Ancient Irish Poetry Part 17

'Song of the Sea.'--Text and translation in _Otia Merseiana_ (the publication of the Arts Faculty, University College, Liverpool), vol. ii.

p. 76 ff. Though the poem is ascribed to the celebrated poet Rumann, who died in 748, its language points to the eleventh century.

'Summer has come.'--Text and translation in my _Four Songs of Summer and Winter_ (D. Nutt, 1903), p. 20 ff. The piece probably dates from the tenth century.

'Song of Summer.'--_Ibid._, p. 8 ff., and _eriu_, the Journal of the School of Irish Learning, i. p. 186. The date is the ninth century, I think.

'Summer is gone.'--_Ibid._, p. 14. Ninth century.

'A Song of Winter.'--From the story called 'The Hiding of the Hill of Howth,' first printed and translated by me in _Revue Celtique_, xi. p. 125 ff. Probably tenth century.

'Arran.'--Taken from the thirteenth-century prose tale called _Agallamh na Senorach_, edited and translated by S.H. O'Grady in _Silva Gadelica_. The poem refers to the island in the Firth of Clyde.

'The Song of Crede, daughter of Guare.'--See text and translation in _eriu_, ii. p. 15 ff. Probably tenth century.

'Liadin and Curithir.'--First published and translated by me under that t.i.tle with Messrs. D. Nutt, 1902. It belongs to the ninth century.

'The Deer's Cry.'--For the text and translation see Stokes and Strachan, _Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus_ (University Press, Cambridge), vol. ii. p.

354. I have adopted the translation there given except in some details.

The hymn in the form in which it has come down to us cannot be earlier than the eighth century.

'An Evening Song.'--Printed in my _Selections from Old-Irish Poetry_, p.

1. Though ascribed to Patrick, the piece cannot be older than the tenth century.

'Patrick's Blessing on Munster.'--Taken from the _Tripart.i.te Life of Patrick_, edited by Whitley Stokes (Rolls Series, London, 1887), p. 216.

Not earlier than the ninth century.

'The Hermit's Song.'--See _eriu_, vol. i. p. 39, where the Irish text will be found. The poem dates from the ninth century.

'A Prayer to the Virgin.'--See Strachan's edition of the original in _eriu_, i. p. 122. There is another copy in the Bodleian MS. Laud 615, p.

91, from which I have taken some better readings. The poem is hardly earlier than the tenth century.

'Eve's Lament.'--See _eriu_, iii. p. 148. The date is probably the late tenth or early eleventh century.

'On the Flightiness of Thought.'--See _eriu_, iii. p. 13. Tenth century.

'To Crinog.'--The Irish text was published by me in the _Zeitschrift fur celtische Philologie_, vol. vi. p. 257. The date of the poem is the tenth century. Crinog was evidently what is known in the literature of early Christianity as [Greek: iagapete], _virgo subintroducta_ ([Greek: syneisaktos]) or _conhospita_, _i.e._ a nun who lived with a priest, monk, or hermit like a sister or 'spiritual wife' (_uxor spiritualis_). This practice, which was early suppressed and abandoned everywhere else, seems to have survived in the Irish Church till the tenth century. See on the whole subject H. Achelis, _Virgines Subintroductae_, ein Beitrag zu i., Kor. vii. (Leipzig, 1902).

'The Devil's Tribute to Moling.'--For text and translation see Whitley Stokes's _Goidelica_, 2nd ed., p. 180, and his edition of _Felire Oingusso_, p. 154 ff. I have in the main followed Stokes's rendering.

'Maelisu's Hymn to the Archangel Michael.'--Text and translation in the _Gaelic Journal_, vol. iv. p. 56. Maelisu ua Brolchain was a writer of religious poetry both in Irish and Latin, who died in 1056.

'The Mothers' Lament at the Slaughter of the Innocents.'--See text and translation in the _Gaelic Journal_, iv. p. 89. The piece probably belongs to the eleventh century.

'Colum Cille's Greeting to Ireland.'--From Reeves' edition of Ad.a.m.nan's _Life of St. Columba_, p. 285. The poem, like most of those ascribed to this saint, is late, belonging probably to the twelfth century.

'The Lament of the Old Woman of Beare.'--Text and translation in _Otia Merseiana_, i. p. 119 ff. The language of the poem points to the late tenth century.

'The Deserted Home.'--See _Gaelic Journal_, iv. p. 42. Probably eleventh century.

'Colum Cille the Scribe.'--See _Gaelic Journal_, viii. p. 49. Probably eleventh century.

'The Monk and his Pet Cat.'--Text and translation in _Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus_, ii. p. 293. I have made my own translation. The language is that of the late eighth or early ninth century.

'The Crucifixion.'--From _Leabhar Breac_, p. 262 _marg. sup._ and p. 168 _marg. inf._

'Pilgrimage to Rome.'--See _Thes. Pal._, ii. p. 296.

'On a Dead Scholar.'--From the notes to the _Felire Oingusso_, ed. Wh.

Stokes (Henry Bradshaw Society, vol. xxix.), p. 198.

'Hospitality.'--From the Brussels MS., 5100-4, p. 5, and _Leabhar Breac_, p. 93, _marg. sup._

'The Scribe.'--See _Thes. Pal._, ii. p. 290.

'Moling sang this.'--From the notes to the _Felire Oingusso_, ed. Wh.

Stokes, p. 150.

'The Church Bell.'--See _Irische Texte_, iii. p. 155.

'The Blackbird.'--From _Leabhar Breac_, p. 36, _marg. sup._

The 'Triads of Ireland.' Edited and translated by me in the Todd Lecture Series of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xiii. (Hodges, Figgis and Co., Dublin, 1906). The collection was made towards the end of the ninth century.

The 'Instructions of King Cormac.' Edited and translated by me in the Todd Lecture Series, vol. xv. (Dublin, 1909). Early ninth century.