"Every night the poet would recite a story to Mongan. So great was his lore that they were thus from Halloweve till May-day. He had gifts and food from Mongan. One day Mongan asked his poet what was the death of Fothad Airgdech. Forgoll said he was slain at Duffry in Leinster. Mongan said it was false. The poet [on hearing that] said he would satirise him with his lampoons, and he would satirise his father and his mother and his grandfather, and he would sing [spells] upon their waters, so that fish should not be caught in their river-mouths. He would sing upon their woods so that they should not give fruit, upon their plains so that they should be barren for ever of any produce.
"Mongan [thereupon] promised him his fill of precious things, so far as [the value of] seven bondmaids, or twice seven bondmaids, or three times seven. At last he offers him one-third, or one-half of his land, or his whole land; at last [everything] save only his own liberty with that of his wife Breóthigernd, unless he were redeemed before the end of three days.
"The poet refused all except as regards his wife. For the sake of his honour Mongan consented. Thereat his wife was sorrowful, the tear was not taken from her cheek. Mongan told her not to be sorrowful, help would certainly come to them."
Eventually the poet is very dramatically shown to be in the wrong.[12]
Dallán Forgaill was succeeded in the Head Ollamhship of all the Irish bards by his pupil Senchan Torpeist, who was equally overbearing, and whose intolerable insolence is admirably satirised in the story called the "Proceedings of the Great Bardic Association." Only two poems of his have come down to us, one being his elegy on the death of his master Dallán Forgaill.
The next great lay poet of importance seems to have been Cennfaeladh, who died in 678, whose verses are constantly cited by the "Four Masters." He was originally an Ulster warrior who was wounded in the battle of Moyrath, which was fought when Adamnan, Columcille's biographer, was eleven years old, and he was brought to be cured to the house of one Brian in Tuaim Drecain, where there were three schools, one of classics,[13] one of law, and one of poetry. He used to attend—apparently during his convalescence—these various schools, and what he heard in the day he would repeat to himself at night, so that "his brain of forgetfulness was extracted from his head after its having been cloven in the battle of Moyrath." "And he put a clear thread of poetry through them, and wrote them on flags and on tables, and he put them into a vellum book." Hence he became a great lawyer as well as a poet, and a considerable part of the celebrated Brehon Law Book, called the Book of Acaill, is ascribed to him.[14]
Angus Céile Dé[15] [Kail-a Day], or the Culdee, is the next poet of note who claims our attention. He flourished about the year 800, and is the author of the well-known Féilĭrè, or Calendar. In this work one stanza in rinn áird metre is devoted to each day of the year, in connection with the name of some saint—an Irish one wherever possible. The Féilĭrè is followed by a poem of five or six hundred lines, which with its glosses and commentaries is probably the most extensive piece of Old Irish poetry that we have. Whitley Stokes, who edited it with great care, considers it to be of the tenth rather than the late eighth or early ninth century. If so, this would leave its authorship doubtful, but it has been shown, I think by Kuno Meyer, that the number of deponental forms contained in it might point to a higher antiquity than that which Whitley Stokes allows. It has certainly been always hitherto accepted as the work of Angus, and as it cannot well, in any case, be more than a century or so later, we may let it stand here, as it has always done, under his name. In the ancient and curious Irish notes and commentary on the Féilĭrè we find a great number of verses quoted from the poet-saints, and these include St. Patrick, St. Ciaran the elder, St. Comgall with St. Columcille his friend, St. Ité the virgin, St. Kevin of Glendaloch, St. Ciaran of Clonmacnois, St. Molaise [Moleesha] of Devenish (who sent Columcille to banishment), St. Mochuda of Lismore, St. Molling, St. Fechin of Forc, St. Aireran of Clonard, Maelruan of Tallaght, Adamnan (Columcille's biographer), and Angus the Culdee himself, a goodly company of priests and poets; but no one seems to have been anything esteemed in ancient Erin unless he either was or was reputed to be a poet! Of true poetic spirit it contains not much, but it is a wonderful example of technical difficulties overcome. The metre is one of the most difficult, a six-syllable one, with dissyllabic endings. The first stanzas, translated into the metre of the original, run as follows:—
"Bless, O Christ, my speaking,
King of heavens seven,
Strength and wealth and POWER
In this HOUR be given.
Given,[16] O thou brightest,
Destined chains to sever,
King of Angels GLORIOUS,
And victORIOUS ever.
Ever o'er us shining,
Light to mortals given,
Beaming daily, NIGHTLY,
BRIGHTLY out of heaven."
The Saltair na Rann has also been usually ascribed to Angus, but it can hardly be, as Dr. Whitley Stokes has shown, earlier than the year 1000,[17] for it mentions apparently as contemporaries Brian king of Munster, and Dub-da-lethe archbishop of Armagh, appointed in 988. It is a collection of one hundred and sixty-two poems in early Middle Irish containing between eight and nine thousand lines, mostly composed in Deibhidh [D'yevvee] metre. These poems are all of a more or less religious cast, and most of them are based (like the Saxon Caedmon's) on Old Testament history, but they also contain a prodigious deal of curious matter. The opening poem begins—
"Mo rí-se rí nime náir."[18]
("My king is the King of noble Heaven.")