Up to the thirteenth century most of the poets and harpers used to include Scotland in their circuit, and one of them, Muiredhach, is said to have received the surname of "the Scotchman," because he tarried so long in that country.
When, after the fifteenth century, Irish literature began to decline, Irish poems were recast in the native Scotch dialect, thus giving rise to what is known as Gaelic literature, which continued to flourish until the Reformation.

Samples of this old Gaelic or Erse poetry were discovered by James Macpherson in the Highlands, taken down from recitation, and used for the English compilation known as the Poems of Ossian.

Lacking sufficient talent and learning to remodel these fragments so as to produce a real masterpiece, Macpherson--who erroneously termed his work a translation--not only incurred the sharpest criticism, but was branded as a plagiarist.
The Welsh, a poetic race too, boast of four great poets,--Taliessin, Aneurin, Llywarch Hen, and Myrden (Merlin).

These composed poems possessing epic qualities, wherein mention is made of some of the characters of the Arthurian Cycle.

One of the five Welsh MSS., which seem of sufficient antiquity and importance to deserve attention, is the Book of Taliessin, written probably during the fourteenth century.
The Welsh also possess tales in verse, either historical or romantic, which probably antedated the extant prose versions of the same tales.
Eleven of these were translated by Lady Charlotte Guest, and entitled Mabinogion (Tales for Children), although only four out of the eleven deserve that name.