The blind 3rd century poet Ossian — dubbed the “Homer of the North” — may have never actually existed as scientists have found that his tales were merely 18th-century copies of Irish folklore, putting an end to the 250-year-old literary controversy. Poems by the Scottish bard Ossain are considered to be some of the most important literary works ever to have emerged from Britain or Ireland, given their influence over the Romantic period in literature and the arts.

Figures from German Johannes Brahms to English poet William Wordsworth reacted enthusiastically. French military leader Napoleon Bonaparte took a copy on his military campaigns and US President Thomas Jefferson believed that Ossian was the greatest poet to have ever existed. Read more