Baron Edmund von Harold

Edmund von Harold, born in Limerick, was an officer in the service of the Elector Palatine.

He is know particularly for his involvement with the Ossian cycle of epic poems by Scottish poet, James Macpherson, who claimed to have collected word-of-mouth material in Gaelic from ancient sources and that the work was his translation of that material.

In 1775 Harold produced his own translation of James Macpherson's Ossian into Germany prose, but incorporated some of his own 'discoveries'. In 1787 he published an independent volume of Ossianic poetry, simultaneously in both English and German, making capital of his 'insider's' knowledge of the Bard.

Schubert's settings of the songs are based on the 1775 translation, and include Cronnan (D282), Das Mädchen von Inistore (D281), Der Tod Oscars (D375), Die Nacht (D534), Lodas Gespenst (D150), Lorma (D327 and D376), Ossians Lied nach dem Fallen Nathos (D278) and Shilrik und Vinvelva (D293).

 (Taken from Howard Gaskill, The Reception of Ossian in Europe, Bloomsbury, and from Wikipedia.)