkness gathers on the hill.

[ 12 ] Fingal, like a ray from the heavens, shone in the midst of his people. His heroes gathered around him. He sent forth the voice of his power. “Raise my banners high, spread them out in Lena’s wind like the flames of a hundred hills! Let them rustle in Erin’s winds and remind us of the battle. You sons of the roaring streams that pour down from a thousand mountains, stand close to the King of Morven! Hear the words of his power! Oskar, mightiest arm of death, O Fillan, you runner of future battles, Dermid, black-haired hunter of leaping does, Kothmar, son of the resounding shields of Mora, Ossian, king of songs, stand close to your father’s arm!” — We raised the sunbeam of battle, the king’s banner. Every hero rejoiced with joy as it fluttered billowing in the wind: it was adorned with gold at the top, like the vast blue bowl of the night sky. Every hero had his own banner to go with it, and every one his grim men.”

[ 13 ] Thus Fingal charged into battle, as described by his son Ossian. No wonder that this life, this awareness of the connection with the spiritual world, which sinks into the souls of these people, into the souls of the ancient Celts, is the best preparation for then spreading the personal divine element in their own way, from their own soil, throughout the West. For what they had experienced in passion, what they had heard, resonating in melodies from the spiritual world, prepared them for that time when they brought forth sons who later manifested those passions, purified and tempered, in their souls, so that we can say: It is as if Erin’s finest sons were once again hearing the sounds of their ancient bards, whom they once heard from the spiritual world as the deeds of their forefathers, but as if the ancient battle sounds had now also taken shape and become clarified within Erin’s finest sons, and had become the words meant to express humanity’s greatest impulse.

[ 14 ] This was echoed in songs from ancient times about the deeds of the ancient Celts, who had fought many a battle in mighty conflicts to prepare themselves for further achievements in spiritual life, as we recognize them again in what the finest sons of the West have accomplished. These were the impulses that then flowed into the souls of the people of the 18th century when those ancient songs were revived. This was what those who saw the marvelous cathedral again—which seemed as if built by nature itself—remembered, and it made them say: Here is a place wrought by karma, so that what the bards had to sing of the deeds of the ancestors, of what the heroes had to do to steel their strength, might resound to them in an echo from the cathedral they did not need to build themselves, from their sacred temple, which was built for them by the spirits of nature, and which could be a source of inspiration for those who saw it.

[ 15 ] Thus, the sounds of the overture can inspire us, in our own way, to at least hint at the deep, mysterious connections that nevertheless govern the history of the people who lived before us, on almost the same ground on which we continue to live. And since we must delve deeply into what lives within us, and since what lives within us is merely an echo of what existed in times past, that sense of what once was and continues to influence humanity is of the utmost importance for the occult life.