[7] See O'Curry's "Manners and Customs," vol. ii. p. 217, and "Irische Texte," Dritte serie, Heft. i. pp. 96 and 125.
[8] It is curious to thus make the steed rank apparently next to the king himself, and above the wife and son, for the anrad who curses the steed ranks next to the ollamh.
[9] Thurneysen expresses some doubt about the antiquity of the last citation.
[10] See Text 1. paragraph 123 of Thurneysen's "Mittelirische Verslehren" for three versions of this curious poem, printed side by side from the Books of Leinster and Ballymote, and a MS. in the Bodleian. The old Irish tract for the instruction of poets gives it as an example of what it calls Cetal do chendaib. I have followed D'Arbois de Jubainville's interpretation of it. He sees in it a pantheistic spirit, but Dr. Sigerson has proved, I think quite conclusively, that it is liable to a different interpretation, a panegyric upon the bard's own prowess, couched in enigmatic metaphor. (See "Bards of the Gael and Gaul," p. 379.)
[11] A number of names are mentioned—chiefly in connection with law fragments—of kings and poets who lived centuries before the birth of Christ, including an elegy by Lughaidh, son of Ith (from whom the Ithians sprang), on his wife's death, Cimbaeth the founder of Emania, before whose reign Tighearnach the Annalist considered omnia monumenta Scotorum to be incerta, Roigne, the son of Hugony the Great, who lived nearly three hundred years before Christ, and some others.
[12] The "Uraicept" or "Uraiceacht" is sometimes ascribed to Forchern. It gives examples of the declensions of nouns and adjectives in Irish, distinguishing feminine nouns from masculine, etc. It gives rules of syntax, and exemplifies the declensions by quotations from ancient poets. A critical edition of it from the surviving manuscripts that contain it in whole or part is a desideratum.
[13] Udacht Morain, H. 2, 7, T. C, D.
[14] In the original in the Book of Ballymote: "A ua Cuinn a Cormaic, ol coirbre cia is deach [i.e., maith], do Ri. Nin ol cormac [i.e., Ni doiligh liom sin]. As deach [i.e., maith], do eimh ainmne [i.e., foighde] gan deabha [i.e., imreasoin] uallcadi fosdadh [i.e., foasdadh] gan fearg. Soagallamha gan mordhacht," etc. The glosses in brackets are written above the words.
[15] Compare Henry IV.'s advice to his son, not to make himself too familiar but rather to stand aloof from his companions.
"Had I so lavish of my presence been,
So common-hackneyed in the eyes of men,
So stale and cheap to vulgar company—
Opinion, that did help me to the crown,
Had still kept loyal to possession," etc.