Ossian, also called Oisin, was a legendary poet esteemed by Scots and Irish whose works survived in ballads about the heroic past. In 1762, a Scottish poet named James Macpherson claimed to have discovered translations of two of Ossian's epics from the third century. While many people believed him, others were suspicious, and it was proved late in the 19th century that it was a fraud: Macpherson had translated his own English versions into Gaelic and pretended they were the originals. The romantic legend apparently had lived on when the Hitchcocks visited Scotland.