FRQM THE LIBRARY OF
TRUSTY COLLEGE
Presented A.D. 1992
David & Mary Neelands
HENRY BRADSHAW SOCIETY
in f#c T^ear of Our &orb 1890 for f0e ebtfing of QRare £tfurgtc<xf
VOL. XXIX.
ISSUED TO MEMBERS FOR THE YEAR 1905,
AND
PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY
BY
HARRISON AND SONS, ST. MARTIN'S LANE,
PRINTERS IN ORDINARY TO HIS MAJESTY.
FELIRE OENGUSSO CELI DE.
THE
MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS THE
CULDEE
CRITICALLY EDITED
FROM TEN MANUSCRIPTS, WITH A PREFACE, TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND INDICES.
BY
WHITLEY STOKES, D.C.L.,
FOREIGN ASSOCIATE OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, AND FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY.
LONDON.
1905.
LONDON :
HARRISON AND SONS, PRINTERS IN ORDINARY TO HIS MAJESTY, ST. MARTIN'S LANE.
137196 1 0 1982
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Editor's Preface vii
I. Description of the Manuscripts viii-xxiv
B. The Brussels MS. 5100-4 viii
C. The Cheltenham MS ix
E. Egerton 88, a MS. in the British Museum xii
F. The Franciscan MS xii
H. H. 3. 18, a MS. in Trinity College, Dublin xiii
/>. Laud 610, a MS. in the Bodleian ... ... ... xiv
LB. Lebar Brecc, a MS. in the library of the Royal Irish
Academy xvi
23
P. a MS. in the same library xx
P. 3,
R\ Rawlinson B. 505, a MS. in the Bodleian xx
R1. Rawlinson B. 512, a MS. in the same library ... xxii
II. The Author of the Martyrology xxiv
III. The Language of the Martyrology xxviii
IV. The Metre of the Martyrology xxxviii
V. The Contents of the Poem xlii
VI. The Notes xlvii-
(a) Religious practices xlviii
(b) Superstitions and Folklore 1
(c) Legal antiquities li
Irish Prefaces, (i) from the Lebar Brecc, (2) from Laud 6 10 ... 2-14
The Martyrology, Text, Translation and Notes 17-288
Invocation ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 17
Prologue 18-31
January 33-39
Notes 40-57
February 58-63
Notes 64-79
March 80-85
Notes 86-103
vi CONTENTS.
PAGE
April 104-109
Notes 110-121
May 122-127
Notes 128-137
June 138-143
Notes 144-159
July 160-165
Notes 166-173
August ... ... ... 174-179
Notes 180-191
September 192-197
Notes 198-213
October 214-219
Notes ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 220-230
November ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 232-237
Notes 238-248
December ... 249-255
Notes 256-262
Epilogue 263 288
Indexes ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 291-463
List of Abbreviations 291,292
1. Glossarial Index 293-372
2. Index of Places and Tribes 373-397
3. Index of Persons ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 398-448
4. Index of Things ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 449-463
Addenda ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 464-468
Corrigenda 469-474
PREFACE.
THE first edition of the metrical Martyrology called in
Irish Felire Oengusso Ctti D£ was published in 1880, by the Royal Irish Academy, in parallel columns, from four corrupt and uncorrected texts, hereinafter denoted by^?1, R2, L, and LB. In the preface I maintained, for reasons which then seemed to me conclusive, that the poem could not have been composed much before the end of the tenth century. Further study, and the arguments of Professors Strachan1 and Thurneysen,2 have convinced me that I was wrong,3 and that its composition may, in accordance with the Irish tradition, be safely ascribed to the year 800 or thereabouts. An Irish metrical martyrology of such antiquity deserves the attention of all who are interested in religious history, liturgical books, Celtic philology, or poetic art ; and the Council of the Henry Bradshaw Society is surely justified in trying to give to the members a critical text of this singular poem, with various readings from the ten MSS. in which it is wholly or partially preserved.
In forming the text, as well as in making the trans lation and glossary, I have used to the best of my power the discoveries in Old- Irish grammar and etymology achieved during the last twelve years by Ascoli, Windisch, Thurneysen, Zimmer, Zupitza, Osthoff, Sommer, Rozwadowski, Pedersen, Sarauw, Strachan and Liden. I am far from regarding the present edition as definitive. I know too well that I have not realised my ideal ; but, remembering the story told of Thorwaldsen in his old age,4 I cannot say that I am therefore despondent.
1 Deponent verb) p. no. 2 ZCP. i. 345.
3 I especially regret that my error should have misled the Rev. F. E. Warren, Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church, p. xvi, and Professor Bury, Life of St. Patrick, p. 343, note 4.
4 "A friend found him disconsolate before a finished statue, and inquired if he was despondent because he had not been able to realize his ideal. And the sculptor responded that, on the contrary, he had realized his ideal, and therefore he was downcast ; for the first time his hand had been able to accomplish all that his mind had planned." — North American Review, June 15, 1905, p. 873.
viii PREFACE.
I now propose, first, to describe the ten MSS. on which the present edition is founded ; secondly, to notice the author of the Martyrology, Oengus the Culdee ; thirdly, to consider some of the characteristics of the language of the poem, especially as bearing on the date of its composition ; fourthly, to explain the metre in which it is written ; fifthly, to give some account of its contents ; and lastly, to notice the passages in the Irish prefaces and scholia which seem to throw light on early Irish religious practices, superstitions, folk-lore and legal antiquities.
I. DESCRIPTION OF THE MANUSCRIPTS.
The MSS. on which the present edition is founded will be respectively denoted by the following signs, here arranged in alphabetical order : £, C, E, F, H, Z, LB, P, R\ R\
B = Brussels MS. 5100-4.
As this codex has been fully described in the preface to the Martyrology of Gorman, London, 1895, it will be enough here to say that it is a small paper manuscript in the Royal Library, Brussels, almost wholly in the handwriting of Michael O'Clery, one of the Four Masters, who died about 1644. The copy of the Martyrology of Oengus which it contains is in Michael's handwriting, and was transcribed from a book written by Siodrach Ua Maelconaire in the year 1533. It begins on f. 94a, and ends on f. H9b. It omits 11. 393-396, 11. 543-546 of the epilogue and the first two lines of the quatrain for Oct. 8 : the latter omission is supplied in the margin by a recent hand. All its important readings are, in the present work, marked B, and are given in the footnotes.
It seems to me on the whole to come closer to the copy in Lebar Brecc1 than to those in the other MSS. But there are often variances, some, such as, in the prologue, rith roreith 28, n-oidhidh 49, riaghaib 52, gerat 90, a dun 130, ro sretha 138, bertair 175, dilsiu 185, as nesa 217, slebe 240, -guidiu 265, sluinnfid 300, trib 328 — decidedly better than the readings of the Speckled Book. So at Jan. 18 B has tasc while LB has bds : at Feb. 6, B has Mel while LB. has MoeL See also Feb. 15 (i fell Beraig badhaig): Feb. 28, Ap. 30 (forcennaf) : June 15 (inorgail): July 10 (carcar): 15 (each n-arim): Aug. 3 (noeibi) : 5 (comarc): 7 (coecdaib]: 19 (rait he) :
1 e.g. noemanim Prol. 99, ainim 123, na betha 156, itaimne 162, uarilius Jan. 22, da shinchell, March 26. Ambifani Ap. 2, Anterini May 4, pro pace May 13, dia May 31, do dofarnic June 10, Treofonia Oc. 18.
DESCRIPTION OF THE MANUSCRIPTS. ix
Sep. 1 1 (imbliudi) : Nov. 3 (litJt cain Corcunutari), 7 (fofuair\ 22 (immartrai) : Dec. 2§(atneocham}, Ep. 32 (riga) 226 (ronnain). Readings which deserve consideration, though they have not been adopted in the text, are Ep. 43 (i conair Crist credaif], 70 (thair tiar\ 129 (roat from ro-fof), 175 (and].
£7= The Cheltenham MS.
This is a parchment MS. now containing 48 pages. It formerly belonged to the lexicographer Edward O'Reilly, by whom it was sold to the late Sir Thomas Phillips. When I examined the manuscript, it was in the library of the Rev. John E. A. Fenwick, Thirlstane House, Cheltenham. The extravagant date, " as old as the tenth century," which Dr. Petrie (On the History and Antiquities of Tara Hill, p. 71) ascribed to this codex, was probably due to the vendor's ignorance or cupidity, Palaeography, grammar, and spelling show that it can hardly be older than the fifteenth. As it is now unknown to Celtists, the following brief list of its contents may be welcome : —
P. I. Illegible.
P. 2. Begins : et ni derna failtifriu etc., a passage relating to
the creation of Eve from Adam's seventh rib. P. 3. Poem beginning :
A. thair caic/i, coimsid nime . in ri uasal ainglighe, * father
of every one, ruler of heaven, the noble, angelic king,' and
ending (p. 4) : rucad Gaoidel ar n-at\h\air, ' Goidel, our
(eponymous) father, was born.'1
P. 4. Ro aitreph tra Nell mac Feniusa Fairs^^ theas i n-Eigipt. P. 5. Imtusa cloinde Danaine et cloinne Deirgthinedh et cloinde
Luighdech meic Ithe, ' Adventures of the Children of
Danann and the Children of Dergthene and the Children
of Lugaid, son of Ith.'
P. 9. Imtussa Mog\_d\Nuadat. ' Adventures of Mugh Nuadat.' P. 12. A scribe's note beginning: Misse in Dubaltach mac
Semuis do graiph in beag sin, etc. ' I am Dubaltach, son
of James, who wrote that little bit.' P. 13. Story beginning with a description of a combat between
the King of Erin and the King of Ulaid. Pp. 20-45 contain an imperfect copy of the Martyrology of
Oengus. Lacking are the lines from the quatrain for
March 13 to the second line of the quatrain for Nov. 21 ;
and p. 19, which probably contained a prose preface, is
now illegible. P. 20. IMrordus in rigraid, Prol. 21.
1 Also in the Book of Lecan, fo. 267 (Plummer).
x PREFACE.
P. 22. Sen a Crist. Beginning of the invocation prefixed to the prologue.
P. 24. Re sil ddlach dained, first line of the quatrain for Jan. i.
P. 27. Morait kL Febrai, first line of the quatrain for Feb. I. The poem continues to the end of the quatrain for March 12. There is then a lacuna down to p. 35, which begins with mac Co main a hAraind, the third line of the quatrain for Nov. 21.
P. 36. Sluind Decimbir kalaind, Dec. I.
Pp, 41-45. On kaland cu araile etc. The epilogue.
P. 45. Tri gairi in domain, 'the three cries of the world.' See Lism. Lives xxxi., where they are said to be the cry of the Israelites when they entered the Red Sea ; the cry of Hell when Christ carried off his prey from it ; and the cry of Doomsday when the righteous separate from the sinners. See also Egerton 1782, fo. 49b, cited in Celt. Zeits. iv. 237.
„ Poem ascribed to Comghall of Bennchor, beginning : M'aonuran imm aruclan gan duine imm1 gnats : * I am alone in my little oratory, without anyone in my company.'2
P. 46. De uerbis Colmain macoBeonae3.i. de uitiis4 latentibus in umbra bonorum operum, etc., see Mart. Gonn. viii. For this Colman's Apgitir Crdbaid 'Alphabet of Devotion,' see ZCP. i. 496; 111.447.
1. 25. Dan ecnai* dogni rig do pauper, dogni coairt di eissirt, dogni gaoth do baoth. ' The gift of knowledge makes a king of a pauper, a landholder of a landless man, a sage of a fool.'
1. 28. Legend of saints Secundinus and Patrick beginning, Feacht n-aile luidh Seachnall do Ardmachce, 7 ni raibi Patric hifus, conaccai dd eck carpuit etc. * Once upon a time Sechnall went to Armagh, and Patrick was not there and he saw two chariot-horses,' etc.
P. 46a, 1. 44. Tabradh n^c^ da uidh re n-aithnedaib De do dibz'rt cinnz^ dechfus ina deccraib ar Dia, 7 c'mdus guidhfes in Cuimdhe cumac^ach inn airc no a n-eiccin, 7 cindus docluinfi Dia a donuall no a dibregoit. ' Let every one take heed before deserting God's commandments how in his hardships he will look for God, and how in want or in need he will pray to the mighty Lord, and how God will hear his piteous cry or his iervent prayer.'
1 MS. imn. 2 Other copies are printed in Eriu. I 138 ; II. 55, 56-
3 MS. me. obeonae. 4 MS. uituis. * MS. ecnaig.
DESCRIPTION OF THE MANUSCRIPTS. xi
1. 48. O tri modhaib1 dlegar soll#;/zain do denam no do ceileprad .i. 6 decree, 7 do almsanaib do bo^/aib 7 deblenaib De : 6 esteckt bre'thre De gin mirun gin miser's ac neac// dibh dia cele in cell's in Chumdhed2 jr. ' In three ways a festival ought to be held or celebrated, namely, by charity : by alms to God's poor and needy : by hearing the word of God without malice or hatred of one for another in the Church of the Lord.'
P. 46b. 1. 4. Cetheorai trepuire na mac mbeth^^ .i. credhbadh ina tol, homhan ina pian, scare ina fochaid, credem ina fochraicce. ' The four sureties of the sons of Life, to wit, binding of desires : fear of punishments : love of tribula tions : belief in rewards.'
1. 6. Tri muidh na hirnaighthe,3 ' The three ways of prayer.'
1. 10. Colum cille dixit de Scopa .i. in Scop a Fanait. See as to this ' Besom out of Fanait,' infra, p. 190.
P. 4/a. On the deadly sins. Beginning Luxoria ttra issed ainm in cetna duailchi marbus anmain duine etc., ' Lust, now, this is the name of the first vice that kills man's soul.' See. the copy from Rawl. B. 512, ed. K. Meyer, ZCP. III. 24-28.
P. 48b. Incipw/wt4 uerba Colmain fili Beognae uiri Dei.5 Sere De bi fonigh anmain, sasaid menmain, doformaigh fochraici, inarben anailci, arcoirbi talmain, 4 The love of the living God purifies the soul, satisfies the mind, increases rewards, banishes vices, .... the earth.'6
All the various readings of this fragment, which seem of the slightest importance, are given in the footnotes marked C. Very rarely are they of use in establishing the text. We may, however, cite n-aidid Prol. 49, nagaib, 52, ni feasa 76, ngerat 90, laa teglach, 95, noebainm 109, in-airiniuch phene 118, a mur cluime 126, ictliair 226, cobair 243, -guidiu 265, cticnt 280, docoimnactar Jan. 4, Gluceri Jan. 14, ro-s-fescr Feb. 2, gerat Feb. 5, non-ale Feb. 7, i feil Beraig bagaig Feb. 15, damair Feb. 19, retglaind March 3, Brig Nov. 25, -treclung Nov. 28, faide Nov. 29, Merobus Dec. 4, Buaid n-Ichtbrichtain Dec. 8 (where Rl has hichtbrichtain, L ichtbrichtain, LB ichtbrictairi), darralad Dec. 8. Morgrian inna clandsa Dec. 18, nad labrce Dec. 22, Lanbendzcht ind rig-so £p. 61, dithar 104, salmaiby marbatb 190, 192, aslaige 198, ardalegfa 216.
1 MS. moghaib. 2 MS. chumdeg.
3 MS. hirnaidhthe. 4 MS.^ncibiunt.
5 MS. seems uni dicitur. 6 cf. Ertu i. 204, and Celt. Zeits. III. 448, § 6.
xii PREFACE.
The long vowels are sometimes marked. Here and there, too, there is a valuable gloss, e.g. immidchuairt Ep. 94, .i. i medoncuairt, which proves the error of the rendering of Tech Midchuarda\yy 'mead-circling house,' in O'Curry's Manners and Customs, III. 600.
Needless to cite many of the Middle-Irish corruptions such as lithdath Prol. 19, ritroith 28, morrigu 61, rig lad for rigrad 278, dained for doine Jan. I.
The note at the end (infra p. 288) as to the number of quatrains in the Martyrology is more accurately given infra, p. xvii, from LB. 105 marg. sup.
E = Egerton 88.
Egerton 88, hereinafter denoted by E, is a small-folio parch ment MS. in the British Museum, written by Domnall O Duibh- da-bhoirenn and his pupils in the latter half of the sixteenth century. Its contents are catalogued in the introduction to Three Irish Glossaries, London, 1862, pp. lix-lxii, and much more elaborately in S. H. O'Grady's Catalogue of Irish MSS. (in the British Museum), pp. 85-141. The portion containing parts of our Martyrology is the so-called O'Davoren's Glossary, (ff. 8oa-93a), which has been twice edited, first, in Three Irish Glossaries above mentioned, and secondly, in the Archiv filr Celtische Lexicographic II. 198-504. A paper copy of this glossary (unfortunately imperfect), by Dudley MacFirbis, is preserved in H. 2. 15 (a MS. in the library of Trinity College, Dublin) and is here cited as MacF.
The various readings of the fragments of the Martyrology contained in O'Davoren's Glossary are as a rule not important ; but there are some worth citing, such as ciabtar, Prol. 74, o luid \2%,ciatcois 182, ciarbo ligdha 2\Af,menann 285, dodonfairci\*x\. 26, Am Jan. 29, armitinnter Sep. 2, atroeris Dec. 16, a lere Dec. 20, decmaic Ep. 172, ciabdar bailc a mbresa, ' though mighty were their battles,' Prol. 75, which may be the true reading. We may also cite Domrairbera Ep. 65, ro drebraing Aug. 26, and cachain Dec. 8.
F = The Franciscan MS.
This is a beautifully-written parchment MS. in small folio, formerly at Louvain, where it was used by Father John Colgan, author of the Ada Sanctoriun Hiberniae, Lovanii, 1645, afterwards in the Irish monastery in Rome, and now in the Franciscan monastery, Merchants' Quay, Dublin. It contains ninety-nine pages in double columns. Long vowels are rarely marked ; but infected g> a7, b are often furnished with the sign
DESCRIPTION OF THE MANUSCRIPTS. xiii
of aspiration. The scribe's note at the end of the epilogue is obscure, but seems to run as follows : —
Finit amen finit. Misi Ruaidhri hua Luinin .i. mac Mata male S...h. Luinin do sgrib in feilire si do mac Magnusa(?) Meguidir .i. do Chathal occ, mac Cathail maic G\\\ai Patraic .i. do biatach in tsenaigh.
Hence the MS. appears to have been written by Ruaidri O'Luinin for Cathal Maguire, a canon of Armagh and Dean of Clogher, who died in 1470*, and is here styled the ' victualler of the synod.'
F yields some good readings, e.g., andorogbus Prol. 18, a ngrethce 154, bertair 175, Noois 184, tathunn 217, thuirter 230, dome 340, estecht Jan. 8, 19, nad cumscaigset Feb. 6, retglaind March 3, airdirc March 2i,feil in tSincill 26, Pollionis, rindnim May 29, dodafamaic June 10, Oendruim 23, Albbae 25, noib Aug. 12, dorime Sep. 5, arsil 29, f rent Oc. 10, coatr 26, rerta Dec. 20 (leg. rerthae\ atnecham Dec. 26,fomruirmius Ep. 38. But it has some exceedingly bad ones, e.g. righaib, Prol. 52, sluinnfet 320, rochaemJinacar Jan. 4, snaithsium Jan. 30, Pauli Feb. 19, cinn indis 27, crick 28, lighaib March 30, bladach Ap. 7, Epectini May 23, toirm July 7, Aplenoir 22, Lmnbus 29, concatail Aug. 8, Agatha 30, sotbotha Nov. 15, diruirmisem Ep. 6, riagail 32, r orach 129, roguide 364, coisced 59$,firt 5 34, promsat, lobsaty Ep. 219, 220.
F is heavily glossed, and contains numerous scholia, most of which agree in substance with those in the other MSS., while others, added with the formula ' in hoc die ' at the end of the notes on each day, give the names of certain saints omitted by Oengus.2 Hence this copy is called by Colgan Aengusius auctus, and it seems to have been freely used by the compilers of the Martyrology of Donegal.
#=H. 3. 1 8.
This is a collection of MSS. in the library of Trinity College Dublin, where it is (or was lately) marked H. 3. 18. These manuscripts are of various dates and sizes, and are now divided into two parts, part I. containing pp. 1-457, part II. containing pp. 458-875. It formerly belonged to Edward Lhuyd, the author of the Archaeologia Britannica, Oxford, 1707 : the paging numbers are in his handwriting ; and two Welsh notes by him, in pp. 459 and 585, record the dates of his purchase of parts of
1 Martyrology of Donegal, Introduction, p. xiv.
- See, for example, the notes in the present work on Jan. 17, 21, 29, Feb. 3, March 7, Ap. i, 2, 3, 6, 13, etc.
xiv PREFACE.
the collection. The following pages of H are occupied either with glosses or glossed extracts : —
P. 5ib. A slip containing unprinted glosses.
Pp. 61-83. These glosses are printed in the Transactions of the
Philological Society for 1859, PP- 168-215. Pp. 245-260. Law-glosses, not printed. Pp. 284-289, 415, 416, 466-468. Miscellaneous glosses, not
printed. Pp. 520-528. Glossed extracts from the Tripartite Life of
S. Patrick, printed in Archiv fur Celtische LexicograpJiie,
III., 8-32, and p. 56. Pp, 533—539. Unprinted glosses. Pp. 603-616. Glosses on Cophur in da Muccida (printed in
Ir. Texte III. 276), etc. Pp. 616-622. Glossed extracts from the Martyrology of Oengus ;
printed in Three IrisJi Glossaries, pp. 124-140. Pp. 623-628, 633-640, 649-654, 661, 663, and lastly, 666-668.
The number of quatrains cited in H is 112. Long vowels are seldom marked : infected g, d, b have the sign of aspiration.
The most remarkable readings in H are : — hi for a(n), Prol. 75, ngerat 90, arrochiuir 127, na ba 294, balcdu Jan. 4, chesais Jan. 17, dodonfairci Jan. 26, seel a annaigh Feb. 16, nit mordai March i, Moissi March I, adfet March 23, doreith A p. 16, drebhraing Ap. 17, canaid Ap. 26, uaitne Ap. 29, Cliar Urbain it glana, May 19, a toebain it gela May 19, cliar ngelda, nad char June 22, Eutaic July 2, doforcat July \^, feil DarbiledJi baini Aug 3, Sax- san Aug. 5, roleir Aug. 26, asrort Oc. ^ocrighan Oc. 13, lagin (?) Lucais Oc. \%,gabais Oc. 29, noaib in domain dalaigh ('the saints of the multitudinous world') Nov. I, donarlaidh Nov. 8 (donar- laid R1, LB.} ; tuathrnaigh let/lain Dec. 1 1, rofersam .i. doronsam, Ep. 2, ceptar 14, ndirmand 143, dubart 153, In rigraidh doruirmes 229.
L = Laud 610.
This is a double-columned parchment folio in the Bodleian. It contains 146 leaves, and was transcribed in 1453 from the Saltair Caisil and three other old MSS. by Seaan Buidhe O'Cleirigh and others for Edmund Butler mac Richard, then chief of one of the septs of the Butlers. The copy of the Martyrology preserved in it begins on fo. 59, and ends on the recto of fo. 75. There is a bad facsimile of the first quatrain of the prologue in O'Conor's Rerum Hibernicarum Script ores veieres, torn. I. Prolegomena, opposite p. clxxiv : there is a photolithograph of a page of genealogies in the National MSS. of Ireland, Part III, Plate "XLVII.; and the
DESCRIPTION OF THE MANUSCRIPTS. xv
heterogeneous contents of the codex are described by Dr. Todd (Progs. R.L Academy II. 336) and Dr. O'Donovan (Book of Rights, Dublin, 1847, pp. xxviii-xxxiii). The date (1453) and one of the scribes' names are thus mentioned in the colophon to the fragment of Cormads Glossary contained in ff. 79a-86a:
IS he annalfl in Tigmia inuair do scribad in sanasan so na Saltrach .L mile bliadan 7 ceithri c<?7 bliadan 7 tn bliadna dec 7 da fichit, in cuiced la do mi Febra 7 in t-o^/mad la don esca, misi Seaan Buidhi 6 Cl&rig do scrib, 7 d'Emann Bvillter mac Risterd do scribal sanasan Saltrach Cormmc so.
'This is the year of the Lord when this little glossary of the Psalter [of Cashel] has been written, to wit, a thousand years and four hundred years, and thirteen years, and two score, the fifth day of the month of February and the eighth day of the moon. I am Yellow John O'Clery who wrote, and for Edmund Butler mac Richard this little glossary of Cormac's Psalter hath been written.'
The history of the MS. is continued by the following entry on the lower margin of fo. I iob : —
Salttair maic Ruisdml Buitikr .i. ILmonn Buiti/<?r, in tsalttair seo no- go dt//ca[d] maidm Bail* in fPoill ar iarkz Urmuman 7 ar mac Ruisdml la iarla Desmuman .i. Tom as, 7 do bainedh in leab/zr so 7 Leabar na Carruigi as fuasg/<&/ meic Ruisdml, 7 isse Mac HHmsderd sin do chm'r na leaba/'r sin da scnbad do fein no gur' bain Tomas iarl# Desmuman amach iad.
'This Psalter (was) the Psalter of Mac Richard Butler, to wit,. Edmund Butler, until the defeat at Baile in Phoill1 was inflicted on the Earl of Ormond and on Mac Richard by the Earl of Desmond,2 to wit,. Thomas. And this book and the Book of the Rock were taken in ransom for Mac Richard ; and it is that Mac Richard who caused' these books to be written for himself, (and kept them) until Thomas Earl of Desmond wrested them away.'
" Thus," says Dr. Todd (Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, 1841, p. 338), "it appears that this book and the book of Carrick (now unknown), were in the fifteenth century considered as a sufficient ransom for the person of a great chieftain — a remarkable proof of the preservation of a love of literature amongst the native Irish nobles in the midst of all their war and faction at that period."
1 Now Piltown in the county of Kilkenny. The battle was fought in 1462, and there is an account of it, by Dubhaltach Mac Firbisigh, in the Miscellany of the Irish Archaeological Society, p. 247.
- The eighth Earl, who was beheaded at Drogheda in 1467. He was according to the O'Clerys, 'learned in Latin, English, and ancient Irish writings.'
xvi PREFACE.
The following corruptions in the prologue were probably due to a fifteenth century scribe : —
Prol. 28, ra reith ; 87, fororcnait ; 38, ro tinmit\ 47, sonnad; ^Q.forthren ; 52,330, rig\ 54, na sluaig; 57, m/^Tz ort-sam; 67, arrochur ; 80, meinbraid\ 91, dorossa\ 143, diafromam \ 186, madaronaib ; 194, mairit ; 201, decais ', 231, bithtrogaid ; 241, dochingecht', 247, atuelat\ 262 #%£; 315, nondlomaim\ 336, /?//. The blunders membraid, Prol. 80, and ;;z# daronaib, Prol. 1 86, seem to show that the scribe here copied from a MS. in which £ and <^ were nearly alike.
So in the body of the poem and in the epilogue, we have Middle-Irish corruptions in snadug Jan. 21 (O. Ir. snddud), rofortad May 27 (O. Ir. dorortad), da primfeil May 31, rosdail July 15, arslaig Sep. 29, adorthair Nov. 23, rusfuc Dec. 14, #/#;;z Ep. 165, r# herais Ep. 474.
On the other hand in andorogbus,¥ro>\. 18 ; inirordus, 20; biasta, 41 ; ro uctha, 45 ; morrig, 61 ; dorogra, 112; ro scdich, 121 ; />/z«, 153 ; «^rf, 185 ; tathund, 217 ; collece, 239 ; fris'reith, 302 ; the scribe has preserved old and sound readings. So in estecht Jan. 19, 22, damair Feb. 16, ££#£ (gen. sg.) Feb. 26, forcennal Feb. 28, Ap. 30, *# (leg. ^/) March 3, ronn-ain Ap. 22, Oc. 29, Trifonice Oc. 18, lasn-ort Oc. 22, geguin Oc. 23, troethsus Nov. 1 6, geisi (leg. gessi] Dec. 2, dosruimdemar Ep. 6, dodigset 24, conidnaicert 105, doragat 115, nogessed 217, adodpart 269, atomididmcz 494. Note, too, the preservation of the distinction between the non-relative infixed pronoun in fo-m-giuaissi and the relative \\\ fo-dom-gluaissi, Ep. 376, 377.
Z.5 = Lebar Brecc.
The Lebar Brecc, or * Speckled Book/ a huge manuscript, now in the library of the Royal Irish Academy, was compiled in the fourteenth century by the Mac Egans of Dun Doighre, now Duniry, in the co. Galway. Some account of its contents (deformed by mistakes both in Latin and in Irish),1 is prefixed to the lithographic facsimile published in 1876, and a brief but better catalogue is found in pp. 36-40 of Dr. Atkinson's Passions and Homilies, Dublin, 1887. The copy of the Martyrology which it contains begins at p. 75 of the facsimile, and ends at p. 106; and there is a photolithograph of the page containing the commencement of the prologue in the National MSS. of Ireland, Part III. No. xxviii. Long vowels are rarely marked, and infected g, d, b are never denoted. The Dominical letter and the day of the month (in the Roman notation) are written in the margin opposite the first line of each quatrain (see Prol. 305, 335),
1 See Revue Celtique, III. 274.
DESCRIPTION OF THE MANUSCRIPTS. xvii
and in the upper margin of p. 105 is the following note as to the number of quatrains1 in the Martyrology of Oengus :
A coic .lx. ar .ccc.aib hi curp in fhelire feisin ocus a se 7 oenfiche dec ina da brolaig, conid a hoen dec 7 cethri fichit 7 .u. ce't in sin uile .71-!.,
1 Three hundred and sixty-five in the body of the Martyrology itself and six and eleven score (226) in the two prologues, so that all that is eleven and fourscore and five hundred (365 + 226 = 591).'
LB is enriched with copious glosses and scholia, which are printed in the first edition of this Martyrology ; but though oldest in date, of all the MSS. it deviates most from the archetype. Thus in the prologue we find :
line t^romberthar fordomberthar ; 28, ritroich for ro rdith ; 57 afirlhuillem for ar firthuillem ; 60, cenes marsium for cen aes muirsium: 61, Morrigu nangennti for Morrig inna ngente\ 90, gerait tet gtrat \ 99, 109, noemainim\ Ncemainim for noebainm\ 130, andi'm for a dim ; 135, nocon for nicon ; 146, dianit for dia •mbi (or dianidT)\ 156, na betha for na tnbethae\ 157, 161, hi tainme for hi tdam\ 164, ro pritcha for ro phraidcJii ; 176, ni treb- ihair for ni trebtar ; 188, ni bet for ni beth ; 201, dechaid for dec- caid\ 206, imaroraidto* immaroerad \ 210, co ndessib is tririb for dessib ocus tririb ; 217, Tathum for Tdthunn ; 228, icthar for ictkair or iccthair\ 230, 232, thretha, gertlia for threta, gre'ta ; 240, slebti for j//^ ; 243, comb air for cobair\ 251, Muire for Mairi\ 271, robeosa for r0 bithbeo\ 282, £*»/ cluinter for ^ ro-clunter \ 285, rimther for rimter ; 297, /"^r crindither for /i?r crinniur ; 300, slninnfet for slcindfith ; 302, frisraith for fris'reith.
Corruptions in the body of the poem are : duinlesce Jan. 3 (for Duin Blesce) : as runaid rindaig, 12, ^j 18, etsecht 22, Cebriani 23, ^^ 25, dodotfairci 26, gerait Feb. 5, J/^/ 6; </<?^ oig luliani 16, aditcialla 2$, forcendait 28 : <afo retlaindt March 3 : oengus itir flaithib n, salualtur 14, #.?/#/ 17, </« sinchell 26; ambifani Ap. 2,fiadait6, canaid 2$, forcendait 30, etsecht May 2, /w^/ ^<3:<r// 7, rotcarsat %,propaci 13, noemdai 27, ^^ (for dz) 31, ^/^« June \,anglind ^dotojarnaic 10, w^r 13, natcar 22 : -ostuirius 26, notnaile July 9, conrualaid 12, ateocham 14, airem 1 5, noil redlainne 29, noemgerait Aug. 4, cormac 5, /<& mochua 6, /w^ ^?2^^ I \,fedbdai 31, la teor Sep. i.atrendai 6, a n-imliuch n, afo 14, aieocham 20, ^r</ igerait 27, arslig 29, imradem Oc. II, atatiam 26: la lith...corcnutan Nov. ^fosfuair 7, fuilge 9, cotaromuir n, ^ 13, /«?;ra 14 : conligbail Dec. 3, donarlaid 8, /z^? 9.
Corruptions in the epilogue: dosrimemar 5, ardricheg 18, ^« conrualai 25, riagail 32, notcaraim 50, r^//^ 63, j;//'^ 81,
1 Not * saints commemorated,' as absurdly stated in the Contents prefixed to the facsimile.
OENGUS. £
xviii PREFACE.
forirglem g8,foruasna 102, conitcocert 105, etsecht 107, tengtha (for tengaid] 125, fuidbe 147, nodosnaidfea 160, dogenatair 176, atalegfa 2i6,promsat 219, lobsat 220, reraig 237, ra (for /^') 266, r0fo/z 289, atateocha 304, laigniu 324, osnadu 326, roguidet 364, tuirem teckta 390, frismbu dentu 392, conicsid 393, amrcs 462, 64, susadna afij.firt ^^ginach 538.
On the other hand, Z^ comes close 10 the archetype in arrochiidr Prol. 127, mairde 193, razV/z 200, madgenair 251, docoemnactar Jan. 4, carsait March 15, z;;z<fo /;z#z A p. 7, <? donanic Ap. 14, tarmbreiih June 4, r<? drebraing Aug. 26, /^JzV Oc. 8, geguin 23, adorthar Nov. 23, /&#.$• Dec. 28, fortselba Ep. 4, dorimiub 232, adroipred 346.
Prefixed to the quatrains for each month are the following notes, compiled apparently from Baeda's Zte Tentporum Ratione, Opera, ed. Giles, vol. vi, pp. 169, 177, 180 :
[January, p. 79.]
Dea'mus m^^sis 'Ebreorum Thebeth. primus secundum
Latinos, secundus secundum Graecos. Sol .xxxi. luna .xxx. Principium lani1 sancit tropicus Capncornz/j.
[February, p. 81.] Tertius m^^sis secundum Graecos nomine Pmtios
Mense Numae in medio solidi stat sidus Aq&ari. Undecimus m^/zsis Ebreorum Sabath.
[March, p. 83.]
Quartus mensis a.pud Graecos Bistros [Aucrr/jo?]. Pra:edunt duplices in Martia tempora Pisces. D2iodec\mus mensis Ebreorum Adar.3
[April, p. 85.]
Quintus4 m^^sis zptid Gr^^cos Xanthicos5 \jiav6t,Ko<i\.
.i. Sol .xxx. luna .xxix.
Respicis Apriles Aries Frix[ae]e kalendas.
INitium est anni Ebreor«;/z ubi cu^qz^ fuerit pnma luna
Aprilis primum m^sem Nisan uocantes et suos menses
ad cursum lune
1 Facsimile iam.
2 This and the other * Greek' months here cited are Macedonian.
3 Facs. adas.. * Facs. Qwinti. » Facs. xanth.
DESCRIPTION OF THE MANUSCRIPTS.
[May, p. 87.]
Sexto mensis apud Graecos Arthimisios Maius Agenore[i] mirat^r cornua Tauri.
[June, p. 89.]
Septimus secundum Graecos Deseos Sol .xxx. luna xx.ix. lunius aequatos1 celo uidet ire Laconas. Tertius Ebreorum mensis Siban.
[July, p. 91.]
Octauwj zpzid Graecos Panemos2 [Ha Sol .xxxi. luna .xxx.
Solstitio ardentis Cancri fert lulius astrum. Mensis Ebreon/;/z q&artus Thamul.
[August, p. 93.]
Nonz/j secundtim Gr^^cos Los [Awo?],
Sol .xxxi. luna .xx.ix.
AugzAftum mensem Leo feruidus igne perurit
Qmntus Ebreorum m^wsis Thamni (sic).
[September, p. 95.]
imz^ m^^sis ap?/</ Graecos Sgorpeos [leg. Cen ktflne cen nona cen idu ic Gra:aib 7 ic Egeptacdaib. Sol .xxx. lu;^ .xxx.
Sidere Virgo [tuo] Bacchum4 Septimb^r opimat. Ebreorum m^^sis Elul.
[October, p. 97.]
Undecimus apud Graecos Yp^Hbmteos Eqz^at et Octimp^r sem^^tis tempore Libram. Septim?/5- Ebreon/;;z m^^sis Theseri. Sol .xxxi. luna .xx.ix.
[November, p. 99.]
Duodecimus mensis apud Graecos Dios [Ato?]. Nouimb^r. Sol .xxx. lu^^: .xxx.
Scorpi?/^ hib^mum6 pr^eceps iubet ire Nouimbrem. Octauus m^sis Ebreor^;^ Mare suan.
1 Facs. equatas. 2 Facs. Octauiw>r...paremos.
3 This is a translation of Baeda's * Graeci et Aegyptii . . . nullam in suis mensibus calendarum, nonarum, iduum distinctionem obseruant,' De Temp. Ratione, c. 14. 4 Facs. bachum.
5 Facs. opinat. (i Facs. hib<?rnium.
b 2
xx PREFACE.
[December, p. 101.]
Hie est primus mensis anni apz^ Graecos nomine Apilios ['AvreXXato?], com(puta)ntes menses suos ad cursum solis.
Nonus mensis Ebreomm Casleu.
Tmninat Arcitinens medio sua2 signa Decimbri.
/>=_£!.
P- 3
This is a small folio parchment MS. in the library of the Royal Irish Academy, now containing eleven leaves. The epilogue is in double columns. In the rest of the poem each quatrain runs, as a rule, in a single line across the page. The Martyrology is followed by a copy of the legend telling how Becan mace Cula, St. Patrick's first convert, rescued Bresal's soul from hell (Lismore Lives, xxvii-xxviii). Then comes the colophon : —
ISsed is ais don Tig^rna .i. secht mbliadna 7 tri .xx. G an liter dom\maigh j a \\ocht in nuimir oir. Uilliam mac an legha qz/i scribsit [ut] bona morte pmbit.
Hence it appears that the MS. was written by William mac an legha3 (' the son of the leech ') in the year 1467, the Dominical letter being G, and the golden number eight. Prose-preface and prologue are missing in this MS., and also the quatrains for the months of May, September and December. The glosses are interlinear; the scholia for the most part on the lower margins. Long vowels are often marked.
Characteristic of P is the tendency of the scribe to put tdfor Ut — as in holdmuir Feb. 17, Teilde June 25, nold Aug. 8, celd Oct. 12 note, — and nd or nn for n, — as in ind-air Feb. 13, Seirnd March 15, ind amsir Ep. 116, cpnd-aile Feb. 18, cond huaige June 1 8, Conningin March 8, ind n-airnecht Aug. 3. He sometimes has oi for at, as in coin March 13, Oct. 10, moinich Oct. 27 = cdin L. He writes d for t in Padraicc, Pedair, adfed; d Tor gin. blod: th for h in ingina thuage, June 5. Custatin (for Constantiri] March n, is noticeable. So are Faleran, Aug. n, for Valeran, in for an * their ' July 17, ir-rtiamson (for ar-niamsom} Oc. 28, landlech (for landrecli) July 28.
Good readings in P are tar Feb. 13, dobeir March 31, nad Ap. 9, Ronnain Ap. 22, Aug. 28, cimbith Ap. 26, Aug. 14 :
1 Facs. suo
2 He was the scribe of parts of an Irish MS. in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Rev. Celt. xi. 391, 395.
DESCRIPTION OF THE MANUSCRIPTS. xxi
dodafarnaicc June 10, huainn June 13, Apollnair July 22: na retglanncs July 29, Agappa Aug. 30, molmce Aug. 31, atasnia\i\m Oc. 26, crochthce Oc. 31, cobraith Oc. 18, senaidh Nov. 30, .Afo &z*T^ Nov. 30, ligflatha Ep. 22, arpeti Ep. 79, conidnacert Ep. 105, delmaimm Ep. 127, z mbuidnib Ep. 295.
The saints Abundius Aug. 26, and Dalbach Oc. 24, are mentioned only in /*. In the former case the fifteenth-century scribe seems to have been influenced by the Roman Martyr- ology. The other MSS. have (I now think, rightly) Quinti, which accords with the Epternach copy of Mart. Hier.
7?1 = Ravvlinson B. 505.
Rl. This is a parchment MS. in folio of the beginning of the fifteenth century, preserved in the Bodleian, and marked Rawlinson B. 505. It contains 220 leaves. Its chief contents are an imperfect copy of Jocelin's life of S. Patrick and the Latin lives of thirty-eight other saints, one Welsh (S. David, fo. 196), the rest Irish.1 The body of the Martyrology begins at fo. 2 1 1, and ends at fo. 220. There is a bad facsimile of part of the quatrain for Jan. I in O'Conor's Rer. Hib. Scriptoresy vol. i. prolegg., part. 2, p. cxliv, tab, 6, no. 4. Though prose- preface, prologue, and epilogue are lacking, this copy is, so far as it goes, by far the best that has come down to us. Thus the names of foreign saints are generally given with exceptional correctness. For example : —
Jan. 14. Gluceri (rectius Gfyceri) : Luceri LB. F.
Jan. 22. Valerius: Valeus L. Varilius LB. Valarius E.
Jan. 23. Severiani : Cebriani LB. Semuniani Jf.
April 2. Amphiani : Ambiaine L. Ambifani LB.
May 2. Saturnin : Saturni L. LB.
May 12. Cyriacus : Ciriacus L. LB.
May 13. Teraci Probique : Cirari is Propi L. Teraci Propaci
LB.
May 23. Epecthiti (rectius Epictetfy : Epectini L. LB. F.
June 24. lohain : Eoin H. P. loin L. LB.
June 28. Fabiani: Faluiani L. Flauiani F. P. Fhuiani
LB.B.
July 22. Apolnair : Appolloin LB.
July 29. Lupus: Lumbus LB. F.
July 26. Simp lice : Simplex LB. Semplix L.
Aug. 20. Diascorus : Diarscorus L. LB.
Aug. 25. Bartholom : Parrtalon L. Parrthalon LB.
1 They are enumerated in Macray's Catalogues of the Bodleian MSS. part 5, fasc. i, coll. 724-726.
xxii PREFACE,
Oct. 2. Eleuther : luliter L. LB. F. E liter P. Dec. 4. Merobus : Meropus L. Morepus LB.
So R^ often excels other MSS. in preserving older grammatical forms. Take, for example, the following verbs : —
Jan. i. toided, where other MSS. have taidhet^ toted.
Jan. 4. decoemnagtar : docoemnacair L.
Jan. 10. Almini : Ailme LB. Ailmne C.
Jan. 12. as-runa-rinnaid : as-runaid-rindaig LB.
Jan. 20. conuagu : conuaige LB. conduaige P.
Feb. 23. adidngialla : anithgialla Z, aritgialla F. aditdalia LB.
Feb. 28. forcennat : forctndait LB,forcengat F.forcennait H.
Mar. 27. asreracht : asraracht L. F.
Ap. 2. drebraing: dreblaing L.
Ap. 17. drebraing: trebraing F. drebring P.
Ap. 26. cachaind (leg. cachain) : canait L. P. canaid LB.
Ap. 27. Immacurtis : Imacurdis L. Himocuirtis LB. IMcuirtes P.
Jim. 10. dodafarnaic : do donfairnic L, dotofarnaic LB.
Jun. 19. batir : batar L. P. LB. F.
Sep. 8. Foraithmentar : Foraithinter L. Foraithmenar H.
Sep. 29. arsil : arslaig L, arslig LB.
Oc. 19. aschomart : ascomart P. L. LB.
Nov. 22. raith: luid L. LB. F.
Dec. 9. *M/&'. *#/>fc B. L. deithe F. dithi LB.
Dec. 29. donnecrai : donnecna L. dondecrai LB. dondectnai F.
A less admirable characteristic of Rl is the fondness of its scribe for irrational vowels. Thus ad^bal June 26, aidbzle March 26, Ap^ril March 27, c^rann March 10, Lib^ren March n, respectively for adbul, aidble, April, crann, Libren. He rarely marks long vowels, and never denotes infected g, d or b. He writes / for r in damail Feb. 16, and coclait Dec. 24, and r for / in creir Aug. 16, and tempuir Dec. 15.
Each quatrain in R1 is, as a rule, contained in a single line extending across the page. The glosses are, as usual, interlinear : the scholia are for the most part put together at the end of each month. They are rarely in the margins or above the lines.
R* = Rawlinson B. 512.
R2 is a parchment manuscript, also in the Bodleian, marked Rawlinson B. 512. It is a double-columned quarto containing ff. 154, and written by various hands in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Ff. 5-30 contain the elder copy of the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, and the other contents of the codex are catalogued in the introduction to the Rolls edition of that Life, pp. xiv-xlv. The prose preface to the Martyrology begins
DESCRIPTION OF THE MANUSCRIPTS. xxiii
at fo. 59a I. The poem commences at fo. 53b, but breaks off at line 60 of the prologue. At fo. 54a begins the epilogue,1 and it ends at fo. 56b. This is followed by a quatrain in the rinnard metre, which, when correctly spelt, runs thus : —
Bendacht rig do ne"laib ro genair 6 Mairi for anmain cen rnire Oengusso co riglaini.
' The blessing of the King of Clouds, who has been born of Mary, on the soul without madness of Oengus the pure.'
The seven succeeding folios from 57a to 64a are filled with notes on the body of the Martyrology, which unfortunately is missing in this MS.
The scribe's name was Dubthach Ua Duibgennan, as appears from the following notes, which are in the same handwriting : —
Fo. 64b. . . . annso do Geroid an Fani mac Seoirsea dar' sgribus an [rem]foo//sa in Feliri j a r'airim Oengus do naemaib sund co mbet ag ar cab#z> araen. Misi 7 Geroid easbarta feil Maire na Saiwdsi ag breth fo/oi 7 Muire 7 naim in libuir-si d' fagbtf// a cnama<fo</ dvin orfiada arni fuaramarni re fochreic ane a mBaili Atha Buide, 7 tabr#</ gach aen legfes bennac/it ar anmain in sgribneda (a)nno D.M° aeis Tigerui.
4 .... here for Gerald an Fani son of George, for whom I J have written this preface to the Martyrology. And may all the saints that Oengus has enumerated here be helping us both ! I and Gerald, the vespertide of the festival of Mary of the Salutation2 overtaking us. And Mary and the Saints of this book to leave us their ration of delight, for we have not found . . . reward ... in Baile Atha Buidi. And let everyone who shall read (this book) bestow a blessing on the soul of the scribe. In the year 1500 of the Lord's age.'
fo. 73a I : Misi Dubthach 6 Duibgennan do scrib an rann do £7/0#cobar 6 Mailchonaire dia brathair a lebar Geroid a[n] Fane (?), 7 sinn ag feithim ar athchuingid d'iarrazd ar ingen mic B . . nan, ar mnai i C/ionchobatr Ruaidh, 7 co tuca Dia disi sin do tabairt duin !
* I (am) Dubthach O'Duibgennan who have copied the stave for Conchobar O Maelchonairi, for his cousin, out of Gerald an Fane's book, and we awaiting to ask a boon of Mac B . . an's daughter, O'Conor Roe's wife. And may God grant to her to give that to us ! '
The spelling of this copy is often quite modern. Thus we
1 lines 101-104, 181-184 are omitted. 1 Ladyday in spring, March 25.
xxiv PREFACE.
have ea for e : seacht Prol. 2, sealgatar Prol. 29, <7^ sealba Ep. 4, ceacha Ep. t^ronseart Ep. n, rofeas Ep. 17, beavnacht Ep. 66, leathna Ep. 82, teacht Prol. 31 : # for & : surna (for O. Ir. surnu) Prol. 44, z'fl^ra dindgna (for 2»gr# dindgnu] Ep. 119, /££v£ta (for lechtu} Ep. 146, #0£&& for w^« Ep. 470: # for z : #;;/ (for w») Ep. 126, #;z for «z Ep. 130: <^ for/: corned Prol. 6, fodaimdis Prol. 51, ada-n Ep. 34. Pedar 535. Long vowels are rarely marked ; infected ^ only once.
Corruptions like diultadach Ep. 371, frisioirg Ep. 444, doragsat Ep. 115 are found in this copy. But old forms are occasionally preserved, e.g. (a]slaige Ep. 198, no molur Prol. 13, r(o}raith, Prol. 28, where other MSS. have the corrupt aslaigi, romolur, ra reith. So in laigne Ep. 324, geinech Ep. 538, frisailiur Ep. 560, R2 comes nearer than the other MSS. to the archetype, which here must have had laignea, genech, frisailiur.
II. THE AUTHOR OF THE MARTYROLOGY.
Little that can fairly be called historical is known about the author of our Martyrology. The sources of the traditions concerning him are the Irish prefaces (of which two are printed and translated infra, pp. 2-14) : the Book of Leinster, p. 37°S where he is mentioned as one of the fraternity of Maelruain ot Tallaght: the Martyrology of Tallaght, at March 11, where he is called a bishop, grandson of Oiblen ; and the following poem in the Lebar Brecc, p. io6b, which comes immediately after the epilogue to the Martyrology of Oengus :
1. Aibind suide sund amne * re taeb Eoire uarglaine,
cersat cuanach nir' choi crech • hi nDisert buadach Bethech.
2. Dfsert Bethech a mboi in fer • gus ticdis airrdi [leg. airbri] aingel, cathair credlach iar cuairt cross • a mbid m«c Oiblen Aengar.
a haenach nime * sund ata a lecht 'sa lige is a sund dochuaid ar ceal • isin aine co naemneam.
4. IS a Cluain Eidnech ro alt • hi Q\Aain Eidnech ro adnacht, hi ClAain Eidnech ilar cross • ro leg a salmu ar tuoss.1
5. Aeng&s a carcair chachta • do deoin Mate De hi Tamla^/a, nocharbii in betha brigach • isin aith oc urthirad.
6. Miach cruaid leis la tuarcain sil • re n-ergi do neoch is tir, tri cdecait salm, comall ngle, * tri cet slechtain cech n-aidche.
1 This and the preceding stanza, when separated from their context, Matthew Arnold mistook for an epitaph, and said of them, with kindly exaggeration, " a Greek epitaph could not show a finer perception of what constitutes propriety and felicity of style in compositions of this nature," On the Study of Celtic Literature, London, 1867, p. 146.
THE AUTHOR OF THE MARTYROLOGY. xxr
7. Fochan foglas trena folt • tuigd d'findfad trena chorp,
secht mbliadna do, deoda in cacht, • can cheol is can chumsanad.
8. Noctkzr ib-sium a cuach cuirm • Aengz^y fa toichthe in tuirnd, menic ro chloi dath a drech • \\.ir gaeth ocus caithlech.
9. Luid laithe do buain feda • Aengus in breo for Brega, oca scathad, seel col-lii, ' benais de in laim soscelii.
10. lArsin caiset co hetla • na hethaide oirrderca,
imon uasal, immon abb • mo cech gair gair ro gairset.
11. Tic-sium a laim re rigid * Aenga/j cen oib n-indligid, ca firt rob aidble fo nim • slainte cen on, cen ainim.
12. Guided se in laim sin liumsa • nacham-tair olc na hindsa, guided se i n-aentaid anma • hi comair a chomanma.
13. Doriacht siind fer fegtha1 rand • grian iartha/> d6main Domnand, alt ros ngab galar in chind • alt re n-abar [alt] aibind.
Aibind suide sund 70.
Translation.
1. Delightful to sit here thus, by the side of the cold-pure Nore : though it was troopful, there was not a path of raids in gifted Disert Bethech ('the Birchen Hermitage').
2. Disert Bethech wherein dwelt the man whom hosts of angels used to visit, a pious cloister behind a circle of crosses, wherein Oengus son of Oiblen used to be.
3. Oengus from the assembly of heaven, here are his tomb and his bed : and hence he went to death on a Friday unto holy heaven.
4. 'Tis in Cluain Eidnech he was reared : in Cluain Eidnech he was buried : in Cluain Eidnech of many crosses he studied his psalms at first.
5. Oengus in a prison of bondage, by the will of God's Son, in Tallaght : that was not vigorous life in the kiln a-drying (corn).
6. Before anyone arose in the country a hard sack he had, for grinding seeds : thrice fifty psalms, — clear fulfilment — three hundred genuflexions every night.
7. Greenish cornblades (grew) through the hair of his head, a covering of hair through his body : seven years for him — godly the fasting, — without music, without repose.
8. He drank no ale out of a cup, Oengus— choice was the wheat :2 often his face changed colour, between wind and winnowing chaff.
9. He went one day to cut wood, Oengus the flame on Bregia : while lopping it — tale with beauty — he struck off his gospel-hand.3
1 leg. figthea ' of weaving ' : cf. Feb. 24, Ap. 28, Ep. 270, when crochtha^ cesta are genitives sg.
2 tuirnd seems an abridgment of tuirenn, here, as in the Martyrology, denoting God's wheat, i.e. a saint.
3 /.<?., his right hand : cf. in ferand ardo la"im soscela, Charter vii. in Book of Kells. One may infer that he was left-handed.
xxvi PREFACE.
10. Then the noble birds wailed sorrowfully : around the noble one, around the abbot, they cried a cry greater than any cry.
11. His (left) hand comes to his forearm, Oengus without semblance1 of illegality — what miracle was mightier under heaven? — (there was) healing without defect, without blemish.
1 2 . Let him pray for me with that (right) hand that neither evil nor hard ship befall me : let him pray in unity of name, along with his namesake.-
13. The man who wove quatrains has come here, the sun of the west of the world,3 of Meath : a bank (whereon) the headache attacked him, a bank which is called the bank delightful.
Hence the kernel of fact in the traditional biography of Oengus may be shortly stated as follows : — He was son of Oengoba and a grandson of Oible"n. He was a contemporary of Aed Ordnigthe, overking of Ireland from the year 793 to 817, of Fothuth of the Canon (flor. 804), and of Connmach bishop of Armagh (ob. 806). He became a monk in the monastery of Clonenagh on the banks of the Nore in the Queen's county. He afterwards joined the fraternity of Tallaght near Dublin, then presided over by S. Maelruain, who died in 787, and whom Oengus commemorates at Aug. n.4 Out of humility he concealed his name, orders and attainments,5 and was for some time employed in kiln-drying, grinding corn, and cutting wood. He began his Martyrology at Clonenagh, finished it in Tallaght, and showed it to Fothuth in 804. He afterwards became an abbot and a bishop, of course without a see. He died on a Friday, and was buried at Clonenagh. His obitual day is March 1 1 ; but the year of his death is unknown. It may have been 819, 824, or 830, in each of which years the eleventh of March fell on a Friday.6
i oib=.aib .i. cosmailis, Archiv fur celtische Lexicographic, i. 59, 67, ' aibh or rather aoibh .i. cosamhlacht,' P. O'Connell. Cognate with Goth, ibns, (a //^-participle from a root ibh\ Germ. eben.
* Probably one of the four other saints named Oengus commemorated in the Martyrology of Gorman at Jan. 20, Feb. 16, Feb. 18, and Nov. 17.
3 cf. the gen. sg. Domnann in Indber Domnann, infra, p. 72, and Irrus Domnann,
4 Maelruain's devotion to S. Michael (infra p. 12) seems evidenced by an addition, half- Latin, half- Irish, to a Hibe.rno-latin hymn to that arch angel, printed by Mone, Hymni Latini Medii Aevi, 1853, i. 447-449, and now at Karlsruhe, viz. 'benedicat De[us] te et Michael for Mortmain ('says Moelruain ') amen,' where for for Mortmain the MS. (in a Frankish hand of the eighth century) has/<?r moilruWi.
5 Similar stories are told of Fergil of Salzburg, Cronan and Disibod. See Olden, The Church of Ireland, pp. 103-105, and as to Cronan, Adamnan's Vita Columbtz, ed. Reeves, p. 87.
6 Lanigan, Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, III. 249.
THE AUTHOR OF THE MARTYROLOGY. xxvii
Whether Oengus son of Oengoba was a culdee is a little doubtful. He certainly speaks of himself as bochtdn ' a pauper ' {Ep. 392), and in pauperdn triiagsa ' this wretched mendicant/ {Ep. 408), which points to membership of a society bound by obligations of poverty. Moreover 'the title/ says Dr. Reeves, 4 by which he is invariably designated is that of Ctte Del But he is not so styled in the Irish prefaces to the Marty rologies of Oengus and Gorman. In the Book of Leinster 354° 22 and the Lebar Brecc 23a 34 (where two lines of the Martyrology of Oengus are cited), the author is simply called Oengus hua Oibleain, Aengus hua Oibleni. So in Rawlinson B. 512, fo. 94a, he is called merely Oengus mac Oiblen. So in the title to the Brussels copy of the Martyrology of Tallaght : Incipit Martira Oenghw/j maze Oiblein 7 Maelruain (h)ic. In the body of that martyrology he is called a bishop. In fact, down to the seven teenth century, when the Martyrology of Donegal was compiled, our Oengus is never described as a C£le De, for the 'Oengus Celi-de/ to whom the Saltair na Rann — a poem of the end of the tenth century — is ascribed in a MS. of the twelfth — cannot possibly have been our Oengus grandson of Oiblen. Since the seventeenth century he has, no doubt, been called by Colgan,1 Lanigan,2 and others, a cele DC or culdee. This perhaps is all that Dr. Reeves meant to say, and, in accordance with the current practice, Oengus is so styled in the title-page of the present work.
What, then, is a culdee? The earliest instances of the employment of the term cele De? literally ' servus Dei/ • are in the Vita S. Findani, and in the Milan gloss 30° 3, where it has no ecclesiastical significance. In Middle-Irish MSS. it is applied to foreign monks,5 to religious Irishmen practising poverty,6 to the ascetic Indian Brahmans.7 Ultimately the plural cell De denoted a kind of secular canons, who occupied
1 Acta Sanctorum . . . Hiberniae, Lovanii, 1645.
- Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, III. 248. Lanigan calls cele De1 a surname peculiar to himself (i.e. to Oengus hua Oiblein). He must have overlooked Comgan cele De", Mart. Taml. and Mart. Gorm. at Aug. 2.
3 Latinised calledeus, keledeus, colideus, culdeus, whence the Scoto- English culdee.
4 This phrase is used in the Book of Armagh, Thes.paL hib. II. 265 : episcopus Bronus, filius Icni, seruus Dei.
6 e.g. Malach Brit, Trip. Life, p. 198, 1. 10, and see the Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 806, 819, 947, 1031, 1372, 1076, 1132, 1170, 1200, 1479, 1595 and the Annals of Ulster A.D. 1164.
6 Laws v. 126, 1. 2 ; and see the story of Guaire the Generous (LU. H7b 5), whose right arm was lengthened from reaching out alms to the culdees. See also YBL. col. 796, 1. 35.
7 Lebar Brecc 2iib 62. They told Alexander ; ni gabamforba nach diles isin bith ' we take neither land nor property in this world.5
xxviii PREFACE.
an intermediate position between the monks and the secular clergy.1 They had a rule of their own,2 regulating their food, drink, communions, confessions, sleeping, fasting, tonsuring, labour, etc. ; their head was called cenn ' chief,' or prioir ' prior/ not abb ' abbot ' : they were sometimes married ; and at Armagh they looked after the sick,3 had charge of the repairs of the church, and helped in the service of the choir and altar.
III. THE LANGUAGE OF THE MARTYROLOGY.
We have now to consider the characteristics of the language of the Martyrology, especially as bearing on the date of its composition. In the first edition, the following forms were cited as proving that the language was Early Middle-Irish, and that the Martyrology could not have been composed " much before the end of the tenth century."
nair Jan. 8, was taken to be the O. Ir. adverb anair with a Middle- Irish aphaeresis of a. But it is for ndir, gen. sg. msc. of the adj. ndr 'high,' 'noble.'
na mbuidnib Ep. 295 was taken to be for O. Ir. inna m-buidnib 'in their bands.' But the true reading, preserved by P, is hi mbuidnib ' in bands.'
in gdir Oc. 20, in togu, Prol. 123, were supposed to be instances of the Middle-Irish disuse of the neuter article. But the true readings are a ngdir and a togu, the substitution of which leaves the metre intact.
inna, na for the nom. pi. msc. of the article, were regarded as exclusively Middle-Irish. But they occur in the Old-Irish MSS. Ml. 38° 9, 38° 9, 8oa 10, and Wb. 29a i6a : see infra p. 338, s.v. ind.
hua June 21, is monosyllabic in the line hua Liathain in ligach. But the line should be emended thus, haue Liathain ligach, where haue is, as in Old-Irish, disyllabic.
cethri cMt, ceithri deich, Sep. i, Oc. 16, 24, probably mere corrup tions of the Old-Irish cethir chit (Thes. II. 29), cethir deich. So the ace. pi. used for the nom. pi. in na ret(g]lanna July 29, and tengtha Ep. 125 might have been quoted as Middle-Irishisms ; but the corrections inna retglainn and tengaid are obvious.
The proleptic use of the possessive pronoun at July 17 (a n-itge)
1 See Dr. Reeves' masterly essay, The Culdees of the British Islands, Dublin, 1864, p. 10.
2 Lebar Brecc 9b. This is in prose. Their metrical rule is in the same MS. p. 261, and in H. 2. 16, cols. 224, 225.
3 See the interesting entry in the Annals of Ulster, A.D. 920 : ' the raid on Armagh on the loth of November by the Danes of Dublin, i.e. by Godfred, son of I mar . . . and the prayer-houses with their company of culdees (de cheilibh De} and of sick were protected by him.' Professor Alexander Bugge, Vesterlandenes Indflydelse paa Nordboernes Samfundsfor- holdi Vikingetiden, Christiania, 1905, p. 5, has not quite seized the force of ceilidh De in this passage.
THE LANGUAGE OF THE MARTYROLOGY. xxix
which I supposed to be only Middle-Irish, is found in Wb. 8d 22 (a gairte] and i8e 6 (a threte}.
The occurrence of the following verbal forms was also regarded as pointing to the tenth or eleventh century :
bebais ' obiit,' Prol. 95, Feb. 18, Ap. 23, was taken to be a Middle- Irish formation from the O. Ir. redupl. pret. bebe. But it is a regular s-pret. from a reduplicated verb corresponding with Gr. fiifiaw, ftift^/^i and Skr. jigati, and here used euphemistically.
dorimemar, Ep. 6, taken to be a Middle-Irish i pi. pret. of the verb dorimiu, which, in Old-Irish, would be doruirmisem. But the true reading is preserved in L and P, viz. do-ruimdemar, a regular formation from the deponent do-midiur.
conicsid Ep. 393, is obviously a scribal corruption of the O.-Ir. conissid.
berthair, -trebthair Prol. 175, 176, for the Old-Irish plurals bertair, -trebtar. The correction is easy, and in Prol. 176 B and F have bertair.
asa 'whose is,' Prol. 50, 98 etc., ata 'whose are' March 14 etc. were supposed to be only Middle-Irish formations. But as a occurs in Ml. 2C 3, issa in Ml. 90° 3, and ata-n in Wb. i2a n, Ml. i2b, and many other Old-Irish documents.
In syntax the government of the dative by the prep, itir, March n, Nov. 23, and the accusative by the prep, iar (iarsin mbaigse), Ep. 315, are clearly Middle-Irish corruptions which may be removed without injuring the metre. At March 11, the line containing iter (or eter) is found only in three MSS. (L£>, P, and C) and is apparently a comparatively recent substitute for isind flaith uas flaithib, the reading of R^y L, and F. In Nov. 23, though all the MSS. have tonnaib in line 2 of the quatrain, this seems a scribal error due to the presence of thonnaib in line 4. In Ep. 315 C and B have preserved the true reading, viz. iarsin baigse.
The linguistic arguments against the antiquity of the Martyrology having thus been disposed of, let us now consider some archaic forms which point to the Old-Irish period, i.e. the seventh, eighth, and 'ninth centuries.
Disyllabism.
The following words, monosyllables in Middle-Irish, are still disyllabic in our Martyrology: aue Feb. 8, Ap. n, June 2I,1 gen. haui May 16, Oct. 27, -bia, Jan. 13, Ep. 168 \-gliadt criad Ap. 19 : dead2' July 15, Sep. 22, deud, Prol. 220, df/wSept. 13, dia July 16, Ep. 1 66, lia (lie} Ap. 15 : luam Dec. 3 : No'is Prol. 84: 6ac Sep.
1 So in Fiacc's hymn 4 (haue, corruptly hoa, deochain], and in the St. Paul codex aue Muredaich, Thes. pal. hib. II. 295.
• So in Fiacc's hymn, 1. 2, of which Prof. Bury (Life of St. Patrick, p. 264 note) says, "there is a metrical anomaly (daec [leg. deac\ a disyllabic)." This is no anomaly. In Old- Irish deac is always disyllabic.
xxx PREFACE.
22, siur, July 6, Dec. 14, triur Jan. 24, Dec. 14, #?#*> Oc. 26, Ep. 432, 433, dfowtf Prol. 17, /rzW Ep. 438.
In LB and ^ disyllabism is sometimes marked by doubling a vowel, e.g. cooir, Noois, siuur, triuur.
Declension.
As a rule, the Old-Irish paradigms are followed. But Oengus tends to make oblique cases resemble the nom. sg. Thus the msc. 0-stems Findach and Ndrach have their genitives sg. Findach May 22, and Ndrach March 8 : so bordgal Prol. 275, baslic Nov. 19, and possibly trethan June 5. At Feb. 12, crochthae is dat. sg. fern., and in Ep. 458 the voc. sg. msc. of rathmar is identical with the nom. sg. of that adjective. The gen. pi. of der = Sd/cpv is dtr, Ep. 400. The ;z-stems bn'i Heriu, iriu and dile makes their dat. sg. bru Ep. 464, Here July 31, ire, Ep. 25, 450, dile, Ep. 452. The dat. sg. of the /-stem is bethu, Ep. 201. The ace. sg. felt\ Oc. 2, Dec. 30, seems from a fern, f-stem. Stems in u make their gen. sg. in -o : locho, Feb. 7, R, geno Oc. 3, Rl, or a : gena, Ap. 13, Sep. 16 ; betha, Prol. 140, 195, June 29, catha, datha.
Traces of a locative singular are : grian mdr des-maig Midi, Prol. 226, Senoc Mugnai tuathmaig let/tain, Dec. II : ni mair in drong uabair rdith Becce, Prol. 197-8 : rdid a paiss cinn bliadnae, Sep. 17: dogne init chorgaiss, Nov. 13.
The adjectival z-stems make their gen. pi. in -e, even when not used substantially. Thus aille, Ep. 83, mathe July 23.
The nom. of the fern, numeral teoir ' three ' occurs in Sep. i , where it is disyllabic, like teuir (from *tisores\ Thes. II, p. 291.
Comparison.
The superlative in m survives : amram Sep. 24 : ardam March 23, Dec. 27, Ep. 207 : deodam Ep. 498 : nbibem July 14. But the Middle-Irish use of the comparative for the superlative is already beginning : amru Aug. 20 : cddu March 20 : ddnu, daingniu May 23: dilsiu Prol. 262; dixu Jan. 18 : ferdu Aug. 2Q\ glainiu Prol. 246, isliu Prol. 153, ndebu Jan. 20, May 27 ; uagu Nov. 30, tiaisliu Prol. 263, Jan. 18.
Infixed Pronouns. The infixed pronouns in the Martyrology are as follows :
Non-relative forms. Dental forms.
Sg. i . m: before a vowel mm ... ... -dom-
Sg. 2. t - ... -dat-
Sg. 3. msc. an : after do and ni, n ... ... -dn-,-d-,-idn-?-id
fern, a, s(ii) ... ... ... ... -da-
THE LANGUAGE OF THE MARTYROLOGY. xxxi
neut. a, and after ni a cryptic pron.
which aspirates ... ... ... -d-, id, -did-
Pl. i. 11, before a vowel, nn ... ... ... -don-
2. b : before t,p ... ... ... ... (-dab-)
3. a, s (n) ... ... ... ... ... -da-
The dental forms are regularly relative : see for instance ar-don-sela, ' what escapes us/ June 23, and Ep. 376, 377, where fo-m-gluassi means * disquiets me,' but fo-dom-ghiassi, ' what disquiets me/ but dental forms are used after ad- and some other preps. Thus in atateoch-sa (ad-dat-t.\ ' I entreat thee ' Ep. 304, there is no relativity.
It is unnecessary to quote examples of the first and second persons, which are easily recognisable. The multiform pronouns of the third person are as follows :
Sg. 3 msc. an: n-an-dle Feb. 7, 6 dondnic Ap. 14, should perhaps be 6 d-an-dnic, imm-a-curtis Ap. 27, f-a-rith Ep. 407. Dental form : no-dn-dle July 9, atnechani (ex ad-dn-techani] July 14, Dec. 21,26, fortnedae (ex for-dn-edae) May 3 1 , fortniada
July 31-
d : fo-d-ruair (lebran) *E.p.67,fo-d-fuasna(or&) Ep. iO2,fo-d- lugai (cessad) June 6, mani-d-chuala (Bartholom) June 13, no-d- dlomaim (ord) Prol. 315, no-d-geba (lebran?) Ep. 113. After the prefix ad- the two dentals become t\ at-gab (ad-d-gab] (Hiruath) Prol. 107 : at-co'is (Ciaran) Prol. 182: at-roiriss (Valentinus) Dec. 16. After n and before another consonant the </is lost : dian proinam (from dian-d-promam) Prol. 143, dian ftsser (from dian-d-f&ser) Oc. 24. n : ro-n-noebatt ro-n-morat, Ep. 59> dn : nodndli July 9. ?Jan. 19.
idn : con-neuch ad-idn-gialla Feb. 23, in sluag con-idn-aicert Ep. 105, mad noeb ar-id-lega Ep. 178. So in Fiacc's hymn 10, 47, con-id-farcaib, ar-id-rdlastar. Sg. 3 fern, a : d-a-ronaid Prol. 186.
s(n) : ni-s-tarcai June 29, do-s-ruimdemar Ep. 6. Sg. 3 neut. a and the cryptic pron. do not occur in the Martyr- ology : ro-n-fethis (gein) June 24, is for ro-n-d-fethis : atsLuindi for ad-d-sluindi (ainm) Prol. 1 10. PI. 3 a after do- and nach : d-a-ruirmisem Ep. 228.
s: no-s-molammar Jan. 17, ro-s-fcsser Feb. 4, ro-s-taurus
1 The pronouns -didn-, -did-, -idn-, -id- occur only after ndch, the conjunction con, the relative in- ' in which,' and the prepositions ad-, as-, con-, for-, fri, iuiui- and in-, They are apparently cognate with the pronominal affix ide'm a n-icc-ide 'their salvation' Wb. 4° 39, dat. inna diud-idi 'after it,' Thes. pal. hib. II. 251'.
xxxii PREFACE.
June 26. no-s-tuirfem Prol. 289, ni-s-gegnetar May \^fo-s-dail July 15.
d# : ar-da-legfa Ep. 216: no-da- sndidfea Ep. 160, ro-da-ortsam Prol. 57> ro-da-crochsat Prol. 73, ata-sniaim Oc. 26 (ad-da-s).
Verbal Particles.
The verbal particles are #*/-, ^w/z-, ;/<?, r# and /w, of which #<^, r<?;/z and ro are used as perfective prefixes :
ad- : conatuil (com-ad-t.}. ' he has slept ' Aug. 7, con-idn- aicert (com-idn-ad-cert} ( has corrected it.'
coin-: as-chom-art 'who has been slain,' Oc. 19, do- coemnagtar (^ to-com-nenigtar} 'they have washed,' Jan. 4.
no is here used (a) with the imperfect indicative of simple verbs, (&) to infix a personal pronoun cr relative //, and (c) to express relativity.1 Examples of (c) are no molur Prol. \^\no rdidiu, Ep. 358: no guidiu Ep. 387, no charim Ep. 50: no rddi Feb. r 8.
ro : Most of the occurrences of this common particle are collected in the glossarial index. In compound verbs it stands after the first, or only preposition : do-ro-dbad Prol. 96 ; imma- roerad Prol. 206 : fris-rocaib Oc. 24, fris-rocabsat Jan. 16: con- ruala July 12, as-r-indaid Jan. 12 : do-rosat Prol. 91, do-r-indnacht Nov. 12, do-s-rui-mdemar Ep. 6. When the compound contains only one preposition : do-rignius ini-ro-rdus Prol. 20 ; do-rui- rmius Ep. 40, ad-r-annad Ap. 5, ad-r-eth Prol. 120, do-r-ortad May 27, ad-roe-thach Ep. 300. It is omitted in atbath Ep. 318, tinscann May I, fo-s-dail July 15, fo-raith Jan. \$> fo-truicset May 8, fris-indled May 23, and nad chumscaigset Feb. 6. It is prefixed to an originally compound verb in ro-s-tuirius Jan. 26 (cf. r& tuirset Ml. 44, 23).
ror \ fo-ror-bairt Prol. 172 : fo-ror-cennta Prol. 87: dom-ror- bae Prol. 25 ; and, with assimilation of rto the /of the root, rol-eb- laing March 5.
Conjugation.
In the verb, the Old-Irish distinction between the absolute and the conjunct forms is invariably preserved. Thus in the 3d sg. pres. ind. active we find the following absolute forms :
maraid Prol. 168, 204, 244, 252, bith-maraid 232, 255. moraith 1 1 6, bith-trdgaith 231 ; and with affixed pronouns, berth-i Ep. 196, mdrth-us Prol. 132, and the following conjunct forms :
I. o-verbs : ni mair Prol. 199, 203 ; ni dlig]zx\. 6, na dlig March 7,
: For other cases in which it is used in Old-Irish, see Strachan, Selections from the Old- Irish Glosses, 1904, p. 112.
THE LANGUAGE OF THE MARTYROLOGY. xxxiii
Ap. 25, ar-dlig June i, Aug. 5, ni beir Prol. 223 do-beir March 31, Nov. 30, con-gaib Ap. i, Ep. 76, 279, tuar-gaib March 9, ar-fick March 15, do-for-maig Ep. 195, 206, do-n-for-maig Oc. 18, mos~ t-ic July 9, to-t-ic May 25, t-ar-ic^ July 19, fris'reith Prol. 302, fris- oirg Ep. 444, do-reith Ap. 16.
II. a-verbs : ad-idn-gialla Feb. 23, ar-don-sela June 23, for-tn-iada July 31, fo-t-botha Nov. 15, ar-id-Uga Ep. 178, fo-d-fuasna Ep. 102, for-cenna Ep. 282, -bruchta June 21, Nov. 29.
III. i-verbs : at-sluindi, Prol. no, do-don-fard Jan. 26, don-ascnai May 12, Oc. 25, ni-s-tarcai June 29, nond-dli July 9, ar-dom-ttiassi Ep. 374, fo-dom-ghiassi Ep. 376, fo-m-ghiaissi Ep. 377, -dibdai Ap. 9, donn-ecrai Dec. 29.
The conjunct form of the 1st sg. of the same tense is exemplified by ad-sluindiu Ep. 320 etc., at-biur Ep. 103, atateoch-sa (* ad-dat-teoch} Ep. 304, no-t-guidiu Prol. 265, Ep. 37, 312, ^i^, con-uagu Jan. 20, con-sddu Jan. 23, no-t-caru Ep. 311, rtra mbdigiu Ep. 360, do-rimu Ep. 317, no-n-diliu Ep. 559.
Relative forms : sg. i, #0 &*£w Nov. 30, no guidiu Ep. 337, #0 rdidiu Ep. 358, ?/<? charint Ep. 50 : sg. 3, beres,linas, crothas^guires, file\ pi. i. dilute Aug. 5, canmae Ep. 242, guidme Ep. 243, molmae Aug. 31 : pi. 3. cantae Dec. 2^ymairte Prol. 194.
Relativity is expressed by aspiration in ad-chissiu, Prol. 150, and as-chomart Oc. 19.
Reduplicated Future. Sg. 2, lile-su (sic leg.) Prol. 309, 311, atom-didmae Ep. 494.
E-Future.
Sg. 3. absolute : gebaid Dec. 12, meraid Prol. 174 : conjunct: at-bela Ep. 116, no-t-geba Ep. 114, 166. PI. i. -^7^w Ep. 86. PI. 3. atf-^tf Prol. 247.
Reduplicated S-Future.
Sg. 2. at-roiriss Dec. 16.
Sg. 3. ar-sil Sept. 29 (j/V ex *«>/..., from sliginh, -foir (= fo-rir) fromfo-rigim Prol. 326.
A-Subjunctive.
Sg. i. doronsa Prol. 268, 269 : Sg. 2. tuicce,fortn~edae, dogne: Sg. 3. dorogra, ron-soera, ron-glea : PI. 2. daronaid Prol. 186: PI 3. don-r-emat, cotom-rocbat.
1 In to-t-ic and t-ar-ic^ as often in ro-icc^ the orthotonic (or ' deuterotonic ') form is replaced by the enclitic (or ' prototonic ')•
OENGUS. 6-
xxxiv PREFACE.
doriga Prol. 298, regmi Prol. 291, and do-ragat Ep. 115, are present subjunctives with the meaning of futures.
S-Subjunctive.
Absolute forms : Sg. 3, ainsium (ex *ainis-uiri) Jan. 31 : PI. i resme (resmi?) Prol. 257.
Conjunct forms : Sg. 2, at-chois Prol. 182, ro-'is Ep. 146, conetis July 1 6, com-eir Aug. 26. Sg. 3, -tecma Jan. 10, ronn-ain Dec. 22, r0££ Ep. 364. PL i, risam Dec. 17. PL 2,con-issid Ep. 393. PL 3, dodigset Ep. 24, domm-isat Ep. 36, -//jdtf Ep. 295, do-airset Sep. 20, -tairset Dec. 13.
Secondary forms: Sg. 3: fete*/ Ap. 27, no-gessed Ep. 217, nachat-rised Prol. 284. PL 3 relative : tiastae Ep. 470, a ngestae Ep. 432, 433.
S-Preterite.
Sg. 2. sberais Ep. 486 : relative, amail soersai Ep. 441, 445, etc.
Sg. 3. absolute : bebais Prol. 95, Feb. 18, Ap. 2^,breuis Ap. 4, carats Jan. 15, cessais Jan. 17, crocJiats March 8, ddlais Ap. 12, gabais July 6, mdrais Aug. 18, soerais Sep. 25 ; with affixed pronoun: troeths-us Nov. 1 6, mors-us Jan. 30, June 5. In June 15 and July 9, carats seems a third sg. relative, like carts in the Cambray Homily, Thes. II. 247, 1. 4. So soerais Sep. 25. But in March 24 we have car.
PL 3. conjunct : -crochsat Prol. 73, -carsat May 8 : absolute : carsait, March 15, May 7, Itcsit Oc. 8.
T-Preterite and Perfect.
This tense occurs in the Martyrology only in sg. 3 and pi. 3. Sg. 3. ro-da-ort Prol. 57, as-ort Ap. 23, as-r-cracht Prol. 92, March 27, dorosat (*to-ro-fo-ess-sem-t) Prol. 91, birt Jan. 27, June 2 ; do-bert Ap. 14, Oc. 18, Nov. 2, adropart Ep. 269.
PL 3 n? siachtatar Prol. 70.
Reduplicated Preterite and Perfect.
The reduplicated preterite and perfect are still in constant use. Thus :
Sg. i. adroithach Ep. 300, 301 (^ ad-ro-tethadi), -cuala June 13.
Sg. 3. cachain Ap. 26, Dec. 8 (leg. cechain ?), cechaing Jan. 25, May 22, geguin Oc. 23, r0 selaig (from *seslaig) Prol, 101, senaig (from *sesnaig) May 15, ar-ro-cJiiuir (from *-cecri\ ro ir July 5, TV /£///# Prol. 193 (pres. ind. tinim), t-dnic Jan. n, Ap. 14, r-dnic May 2, Ep. 17, immerdnic May 2, do-da- farnaic June 10.
PL 3. -gegnetar May 19, docoemiiachtar (* to-com-ne-nigtar} Jan. 4, r0 selgatar ProL 29, tdncatar Ep. 88, rdncatar Prol. 78.
THE LANGUAGE OF THE MARTYROLOGY. xxxv
Unreduplicated Preterites and Perfects.
Of these, beside the s- and t- preterites, there are two classes, (a) those with a long vowel before a single consonant : (b) those with a short vowel :
(a] Sg. i. ro gdd-sa Ep. 412, ro-n-gddsa, 421.
Sg. 3. rdith Jan. 6, Sep. ig,fo-rdit/i Jan. 5, ro scdich Nov. 22 ; Prol. 121, ro fir-scdich Prol. 84; (with affixed pron. ro scdic/i-i Prol. 177), do-cuaid Ep. 267 (from *to-co-fditJi)\ PL 3. rdthatar Sep. 28, rel. dochuatar Prol. 279.
(^) Sg. 3. rol-eb-laing March 5 (from Imgini), dr-eb-raing Ap. 2, 17 ; do-ro-chair, -to-r-chair March 26, Ep. 361 (which serves as perfect to dotuit ' falls '), -sceith Feb. 16, frisnaig March 24, /bo/Prol. 128, Jan. I etc. mad tulnid July 12 : PI. 3. /tftar May 5.
In ro era Ep. 474, ro pJiraidcJii Prol. 164 (= ropritchai, Trip. 40, 1. 4) and n? chruidi Ep. 136, we seem to have presents made preterites by the prefix ro. See KSB. vii. 4 ; Strachan, Verbal System of the Saltair na Rann, p. 32, and cf. the passive form ro gabthar ' it \vas sung,' Ml. 24d 14.
Deponents.
The deponential forms in the Martyrology are :
Pres. ind. sg. \,frisdiliur Ep. 560. no molur Prol. 13, and perhaps conruidiur, Prol. 277 : sg. 2 armuinter Oc. 2, mem- raigther, March 2, r# clunter Prol. 282: pi. i. no-s-molamar Jan. 17 ^.
Imperative sg. 2, cluinte Ep. 314, 365, 425, molthae Sep. 2, (where the MSS. have molatha, molothd}.
Subjunctive sg. 2 : foraithmentar Sep. 8. r# fesser Feb. 4, afoz;/ fesser Oc. 24 :
Pret. sg. 3 genair, Dec. 25, mad-genair Prol. 251, ddmair Feb. 9, 1 6. Perf. sg. 3 ro genair Sep. 24. pi. i, do- s-ruimdemar Ep. 6. pi. 3, ro damnatar Prol. 53.
Passage from deponential to active forms is shown, I think, only in one verb, viz. molmae Aug. 31, the relative form of the pres. ind. pi. i of molur ^ and that such passage had commenced in the Old- Irish period is proved by the b- future molfait Ml. 69b i. The deponential inflexion seems to prove that our Martyrology is at the latest not later than the ninth century.1
Passive.
In the passive, the pres. ind. 3 sg. and 3 pi. still observe the difference between the absolute and the relative (identical with the conjunct) forms. Thus bertar Prol. 175, ' who are carried
1 Strachan, The Deponent Verb in Irish, pp. no, m.
c 2
xxxvi PREFACE.
off,' rimter Prol. 286, Ep. 46 * who are numbered ; ' but icthair ( is healed/ Prol. 228, tuirtir 'are scrutinised ' 230.
In the preterite sg. 3 the absolute forms end in -tae, -thae, the conjunct in -/, -th : absolute brelhae Jan. 25, June 11, carthae May 9, crochthae Feb. 12, ortae Jan. 26, March 6, Sep. 7; stntae Prol. 100 : slechtae Feb. 12 : conjunct : -airecht Aug. 3, -<?r/ Oc. 22, as-ort Oc. 7, as-chom-art Oc. 9, do-rindnacht Nov. 12, -slecht Feb. 20, June 16, ra jr^ Aug. 25, -/rzV// March 10, June 16, July 30, (so as-breth, do-breth). In -doss Oc. 15 (from *klusto) the ^ has been assimilated to the s of the root klus ' to hear' (cf. Zend, a-srusta, OHG. hloseri}. In -fess Prol. 135, ss is from </-£
In a-verbs the perfect sg. 3 ends in -a-d : ro crochad Prol. 89, doro-dbadg6 : romorad, ro rigad 103, 104, ro mudiad 169, roerad 206, ro lenad 253. In 1-verbs it ends in -ed, ro milled Prol. 213.
In the 3rd pi., the manuscripts of our Martyrology point to -ta, -tha for o- and a-verbs, and to -tea, -thea for I-verbs. This is the rule in the Old-Irish glosses : see GC.2 478.
Reduplicated future pi. 3. do-genatar^p. 176 (gen- fcomgign-).
Participle of necessity : rdti Ap. 9, gessi Dec. 2, Sep. 28, clitki Dec. 9, Ep. $o6,Jissi Ep. 335, denti Ep. 392.
Verb Substantive and Copula.
The forms which in the Martyrology make up the verb substantive and copula are collected in the glossarial index, s.vv. am, ata, biuu, dianda, dodiuissin^feil, nim-tha and tdu. Of these the atonic am is from *emy Goth, im, Gr. et/u, Lith. estnl, Skr. dsmi : tdu, atd (ad-ta), dian-da and nim-tha are cognate with Lat. sto : biuu with Lat. vivo ; and feil (originally meaning void1) with the Irish fili ' poet ' (seer), Cymr. gweled ' to see/ and Old Norse vb'lva ' seeress.' Nimtha ' not so is ' is from ni-imtha, and im-tha ('so is') is a compound of td ( = Lat. stat) and im, cognate with Lat. imitor, imago, aeimilor.
Syntax.
So much for the ancient grammatical forms of the Martyrology. Its syntax is also highly archaic. Thus the dat. pi. is often used as an instrumental, without a governing preposition : for instance :
iarna fbebraib fennad 'after flaying them with sword-edges/ Prol. 48. ind locdin rogabtha deissib ocus tririb 'the little places that have been taken by pairs and by trios,' Prol. 209.
Agnetis deich n-iiagaib 'Agnes with ten virgins,' Jan. 27.
1 Sarauw, Rev. celt. xvii. 278 : cf. the Algerian Arabic ra-h 'he is/ literally ' le voici.'
THE LANGUAGE OF THE MARTYROLOGY. xxxvii
asrola sdeth setaib ' has escaped by ways of tribulations,' Ap. 3. Cyriacus crochthae trib cetaib don-ascnai ' Cyriacus who was crucified comes to us with three hundreds,' May 12.
Ciar trib cetaib cdinib ' Ciar with three fair hundreds,' Oc. 16.
The dative pi. is used without a preposition also in is dallcheilliu doinib ''tis a blind direction to men,' Prol. 316, and in luaidfidir Idedib limmsa ' it will be sung in lays by me,' Thes. pal. hib.y 295. An instance of a similar use of the dative sg. is foisitin oendatad ' through confession of the oneness,' ibid. 354, and cf. cunn, ceill, curp Ep. 52, colbu Ep. 74.
Again, the genitive, singular or plural, often precedes the governing noun. For instance :
la fege frithgnam ' with diligence of keenness,' Prol. 331.
martrae mdrsus dorus 'martyrdom's door magnified them,' Jan. 30
Locho Uair ard dige ' Loch Uar's high pillar,' Feb. 7.
nil co himbel 'unto the clouds' rim,' Feb. 16.
lir dar doe 'over the sea's rampart,' March 22.
Marta for sliiaig saithiu 'on the swarm of March's host,' March 31.
asrola sdeth setaib ' has escaped by ways of tribulations,' Ap. 3.
hi Fiadat find fini 'in the vine of the white Lord,' Ap. 6.
ddlais . . . fri cruiche cretair ' he allotted to the relic of the Cross,' Ap. 12.
ctssais roe rindi ' he suffered spearpoints of battle,' Ap. 26, tre roe rindi, Aug. 27.
i nEchdromma dairiu 'in Echdruim's oakwood,' May 7.
mbrdrem De de thuirind 'a great company of God's wheat,' May 21.
bdtir Erenn ardae ' they were Erin's heights,' June 25.
Itiil i calaind mirbuil 'on the marvellous calends of June,' July i.
mdrais Fiadat fairinn 'magnified the Lord's company,' Aug. 18.
for Septimbir calaind ' on September's calends,' Sep. i.
Luscai la Mace cuilinn ' with Mace Cuilinn of Lusk,' Sep. 6.
Septimbir iar saithib 'after September's swarms,' Sep. 30.
i nOchtimbir etun 'in October's front,' Oc. i.
Dromma Ingaird age ' Druimm Ingaird's pillar,' Oc. 10.
la Tdimthene tdlgud 'at Taimthene's quieting,' Oc. 29.
Ochtimbir ard ethre 'October's lofty end,' Oc. 31.
ar Bledma bailc btlaib ' in front of strong (Slieve) Bloom,' Nov. 20.
Nouimbirfor shiagu ' on November's hosts,' Nov. 30.
Sluind Decimbir calaind ' declare December's calends,' Dec. i.
il-ligflatha lestur 'in the beautiful realm's vessel,' Ep. 22. flatha Crist is colbu ' is for (through) love of Christ's kingdom,' Ep 74. tar sdlmuire sreiha ' over ranges of main-seas,' Ep. 238.
For other Old-Irish examples see Z.2 915 : fidbaidce fdl, Thes. II. 291, 1. 7,fregafdl, ib. 293, 1. 22 : fu thocaid tugaib, ib. 295, 1. 4 : di Moisten mine mrugaib, ib. 295, 1. 5 : robbet inna lobrdn leith
PREFACE.
ib. 348, 1. 5 ; and see Rev. Celt. v. 35 1.1 For a like construction in Old-Welsh poetry, see Rhys Lectures1 1 5 3 (Kenetyl noted ' the nation's refuge/ Kimerev trin ' Cymmerau's conflict,' riein gared 1 delight of women ';. To these we may perhaps add the ogham Trenaccat lo ' Tringad's grave/ and part of the Gaulish bilingual of Todi : Ategnati Drutikni karnidu logan Koisis Drutiknos " Coisis son of Drutos heaped up the tomb of Ategnatos son of Drutos.'
A third archaism in our Martyrology is the frequent position of the adjective before the substantive with which it agrees. Thus crdibdig i fell Fursa, Jan. 16, ard dige Prol. 119, 243, ard imbel 131, etrocht age, Feb. io,cdin cathar, Aug. 15.
A fourth archaism is the occasional position of the accusative before the governing verb. Thus :
ar Christ cech mbdis breuis ' for Christ's sake he vanquished every lust,' Ap. 4.
re Notlaicc aird aurgaiss dogne ' before high Christmas thou shouldst make great prayer,' Nov. 13.
lucht fris' fdilti feraim ' the folk to whom I make welcome,' Ep. 49. felire ro scrtitus ' I have searched out martyrologies,' Ep. 109.
d Issu, mdrfertae dorignis ' O Jesus, who hast wrought great miracles,' Ep. 506.
The result is that, with one exception, the grammar and syntax of our Martyrology maybe regarded as strict Old-Irish. The exception is the occasional use of the comparative for the superlative. It now seems to me that it is easier to believe that this Middle-Irishism existed as early as A.D. 800 than to cast aside the traditional evidence that Oengus wrote about that date. This belief is confirmed by the facts that the author has only one vigil (Aug. 15) ; that he has only five festivals of the B.V. Mary (there are in the Roman calendar fourteen 'of universal obligation ') ; and that no saint or other person who certainly died in the ninth century is mentioned in his Martyrology. Paulus Diaconus (Ap. 13), who died before A.D. 800, and Aireran of the Wisdom (Aug. n), who succeeded Maelruain A.D. 792, are the most modern saints here com memorated ; and it is possible that here the scholiast erred, and that this Aireran was meant by Oengus for the Aileran ind ecni, who died in the year 604. That our Martyrology was not written before the ninth century is proved by the mention of S. Joseph at March 19.*
See The Irish Liber Hymnorum II. 118, per Dr Bernard.
THE METRE OF THE MARTYROLOGY.
IV. THE METRE OF THE MARTYROLOGY.
Only five metrical martyrologies are known to me, viz. : Baeda's Martyrologium Poeticum1 (which at March 17 contains the line Patricius2 Domini servus conscendit ad aulam), the Martyrologium Wandalberti,3 the Anglo-Saxon Menologium Poeticum,4 the Martyrology of Gorman,5 and the Martyrology of Oerigus. The first two are in Latin hexameters. The Martyrology of Gorman is in the Irish metre called rinnard mor, 'great rinnard/ in which the stanzas may consist of 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, or even 14 lines. The Martyrology of Oengus consists of 591 quatrains, each of which is independent in sense. The elaborate metre (rinnard) in which they are written is described, not quite completely, in the prose prefaces. Its chief characteristics are as follows :
1. Each line of the quatrain contains six syllables. The solitary exception is Ep. 459, where Loth should perhaps be corrected to Lothus.
2. Each line must end (like the Ovidian pentameter) in a disyllabic. To this rule there are exceptions in the case of alaile, araile and of foreign proper names/' And Irish verbs compounded with prepositional prefixes are, for metrical purposes, regarded as being in tmesi. So the proclitics — the article, possessive pronouns, verbal prefixes, copula, preposi tions, negative particles, are not regarded as part of the words with which they are written in the MSS. On the other hand, the pronominal suffixes -ni, -sa, -se, -si, -sin, -su, -som, are deemed (for metrical purposes) to convert the monosyllables to which they are annexed into disyllables.
3. Each end-word must be accented on the penult. Take, for example, the quatrains for Jan. I and Jan. 10 :
Re sil dalach d6ine Almini a n-itge
t6ided in ri remain, nachan tecma drochrann,
luid fo recht ard erail Milit caid cain cathbarr,
Crist i callaind enair. Diarmait Inse Clothrann.
1 Migne's Patrologia Latina, t. xciv., coll. 603-606.
- So in Baeda's prose Martyrology, at March 17, in Scotia S. Patricii confessoris. And yet a writer who ought to know better, asserts that Baeda ' studiously ignored S. Patrick.'
3 Migne's Patrologia Latina, t. cxxi., coll. 585-623. Wandalbert, a monk in the diocese of Treves, wrote about 50 years after Oengus.
4 Cotton, Tiberius B. i, last printed in the Bibliothek der angelsachsichen Poesie, 1894, Bd. II. 282-293.
5 Edited by W. S. and issued by the Henry Bradshaw Society in 1895.
6 In Stephdni Dec. 26, Oengus (metri gratia) has not only accented, but lengthened the penult. Cf. Stephd.no, Merchant of Venice, v. i.
xl PREFACE.
Here the four end-words happen to be nouns ; but the rule is the same in the case of paroxyton verbs. Thus in the prologue 233-236 and 141-144:
In gormrig ro miichtha, Bid ar menmae uile
in Domnaill ro plagtha, ar thiiaith De nad celam,
in Chiarain ro rigtha, is torbe dian promam
in Chronain ro martha. in prolach do-beram.
Here in one quatrain the four end-words, and in the other the last three end-words, are verbs accented on the penult. Many more such instances will be found in the Revue Celtique. vi. 283-285, where all the verbal line-endings in our Martyrology are collected.
4. The end-words of the second and fourth lines must assonate, z>., the vowels must be the same and the consonants must be of the same class.
The consonantal classes are as follows :
(1) c,t,py and uninfected g, d, b.
(2) Ch}th,ph,ff*
(3) £>&, dh, bh, mh, n, r, I.
(4) mmy nnf ng> rr, //.
(5) '.4
5. Final -e in the first and third lines may assonate with final ae in the second and fourth lines, and final i in the first and third lines may assonate with final -ai in the second and fourth lines. Thus ae in togae Jan. 6 assonates with nglain^ and Maire, and ai in Tiamdtfz Aug. 22 assonates with nan i and Emilianz : see further Strachan, Rev. Celt, xx, 191, 295.
6. The end-word of the third line may assonate with a disyllabic in the interior of the fourth line. But where such assonance is absent, the final syllable of the third line must assonate with the final syllables of the second and fourth lines : see Prol. 25-28, where -sa in the third line assonates with -sa in the second and fourth :5 or the final syllable of the third line must assonate with the final syllable of a word in the interior of
1 cht may rhyme with / (Ep. 72).
2 Thus fethis, cathlaic, dithi respectively rhyme with Effis, Affraic, Liffi, a proof, if such were wanted, that in Old-Irish th was pronounced somewhat like the English dental spirant in thing. See Rev. Celt. III. 1 86, and Celt. Zeits. I. 454.
3 nn rhymes with nnt at July 30, with nt at Nov. 21.
4 See Prol. 17-10; 57-60; 62-64; 74-76; 150-152; 182, 184, etc. Exceptions to the rules as to classes, in other words faulty consonantal rhymes, will be found in the Prologue 170, 172, and at Feb., 15 namai/), Sept. 19 (taithle^, aithme/), and Ep. 394, 396 (tic/^/u,
5 Thurneysen, Rev. Celt. VII. 88.
THE METRE OF THE MARTYROLOGY. xli
the fourth. See Prol. 5-8, and 157-160, where the final syllable of aingliu assonates with the final syllable of ckoimmdiu, and Prol. 42-44, 281-284, 329-332, and Feb. 4, 13, 14, 19, where the final consonants of cala<^, altar, frithgna;;/, uasa/, nuala^^, clanda^/, maine^ assonate with the final consonants of lines 2 and 4.
When the final syllables of lines I, 2, 3, and 4 assonate the metre is called rinnard cethir n-ard ' rinnard of four rhyming final syllables.' For example, at March 17 and June 17 :
Lassar grene an^ In doss oir 6s chricho2$,
apstal Herenn h6g£ in grian an lias tuathtf/^,
Patraic co meit mile congreit rig, bale brathaz>,
rop ditiu ar tr6g£ caid mil, Moling Liiacha/r.
When the final syllables of lines 2, 3, and 4 assonate the metre is called rinnard tri n-ard 'rinnard of three rhyming final syllables.' For example, at Jan. 4 and June 14:
Bas caid Aquilini Conrecat dib linib
co mbuidin ba balcu for oenlith ler sluagac/i,
hi fuil Christ trea curp^ Nem maccu Birn
docdemnachtar tlacht^ la Benedicht
and so in the quatrain for Jan. I, where -ain, -ail, -air are the three assonating ards, and in that for Jan. 27, where lines 2, 3, and 4 end in -aib.
When the final syllables of only lines 2 and 4 assonate the metre is called rinnard da n-ard ' rinnard of two rhyming final syllables.' Thus at Jan. 24 and June 22 :
Domm anmain, domm chorpan La hlac6b nAlphaei
rop mur ar cech merbl/«, da nocht cet, cliar ngelda^,
Babill, bruth oir forlan feil fir nad char corplen
cona thriur dedblen. Cronan fortren Fern#£.
In the Irish prefaces the quatrain for March I is given as an example of rinnard da n-ard. If this be not a mistake, Moysi in line 3 should be Moyse, and then the two ards are the final syllables of rigudz' and Mum.
/. In each quatrain there must be alliteration (tiaini), that is to say, two, three or more accented syllables must begin with the same letter — all the vowels being, for this purpose, deemed identical, and /t, infected f and transported nasals being dis regarded. For example, in the quatrain for Jan. 7, -dni, (}\)uaisliu and Issu alliterate, and in the quatrain for Jan. 4, mbuidin and £alcu are regarded as beginning with the same letter. Needless to quote other examples of consonantal alliteration.
xlii PREFACE,
8. The last characteristic of rinnard is what the Irish preface in R2 (supra p. 14) ca\\sfidrad cubaid etir tosaichib na rann ocus deridib na rann ele 'an harmonious juncture between the beginnings of the quatrains and the ends of the other (i.e. the last preceding) quatrains,' and what modern Irish scholars call conachlann.1 This agreement is not obligatory. It may be either complete, as in the case of the third quatrain of the in vocation prefixed to the prologue — the first line of which is identical with the last line of the second quatrain — or partial, as when the first accented word in the second quatrain — gelgrian —alliterates with gile, the final word of the first. So rigrady the first accented word in the fourth quatrain, alliterates with rlgraid. So in the f quatrains for the first seven days of February, the pairs Erenn and Airitiu, airi and Andreas each begin with a vowei, and each of the pairs Sim/roni and /nonius, <:resen and <:rochthae, wi'li and J/ellan, begin with the same consonant The object of this device is, of course, to aid the memory. There is, I believe, in Welsh verse a similar device called adgymmeriad ' anadiplosis/ and there is something like it in a French poem quoted in Isaac Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature, London, 1838, p. 1 08, where the last word of every line is identical with the first word of the following line.
I have dwelt at some length on the characteristics of this metre, partly because nothing is more important for correcting the corrupt text of a poem (and every copy of the Martyrology is full of scribal corruptions) than a right understanding of the rules by which the author was guided ; partly because observa tion of the technical skill of the maker of the poem now printed is almost the only source of pleasure derivable from his work ; and partly because Ezzardi's suggestion2 that the metre of the Martyrology of Oengus appears to have been the model of the Skaldic drottkvcett, especially the hattlausa, makes the Irish rin nard matter of interest for Teutonic, as well as for Celtic, scholars.
V. THE CONTENTS OF THE POEM.3
After an invocation of Christ, who is called ' Lord of the seven heavens,' * King of the bright sun,' and a reference to the saints
1 An old example of this is in Amergin's poem, Ailini iath n-Erenn, etc., Book of Ballymote, 4ob 20, where the end-words mothach, srethach, lindmar are identical with the first words of the following lines.
- In Paul u. Braune's Beitraege zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache u. Literatur^ 1878, ss. 583,^584. Ezzardi cites from O'Donovan's Irish Grammar the quatrain for March 17, and says Dies versmass scheint das vorbild des drottkv. zunachst der hattlausa, gewesen zu sein. For a specimen of drottkvsett see Ker, The Dark Ages, p. 302.
3 In this and the preceding section I have drawn on the preface to the first edition of the Martyrology of Oengus.
THE CONTENTS OF THE POEM. xliii
mentioned in the Martyrology, the poet begins his prologue (11. 21-340). He describes (11. 29-48) the various modes of martyrdom which the warriors of Jesus (inilid Isii} suffered with cheerful heroism. They now, unlike the great pagan kings, enjoy their eternal reward with Mary's Son, while their relics are enshrined in sparkling gold (11. 49-84). Herod and Pilate are then contrasted with Christ, Nebudchadnezzar with Paul the Monk, Herod and his queen with John the Baptist, Nero with Peter and Paul, Pilate's queen with Mary the Virgin. Then come some reflections on the nothingness of earthly power and mundane potentates as compared with the love of Mary's Son and with the lowly soldiers (amsdin) of Jesus. In Ireland, for example, Tara, the seat of the heathen high-kings, has perished,1 while Armagh remains with her crowd of Christian champions. King Loiguire's glory has departed, but St. Patrick's name lives on. Various ruined strongholds of the pagan Irish — Rathcroghan, Allen, Emain and others — are then contrasted with the monasteries — Clonmacnois, Kildare, Glendalough, Ferns — which flourished in the ninth century. The forgotten renown of pagan chieftains, like Donnchad, Bran and Domnall, is contrasted with the abiding glory of Christ and the Irish saints, Mael-ruain, Ciaran, Cronan. The poet then breaks out into a laudation of Jesus, prays for success in the work in hand, and concludes his prologue by describing the nature of the Martyrology.
Then comes the Martyrology, which consists of 365 quatrains (or 366, if we include the one for bisextus in the note on Feb. 23). Unlike the Martyrology of Tallaght and the Anglo- Saxon Menologium, which begin with Dec. 25, Oengus commences with the feast of the Circumcision, and ends with that of S. Sylvester. The Crucifixion and Conception of Christ are commemorated on the same day (March 25). As in the Hieronymian Martyrology, and the Martyrology of Tours,2 the Resurrection of our Lord is fixed at March 27. His first Ascension is at May 5 (so in Galba A. xviii. fo. 7a, and Harl. 863, f°- 3a) J tne mission of the Apostles is at July 15 : the nativity of Mary Magdalen, at July 22. In associating (Jan. 6) the Kpiphany with Christ's Baptism, and not with the visit of the Magi, Oengus follows the tradition of the Eastern, rather than that of the Western Church;5 So he follows the Greek, not the Roman, church in celebrating S. Euphemiaat July 1 1. Probably there are other like instances obvious to anyone more familiar
1 It was abandoned A.D. 561.
- See the abridgment in Gregory of Tours' Histotia Francorum^ ed. Arndt, pars i, p. 445.
3 See Plummer's Baeda, II. 237
xliv PREFACE.
than I with Christian hagiology. S. John the Baptist's nativity is at June 24 : his conception at Sep. 24. Gallican influence appears in the commemoration of the Circumcision (not the octave of the Nativity) on Jan. I : of the Assumption of the Virgin and the Cathedra S. Petri on Jan. 18 : of the Passion on March 25 : of the Resurrection on March 27 : of St. John and St. James on Dec. 2/.1
Oengus mentions (p. 270) as his foreign sources the ' vast tome (pairt) of Ambrose, the Sensus of Hilary, the Antigraph of Jerome, and the Martyrology of Eusebius.'2 What work of Ambrose (or Ambrosiaster) is meant, I cannot imagine. Hilary's * Sensus ' is equally obscure, whether the Hilary referred to was Hilary of Poitou or Hilary of Aries.3 Jerome's Antigraph (avrLypafyov) is doubtless the Pseudo-Jerome, the so-called Martyrologium Hieronymianuni, so carefully edited by De Rossi and Duchesne, and so often cited in this book as Mart. Hier. The MS. used by Oengus resembled the Epternach copy, which is said to represent a British form of the Martyrology.3 The ' Martyrology of Eusebius ' may be the lost work of Eusebius on which the Martyrologium Hieronymianum is said to be based. Or it may be the ap^aLwv fjbaprvpwv crvva<ya)<yr], of which, according to Herzfeld, one part, entitled De Martyribus Palaestinae, has been preserved.
Bishop Forbes has remarked that nearly all the Irish saints commemorated by Oengus are the same as those in the [twelfth century ?] kalendar contained in the Drummond Missal, but that the selection of non-Irish saints is very different.4
How little the Irish Church of the early Middle Ages knew of foreign saints is evidenced by the facts that Oengus, at May 28, mistakes Germanus of Paris, who died A.D. 576, for Germanus of Auxerre (ob. A.D. 448) the tutor of S. Patrick : at Aug. 1 6, he puts Adrio for Orion an Alexandrian martyr: at June 4, Apollinaris for the Egyptian Apollonius. At July 21 he treats the Roman virgin Praxides as if she was a male saint ; and at Feb. 3 and 4, he has made imaginary saints, ' Simfronius ' and 4 Fronius,' out of the latter part of a place-name, Forum Semproni, now Fossornbrone, in Umbria. The mediaeval glossators are equally ignorant. Thus Siric, Nov. 26, said to be an Irish bishop of Mag Bolg, is certainly the pope Siricius, who died on Nov. 26, A.D. 398. St. Oswald, Aug. 5, is confounded with Aldfrid (Flann Fina) : Constantine, the
1 See Warren's Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church, p. 273, note 5, and d'Arbois de Jubainville, Revue Celtique, ix. 118.
2 It is just possible that Oengus referred to a lost work of the latter saint, Homiliae in totius anni Festivitates.
3 See Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, II. 1136.
4 See Kalendar of Scottish Saints, 1872, pp. xvii. xviii.
THE CONTENTS OF THE POEM. xlv
successor of Mochutu, abbot of Rathen (p. 92), with Constantine son of Fergus : Isidorus of Antioch with Isidorus of Seville : Lupus the martyr with Lupus, bishop of Troyes : Publius, an African martyr, with a Paulus unknown at Feb. 19: Apollinaris the Christian writer with Apollinaris of Ravenna, the martyr.
As is the case with the oldest martyrologies, the entries in our Felire are generally of the most meagre description. Here they consist of the name of the Irish or foreign saint com memorated, with some stock epithet or standing phrase tacked on, so as to comply with the exigencies of metre, rhyme, and alliteration. But sometimes brief reference is made to a tradition, a tale, or a legend. Thus in the Prologue 2, and in the Epilogue 120, 401, Oerigus speaks of the seven heavens, a number which seems ultimately derived from the Babylonian seven tubukdti? whence the seven heavens of Judaism, of Islam, and of the apocryphal Revelation of Peter,2 chap. 27. At Jan. 27,. the poet mentions the wild story of Li-ban or Muirgein, the mermaid, told in Lebor na huidre, pp. 40, 41 :3 at Feb. 6 the legend of Lucia, who could not be dragged to martyrdom : at Feb. 6 the tradition of the introduction of bees into Ireland : at Feb. 16 the legend of Juliana and the Devil :4 at March 9 the legend of the forty Cappadocian soldiers to whom the sun shone at the bottom of a lake : at April 9 the belief that the blood of the martyr Quadratus still remains. This belief is paralleled, and perhaps explained, by one still held in Ireland. In the S.W. corner of Tech Molaisse on Inismurray is a dark red appearance caused by the growth of a small fungus. The natives say that it is caused by the blood of the martyred saint, and that however often it is scraped away, it will always come again.5 Then at April 5 \ve have the kindling (i.e., the commencement) of baptism by S. Patrick : at April 14 the tradition (mentioned also in Fiacc's hymn) that bishop Tassach houseled the dying apostle of the Irish : at April 17 the pathetic tale of the martyrdom of Donnan of Eig : at Aug. 16 the story of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus6 r
1 See Schrader, Die Keilinschriften u. das Alte Testament, 1903, ss. 615, 617.
* See Sale's Koran, p. 83. It is 'arabice scripta,' Tischendorf, Apocalypses Apocryphae, pp. xx, xxii. The Anglo-Saxons had the same number : cf. Solomon and Saturn, ed. Kemble, p. 148 : His heorte is xii Susendum siSa beorhtre Sonne ealle Sas seofon heofonas Se us sindon ofergesette.
3 The senchaid quoted in LU. 4ob cites the very words of Oengus : Muirgein is gein co mbuadaib.
4 His name, lafer (or lofer) Niger is a corruption of lupiter Niger.. i.e. Pluto.
5 Rev. C. Plummer in The Guardian for Dec. 23, 1903.
6 Greg. Turon. Mirac. I. 94, edd. Arndt et Krusch.
xlvi PREFACE.
at Aug. 24, the mention of Patrick senior, as the fosterer of St. Patrick :l at Aug. 25, the tradition of St. Bartholomew's death : at Sep. 4 the legend of the orphans playing round Ultan, who had saved them from dying of hunger : at Sep. 23, the story of Adamnan's liberation of Irishwomen from military service : at Sep. 29 the legend of S. Michael the Archangel and Antichrist: at Oct. 23 the wounding of Christ by Longinus : at Nov. 23 the legend of Clement and the sea : at Dec. 8 that of Egbert and his skinless coracle; and at Dec. 21 the traditional death of St. Thomas in India. Here we have traces of that tendency to give a fuller form to the primitive martyrologies, which was first displayed by Baeda (ob. 735), and then developed by Florus (about 830), Rabanus Maurus (about 840), Usuard (about 875) and Notker (about 912).
The body of our Martyrology is followed by the Epilogue, or, as the Irish oddly call it, the final Prologue. After referring generally to the Martyrology, and acknowledging Christ's help in composing it, Oengus prays for eternal life along with the saints whom he has commemorated. He declares that they have blessed whomsoever shall sing it, and that they will come to attend him when he dies, The poet then enumerates his sources, the four works already mentioned, and ' Ireland's host of books, the martyrologies of the men of the Gaels.' He again refers to the blessings bestowed on the reciter of his poem, the last mentioned (11. 221-224) being :
" His soul without conflict in heaven with brightness, after him when he has attained it, the dew of his grave will heal. "3
The poet then classifies the persons commemorated — the nine ranks of angels, prophets, apostles, martyrs, bishops, saints, priests, monks and virgins of Ireland, who will all, he says, befriend him. After praying the saints to beseech Christ on his behalf, he adjures Jesus by the sufferings t)f saints and penitents, by the offerings of His Body arid Blood, by His Manhood and His Godhead, to grant him what he is contending for. The rest of the Epilogue resembles the commendatio animae quando infirmus est in extremis,4 and is occupied with longings to pass
1 See F face's hymn, 65, and Ann. Ult. 457. His remains are said to be at Glastonbury, Thes. pal. hib. II. 321.
- Like curative powers were ascribed to the dew or the mould of Columb cille's grave, Amra Choluimb chille, Rev. Celt, xx, and see Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, 2te ausg. 1129 'rasen und thau auf dem grab heilen,' Greg. Turon. Vitae patr., 6, 7.
3 H. Gaidoz, Rev. Celt. v. 101.
THE NOTES. xlvii
from the afflictions of the world, and prayers to be saved like Elijah and Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Jonah, Isaac, Jacob, the Children of Israel, Job, Samson, David, Susannah, the three children, Tobit, the people of Nineveh, Daniel, Moses, Paul and Peter, John ' from the vat of fire/ Martin ' from the priest of the idol,' Patrick ' from the poisonous drink at Tara,' Coemgin ' from the falling of the mountain.'
The poem concludes with another prayer to be saved, and an entreaty that the saints commemorated in the Martyrology may convoy us to our solace.
It must be confessed that in all this long composition there is not a trace of imaginative power or of observation of nature and human life as they really are. Here, as in the Martyrology of Gorman, the language is, as Wordsworth said of the English verse of the eighteenth century, the language of men composing without their eye on the object. Here, as in most of the Irish verse that has come down to us, substance is ruthlessly sacrificed to form, and the observance of the rigorous rules of metre seems regarded as an end in itself. Touches characteristic of the poet's time and country are here almost wholly absent. The quatrain for May 17, in which Oengus treats three saints as if they were three Irish chieftains making a raid into heaven in their war-chariots, is about the only passage that can be quoted as racy of the soil.1 It is perhaps an adaptation of a formula inherited from earlier bardic poetry. The frequent metaphorical use in the Martyrology of words meaning sun, moon, star, diadem, flame, gold, housepost, pillar, town, rampart, bush and mountain may also be due to secular song. Compare, for instance, the poem in praise of King Crimthan, attributed to Dubthach ua Lugair (LL. 45a), where, in the course of the first five verses, that monarch is called drumne d'or ' house- ridge of gold,' in breo bdgach ' the warlike flame,' in sliab dergoir 'the mountain of red gold,' and lastly, in doss ditnes dronga Domnann ' the bush that protects the troops of Meath.'
VI. THE NOTES.
Every copy of the Martyrology contains, besides interlinear or marginal glosses, bodies of notes in Irish, or mediaeval Latin, or a mixture of both, written between the lines, or on the
1 As to using the technical language of plundering for the expression of religious sentiment, see Miscellany of the Celtic Society, Dublin, 1849, p. 338, where an Irish poet exclaims : A Christ, is cned oruinne in chreach tigh dorindisi ' O Christ it is (cause of) ?noan to us the royal prey [a dead O'Driscoll] thou hast taken.' So in an Anglo-Saxon hymn cited by Bosworth : He of helle hifye gefette sdwla manega ' He from hell fetched spoils, many souls.'
xlviii PREFACE.
margins, or after the quatrain or month referred to. Of the sources of these notes nothing certain is known. But from the statement in Laud 610 at June 15 (infra p. 140), we may fairly infer that a commentary (trachtad) on the Martyrology, existed in Armagh, if not * from the time of the saints/ at least from an early period ; and that some, at all events, of the entries in the notes were derived from this commentary.
For the entries relating to the constitution and discipline of the Irish church, to Irish architecture, metal-work, calligraphy, embroidery, music and verse, to the food, homes, morals, laws and amusements of the Gaels, reference may be made to the first edition of our Martyrology, pp. 24, 25, and to the Index of Things in the present volume. Here I shall only notice the scholia that throw some light on early Irish religious practices, superstitions, folklore, and legal antiquities.
(a) Religious Practices.
Of these the most frequently mentioned is fasting (troscud], a practice belonging in ancient Ireland to the sphere of law1 as well as to that of religion. Here it is used for the fall of a tree worshipped by the heathen (p. 118), for the cure of dumbness, p. 1 66, for the restoration of an eye, p. 244, to procure the death of a hated saint, p. 204. It sometimes lasted for three days, and was then called tredan (pp. 36, 69, 235), a loan from the Latin triduana. The lenten fasts of Moses and Jesus, each lasting for forty nights, are mentioned in pp. 3?, 42, 234. For the benefits of fasting coupled with prayer, see Adamndris Second Vision, Revue Celtique xii. 432-438.
Prayer\ for this there are no less than six native Irish vocables, attach, aurgaiss, dubart, ernaigthe, guide, itge, and one loanword, diprecoit. Prayer is addressed to God, p. 271, to Christ, pp. 279, 282, 283, to the saints, pp. 17, 35, 80, and is made on our behalf by them and the martyrs, pp. 163, 274. The prayer of a hundred believers is said to be equivalent to a recitation of the Martyrology, p. 273. The Irish used at least three postures in their worship, viz., kneeling on both knees, kneeling with the arms stretched out in a cross, and prostration. Ere Nascai (p. 130) prayed (standing upright ?) in water2 with a tie round his neck. Prayers, as well as curses, were most effective when the right hand was employed. See p. xxiv supra, and p. 200 infra. Genuflexion is twice mentioned, pp. 12, 154, and in the poem printed supra, p. xxiv, Oengus is said to have made three hundred every night.
1 See Maine's Early History of Institutions, pp. 39, 297.
2 So S. CuSberht, bishop of Lindisfarne, in the sea, Vita c. 10.
THE NOTES. xlix
Austerities. — It is hard to say whether Irish saints or Indian yogis practised the cruelest austerities. Many of them are described in Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore, p. cviii, and in Cuimmin's poem, Zeitschr. fur celtische Philologie, i. 62-66. In the present work the strangest are ascribed to Findchu, who used to lie the first night with every corpse that was brought to his church for burial, and at other times sat suspended by a sickle in each of his armpits (p. 246). Ciaran of Saiger's bolster was of stone (p. 88). Columb cille's broth was made of nettles (p. 146). Flagellation is mentioned in p. 280, as practised by Oengus himself. Ite kept a stag-beetle to pierce her side (p. 42), and Fursa transferred to his own stomach the devouring reptile which Maignenn had entertained in his belly (p. 44). The story of Scothme sleeping with two maidens (p. 40) tends to prove the existence in Ireland of an ascetic practice favoured by an early Christian sect and by Robert d'Arbrissel the founder of Fontevrault.1
Pilgrimage. — The Irish passion for pilgrimage lasted from the sixth to at least the ninth century. The subject is well dealt with in the Gaelic Life of St. Columba, Lismore Lives^ 11. 698-720, and in Plummer's Baeda II. 170. In the present work we read not only of pilgrimages to Glastonbury and Rome, but to places in Ireland, such as Ferns and Rathen. Pilgrimage to Mael- ruain's grave is suggested in p. 26. But the great religious migration from Ireland to the Continent, which prevailed in the eighth and following centuries, was viewed with disfavour by Maelruain and the sages (sruithi) whom he consulted.2
Collection and ivorsJiip of Relics. — Relics were not only worn on the person, but were essential to the consecration of churches, and the practice of gathering them is here illustrated by the story of Onchu and Maedoc (p. 70), the tale of Patrick's leper, Comlach, p. 204, and the account of Adamnan's collection (p. 210). They were sometimes enshrined in gold (p. 20). Special notice is taken of the relics of Saints Peter and Paul (pp. 46, 220), Thomas (p. 166), Martin (p. 144), Patrick (p. 204), Columb cille (p. 1 56), and the reciter of the Martyrology (p. 274). A special feast of holy relics is fixed at Oct. I ; but it is not clear from the scholium in p. 220, where this feast was celebrated. The relics 'consecrated to Michael ' (p. 12), may have been the contents of a reliquary in the monastery of Tallaght.
Worship of Crosses. — This seems implied in the story about Hua Suanaig's cross (p. 466), and in the poem cited supra, p. xxiv, §§ 2, 4. With the 'cloister behind the circle of crosses'
1 See further H. Achelis, Virgines subintrodtictae, Leipzig, 1902. - See the Rule, cited by Reeves, Cttldees, p. 91. OENGUS. d
\ v PREFACE.
compare the circular device in H. J. Lawlor's Chapters on the Book of Mulling, p. 167. Signing a banquet ' with the cross of God and Eusebius ' is mentioned in p. 210.
(b) Superstitions and Folklore.
Idolatry (idoladrad) is referred to in p. 74, in the case of the Roman virgin Juliana ; and the Gaulish idol from whose priest S. Martin was saved is mentioned in p. 288, But these are foreign instances. The oldest evidence that the Irish wor shipped idols (iduld) is contained in S. Patrick's Confession, Book of Armagh, fo. 24b. In the curious passage cited from Ft infra p. 1 86, an Irish idol, Cermand Cestach, worshipped at Clogher,. is described as being a gilded stone. Compare the accounts of Cenn (or Crom) Cruaich, in the Tripartite Life, p. 90, and the Dindsenchas, nos. 85, 149. His twelve sub-gods were probably fetish-stones, and the persistence of stone- worship in Ireland is proved by the expression ail adrada ' rock of adoration ' in the Brehon Laws, iv. 146, 1. I6.1 Other superstitions, which obviously originated in the times of savage heathenism, are exemplified by the three stories of impregnation — the birth of Ciaran of Saiger from a star (p. 86) ; that of Finan Camm from a golden salmon2 (p. 112): that of Baithin from a sprig of cress, semine virili cooperta (p. 134). As to the origin of such stories from an early theory of conception, see Dr. J. G. Frazer, in the Fortnightly Review for September, 1905, pp. 455-457. Here, too, may be mentioned the cure of leprosy by the blood of innocent children (p. 46) : the tale of Fuinche the Rough and her miraculous dive under Lough Erne (p. 50) when she emerged, like Glaucus, covered with shells and seaweed :3 the story of Li-ban (or Muirgein) the mermaid (p. 52) caught in a fisherman's net : the legends about S. Brigit4 (pp. 64, 66), especially the incident of the column of fire flaming from her head : the legend of Sillan of the deadly Hair (p. 206) : the prevention of decay by healing (*>., magical) herbs (p. 246) : the exchange of diseases (p. 4) :
1 As to the worship of stones (generally conical) in Greece, Phoenicia, etc., see Frazer, Pausanias, V. 318, 319. As to stone-worship by the pagan Arabs, see Sale's Koran, p. 15. Rock-worship in Iceland, Landn. 2, 12.
2 The Norsemen also had tales of men born of fishes, see S. Bugge, The Home of the Eddie Poems, p. 113, note i. The Irish story is slightly toned down in Cod. Salmant. col. 305 : Conceptio autem illius ita facta est. Vidit enim mater ejus piscem de auro rubicundo volantem ab ortu solis, et quod intravit per os ejus in ventrem, et de illo Concepit.
3 See The Republic of Plato, Bk. x, c. 1 1 : a'XXa Se 7jy>os7re$v jccVat, oVrpea re KOI <f)vKia KOI Trerpas, /c.r.X.
* The incidents in the Lives of S. Brigit, which tend to show that she took the place of an ancient goddess of fire, are collected in the preface to Three Middle-Irish Homilies, Calcutta, 1877.
THE NOTES. li
the exchange of names in token of brotherly union (p. 224), a practice which Captain Cook found in Tahiti, and which was also common among North-American Indians : the belief in shape- shifting evidenced by the tale of Rfoc and Drusticc, p. 238n.1
Such superstitions may well have existed in a society where infants were exposed (p. 180), children sacrificed,2 and women driven to battle3 (p. 210). The strange thing is that they have been recorded in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, by scribes who presumably believed what they wrote down. The raids of the Vikings, the Anglo-Norman invasion, arid the constant inter-tribal wars account for some, but not for all of the deterioration of the mediaeval Gaels. Christiani nomine^ re pagani, as S. Bernard, without much exaggeration, says of the contemporary Irish in his life of Malachi O'Morgair.
Six or seven other bits of folklore may now be briefly mentioned. The weekdays on which the earth, sun, moon, and man were respectively created (p. 2), derived of course from Genesis, c. I : the introduction of wheat, rye and bees into Ireland (p. 112): the church and tree which could not be found, though from the plain the tree was seen and the bell was heard (p. 130) : the wondrous yew of Mughna (p. 258) : the bird bewailing one saint and singing to another for a hundred and fifty years (pp. 56, 158) : the unboilable ducks of St. Colman's church (p. 228): the effect of an undeserved curse (p. 154) : the Devil's knees a rebours (p. 154;: the road-demon (p. 222): the nurse of the Fians (p. 112): the practice of giving names to a child from words that were uttered or events which occurred on or about its birthday (Fechin, p. 48, Mo-ling, p. 150, Gillan, p. 220, Molua mac ochae, p. 180, Cuimmin, p. 242). Examples in the Mabinogion of names so given are Pryderi, Math vab Mathonwy, Dylan Eilton, Llew law gyffes, Taliesin. And every scholar will remember the origin ascribed to the name 'O&vcrev? ' man of wrath,' in the Odyssey xix. 406-409.*
(c) Legal Antiquities.
The symbolical sod. — Sods, like branches, are used as symbols in the transfer of land,5 and in p. 13, the archangel Michael casts a sod from heaven to Maelruain as a sign that he might acquire
1 See further Coir Anmann, in Irische Texte III. 354, 372, 376.
2 Secern/ II. 86.
3 See as to Germanic women, even in the Viking era, S. Bugge. The Home of the Eddie Poems, p. 189.
1 So Euripides took his name from his birth on the day that the battle of Salamis was fought on the Euripus, Thes. Pal. hib. II. 83. 5 See J. Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthiimer, 1854, s. 112.
lii PREFACE.
property at Tallaght Compare the seagod Triton's gift to the Argonaut Euphemos of a clod of Lybian earth.
The four chief laws (cana) of Ireland : said (p. 210) to be: not to kill clerics, not to kill women, not to steal kine, not to work on Sunday. The sanctions are not mentioned.
The honour-price of a provincial king, p. 88. The Irish word enedand, rendered by ' honour-price,' literally means ' face-plate,' and is a compound of enech ' face,' ' honour,' and eland borrowed from the Low-Latin planta * tabula plana, asser,' Ducange. That a gold plate the size of the face was anciently given as compensation for insult to a king has been proved by Zimmer in Kuhn's Zeitschr. xxxvi. 426.
The punishment of expulsion from the tribe is inflicted (p. 466) for murdering persons under a saint's protection. A man so expelled was called ecland ' clanless,' from the negative prefix an- and eland, borrowed (like Cymr. plant) from Lat. planta}
The punishment of death by a hill-fire. — This, according to the legend in p. 98, was inflicted upon a perjured harlot. Her unchastity, rather than her perjury, was the crime. Thus in the Battle of Cnucha, LU. 4ib, Murni's father, finding her pregnant, told his people to burn her (asberlfria muntir a breoad], and in the tale of Core mac Lugdach (LL. 287^7) it is said of the Gaels of Alba : ' it was (their) custom at first that any damsel who indulged in lust contrary to her compact should be burnt.'2
Having thus described the manuscripts on which the present edition of the Martyrology is founded : noticed its author : considered the characteristics of the language as bearing on the date of its composition : explained the metre in which it is written : given some account of its contents ; and indicated the passages in the Irish prefaces and scholia which throw light on mediaeval religious practices, superstitions, folklore, and legal antiquities, I have now to express my thanks to the Council of the Henry Bradshaw Society for printing so costly and trouble some a book, and thus helping the young School of Irish Learning in its effort to promote the study of the ancient Irish language and literature. Lastly, my heartiest thanks are due to Professor Strachan and the Rev. Charles Plummer, for reading proofs and making corrections and valuable suggestions.
W. S.
15, GRENVILLE PLACE, LONDON, S.W. October 16, 1905.
1 As to the Arabian kholcta, see Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage, 1893, p. 49.
- Cf. Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, II. 660, 663.
FELIRE OENGUSSO CELI DE.
MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS THE CULDEE.
OENGUS,
DA REMFOCUL.
I.
LEBAR BRECC.
P. 75a.. Cethardai condagar da cech elathain .i. locc 7 aimser 7 persa 7 fath airicc.
T S fisid1 cid armad locc conesta artus, 7 aimser isin luce thanaisi, •*• 7 persa. isin tres luce, 7 fath airicc in fine.
T S aire is locc artus, ar is fri c •*• .1. primluic, 7 cadus doibside.
cathardu 7 edatsi domiditer luicc
Fri rfgu 7 tuathu d\du domiditer aimsera. Locc tanaisse do suidib.
Persa. immorro isin tress luce, ar is a heclazs no a tuaith aircthid ca^a helathan.
Tucait post, ara frith fath remtechtais dona filedaib archena meretrix.2
No d\du sechim na fellsam fil and .i. locc artus, ar is corpdai locc. Aimsear isfn locc tanaisse, ar is nemchorpdai. P^sa isin tress luce,, ar fs 6 churp 7 nemchurp doairis. Fath airic di< d£rit..
No is ord airic chrutai na ndul fil and .i. Locc artus, ar is dia mairt dorignead talum. Aimser isin luce ihanatsz, ar is dia cetain dorfgned grian 7 escai, 7 is friu-side domiditer aimsera. P^fsa isin tress luce, ar is dia haine dorigned in duine. Tucait immorro- fo dera,. ar is dia sathazVn ros-bendach Dia na duile 7 ro faillsig fath a n-airicc.
T S hi immorro aimser i ndernai Oengus3 in Felire .i. aimser ** Aeda Ordnige mate Neill Frassaig, ar is e ro gab rige n-Erenn
1 leg..fissi.
2 This passage is corrupt and obscure. Possibly it is a mutilated allusion to Boethius' Consolation, where Philosophia calls the Muses scenicas meretriculas.
* In marg. Aengus immorro M yEngoband, M Oiblein, M Fidrui, M Diarmuta, M Ainmirech, M Cellair, M Oengw^a, M Natsluaig, M Coelbuid, M Cruindbad^ai,. M Ech^<r/4 Cobai.
( 3 )
TWO IRISH PREFACES.
I.
THE SPECKLED BOOK.
Four things are required by every work of art, to wit, a Place and a Time, an Author and a Cause of invention.
It is worth knowing why Place should be required at the beginning, and Time in the second place, and Author in the third place, and Cause of invention in fine.
This is why Place is foremost, because it is by cities and churches that places (i.e. chief places) are estimated ; and there is reverence to them.
By kings and peoples, then, Times are estimated. The second place is to these.
Author, however, in the third place, for of the Church or of the laity is the inventor of every work of art.
Cause afterwards, for cause of precedence has been found by the poets . . .
Or then it is the following of the philosophers that is there, to wit, Place foremost, for Place is corporeal. Time in the second place, for it is incorporeal. Author in the third place, for he consists of body and non-body. Cause of invention, then, sicut dixit.
Or it is the order of inventing the creation of the elements that is there. Place foremost, for 'tis on a Tuesday that the earth was made. Time in the second place, for 'tis on a Wednesday that sun and moon were made, and by them times are estimated. Author in the third place, for 'tis on a Friday that man was made. Cause, however, at the end, for 'tis on a Saturday that God blessed the elements and manifested the cause of their invention.
Now this is the time at which Oengus1 composed the Martyrology, to wit, the time of Aed the Dignified, son of Niall
1 Oengus, now, son of Oengoba, son of Oiblen, son of Fidrue, son of Diarmait, son of Ainmire, son of Cellar, son of Oengus, son of Natsluaig. son of Crundbadrai, son of Eochaid Coba.
B 2
4 FELIRE OENGUSSO. REMFOCUL.
i ndiaid Dondchuda m^zc Domnaill, uair ticc Oeng&s isin broluch thoisiuch in FelzVi le bas Dondchuda.
Do Fothud na Canoine immorro ro taispen Qcngus artus in Felire dia ndechaid Aed [for] sluaiged Duin Chuair hi cocrich Mide 7 Laigen, 7 dia ndechutar clerig Erenn lais im Chonnmach comorba Patraicc. Ocus is for in sluagad sin ro saertha clerig Erenn ar fecht 7 sluagad, ar is e Fothad na Canoine rue in mbreith dia ro saertha eculsa Erenn, am^zY atbert :
Eclas1 De bif, • leic2 dii anas3 n-ai,
bid4 a cert for leth,5 • feib as dech6 ro bai,7
Cech firmanach fil8 • for a chubus glon,9 dond10 eclat's dian dir11 • gnid12 amat cech mog.
Cech dilmain iar sin • fll cen rzcht, cen reir,13 cet14 cia theis15 fri baig • Aeda nair16 mate N^ill.17
Is hi ind riaguil18 chert • sech ni m6r19 ni becc,20 fognad each D6 mog21 • cen on is cen ecc.22
Eclas De bii.
Ro saer tra Aed Ordnige eculsa Erenn j a clerchiu for sluaiged osin immach. Ro thaispen di^ Fothud cetul na canoine 7 cetul na cosaite do Oengz/j, 7 daronsat a n-6entaid23 annsin, 7 ros-bennach each dib elathain aroile 7 forfacsat ratha imda for intii nos-gebad cu menic in Felire. Hit e em inso ratha in Felire, am*?/ ata isin broluch deghdinach don Felire fessin.
TS fissid &\du cia aiste triasin ridernad in Felire. Ni anse: ^ Rindard. Caide em aichne rinnairde ? Ni anse : se sillaeba in each cethrumthain 7 .xii. isin lethrand .xx.iiii. immorro isin rand chomlan, et si sit plus minusue24 error est (is pudar). Recomarc immorro .i. desilltf^ach ina rennaib, is fuire side
daroine 6eng^^ in Felire, 7 for tri gneib didu .i. for reid rindaird (.i. for rinnai[r]d dd n-ard) 7 for rinnaird tri n-ard 7 for rinnaird .iiii. n-ard.
|
1 Eclas LB. Eglas R2. inas R*. * bid LB. « |
2 leic Z#. leig T?2. 3 «V ZZ., nas Z.5. leath LB. « deach Z^. 7 robui Z^. |
|||
|
8 fil LB. L. |
fial ^. fail ZZ. |
• nglan LB. glan T?2. |
10 don LB. |
|
|
dind ZZ. |
11 dir LB. |
12 gnid LB. |
13 reV LB. |
'< ceat Z^. |
|
15 theis LB. |
dig ZZ. |
16 mair LB.R1. |
nair ZZ. |
17 neill LB. |
|
ne"il R*. |
18 in riaguil ZZ. |
in riagail Z^ |
. ind riaghuil |
R2. 19 mor |
|
LB. *• |
bee LB. LL. |
21 a mod ZZ. |
a mhog Z.5. |
a mogh T?2. dia |
|
mogh Z. |
22 ec Z£. |
28 oentaig ^ |
r^B. 24 /< |
^/ mmus ue Z^. |
MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS. PREFACE I. 5
the Showery, — for 'tis he that got the kingship of Ireland after Donnchad, son of Domnall, — since Oengus enters on the first prologue of the Martyrology at Donnchad's death.
Now unto Fothuth of the Canon Oengus first showed the Martyrology, when Aed had gone on the hosting of Dun Cuair in the border of Meath and Leinster, and when the clerics of Ireland had gone with him, including Conmach, St. Patrick's successor. And 'tis on that hosting that the clerics of Ireland were freed from expedition and hosting, for 'tis Fothuth of the Canon that delivered the judgment by which Ireland's churches were freed, as he said :
" The Church of living God, leave to her what is hers, let her right be apart as best it (ever) has been.
" Every true monk that is, be it on his pure conscience, for the Church to which it is due, let him work like any slave.
" Every freeman then, who is without (monastic) rule, without obedience, is allowed to go to the battle of noble Aed son of Niall.
" This is the right regulation, neither great nor small, let every slave of God1 serve without fault and without sin."2
So Aed the Dignified freed the Churches of Ireland and her clergy from hosting thenceforward. Fothuth then showed to Oengus the Song of the Canon and the Song of the Complaint ; and they made their union there, and each of them blest the other's work of art, and they left many graces on him who should recite the Martyrology often. These truly are the graces of the Martyrology, as is (set forth) in the final prologue (the epilogue) of the Martyrology itself.1"'
It is worth knowing, then, in what metre the Martyrology has been composed. Easy (to say). Rindard. What is the characteristic of rinnard ? Easy (to say). Six syllables in every fourth part and twelve in the half-quatrain, twenty- four in the complete quatrain, and if there be more or less it is an error. Recomarc, now, that is, disyllabic in its line- endings. 'Tis in this (metre) that Oengus composed the Martyr ology, and in three kinds, namely, in smooth Rinnard (i.e. in Rinnard with two end-rhymes), and in Rinnard with three end- rhymes, and in Rinnard with four end-rhyrnes.
1 De mog = mug De = Cymr. meudwy. " Other copies of this poem
are in LL. 149% L. and R-.\ 3 See infra, epilogue 11. 113-120, 149-224.
6 FELIRE OENGUSSO. REMFOCUL.
Rinnard da n-ard cetamus inso, ut Beccan mac Cula dz'xz/, no is e Erurach Indse Moire :
Diarmait maith mac Cerbaill, * can aige1 cen laice,2 ni ro chluine meirlech * a eirlech, a traite.
Ocus amtf/Y atbert Oeng?/j beos :
For \ta\aind mis Marta * nid mordai fna nguide, Senan, Moinend, Myse, • Dabid Chille muine.
Rinnard immorro tri n-ard inso :
Fland tendalach Temrach, • tendrig Fotla feraind, otha anall do menaimm3 • isi a chland do-gegaind.4
Ocus amait atbeft Oengus beos :
Re sil dalach doine • toided in ri remain, luid fo recht, ard «rail, • Crist i \ta\aind enair.
Rindard .iiii. n-ard inso, ut Fothz///z na Canoine dz'xz/ :
Aed ordnige Obaig5 • for6 flaith Banba bledig, coich is ferr im falaig7 * ina Ectoir Ailig.8
Ocus zmail atbert Oengus :
Lassar greine aine, * apstol9 }Lrenn uaige, Patraic cu meit mile, * rop di'tiu diar truaige.
Loccus hums artis10 Cuil Bendchuir a Muig Reicheat, hi Crich Hua Failge arai thin^scetail, hi Cluain Eidnech immorro a ermor, hi Tamlachtu Libren a forbu uile, ut alii.
P^rsa d6 6eng«j m^c Oengoband mate Oeiblen, do muintir Clz^z/za fiidnech.
I N-amsir Chobthaig Choeilbreag.
T S he in fochund : fecht dolluid Oeng«j do Chuil Bennch?/^> a •*• Muig Rechet,11 con^j-facca lige and, 7 ba Ian do ainglib \\.er neam 7 lar uasin lige. co ro iarfaig-sium de sacurt na cille, cia ro adnocht isin lige ucut ? Senoir12 truag ro bui isin baile, ol in sacurt. Cia maith dognid, ol Oeng^. Nis-faicinnse a maith sunnraid,13 ol in sacurt.
1 can aide LB. - laige LB. 3 domuinim LB.
4 .i. doga (leg. dogaind ?) 5 obaid (.i. o Liss Obaig agaid inagaid
fri hOilech) LB. G or LB. 1 leg. folaid. 8 oilig LB.
9 aspo/ LB. 10 Loc em c\tus dond ^lathain si, R2.
11 Isi immorro a tuc^zV. Fecht dorala Oengus ona disert im-Mumain do Chuil Bennchuir i cnch Hua Failgi do gabail Maelruain o Tamlachtain do anmcharait, R2. 12 Araile athlaech R2. 13 Ni faicinnse nach
maith do denam do, R2.
MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS. PREFACE L ^
Rinnard with two end-rhymes, in the first place, is this, as Beccan son of Cula said — or it is Erurach (?) of Inis M6r :
" Good Diarmait son of Cairell : sing a chief without slack ness ; no robber would turn aside1 his slaughter, his quickness."
And Oengus also said :
" On the calends of March, not haughty are they at prayer to them — Senan, Moinenn, Moses, David of Cell Muine."
Now Rinnard of three end-rhymes is this :
" Fland the fiery of Tara, stern king of the land of Fotla, henceforward I opine his is the clan I would choose."
And as Oengus also said :
" Before men's multitudinous race let the preeminent King lead : Christ on the calends of January underwent the Law — high requirement ! "
Rinnard of four end-rhymes is this, as Fothuth of the Canon said :
" Aed the Dignified of Obach, on the monsterful realm of Banba, who is better about quarrel (?) than the Hector of Ailech ? "
And as Oengus said :
" Flame of a splendid sun, apostle of virginal Erin, may Patrick, with many thousands, be a shelter to our wretchedness ! "
The Place of this work of art is Cuil Bennchuir in Mag Rechet, in the territory of Hui Failgi, as regards its commence ment : in Cluain Eidnech, however, the greater part of it : in Tamlachtu Libren the completion of it all, as some say.
Its Author was Oengus son of Oengoba, son of Oiblen, of the community of Cluain Eidnech.
In the Time of Cobthach Coelbreg (it was composed).
This is the Cause. Once Oengus went to Cuil Bennchor in Mag Rechet : he saw a grave there, and all between heaven and the ground over the grave was full of angels. So he asked the priest of the church : " Who has been buried in yonder grave ? " " A wretched old man who was in the place," says the priest. " What good used he to do ? " says Oengus. " I used not to see any special good done by him," says the priest.
ro chh'tine for ro chldinea.
8 . FELIRE OENGUSSO. REMFOCUL.
Cia r6i \\.er dognid, ol Oengus. Noeim in domain do thuirem, ol in sacart, doneoch ba cumain lais dib, fo lige 7 fo ergi, ama// ba be*s do athloechaib in domain. A mo De nime, ol Oengus, cip e dogneth1 tria filidecht tn'lig moltai dona noemaib ro pu mor2 a 16g do intan is for in athlaech tanic rath na meti ucut
Ro thinscain tra. Oengus a felire indsin. Daroine didu a medonr[a]ind i Cluain Eidnech. Hi Tamlachtu (.i. isin aith) \mmorro ro forbad .i. i n-aimsir Moelruain doronta he.
.xx.iiii. silltfba in each rand, et si sit plus minusue sicut praedz'ctus error est, e*tc.
II.
LAUD 6 10.
fo. 6oa, i] Ceathardai connagar do cech eladhain .i. loc 7 persa 7 aimsir 7 GUIS scribind. At cuintesta daw dond eladain-sea.
Loc em chitius di Cuil Bendchair im-Maig Rechet i Cnch Ua-Failge, 7 ind aith i Tamlachtain i ndernad da.no ni de. t Cluain Eidnech a thindscetal tmmorro, i Cuil Bendchair, 7 a forba issind aith i Tamlachta.
^ immorro mac Oengobann mzc Oeblein m/c Fidhrui mz'c Diarmata m/c Ainmire mzc Cellair mzc Oengz^a mzc Natsluaig mz'c Caelbaid mz'c Cruind[badrai], mz'c Eochach Coba, mz'c Luigdech, mz'c Rossa, mz'c Imchatho, mz'c Feidlimthe, mz'c Cais, mzc Fiachrach Araide, a quo Dail n-Araide, nomenat&r in
IS hi immorro aimsir i ndernad .i. aimsir Aeda Oirdnide, ar isse" ro gab rigi r\-lL\rend andiaid Donnchada, ar tic Oeng^j issin broluch toisech ind felire tar bas Donnchada.
IS i immorro in chuis. Fecht n-6en dorala [6 Disiurt Oengusa] im-Mumaio co Cuil Bennchoir oc techt do gabail Mailruain i Tamlachtain d'anmcharait. ^^acca adhnacul issin chill 7 ba Ian do ainglib uassa co nem. Co ro iarfaig Oeng^ do sacart na cilli, cia ro adhnacht and.
dogenad R*. 2 roba^ maith R2.
MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS. PREFACE II. 9
"What thing at all used he to do?" says Oengus. " He recounted the saints of the world," says the priest, " such of them as he remembered, on lying down and getting up, as is the custom of all ex-laymen."1 " O my God of heaven," said Oengus, " whosoever should compose in poetry a song of praise for the saints, great were his guerdon therefor, since grace of yon greatness came upon the ex-layman." i So Oengus began his Martyrology there. The middle part of it he composed in Cluain Eidnech. In Tamlachtu, however (i.e. in the kiln), it was completed, to wit, in the time of (abbot) Maelruain it was composed.
Four-and-twenty syllables in every quatrain, and if there be more or less, as aforesaid, it is an error, etc.
II.
LAUD 610.
Four things are required by every work of art, to wit, a Place, an Author, a Time and a Cause of writing. They should, then, be required by this work of art.
Place, forsooth, first for it, Cuil Bennchoir in Mag Rechet in the district of Hui Failgi, and in the kiln at Tamlachtu some of it was composed. Now its beginning was in Cluain Eidnech, in Cuil Bennchoir, and its completion in the kiln at Tamlachtu.
Now the Author is named Oengus, son of Oengoba, son of Oeblen, son of Fidrue, son of Diarmait, son of Ainmire, son of Cellar, son of Oengus, son of Natsluaig, son of Coelbad, son of Crund-badrai, son of Eochaid Coba, son of Lugaid, son of Ross, son of Imchath, son of Feidlimid, son of Cass, son of Fiachra Araide, a quo Dal n-Araide.
This, then, is the Time at which it was composed, to wit, the time of Aed the Dignified, for 'tis he that took the realm of Ireland after Donnchad, for Oengus enters on the first prologue of the Martyrology after Donnchad's death.
Now this is the Cause. Once upon a time he fared from Disert Oengusa in Munster to Cuil Bennchuir, going to get Maelruain in Tamlachtu for (his) soulfriend.2 And he saw a grave in the church, and (all) over it was full of angels up to heaven. So Oengus asked the priest of the church, " who has been buried there ? "
1 i.e. laymen who became monks in their old age. - i.e. spiritual director.
io FELIRE OENGUSSO. REMFOCUL.
Araile athlaech truag boi issin baile, ar in sacart.
Cia maith dorigne side, ar
Ni faicmis emh, ar in sacart, r\ach maith do denam do, acht n6eim in domain do thuirim fo lighi 7 fo eirgi, amal is bes athlaech.
A De nime, ar Aengus, cip e dogneth tririg molta do n6ebaib ro pad mor a log do.
Co ro thinnscain ian/m in Felire annsin fochetpir. f Tamlachtain immorro ro forbad.
Ceithri sillaeba fichet f cech rand, dia mbe" plus no minus is mell.
Do Fothud na Canone immorro ro thaispen Oengus arto in Feileire dia ndechaid ar s!6iged Duin Chuair, 7 cleirig Heirenn immaille fris1 im Chonnmach comarba Patraic, 7 is don tsluaiged sirr ro soertha cleirig ar sluaiged, ar isse" Fothad rue in rhbreith dia ro soerad ecailsi Eir^w, am«/ isb^rt feisin :
fo. 6oa, 2] Eclas De bi ' leic di anas n-ai
bith a cert {or leth * feib is dech ro b6i. Cach firmanach fil • for a chubus glan dond eclais diantir2 • gnid amat cac/i mod.3 Cach dilmain iarsein * fil cen recht cen reir, cet cia thes fria baig • Aeda [nair maic Neill]. [Is hi in riagol chert • sech ni mor] ni bee, foghnad each De4 mogh • cen on is cen ecc.5
Ecclas.
Ro thaispen dano Cetal na Canoine 7 Cetal na Cosaite do Aeng&j-, 7 doronsat a n-aentaig annsin, 7 ro bendach each dib eladhain araile, 7 forfacsat rathac imdai forinti non toscebad7 co mink.8 Ata9 imda em ratha ind Feilire chitus, amat t//^'rmithei issin broluch deidenach.
T N t-Aeng^^- sin tra ro bo mogh umal inissel10 do Dia he", •*- 7 iss<§ no chanad a thsalmu11 amlaid seo cein boi ic Disiurt Oeng^a .i. 1. isind abhaind 7 gat imma bragait i cengul don bile .1. da.no fon mbile feissin,12 7 .1. ina reicles.
1 i coicrich Mide 7 Laigen, 7 dia ndechadar clerigh "Erenn lais 7?e. 2 i.e., diond-dir. 3 leg. mog. 4 dia L. 5 ecc L. 6 ratha ratha L. 7 for -dos-gebad. 8 7 foracsat ratha imda for inti no mebraigfed 7 no gebad co minicc in Feleri, R-. 9 At /?2. 10 ropa fognomaid maith do Dia
7 robo mog umal inisel e, R*. " na tri c<fectu v?2. 12 fo bun in bile R*.
MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS. PREFACE II. 11
" A certain wretched ex-layman who dwelt in the place," says the priest
" What good has he done ? " says Oengus.
" Truly we used not to see," says the priest, " any good done by him, save that on lying down and rising up he recounted the saints of the world, as is the custom of ex-laymen."
" O God of heaven," says Oengus, " whoso should make a song of praise for the saints, great would be his guerdon ! "
So then he began the Martyrology at once. Howbeit in Tamlachtu it was completed.
Four and twenty syllables in every quatrain, and if there be more or less, it is an error.
To Fothuth of the Canon, now, Oengus first showed the Martyrology, when he went on the hosting of Dun Cuair with Ireland's clerics along with him, including Connmach, a suc cessor of S. Patrick ; and it is on that hosting that clerics were freed from hosting, for it is Fothuth that passed the judgment whereby the churches of Ireland were freed, as he himself said :
" The Church of living God, leave to her what is hers : let her right be apart as best it has been.
" Every true monk that is, be it on his pure conscience, for the church to which it is due let him work like any slave.
" Every freeman then, who is without (monastic) rule, without obedience, is allowed to go to the battle of noble Aed son of Niall.
" This is the right regulation, neither great nor small, let every slave of God serve without fault and without sin."
Then he showed to Oengus the Song of the Canon and the Song of the Complaint, and they made their union there, and each of them blessed the other's work of art, and they left many graces on him who should recite it often.
Many, indeed, are the graces of the Martyrology, as is recounted in the last prologue (the epilogue).
That Oengus, then, was an humble, lowly servant to God, and 'tis he that used to chant his psalms thus, while he was at Di'sert Oengusso, to wit, fifty in the river with a withe round his neck and tied to the tree ; fifty under the tree, and fifty in his cell.
12 FELIRE OENGUSSO. REMFOCUL.
Ro indsaig dano iartain co Maelruain cor-ragbad he d'anm- charait.1
IS e immorro in Maelruain sin ro chind na gebad ferand i Tamlachtain noco ligabad Michel fnsa raibe a charadrad [conid triasin cairde] sin atat minda cossecartha do Michel i Tamlachtain. Eccmaing tra fecht n-6en iarsin cindiud sin eipisdil 7 fot imalle fria do chur de nim co Mael ruain, cor- ragbad ferann, conid annsin iarz/m ro gabad Tamlachta.
Doruacht iarsin Aengus ir-richt moghad chuice, 7 ro erb Maelruain fris frestal na hatha. Ro gab-sz/m sin do laim, 7 issed indisterann co ro fas in fochand triana folt ar met ind fognuma.
Dorala didu fecht ann mac becc oc l&giunn a tsalm la Mael ruain, co ridech^zV/ in c\eirec/i fecht n-6en don eclais, co ro erb don mac mebmgud a aiccepta comad erlam fna thaispenad ara chind. Elaid immorro in mac, or nar' tsail an ni sin, 7 iss^ dorala he don aith co hAeng^j. larfaigis ian/m de cid romboi. Indissid2 in mac do. Tair ille, ar Aeng?/^, 7 tabair3 do chenn ior mo glun 7 cotail. Dorigned amlaid. Eirgis in m#c iarsin. Is ann at&ert Aengus : geib t'aiccept, a mzc. Geibid iar^m in mac ni ba huilliu innas in t-aiccept. Ca raet sin, a mz'c ? ar Aeng^/5". In leighind uili ocum, ar in mac. Imthig, ar Aengus, 7 na hataim cia r^^-taraill. Teit ian/m in m^c 7 taispenaid in t-aiccept do Maelruain, 7 rathaigis Maelruain co raibe aice ni bud mo, 7 iarfaigis de, cia do taraill, a mtc. Ni fetar, ar in m^c. Brec 6m sin, ar an cleirec/i, abbair co luath. Ni fetar, ar in m#c, acht domrala don aith 7 do chotlus 7 mo chend ior glun fir na hatha. Is fir sin, ar se. Is e Aengz/j in tairngertaig sin, 7 tic amach co hopunn iarsin, 7 ni thuc acht lethassa imme, 7 ro soich in n-aith. Maith, a Aengais, ar se, nir bo choir duit ar rhbrecad, uair ba cora sinde ic foghnam duitsiu inna thussa duindne.
Rue Maelruain leis he iarsin co n-onoir moir, 7 slechtais Aengz^ do, 7 dogniat a n-aentaig in n-aentaig in nim 7 i \a\main. Conid amlaid sin iarz/m ro foillsiged Oengz/^ do Maelruain.
1 do thabart anmcairdesa do, Rz. 2 indissig L. innissid R*.
3 cuir R*.
MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS. PREFACE II. 13
Thereafter he repaired to Maelruain that he might get him as a soulfriend.
Now it is that Maelruain who decided that he would not take land in Tamlachtu until Michael (the Archangel), with whom he had a friendship, should take it ; and because of that agreement there are in Tamlachtu relics consecrated to Michael. Now once upon a time after that decision it happened that an epistle, together with a sod, was cast from heaven to Maelruain (as a token) that he might take land ; and thus then Tamlachtu has been acquired.
Afterwards Oengus, in guise of a slave, came to him, and Maelruain entrusted to Oengus the care of the (corn)kiln. He took that in hand, and this is related, that the cornblades grew through his hair by reason of the greatness of the service.1
So it happened there that a little boy was studying his psalms with Maelruain, and once upon a time the cleric went to the church and charged the boy to learn his lesson by heart, so that he might be ready to repeat it before him. The boy, however, runs away, for he did not expect that thing, and he came to the kiln to Oengus. So Oengus asked him " what was the matter ? " The boy tells him. " Come hither," says Oengus, " and put thy head on my knee, and sleep." Thus was it done. Afterwards the boy arose. Then said Oengus : " Repeat thy lesson, my son." So the boy says somewhat more than the lesson. " What is that thing, my son ? " says Oengus. " I have the whole lection," says the boy. " Depart," says Oengus, " and confess not whom thou hast visited." So the boy goes and sets forth the lesson to Maelruain, and Maelruain perceived that he had somewhat more, and asked him : " Whom didst thou visit, my son ? " "I know not," says the boy. " That is a lie indeed," says the cleric, " tell me quickly." " I know not," says the boy, " but I came to the kiln, and I fell asleep with my head on the knee of the kiln-man." " That is true," says Maelruain : " that man is Oengus the prophesied one ! " And then he comes forth suddenly and brought only one shoe on him, and sought the kiln. " Well, O Oengus," says he, " it was not meet for thee to lie unto us, for meeter were it for us to be serving thee than thou us."
Then Maelruain brought Oengus with him with great honour, and Oengus knelt to him, and they make their union the union in heaven and on earth. So thus it was then that Oengus was revealed to Maelruain.
1 So of Niall : ind fidbad roas triana chend LL. 33b, 38.
14 FELIRE OENGUSSO. REMFOCUL.
TS fisid [f. 6ob, i] didu cia hernail aisti tnasa lidernad in •*• Feilire. Ni ansa. Rindaird. Is fisid &\du caide aithne rindairde feissin. Ni ansa. S£ sillaeba ina cethramnaib, 7 a do de"c ina lethrannaib 7 a cethair .xx. ina rannaib chomlana, et si sit plus mimmie is pudur.
Recpmarc immorro ina r[e]annaib, re chomraic .i. desilWach. Frisin1 email airigthi didu don aisti seo dianad ainm reidrindard [.i. rinnard] da n-ard, doroine Aengus in Feilire, 7 tri gnee fuirri side .i. reidrindard da n-ard, ut est Becan dzxzt, no inde ruirech2 Indsi [Moire] d/'x/t :
Diarmait maith mac Orbaill * can aige gan laice, ni ro cluine meirlech • a eirrlech a traite.
Ocus amat asbert Aengus :
For ca\aind mis Marta • nid morda fria riguidhi, Senan, Moinend, Moysi, Da&fd Cilli Muine.
Ocus reidrindard tri n-ard, ut Mael Mura. Fothna cecinit :
Fland tendalach Temrach • tendri Fodla feraind otha anall dommuinim • isi a chland do geogaind. (.i. do togfaind.)
Ocus amat asbert Aengus : Re sil da\ach daine 7 rl.
Rindard ceit/^ri n-ard immorro, amal asb^rt Foth^th na Canoine :
Aed oirdnige Obhaig • for flaith Banba bl[a]idig cuich is ferr im falaid • ina Ec^/air Ailig.
The preface in R2 ends thus : —
Amat asb^rt Aeugus :
Lasar grfae aine • apst^/ ^Lrenn 6ige Ydtric go meit mt7e ' rop ditiu diar \.roige.
Ata fidrad cubaid etir tosaichib na rann 7 denV/zb na rann eli.
Taided remainn sligid saethr^^ * co saeraib sil Gaidil gairg cosin ndaigthech n-oibind n-e/thrach * ro gab fine IJchdach aird.
1 leg. F^rsin?
2 sic L. leg. in t-Eruirech ?
MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS. PREFACE II. 15
It is worth knowing what kind of metre the Martyrology was composed in. Easy (to say :) Rinnard. It is worth knowing also how to recognize rinnard itself. Easy (to say:) six syllables in (each of) its quarters, and twelve in (each of) its half-quatrains, and twenty-four in its complete quatrains, and if there be more or less, it is an error.
Recomarc, then, in the desinences of its lines (rechomraic, i.e. disyllabic). In the particular kind of this metre named "smooth rinnard" Oengus has composed the Martyrology. And there are three species of it, namely, "smooth rinnard" i.e. rinnard with (only) two end-rhymes, as Becan said — or it is Erurech (?) of Inis Mor.
" Good Diarmait son of Cerball, sing the chief without slack ness : no robber would turn aside his slaughter, his quickness."
And as Oengus said :
" On the calends of March, not haughty are they at prayer to them, Senan, Moinenn, Moses, David of Cell Muine."
And smooth rinnard with three end-rhymes, as Mael-Maire of Fathain sang :
" Flann the fiery of Tara, stern king of the land of Fotla, henceforward I opine his is the clan I would choose."
And as Oengus said :
" Before men's multitudinous race," etc.
Rinnard with four end-rhymes, now, as Fothuth of the Canon said :
" Aed the Dignified of Obach, on the realm of monsterful Banba: who is better about quarrel (?) than the Hector of Ailech?"
As Oengus said : —
Flame of a splendid sun • apostle of virginal Erin,
Patrick with many thousands be a shelter to our wretchedness !
There is an harmonious juncture between the beginnings of the quatrains and the ends of the other (i.e. preceding) quatrains.
" Let him lead on the toilsome way before us, with the nobles of fierce Goedel's race, to the goodly delightful ethereal mansion which the tribe of high Eochaid has taken."
( 17 )
FELIRE OENGUSSO CELI THE MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS THE CULDEE.
IN PROLACH.
I. CEN a Christ mo labrai,1 *P a choimmdiu2 secht
nime !
dom-berthar3 buaid lere, a ri grene gile !
5. A gelgrian forosnai* riched co meit noibe, a ri conic5 aingliu, a choimmdiu na ndoine6 !
9. A choimmdiu na ndoine/ a ri firen8 firmaith, condom-roib each solad9 ar molad dot rigraid.10
13. Do rigrad11 no molur,12 ol13 is tu mo ruiri,14 doralus ar m'airi greschi15 occa riguidi.143
17. Guidiu17 itge doaib,18
romm-ain a ndo-rogbus,19 cain popul col-ligdath, ind20 rigrad im-rordus.21
THE PROLOGUE.
i. Sain, O Christ, my speech, O Lord of the seven heavens !. Let the guerdon of devotion be given to me, O King of the bright sun !
5. O bright Sun that illu- minest heaven with much of holiness ! O King that rulest angels, O Lord of men !
9. O Lord of men, O King righteous, truly-good, let every profit be mine for (my) praise of thy kingfolk.
13. Thy kingfolk whom I praise, for 'tis Thou art my sovran, I have borne in mind constancy in beseeching them.
17. I pray a prayer to them : may what I have taken protect me — the fair people with beauty, the king-folk I have commemorated.
1 labra R\ F. LB. C. labrad L. E. 2 choimdi R*. choimdiu L.
choimde LB. 3 romberthar R2. LB. rofersam L. rofeasam F. 4 fornosna LB. forosnai L. forosnaidh F. forosna R*. 5 conic LB. onic C. F. Rz. 6 naniiini L. nandoene F. nandoine /P. LB. 7 nandoine R*. LB. nandaine F. nanduine L. 8 firen L. firian R*. LB. . • do solad L. solud C. B. soludh F. 10 do rigrad LB. L. dot rigraid R*. LB. do righradh F.
11 sic L. LB. rigraid/?2. 12 sic C, romolur B. L. nomolarZZ?. romolar F. " ar /.. ar B. T?2. ol R2. LB. 14 ar ruri B. ar ruire R*-. F.
mo ruire LB. 15 g/vscha L. B. grescha F. B. 16 oc do guide LB.
ican guide R-. icanguide L. ican guidhe F. l" sic L. LB. Guide RL.
ls doib LB. doib L. doaib R\ doaibh F. 19 aratrogbus LB. andorog- bus Z. F. aritrogbus R2. C. aratraghbus B. 20 inn L. mR-.LB..
21 sic LB. L. Imrordos R1. E. Imrordussa R2.
OENGUS. C
iS
FEL1RE OENGUSSO. IN PROLACH.
21. IMrordus1 in rigraid immon rig 6s nelaib,2 aill uas laithib ligdaib,8 aill fo4 dfanaib deraib.
25. Dom-rorbae domm theti, ol am triamain trogsa,5 iar timnaib ind6 rigsa rith ro raith7 in slogsa.
29. Ro selgatar rotu8
nad soreid9 la baethu, riana10 techt don rigu ro damnatar11 saethu.
33. Ro sonnta12 fiad13 slogaib, ote1* cona mbrigaib, ro bruithea15 i ndalaib, ro orta16 fiad rigaib.
37. Ro ringthea17 co r-rindib ro tenntea18 ir-rannaib,19 ro loiscthea20 uas tentib for luachthetib21 lannaib.
41. Ro laithea22 for biastaib la berga cen enech,23 sroiglithea,24 seol calad25 tresna surnu26 tened.
21. I have commemorated the kingfolk around the King above the clouds, some upon beautiful (feast) days, others under vehement tears.
25. May it profit me for my comfort, for I am a wretched weary one, the course which this host has run according to the commandments of this King !
29. They have hewed out roads which fools deem not easy : before going to the Kingdom they have suffered tribulations.
33. They have been impaled before hosts, and they with t. their virtues : they have been crushed in assemblies, they have been slain before kings.
37. They have been torn with spearpoints : they have been racked in pieces : they have been burnt over fires, on white-hot gridirons.
41. They have been cast to wild beasts by merciless ruf fians : they were scourged — a hard course — through the fiery furnaces.
1 Imrordos E. Imrordussa R2. - uas nelaib R2. uas nelaib LB.
uas nelltf^ F. 3 ligaib R>. L. B. lighaibh H. lith dath C. ligdaib LB. 4 uas JF. LB. H. F. fo. L. 5 truagsa L. 6 in R*. LB. H. ind L.
" rith ra reith L. ro reith B. ritroich LB. H. rith r : raith R1. ritroith C. 8 rout L. rotu J&. LB. rotu B. s nad soreid R-. LB. nadar reith Z.
10 iarna R1. LB. riana L. n sic R*. ro damdatar L. LB. -datur F.
ro damatar B. 12 sic LB. ro suindtea L. Ro suinntea F.
Ro sondta R-. 13 fia C. " ote* L. ate H. ite F. 15 sic LB.
ro bruithe A'2. H. ro bruthea L. robruitib C. 16 horta L. H. F.
17 roringte E. Rorringthea L. Roringthe F. Rz. LB. 18 sic LB.
ratennib R1. rotendib C. ro tinmit L. F. ro teinnib H. rotenmhe B. 19 hir- rannaib F. iarrandaib R*. iarrannaib LB. irrannaib L. 20 ro loiscthe LB. F. 21 luachthithib L. luachtetib R2. LB. luachtheibh B. luachteitibh H. 22 Ro Idithe R2. LB. Ro latha L. Ro lathe F. 23 cin einech E.
24 sroigle E. ** ro sraiglithea calad L. ro sraiglithe calad F. sroiglithe seol calad IB. sroig (lithea) seolcalad R-. 26 sic L. LB. F. surna R-.
MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS. THE PROLOGUE.
45. Rouctha1 a carcraib2 i3 crochaib a sennad, in tsloig4 occa sinnad5 iarna foebraib fennad.0
49. Failti fri cech n-oidid7 asa fortren8 fiam, fodamtis9 an croan mar do riagaib10 ri'am.
53. Ro damnatar11 uili
nuallsa,12 mor ngnim
tigaile,
ar13 firthuillem14 rhbuide fri fssu mace Maire.
57. Mairg15 each roda-ortsomlc ro lamair a nguinsom ! iarna saethur17 gairsom18 it e19 cen aes muirsom.20
6 1. Morng inna ngente21 bithgolait il-loscud, sloig Issu cen escur22 it failti iar coscur.
45. They have been brought out of dungeons (and) after wards (put) on crosses : the hosts reviling them after flaying them with sword-edges.
49. Joyous at every violent death, whose horror is exces sive ; many tortures before this they used to endure (with) splendid valour.
53. They all have suffered — this lamentable thing — a great deed of valour — for a true addition of reward from J-esus Son of Mary.
57. Woe worth every one who has killed them, who has dared to slay them ! after their short labour they are without age like Him.
61. The great kings of the pagans wail ever in burning : the hosts of Jesus without a fall, they are joyous after triumph.
1 Do uctha R*. LB. H. Do ucthta C. Ro uctha L. Ro thuctha F. 2 i carcraib R1. F. LB. a carccraib L. a carcraib C. i carcraibh H. * a. C. * it sloig R*. LB. it sloigh H. na sloig E. na sloigh F.
5 sonnad L. sindad RL. sinnad LB. 6 sic LB. fendad L.
" noidig (?) R-. naidigh F. ndidid L. noedig LB. naidid C. noighidh E. noidhidh B. 8 fortren R1. LB. forthren L. ft fotomtis L.
fodaimdis R1. C. B. fodamdis F. fodamtis LB. 10 riaghaib B, R*. L.
riagaib C. rigaib R*. L. LB. righaibh F. n Rodamatar JP. LB.
Rodamdatar Z. Rodamhdatar F. 12 nuallsa R*. LB. (for an-nuall-sa :
cf. noib-sa Ml. 69a 20). na sluaig L. man. rec. nollsa F. 13 sic C.
B. R*. L. a LB. » firthuillem B. 15 Mairc Rt. L. '« rodanortsam L. rodosortsum C. B. rotasortsum F. rodus ortsam LB. I: saethar L. LB. saothar E. soethor A52. 18 ngorsum R1. L. LB. gairsom B. L. 19 ate LB. ite C. R2. ite Z. 20 cenasmairsium R-. canismvirsom L. cenesmarsium LB. -mairsium B. cenesmairson C. 2I Morrig innagente L. Morrigu nahgennti LB. Morrigu nangennte C. - ^nasccur B. L. an easgra E.
C 2
20
FELIRE OENGUSSO. PROLACH.
65. In choraid1 las-rorta,2 co n-imbud a nduire, arrochiuir3 a n-aine, it fassa4 a nduine.
69. It e iarna saethaib5 ro siachtatar rige, ar-ruama cen tade,6 it bordgala7 mile.8
73. Milid9 roda10-crochsat ceptar11 bailci bressa,12 a13 pi'ana it brassa, al-lige ni14 fessa.
77. Nimthat15 milid Issu, rancatar treib toidlig, dia n-eiss a cuirp chraibdig im-memraib10 oir oiblig.
8 1. It aidbli fiad scoraib rigrad Christ iar fuilib, rig domain iar tolaib ro firscaich17 ar stiidib.18
85. Hiruath ocus Pilait fua19 ro ches ar Fiada, fororcennta20 a rhbriga,21 bithmarait22 a pi'ana.
65. The sinners with the abundance of their cruelty, by whom they have been slain, their splendour has perished, their strongholds are desolate.
69. These are they who after their afflictions have reached the Kingdom : their graveyards unconcealed, they are bordgala (?) of thousands.
73. The soldiers who have crucified them, though they were strong in fight, their pains they are great, their graves are unknown.
77. Not so are Jesu's soldiers : they have reached a radiant homestead : after them their devout bodies (are) in shrines of sparkling gold.
8 1. They are grand before multitudes, Christ's kingfolk after their wounds : the kings of the world after (having had their) desires, it has truly passed away from these.
85. Herod and Pilate under whom our Lord had suffered, their powers have been ended, their pains abide for ever.
1 coraith C. choraith B, choraid L. coraid LB. 2 lasorta LB.
8 sie LB, B. arrochur L. 4 fassaig L. fasa LB. fasa F. 5 iarnar- rethib B. L. 6 tathe L. taide LB. taidhe B. ' bortgala L. 8 id bordgala a mile F. 9 Milith C. 10 rodos L. rotus LB. rodus C. H.
rodas B. F* n ciabdar L. cebtar LB. H. cebatar C. ciabtar E.
cebdar F. 12 bailc a mbressa E. bailee bressa LB. B. (bresa E.). bailee f;;zbreassa F. (the \m subscribed). 13 hi H. 14 ni L. ni H. C. B. nit
LB. 1S Nimthat L. C. Nimtat LB. 1G membraid L. 1T ro irscaich L. rofirscaich LB. ro firscaith F. ro firsgaith B. 18 iar suidhibh F.
19 las L. fa LB. F. 20 fororcnait L. forforcennta LB. forfwcenntae F. fororcendta C. fororchennta B: 21 fororcnait a mbag -a B. ambrigu LB.
ambngha F. ambriga B. ambaga L. « bithmairit F. bithmairait C.
MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS. PROLOGUE.
21
89. Issu ce1 ro crochad,-
ar Coimmdiu, ar ngerat,- for cech3 nduil dorosat 1/4 asreracht.
is
rrr
93. Cerbo5 n in domuin
Nabcodon ruad roglach, 6 bebais6 lia7 theglach a ordan dorodbad.8
97. Nimtha SenPhol manach,9 asa dithrub dubach, fria noebainm10 cor-rorath sentae cech slog11 subach.
101. Ce12 ro[d] selaig claideb13 lohen1* bauptaist15 rhbri-
gach,16
for bith che ro morad,, i flaith De ro rigad.
105. Hiruath cona rigain, las-rort17 co h'n ilach, nir atgab,18 reim calad, talam na nein ninach.
109. Noebainm19 Petair apstail atsluindi20 cech senad, nicon21 fiu22 la credal dorogra23 ainm24 Neran.25
89. Jesus, though He has been crucified, our Lord, our champion, over every element that He had created has arisen a perfect king.
93. Though Nebuchadnez zar the red, very valiant, was king of the world, since he departed with his household his sovranty has been destroyed.
97. Not so is Old-Paul the monk, whose hermitage is gloomy : by his holy name with great grace every happy host was sained.
101. Though a sword has cut down mighty John the Baptist, in the world here he has been magnified, in God's realm he has been crowned.
105. Herod with his queen, by whom he has been slain with many paeans, neither earth nor delightful (?) heaven has received him — a hard course !
109. The holy name of Apostle Peter, every synod in vokes it : to a believer it seems unworthy that he should utter Nero's name.
2 ngerat H. B. C. L. ngerait LB. F. each L. H, C. F. cech LB. 4 ocgri L.
1 cia L. ce LB. F. ge C. ar gcoimde ar ngerait E.
oghri C. F. og ri B. LB. 5 ciarbo L. c 6m bebais L. o bebais F. LB. " la F. laa C. s dorodbath L. dorogbadh F. 9 Nimtha in sruith seanpol L. Nimthci senphol B. F. 10 noemanim C. noemanim B. noemainm L. noemainim LB. » cachsluagZ-. cec/t slog LB. l- Ce LB, Cia L. Cidh E. 13 sic LB. claidhem H. cloideam E. claideth F. cloideb L. 14 iohen LB, coin E. L. F. 15 baubtais E. '« brigach LB. H. E.
mbrigach B. l- sic L. las ort LB. H. 18 athgab L. LB. atgab B.
19 Noebanim L. Naemainim LB. noebainm C. Naemhainm F. 20 sic
C. asluindi L. atsluinne LB. atsluinde F. 21 nocon L. nocon LB. F. 22 nochonfiu L. F. ™ dogara LB. F. dorogra L. 24 ainim LB.
25 ainm nerad L. ainim neran LB. ainim nerain C. ainm nearan F.
FELIRE OENGUSSO. PROLACH.
113. Neir ni fess a lige,
deithbir ni bo1 chretair ; in bith col-lin phopuil2 moraith lechtan Petair.
II/. Primsuide do Nerain3 i n-airenuch phene,* Pol apstol, ard age,5 adreith6 richid7 rede.
121. Ro scaich8 ordan Neran,9 is erchian 6 suidiu, ainm10 Foil, buan atogu,11 atta son12 for tuiliu.
125. Ciarbu13tholgdaeurigain15 Phelait16 a mur chluime,17 arrochiuir a haine 6 luid18 il-loc n-uire.
129. Nimtha19 Maire Ingen, inmain a dun20 daingen, sfl n-Adaim, ard n-imbel,21 morthus22 la slog n-aingel.
nad
133. Cfaptar28 ailli24 ili maicc20 Deic dric20
charam,27
nicon28 fess na29 romar ainm naich30 he31 for
talam.
113. Nero, not known is his grave : 'tis just, he was not godly : the world with a multi tude of people magnifies Peter's little tomb.
117. (There is) a chief seat for Nero in the forefront of pain : Paul the Apostle — lofty pillar — attains the plains of heaven.
121. Nero's sovranty has vanished : it is very far from this : Paul's name — lasting the choice — this is a-flowring (like a tide).
125. Though haughty was Pilate's queen out of abundance of down, her splendour has vanished since she went into a place of mould.
129. Not so is Mary the Virgin, beloved is her strong fortress : Adam's race, a lofty ambit, magnifies her, with a host of angels.
133. Though fair and many were the sons of wrathful Decius whom we love not, neither known nor very great is the name of any of them on earth.
1 bu L, - sic LB. popal L. 3 neran L. nerainn LB. nerann F. 4 i n-aerinuch phene L. in airiniuch phene C. in airenach peine LB. in airiunach pene B. 5 aighe E. aige F. aige LB. (i adreid C.
adreth F. L. adredh B. adreth LB. ' riched, L. LB. F. 8 Roscaith E. Roscaich L. F. Roscaich C. 9 nerain L. E. B. nerainn LB. F.
neraind C. 10 sic L. ainim LB. C. n buain in togu Z. buan toga
LB. F. 12 som B. L. san F. son B. 1{ Ciapu L. Ciarba LB.
Ciarbo H. C. E. F. » tolccda C. tolga E. 15 rigan E. 1(i pelait
E. F. pilait H. " chlaine L. 18 otluid C. LB. o luid E. B. L. C.
odluid F. 19 Nimta LB. NimthaZ. -° attun L. andunZZ'. adun^'. indun C. -1 nimei L. imel LB. F. - morsus B. L. -3 Ciabdar L. C. 24 aidbli Z. alle F. aille LB. ™ meic Z. F. mec LB. 2(i drecc Z. dric LB. dricc F. -7 sic Z. nad celam LB. nad cealam E. nad caram B. 28 sic C. B.L. nocon LB. 29 nach B. L. nac& C. 3o nach Z. C.
:n anim na LB. innim nach ior talam B. • a nim nach for talam C.
MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS. PROLOGUE.
137. Ni'mtha1 Ciric maccan, a morscel ro sretha,'-5' ba cain geim3 a chatha, ro h'n burgu4 betha.5
141. Bid ar menmae uile
arthuaith De,(! nad celam,7 is torbe8 dian promam,9 in prolach10 doberam.11
145. Is brec12 brig in domain do chach13 dia rhbi14 baile, is si16 in brig uile sere mor do Mace Maire.10
149. Cit17 m6ir rig in domain18 a nduine19 adchfssiu,20 fo21 chet cet^it uaisliu amsain isil Issu.
153. Cfat isliu" fiad-3 dainib24 co ndelmaim a rigretha," bit-0 aird27 uas dind
flatha28 tria bithu na rh betha.29
157. In bith truag hi taarn00 is31 duthain a rfge, in ri conic32 airigliu, is33 coimmdiu cech34 thire.
137. Not so is Quiricus the child : great tales of him have been set forth : fair was the shout of his battle : it has rilled the burghs of the world.
141. Let the minds of us all be for God's people whom we hide not : 'tis a profit if we prove it, the prologue which we give.
145. The might of the world is a lie to every one whose abode it is. This is all the might, great love for Mary's Son.
149. Though great are the world's kings, whose strong holds thou seest, a hundred hundred times nobler are Jesu's lowly soldiers.
153. Though they are lowlier before men, with the noise of their crying, they will be high above the Kingdom's height through ages of ages.
157. The wretched world wherein we are, transitory is its kingdom : the King that ruleth angels is lord of every land.
1 sic L. Nimta LB. - a morsceol nosretha LB. ro sretha B. a
morsceoil ro sretha F. :! buaid ceim cain LB. F. 4 burcu B. LB.
burgcu C. brugu L. F. 5 in betha LB. in beatha F. G a thuath
de L. C. a tuatha de F. " nf chelam L. * torba L. B. tarba LB. F. 9 dia promam B. dia fromam L. dianpromam LB. diupromum F. 10 brolach L. C. brolluch F. prolach LB. an brolac B. u aiberam L. 12 breg L. breg B. brie LB. brecc F. " neoch LB. F. H dianad C. dianid F. dianit LB. dianod B. 15 is hi F. 16 Muire LB. 17 Cid LB. Cit C. 18 Cid mor righe an domhuin F. 19 sic LB. aduini L. a duine B.
20 adachisiu F. -'fa/.. -- isle LB. \s\\u B.L. 23 la L. fia LB. F. 24 la duiniu B. L. fia dainib LB. fia dhainib F. -5 con delmuim a
gretha E. a ngrethai LB. a ngrethas F. 26 biatt B. L. bid LB.
bidh F. •-'• ard LB. 2« latha L. -» betha LB. F. B. bithi na
bethu C. ™ itaam L. ataimne F. ataiinne B. hi taimne LB.
atamne C. :u as LB. 32 onic L. conicc F. 3* in LB. F. 'M each L.
F ELI RE OENGUSSO. PROLACH.
161. Cid1 a tir i taam* ata saldbri saigthi,3 di neurt4 De, deilm
sochlae, fil and dun5 ro phraidchi.6
165. Atbath borg7 tromm
Temra
la tairthim a flathe,8 col-lm corad9 sruithe maraid Ard mor Machae.10
169. Ro muchad, mor tirbaid,11 miad Loiguiri roglaig,12 ainm Patraic an aurdairc13 ata som for forbairt.14
173. Fororbairt15 in chretem, maraid co de rhbratha,16 genti bidbaid bertar,17 m trebtar18 ar-ratha.
177. Rath Chruachan ro
scaichi,19
la hAilill gein rhbuada,20 cain ordan uas flathib fil i cathir Chluana.
161. Even (in) the land where we are, whose wicked ones are wealthy: of God's might — a famous sound, — there is one who has preached to us.
165. Tara's mighty burgh perished at the death of her princes : with a multitude of venerable champions the great Height of Machae (Armagh) abides.
169. Right valiant Loiguire's pride has been quenched — great the anguish ; Patrick's name, splendid, famous, this is on increase.
173. The Faith has grown : it will abide till Doomsday: guilty pagans who are carried off, their raths are not dwelt in.
177. Rathcroghan, it has vanished with Ailill offspring of victory : fair the sovranty over princes that there is in the monastery of Clonmacnois.
1 Ced L. • natire hi taimne LB. i taimne B. a taimne F.
3 saigthe C. L. saighthe B. F. saigte LB. 4 neort B. L. nert LB.
nirt F. 5 dund aim C. duinn and B. dun arfti F. G ro pridchai 1.
dun nann roptechthe L. ropritcha LB. ro pridchai B. ro praitcha F. 7 brog L. broc LB, brocc F. 8 la taeirthim a flathae F. la tairthim
a flaithi L. la taerthim a flatha LB. taeirthim B. 9 corath L. C. col-lin choir chuairt B. L. 10 machae F. machi L. macha LB. n sic LB. tairbaid L. 12 loglaig L. roghlaigh F. 13 sic C. erdraicc L.
aurdraic LB. u ata som forforbairt L. ata son fororbairt LB. ata san
for forbairt F. The consonantal rhyme — roglaig forpairt — is faulty, like tercphit, martir, Sept. 8, taithlech aithmet, Sep. 19, tichtu, Issu Epil. 394, 396. 15 for forbairt LB. F. Forforbairt L. C. 1G sic L. dea bratha
LB. F. la bratha C. 17 berrthair L. bmair B. b^thairZ^.
18 threbthair L. trebthair LB. 1!1 roscaiche L. LB. ro scaithi E.
ro scaichi B. 20 buada LB.
MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS. PROLOG LE.
181. Classa buana bindi
im Chiaran ci at-coi's,1 la sessilbe mbuada Chluana moir maicc5 NoYs.3
181. Choirs lasting, melo dious, around Ciaran, if thou shouldst mention him : with the victorious tumult of great Clonmacnois.
185. Nipta ni bas dilsiu4
seirc D6 ma daronaid,5 adrad in rig nelaig, is de ni beth6 bronaig.
189. Borg7 Aillinne uallach atbath lia slog8 mbagach,J is mor Brigit buadach, is cain10 a rruam dalach.
193. Borg11 Emna ro tetha,12 acht mairte13 a clocha : is ruam14 iarthair betha Glenn dalach da locha.
197. Loichet15 laindrech16
ligach
Fernae fortren17 eobail, ni mair in drong uabair raith Becce18 maicc Eogain.
201. Cid na deccaid19 uili bretha in rig20 cetnai ? ni mair Becc21 mace
Eogain, maraid22Aed mace Setnai.
185. Ye have nothing that is dearer than the love of God, if ye can achieve it, adoration of the Cloudy King : 'tis thence ye will not be mournful.
189. Aillenn's proud burgh has perished with its warlike host : great is victorious Brigit : fair is her multitudinous cemetery.
193. Emain's*burgh it hath vanished, save that its stones remain : the cemetery of the west of the world is multi tudinous Glendalough.
197. A lamp lucid (and) beautiful is Ferns the mighty, good-great : the proud throng in the rath of Becc son of Eogan abides not.
20 1. Why do not ye all see the judgments of the same King ? Becc son of Eogan abides not, Aed son of Setna abides.
1 ciatcoois F. ciatchois C. - mate no muc L. mec no muc C. 3 noois F. 4 Niptd m bas tilsiu L. Nimtha ni is diliu F. as dilsiu B. Nimta ni as diliu LB. 5 daronaib L. dorona C. dosronaid F. doronaid LB, G nibdir L.
nibet LB. nibdar F. 7 Brog L. Broc LB. Brocc F.
lia sluag C. lia slog LB. 9 bagach LB. 10 mor L.
Broc LB. Brocc F. l- ro tetha L. ro scaiche F. LB.
mairde LB. F. li ruaim LB. ruam B. L. 'roim C.
Loichet B. 1(i loinnrech E. lainrech L. lainnrech F.
18 sic B. raith Becce LB. raith Beice F. bece C. w decais L. dechais
B. dechaidAfr dechaid F. 20 Crist L. 21 be"cc C L. bee B. becc
LB. 22 mairid LB. F. maraid L.
la sluag L. F.
11 -Brog L.
13 mairit -ff.-Z.
14 Lochat L.
17 forthren L.
26
FELIRE OENGUSSO. PROLACH.
205. Senchathraig na ngente imma roerad1 rudrad,2 it fassa cen adrad, amail Lathrach Lugdach.
209. Ind locain ro gabtha3 dessib ocus trfrib,4 it ruama co ndalaib, co cetaib, co milib.
213. Ro milled in gentlecht5 ciarbo ligdae6 lethan, ro lin flaith De Athar nem, talam la trethan.
217. Tathunn7 ni as nessa8 ar ar suil salm sobail, de neurt De, dian medair,9 indiu deud10 domain.11
221. Donnchad dric ruad12
rogdae,13
no Bran buadach Berbae, ni beir dim14 sm'm15 lobrae athigid a m-memrae.
225. MaelRuain iarna goiri, grian mar desmaig Midi, occa lecht co nglaini icthair16 cnet cech17 cridi.
205., The old cities of the pagans, wherein ownership has been acquired by long use, they are waste without worship, like Lugaid's House-site.
209. The cells that have been taken by pairs and by trios, they are Romes with multitudes, with hundreds, with thousands.
213. Heathendom has been destroyed, though fair it was and wide-spread : the kingdom of God the Father has filled heaven, earth and sea.
217. We have something nearer before our eyes — a holy psalm — of God's virtue, a vehement saying, to-day at the world's end.
221. Donnchad the wrathful, ruddy, chosen, or victorious Bran of the Barrow, visiting their tombs takes not from me the weariness of weakness..
225. MaelRuain after his pious service, the great sun on Meath's south plain, at his grave with purity is healed the sigh of every heart.
1 imaroraid LB. F. ima rorad B. * ruadrac L. rudrad LB. F,
3 ro geibhtea F. rogabtha L. LB. 4 con dessib is tririb LB. co ndeisibh co triribh F. deissib 7 tririb L. 5 genntliucht LB. F. geintlecht L.
(' ciaba lighach L. ciabu ligach B. ciarbo ligda LB. ciarbo ligdha E. " Tathum LB. Tatham B. Tathunn F. Tathund L. 8 is nessu LB.
as nessu L. as nesa B. ° medair F. L. C. medar LB. meadhar B.
10 diaid L. deud LB. » in domain L. 12 dree ri L. 13 roglac B.
14 dinn B. H. 15 snim L. F. snim LB. 1G ictar L. icthar LB. icthur F. icthair C. 17 each Z. C.
MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS. PROLOGUE.
27
229. Is comiuir1 in Coiramdiu ce thuirtir2 a threta,3 bithtragaith4 a naimtea,5 bithmaraid0 a greta.7
233. In gormrfg ro muchtha, in Domnaill ro plagtha, in Chiarain ro rigtha, in Chronain ro martha.
237. Nas morslebe andaig1' ro tesctha co rinnib, doronta col-lece10 slebe11 donaib glinnib.
241. Ci'a ron-beth do-chirig-
thecht,12
cath fri13 Demon detlae, diar combair,14 ard age, maraid in Crist cetnae.
245. Cit10 uallaig rig talman i tlachtaib atl(i glainiu,17 atbelat18 iar tuiliu,19 teit each n'a n-arailiu.20
229, The Lord is equally just if his flocks are scrutinized : He ever minishes his foes, He ever magnifies his champions.
233. The famous kings have been stifled : the Domnalls have been plagued : the Ciarans have been crowned : the Cronans have been magnified.
237. The great mountains of evil have been cut down with spear-points : forthwith have mountains been made of the valleys.
241. Though we may have evil combating, a battle with the bold Devil ; to aid us, a lofty pillar, the same Christ remains.
245. Though haughty are earthly kings in robes that are brightest, they will perish after abundance, each goes before another.
249. In ri cain co ngoiri,21 fssu uas tuinn tuili,22 madgenair23 6 Main,24 maraid dianeis25 uili.
249. The fair King with piety, Jesus over a wave of flood — He was happily born of Mary — abides after them all.
1 comiuir L. LB. F. comiiur C. comdiuir E. comiuir MacF. condiur B. '2 tuirthi?;-" C. turtir L. thuirthir B. thuirter F. 3 a tretha F. a
threta L. a thre//^ LB. 4 bithtrogaid L. bithrogait LB. bithtraghait F. 5 naimtiu L. LB. naimdiu B. C. « bithmoraid L. bithmoraid B.
bithmarait F. ' gerta L. gertha LB. gertha C. F. 8 Ina C.
•' annaigh H. B. E. annaig C. 10 coleci LB. coleice F. n slebti LB. sleibhti^. sleibe^. sleibtiC./^. 12 docingecht B. C. L. docingtechta E. 1:< fria LB. fri C. E. u fortacht L. cobair C. B. cabhair F. combair LB. 15 sicC.fi.L. C'rtLB. 16 conL. \sLB. \snocoF. 1; conglaine^. OVfglainiZ,. congairiu Z~#. 18 atuelatZ. atfiadat LB. itfiadat^'atbelat/^. 19 tuile B 20 sic LB. araile L. 21 ngairiu LB. ngaire F. nglaine B. L. T- tuile L. tuiliu LB. ** nodgeinair L. madgenair L. B. magenair B. C. madngenair F. -4 Maire L. Muire LB. 25 daneis C. dianeis
L.B. dianeis L F.
28
FELIRE OENGUSSO. PROLACH.
253. Ro lenad nert Demuin cona dubsluag dignai, bithmaraid1 i n-uagai nert ruanaid ar rignai.
257. Cia resme2 fo a niindsom dorega3 a rannsom, ol ni tiamdae timsom ni emsither4 annsom.
261. Bad5 sonairt ar n-airle, ascnam anas dflsiu, arc issed as uaisliu caram7 uili Issu.
265. A Issu not-guidiu
ar e*cnairc na slogsa,8 do thol in maith morsa,9 a rimsom10 doronsa.
269. Doronsa do reirsiu, a Rf Sion sluagaig, ro bithbeo11 lat rigraid isin bithflaith buadaig !
273. Ro beosa12 fort laimsiu isind flaith i rhbfsiu ! bendacht cecha bordgal13 for t' ordan,14 a Issu !
277. A Issu con-ruidiur15 do rigrad10 do relad, iarsind urd do-chuatar cucut17 for18 nem nelach !
253. Weakened hath been the might of the Devil with his dark despicable host : ever abides in perfection the strong might of our King.
257. If we should run under His diadem, His part will come : since He is not slow (or) feebie, there will be no inability there.
261. Let our will be firm, let us strive after what is dearer : since 'tis this that is nobler, let us all love Jesus !
265. O Jesus I beseech Thee, because of the intercession of these hosts : (be) Thy desire this great good, their numbering may I be able to make !
269. May I do Thy will, O King of hostful Zion ! may I be for ever with Thy kingfolk in the eternal victorious kingdom !
273. May I be on Thy hand in the realm wherein Thou art ! A blessing of every bordgal (?) on Thy sovranty, O Jesus !
277. O Jesus, I profess (?) to manifest thy kingfolk accord ing to the order (in which) they have gone to Thee in cloudy heaven !
1 bithmairid F. - resmai B. L. rosme LB, F. roisme B. 3 dorigi L. C. B. dorige LB. dorighe F. 4 feimdebthar /.. femdibth^r LB.
feidmdibhtar F. but see the sigmatic subjunctive cona r-emset, LL. 287% n. 5 Bud LB. Bu C. Bidh F. 6 ol B. L. ' carum LB. caram B. L.
8 sluagsa L. •' marsa H. marsa B. F. 10 rimmsi H. armissi L.
arimisi LB. » sic LB. rombith beo B. L. 12 rotbeosa C. Rob
beosa L. Rot C. 13 cacha brotgail L. cecha bordgal LB. F.
14 hordan LB. thordon L. 15 sic LB. F. conroether L. conruidir B.
10 riglad C. 1T chuccut L. chucut LB. cucut C. cucot B. 18 co B. L.
MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS. PROLOGUE.
29
281. Ni fil isin bliadain,
a Christ, c£ no1 clunter, laithe isind alltar nach at-rised2 munter.
285. Is menann,3 a Ruiri,4 a Rf rimter5 flaithi, sluindfemmi col-luithi6 soerchaindlea cech7 laithi.
289. Ar lebrain nos-tuirfem fri nech for a n-iarair, regmi cen nach dichiul8 cech ndiriuch9 don blia dain.
293. Bid he corp ar n-aicde admat na ba10 tiamdae comlm caiptel coemdae fo lin laithe rhbliadnae.11
297. Arna b6 for crinniur12 do13 intliucht14 co saichi, cech15 caiptel col-luithi16 sloindfith17 feil cech18 laithi.19
301. Laithe na mis marsa
fris-reith20 in grian buansa, ar in sluaiged21 n-ansa ni bruifem an nuallsa.22
281. There is not in the year, O Christ, if Thou hearest, a day that a community would not come to Thee in the other world.
285. It is manifest, O Prince, O King (whose) lords are numbered, we will declare with swiftness each day's noble lights.
289. Our booklets we will search them, enquiring for every one : we will go with out any neglect right forward to the year.
293. This shall be the body of our structure, timber that will notbeobscure — a number of fair chapters equal to the number of the days of the year.
297. That there may not be falling to a bad understand ing, every chapter swiftly will declare every day's feast.
301. The days of these great months up which this lasting sun runneth, for this splendid multitude we will not forget to acclaim them.
1 ciano L. ceno F. ceni LB. 2 rissed L. risad LB. 3 menand L. LB. F. menenn H. 4 ruire E. LB. 5 rimther B. rimther L. LB. rimthar ff. See infra Ep. 46. 6 sloindfimni cen lothi L. sloinnfemne cin loithi H.
sloindfimni cen loti (.i. cen bailbe), B. sloinnfemne cin loithi F. sluinnfemne
B. 7 each L. C. 8 dichil L. dichel LB. dicheal B. diciul F. 9 ca<r/mdiriuch L. each direach C. 10 nab di /,. na bidh E. na bad F. 11 fo lin laithiu bliadhnae F. I2 sic L. F. for crindither LB. for crinniter H. for crinditer C. for crindur E. forcrindter.ff. 13 don B. H intliucht L. C. inntliucht B. indtliucht LB. 15 sic C. each L. gach E. 16 sruithe L. go loithi no gen luithi .i. gen bailbe E. colluithiu F. colluithe LB. colluite C. l" sloindfit L. sluinnfet LB. F. sluinnfid B. sluinnfed
C. sloinnfeid H. 18 a L. 19 Idithi H. 20 sic B. raith LB. F. H. 21 ar a sluagad LB. 22 brudfe inuallsa E. bruifem annualsa L
nuallsa B.
p£LIRE OENGUSSO. PRO LAC H.
305. Nona ocus fda,1 reim calne co fi'ri, fort2 margan co mbani bieit inna lini.
305. Nones and ides, a series of calends with truth, on thy margin with whiteness they shall be in their line.
309. Lilisiu3 do4 laithib it lebranaib le"rib, lilisiu5 iar h'nib col-leir donaib felib.0
313. Mani tuicce samlid7 ord fil for ar loidib, nod- dlomaim8 fi'ad dalaib9 is dallcheilliu10 doinib.11
309. Thou wilt follow the days in thy pious booklets : thou wilt follow according to writings the feasts assidu ously.
313. Unless thou understand thus the order that is on our lays, I declare it before assem blies, 'tis a blind direction to men.
317. Denam tormach n-eolais do12 intliucht co saichi :13 cech caiptel co luithi sluindfid14 feil cech laithi.15
321. Laithe na mis rigreine nim-foirsa10 a salland, diar loid17 arnap inmall, acht da se cain calland.
325. (5n challaind co alaili18 mm-fbirsa19 far setaib, acht coic caiptil uasail sescat ar trib20 cetaib.
317. Let us make an increase of guidance to a bad under standing : every chapter swiftly will declare each day's feast.
321. The days of the solar months, to sing them shall not delay me, except twice six fair calends, so that our lay may not be tedious.
325. From one New Year's Day to another nought shall delay me along paths, save five and sixty and three hundred noble chapters.
7 idse B. L. - for L. 3 Leissiu L. Lilessa LB. Lilesa C. B. Lilessu F. 4 dit L. 5 lilesa L. C. lilessai LB. liiesa F. liles B.
6 coleir dina feilib L. dina B. dona F. " Mani thuca samlaid L.
Maine tucai samlaid //. Mane tuice samlaid F. 8 nondlomaim L. C. H. nondlomhaim B. notlomaim LB. 9 nodlomaim fia dalaib F. 10 itall
celliu LBr. itall Grille H. it dall ceilliu F. itall celliu B. ' » duinib Z.
dainib F. 12 don B. 13 saiche Z. LB. F. 14 sluinnfet F. B sluinnficl LB. 15 cotarlam cen loithi | fo leith feil each laithi B. L. 16 ni fasirsa LB.
nimfoersa L. nimfoirfe B. nimfoirse .i. nim fuirgenn a radh no ni fil ann co himel .i. co deiriudh F. 1T laith B. L. laid LB. F. i8 araile F.
alaile LB. alailiu L. 1!) ni foirson LB. ni foirson C. nim foirson F.
nimfoersa L. 20 tri .c. aib L. F. .ccc.aib LB. trib B.
MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS. PROLOGUE.
329. Oc cuindgid1 na fe"le assa fortren2 taitnem tuir la fe"ge frithgnam col-leir ord na caiptel.
333. In t-ord inna caiptel cona 16idib3 lerib, is e ord iar li'nib file4 forsna felib.
337. Flaithemnoeb5na nduile,6 Crist mace Maire noibe,7 Issu inmain8 age, t6ided9 re sil doine.10
329. In seeking the feasts whose radiance is mighty search with diligent keenness11 indus triously the order of the chapters.
333. The order of the chap ters with their assiduous lays, 'tis this, according to writings, which is on the feastdays.
337. The holy prince of the elements, Christ Son of holy Mary, Jesus, beloved pillar, let Him lead on before the race of men.
1 cuingid C. L. cuinncid F. cuincidh B. cunchid LB. - forthren L. 3 llaither L. lasidib LB. laeigibh F. 4 fili Z. C. fuilet F.
5 Flaithim noeb L. Flaithem noem LB. 6 nanuile B. 7 muire
noeime LB. muire noeimhe F. maire noebe L. * inmaine L.
9 toidhet F. toied B. toided K*. LB. 10 duine L. doine LB. B.
11 lit. with diligence (Jritkgnant) of keenness (ftge).
JANUARY 1-4.]
( 33 )
FELIRE OENGUSSO CELI DE. THE MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS THE CULDEE.
Mi ENAIR.
A. Kalendis Januarii.
Re sfl dalach doine1 toided2 in ri remain ]uid fo recht, ard erail,3 Crist i callaind enair.4
B. iv. Nonas.
Esodir in t-epscop, abb5 ecailse ardae, Manchene6 an Airce/ Scothine mind Margae.8
C. Hi. Nonas.
Marmartrae Rodonis9 cona chleir, cain £sce, Fintan10 co feib uasle, Findlug11 derb Duin Blesce.12
D. Pridie Nonas.
Bas caid Aquilini co mbuidiri13 ba balcu,14 hi fuil Christ trea13 curpu docoemnachtar10 tlachtu.
JANUARY.
i. Before men's multitu dinous race let the pre-emi nent King lead ! Christ on January's calends underwent the Law, high the requirement !
2. Isidorus the bishop, abbot of a high church : splendid Manchene of Airec, Scothine, the diadem of Marge.
3. Rhodon's great martyr dom, with his train, a fair moon : Fintan with a long life of nobleness ; Findlug the sure, of Dun Ble"sce.
4. The pure death oi Aquilinus with a troop that was strongest : in Christ's blood by means of their (martyrised) bodies they had washed (their) robes.
taided /., LB. toied B.
arderail LB. ard erail
6 manchene A" F. L.
arrgge B. eirge B. LB.
Mommartra rodamais L.
1 dained C. ddine L. daine F. * taidhet F.
nard nerain /?'. nd.rd nerail L. nard narail C. F. ard erain E. * ienair F. 5 ap C.
mainchine L.LB. 7 airgge Rl argge L.
airge C. airci F. 8 mairce Rl. mairge F. 9 Mormartra rodanis H. C. roddnis B. Mor martra rodanis LB. F. Marmartra R\ 10 findlug R\ finntan H. F. » sic C. fintan /?'.
finnlug H. F. findlucch B. 12 duinlesci LB. dun blesce F. dun bleisce A'1, dunblesci H. dunbleisci L. dun bleisce C. duin blesce B. 13 combuidne L. 14 balcdu H. balccu L. 13 tria B. F. L.
16 docoemnagtar 7?1. docoemnacair L. -nacair B. rocaomnagair E. rochaemhnacar F. docoemnactar LB. dochoemhnichter H. docoimnactar C.
OENGUS. D
34
F&L1RE OENGUSSO.
[MI ENAIR.
E. Nonis.
Togairm Semeoin1 srotha co Crist, cruth ron-glea, ba cain-grian, greit2 nua, Ciar ingen Duib-rea.3
F. viii. ante Idus.
Raith coa4 rig, ran togae,5 Julian all0 hglaine, nf dlig sar, slan subae,7 bathes8 mar Maicc Maire.9
G. vii. ante Idus.
Martrae Luciani co slog mar ba di'xu,10 imrordus as11 huaisliu tossach corgais12 Issu.
A. vi. ante Idus.
Estecht13 Egemoni,14 epscop etlae ardae,15 Ercnat uag an orbae,1" Nechtan nar17 de Albae.18
5. The calling unto Christ of Simeon the sage — a form that may purify us : a fair sun, a fresh champion, was Ciar, daughter of Duib-re.
6. Ran to his King, right noble choice ! Julian, rock with purity: the great baptism ot Mary's Son — perfect gladness ! deserves not outrage.
7. The martyrdom of ,Luci- anus with a great host that was higher : I have com memorated what is nobler, the beginning of Jesu's Lent.
8. The departure of Egemo- nius, a bishop of high penance : Ercnait a virgin, splendid (her) heritage, noble Nechtan, from Alba.
B. v. ante Idus.
Aildi geill co riglaini10 20 gniiis rig ro radis,
ar
Faelan deoda digrais,- Felix find, Uitalis.
9. Beautiful hostages with purity, before the King whom thou hast mentioned : Faelan the godly, excellent, Felix the fair, Vital is.
1 semeon A'1, semioin F. 2 greid L. * -gleaa, nuaa, -reaa C.
4 co C. Rl. L. coa LB. 5 raith go a righ ran toghadh E. toga 7C1, Ly
LB. togha F. See infra Nov. 7. ° ba hail! A^1. ba hall H. ' suba R\ L. LB. F. 8 sic L. H. bathais B. F. baithis R\ baithes LB.
9 muire H. L. LB. ]0 sic B. dilsiu LB. F. dilsiu 1. dixiu L. dixu
Mac F. » is H. F. as C. 12 corguis /?'. 13 Etsecht A1. L. LB.
Kstecht F. " ecimoni LB. egimoni Rl* C. F. 15 arda Rl. ardda /.. airdse LB. ardde C. arda F. ™ orba L. LB. F. orbba R*. '• neir C. F. ner L. nair Rl. LB. 18 alba Rl. L. C. F. albas LB. 19 co nglaine F. co nglaine L. ••° fiad BL. 2I digrais A*1. L. LB. F.
JANUARY 10-14.] MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS.
35
C. iv. ante Idus.
Almini a n-itge1 nachan tecma2 drochrann, Mil it caid cain cathbarr, Diarmait Inse Clothrann.
10. We pray a prayer to them that an evil lot may not happen to us> chaste Miletus, a fair helmet, Diarmait of Inis Clothrann.
D. Hi. antejdus.
Croch in martir Phetair, cona sluag3 Ian gaile : a hEgipt,4 an5 subae, tanic Mace mar Maire.
ii. The cross of Peter Martyr, with his host full of valour: out of Egypt — splendid gladness ! came Mary's great Son.
E. Pridie Idus.
Martrae mar Muscenti cona chleir chain chlandaig,0 Crist as runa rindaid7 Laidcenn8 mace Baith9 Ban-
naig
10
F. Idibus.
A mbendacht ron-bia bale itge cen algis,11 Sulpic12 sochla suabais,13 Helair abb Pictauis.14
G. xix. cal. Febr.
Pais Gluceri15 deochain, diar fiadait ba sorcach, sruith1'5 Nolae17noeb sochlach Felix,18 Fland find fechtnach.
12. The great martyrdom of Moscentius, with his .fair prolific train ; Laidcenn, son of Baeth Bannach, declared the mysteries of Christ.
13. We shall have their blessing ! a strong prayer with out importunity : Sulpicius CSeverus) famous, delightful, (and) Hilary abbot of Poitou.
14. The passion of Deacon Glycerus ; to our Lord he was loving : Felix the elder of Nola : Fland fair (and) happy.
1 Ailmini itge L. Ailmne aitge C. A'lme itge ndichra LB. Ailme aitche ndichra F. - arnanteccma Rl. nachamtecma L. nacam tecma B.
nachintecma LB. nachan- C. 3 cosintluag R\ cosin sluag L. sasluag LB. 4 hegept C. heighipt F. 3 na under which is written Ian F.
6 clandaich C. clannaigh F. , ' as runu rindid f rinnaid .i. ro innis C. rindaig/7. asruna rinnaid R. as runaidh B. 8 Laicenn^?1. LaidgennZ. Laidcend LB. Ladcand F. ° baid/\ 10 bannaich C. " algais /?'. algais no conailgis C. alghis F. alges L. ailgis LB. I2 sothnge LB.
Sulpic suitgni F. sulpic soithnge C. 13 suabais R^. C. L. LB.
14 pichtadis R*. pectabis B. I3 sic C. R\ L. lucevi LB. F. 1G sruth R\ L. LB. ^ note LB. nola R>. L. F. 1S felix L. C. F. felic LB.
D 2
FELIRE OENGUSSO.
[MI ENAIR.
A. xviii. cat. Febr.
Foraith mar1 hgur rigalar, carais mar2 tromm tredan, in grian ban ban Muman Ite3 Chluana credal.4
15. She succoured many grievous diseases : she loved many severe fastings, the white sun of Munster's women, Ite the devout of Cluain.
B. xvii. cal. Febr.
Craibdig5 i feil Fursai6 frisrocabsat7 rige, tri8 mi'li, me'it buadae, for fichit mar9 mile.
C. xvi. cal. Febr.
Nos-molammar10 menicc fobith11 nidat12 calaid, lucht cessais13 cen chinaid i fe"il Ant6in manaig.
D. xv. cal. Febr.
Morad Petair apstail i rRoim, rad14 as15 dixu, lassin Hth as15 uaisliu bas16 mor mathar fssu.
E. xiv. cal. Febr.
Estecht17 Mairi,18 Marthae/9 coniugum nond-ali,20 lassin fe"il co soiri21 sen-Phoil22 cain co n-ani.
J 6. On the feast of Fursa the Pious there ascended to the Kingdom (of heaven), three thousands — greatness of vic tories — and a thousands.
score of great
17. We often praise them, because they are not hard, the crimeless folk that suffered on the feast of Antony the Monk.
1 8. The magnifying in Rome of the apostle Peter — a saying that is higher — at the festival that is nobler, the great death of Jesu's Mother.
19. The departure of Marius (and) Martha, conjugum^ whom thou invokest, on the noble feast of Old Paul fair with splendour.
1 Foraith mar C. foraith Mur /?». mor L. LB. F. 2 mar C. mor /?', L. LB. F. ' m'Ide L. ita C. ite F. 4 credail R\ L. creadhal F. credal LB. 5 craidbig R\ cradbig L. craibdig LB. 6 fursu F. 1 frisrocobsat R*. 8 noi R\ noe L. tri LB. teora F. ° mar 7?1. mor L. LB.
10 Nosmolomar L. » fobi R\ fobith L. LB. 12 nitat H. nidat R\ F. LB. nibdar .i. nibdat L. 1S roches C. cesais L. F. chesais H. 14 rem L. rad 7?'. LB. radh F. 15 is LB. F. ™ tasc R*. B. L. F. bas
LB. 17 sic L. F. Etsecht Rl. LB. ls maire Rl. F. muire L. LB.
19 is martha R. L. F. 20 coniugum nodnali Rl. sororum lazdri L. lazairii LB. lazari F. 21 noebi LB. noibe B. soiri F. satre R*. L. 22 senphol A'1, senphoil L. senpoil LB. F.
JANUARY 2O-24.
MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS.
37
F. xiii. cal. Febr.
An cethrur conuagu1 for oenlith as2 noebu, mo Laca,3 mo-Ecu,
Sabaist ocus Oenu.4
G. xii. cal. Febr.
Ropat oin5 dom snadudc com rig — r£im as dixu — Fuinche,7 feidm as uaisliu, Agna ingen Issu.
A. xi. cal. Febr.
Estecht8 ingen Comgaill, Colman maccuy Beognai, Ualerius10 cen di'gnae, Felix11 fuair cuairt12 ceoldai,
B. x. cal. Febr.
Cesad Sevriani,13 Clementi14 consadu,1* ron-snadat10 dond rfgu cona lidunud danu.17
C. ix. cal. Febr.
Domm anmain, domm
chorpan
rop mur ar cech18 merblen Babill,19 bruth oir forlan,20 cona thriur dedblen.21
20. Splendid are the four whom I knit together on one festival that is holier, my Laca,
my Ecu, Sebastian and Oenu.
21. May they be one to protect me to my King — course that is nobler ! Fuinche — effort that is highest — Agnes a daughter of Jesus.
22. The departure of Corn- gall's daughters : Colman great-grandson of Beogna : Valerius without reproach : Felix (who) found a melodious sojourn.
23. The passion of Severia- nus and of Clement I set together : may they protect us to the Kingdom with their daring host !
24. To my soul, to my poor body may Babylas, the abun dant mass of gold, with his three weaklings, be a rampart against every feebleness !
1 conhuagu L. conhuagu .i. uagim B. ohuagu .i. ouaigim F. cor.uagu R1. conuaige LB. '-' is F, L. 3 molocca Rl. molacca L.
molaca LB. 4 oennu L. 5 oin JR1. oen L. LB. F. e pnadud R1.
snadug L. snadud LB. snadudh F. 7 fainche fil. fuinchiu F. 8 sic L. Etsecht R\ LB. F. " mace hui Rl. H. me hua L. me hui LB.
mac ui F. 10 uarillus LB. B. ualeus L. ualarius E.
11 Feilix L. felic LB. w cuaird L. H. 1S seueriani R1. L. cebriani
LB. semuniani H. seuirani F. sasbriani B. H sic LB. clemati
Rl. B. L. H. F. ld consaidiu F. i6 ronsnaidet L. H. ro//snadet F.
17 cona dunadh dana E. 18 each B. F. 19 sic F. 20 orlan R\ L. LB. orlam F. -1 deiblen R*. deblen E. deidhblen F. deidblen B.
FEL1RE OENCUSSO.
[MI ENAIR.
D. viii. cal. Febr
Ni dedbul1 al-lathe, lith fris cuirter2 grethae, co Crist cechaing sathe, Pol i mbathis brethae.
E. vii. cal. Febr.
Is brigach al-lochet3 la rig dodon-farci,4 sluag* ortae iar rigortai" la pais Policarpi.
F. vi. cal. Febr.
Carais moeda7 Muirgein mirbail gein co mbuadaib :'v birt glanbuaid fiad9 rigaib Agnetis deich10 n-uagaib.
G. v. cal. Febr.
La hAccobran11 uanni pais ocht n-uag co n-ani : gabsat buaid co hdirgi sluag mar12 Messoriani 13
A. iv. cal. Febr. Ain epscoip14 ro radius, ron-snadat15 diar ridilius,10 Hipolitus, Paulus, Gillas, Constantinus.
25. Not puny is the day — a festival (whereon) shouts are sent forth : unto Christ went a swarm, (and) Paul was borne into baptism.
26. Mighty seems their lustre to the King that encompasses us, the host that was slain after famine, at Polycarp's passion.
27. My Lord loved Muirgein, a wondrous birth with victories ! Agna with ten virgins won a pure victory before kings.
28. With Accobran from us (the Irish), the passion of eight splendid virgins : Messorianus' mighty host gained a victory with righteousness.
29. Splendid (are) the bishops I have mentioned : may they protect us to our pos session ! Hippolytus, Paulus, GiKlas, Constantinus.
dedbol B. - ro chuirset L. ro cumset B. friscurtar //.
friscuirter /v*'. fris cuirther LB. 3 a sluagud A'1.
4 dodaniarchi A*1, dodonfairchi L. dodonfarchi B. dodotfairci LB. don- danfairce H. F. do don fairci no do don forsat E. 5 sic B. sluaig LB. slogh F. 6 iar gortai A1, iar ngngorta LB. la gorta F. iarngorti L.
1 maeda A1. F. moeda LB. maedha B. moida L, moeda LB. .i. mo iada B. 8 mbaugaib L. 9 fia L. 10 Agnetis deich A*1,
angetes .x. L. agndtes deich F. Agna co r\deich LB. » sic An
occobran B. L. F. hacobran LB. 12 sluaig moir F. 1:t mesorani A'1,
misorani B. miseraine L. miseriani LB. sluaig moir miserani F.
14 Anepscop C. An escoip LB. An esp. F. Ain espoc E. An epscop B.
15 ronsnaidet F. 1G dirzA? L. dirus B. ndiils F. dilius A1. LB.
JANUARY 30, 31.] MARTYROLOGY OF OENGUS.
39
B. Hi. cal. Febr.
Coecae1 ar c6t martir martrae morsus2 dorus,8 ainsium4 ar5 h'n ammus Enan Roiss rind solus !(!
30. Fifty and a hundred martyrs, the door of martyr dom magnified them : may Enan of Ross(mor), the bright star, protect me against a number of temptations !
C. Pridie caL Febr.
Sluirid Aed fortren Ferna, Mael-anfaid ainm remain, benait co rnBrig7 r^pmoir barr find for sluag enair.
31. Declare strong Aed of Ferns, Mael-anfaid, a name preeminent : they strike ' with mighty Brig a fair end on January's host.
1 Sesca R*. Coecca no xl L. Coeca no .lx. F. - morsa Z.
3 doros -/?'. 4 sic A"1. LB. ainsiunn B. snaidsium B. L. snaithsium F. 5 iar L. F. * solos /?'. sholas B. 7 com rig L.
40- FELIRE OENGUSSO. [MI EN AIR.
NOTATIONES.
1. Resil .i. ante omnes qui secuntur. recht .i. circumci[si]onis. IP.
2. Essodir. Aspala ciuitate Hispaniae in qua episcopatum tenuit. Rl. Manchine Airce .i. abann fil hil-Laicheis i n-iarthur Laigen 7 Airec
abann, et ab eo nominatur quia iuxta ilium aeclesia eius sita est .i. Disert meicc Ciluirn nomen eius. Rl.
Scoithine o Thigh Scoithine a Sleib Mairge. IS fissid cid dia n-ebrad Scoithine fHs. Ni ansa, ar in scothad1 imthechta dognid .i. dul do Rdim a n-aen 16 7 tiachtain uaithe a n-aen 16 aile. Vel ideo Scothine dictus est .i. Fecht dorala he do Barre 7 seissem ac imthecht in mara 7 Barre i luing. Cid fodera in muir do imthecht duit ? ol Barre. Ni muir etz> acht mag scoth[s]emrach, ar Scuithin, 7 aidlid a lam scoith, 7 cuirid uada do Barre issin luing, 7 itbert cid fodera long do tsnam ior in muig ? Assin guth sin sinid Barre a lam isin muir, atnaig bratan aisti 7 teilgid do Scoithin. Comd. 6n scoith sin ainmnigt^r Scothin. L.
No laigdis dano da ingin chorrchichecha2 immi each n-aidchi comad m6ide in cath do fri Demon, cor' himraided a ailiug//^ tnt-sin. Co tainic Bre'naind dia derbad, co riderbairt Scoithin : Loighed am lepaid- sea in cleirech anocht, ar se. O ro siacht iarum co huair chumsanta and tecait na hingena issin tech a raibe Brenaind 7 a n-utlaige do grissaig ina caslaib, 7 ni ro loisc in teine iat, 7 doirtid i fiadnaisi Brenaind 7 tiagait issin lepaid chuice. Cred so? ol Brenaind. Is amlaid dogniam ca.cA n-aidchi, ar na hingena. Loighit im Brenaind, 7 ni choemnacair sidhe cotlad etir lasin elscoth. Is anforbthe sin, a cleirz^, ar na hingena : inti bis sunn oauch n-aidchi ni mothaig ni etir. Cid tai nach eirge isin dabaig, a cleirig, damad usaidhe duit ? Is minic athaigis in c\e\iech .i. Scothw. Maith, tra, ol Brenaind, is cair duind in derbad so, is ferr inti seo itamhi. Doniat a n-aentaid 7 a cotach iarsin, 7 scarait feliciter. Z.
3. Finding .i. Lugaid find. Z. .i. descibul 7 brathair Finntain he, et ideo cum eo nominatur, et in peregrinationem exiit in aquilonem. F. Comd he as noeb i Tamla^a Findloghain i Cianna^/a Glindi Geimin L.
Dun-bleisci .i. Flesc nomen amnis qui est iuxta urbem, et ab eo nominatur. L. Blesc ainm muccida rig Hria Cuanach . is e ro bui isin dunud sin art#j, unde nominatur, LL. 3556.
4. docoemnagtar .i. ronigset co coem a tlachtu .i. a n-etaige .i. corpora sua. 7?'.
5. Semoin .i. sacard^j. Z. .i. sacerdos qui Christum in templo inter ulnas suscepit, quique de illo profetauit, qui sepultus est in ualle losaphath in una basilica cum loseph sponso Marie. R*. Togairm Semeon .i. monachi . in Antiochia quieuit in pace. R1.
Ciar .i. a Muscraide Thire ata, 7 do tshil G?«airi di3 .i. a Muig Escat ata. Z.