DEATH OF BRIAN BORUMHA AT CLONTARF.
"As for Brian, son of Cenneidigh [Kennedy], when the battalions joined arms in the battle, his skin was spread for him, and he opened his psalter and joined his hands, and began to pray after the battle had commenced, and there was no one with him but his own attendant, whose name was Latean (from whom are the O'Lateans still in Munster.)[27] Brian said to the attendant, 'Look thou at the battalions and the combat whilst I sing the psalms.' He sang fifty psalms and fifty prayers and fifty paternosters, and after that he asked the attendant how were the battalions. And the attendant answered, 'Mixed and closely confronted are the battalions, and each of them has come within the grasp of the other, and not louder on my ears would be the echo of blows from Tomar's wood if seven battalions were cutting it down, than the thud-blows on heads and bones and sculls between them.' And he asked how was Murchadh's [Murrough's son's] standard, and the attendant said, 'It stands, and many of the banners of the Dál Cais [North Munster, i.e., Brian's own men] around it, and many heads thrown to it, and a multitude of trophies and spoils with heads of foreigners are along with it.' 'That is good news indeed,' said Brian.
"His skin cushion was readjusted beneath him, and he sang the psalms and the prayers and the paters as before, and he again asked the attendant how the battalions were, and the attendant answered and said, 'There is not living on earth the man who could distinguish one from the other, for the greater part of the hosts on each side are fallen, and those who are alive are so covered with spatterings of crimson blood and armour, that a man could not know his own son—they are so intermingled.' He then asked how was Murchadh's standard. The attendant said it was far from him, and that it passed through the battalions westward, and was still standing. Brian said, 'The men of Erin will be well,' said he, 'so long as that standard stands, for their courage and valour shall remain in them all, so long as they can see that standard.'
"His cushion was readjusted under Brian, and he sang fifty psalms and fifty prayers and fifty paters, and all that time the fighting continued. After that he again asked the attendant how went the battalions, and the attendant answered, 'It is like as if Tomar's wood were after burning its undergrowth and young trees, and that seven battalions had been for six weeks cutting them down, and it with its stately trees and huge oaks still standing, just so are the battalions on both sides, after the greater part of them have fallen leaving but a few valiant heroes and great chieftains still standing. So are the battalions on both sides pierced and wounded and scattered, and they are disorganised all round like the grindings of a mill turning the wrong way; and the foreigners are now defeated, and Murchadh's standard is fallen.' 'That is piteous news,' said Brian; 'by my word,' said he, 'the generosity and valour of Erin fell when that standard fell; and truly Erin has fallen of that, for there shall never come after him a champion like him. And what the better were I though I should escape this, and though it were the sovereignty of the world I should attain, after the fall of Murchadh and Conaing and the other nobles of the Dál Cais.'
"'Woe is me,' said the attendant, 'if thou wouldst take my advice thou wouldst get thee to thy horse, and we would go to the camp and remain there amongst the gillies, and every one who comes out of the battle will come to us, and round us they will rally, for the battalions are now mixed in confusion, and a party of the foreigners have rejected the idea of retreating to the sea, and we know not who shall come to us where we now are.'
"'Oh God; boy,' said Brian, 'flight becomes me not, and I myself know that I shall not go from here alive, and what should it profit me though I did, for Aoibheall [Eevil][28] of Craig Liath [Lee-a], came to me last night,' said he, 'and she told me that the first of my sons whom I should see this day would be he who should succeed me in the sovereignty, and that is Donough,[29] and go thou OLatean,' said he, 'and take these steeds with thee, and receive my blessing and carry out my will after me, that is to say, my body and soul to God and to St. Patrick, and that I am to be carried to Armagh, and my blessing to Donough for discharging my last bequests after me, that is to say, twelve score cows to be given to the co-arb of Patrick and the Society of Armagh, and their own proper dues to Killaloe and the Churches of Munster, and he knows that I have not wealth of gold or silver, but he is to pay them in return for my blessing and for his succeeding me. Go this night to Sord [Swords] and desire them to come to-morrow early for my body, and to convey it thence to Damhliag of Cianan, and then let them carry it to Lughmhagh [Loo-wā, i.e., Louth], and let Maelmuiré mac Eochadha, the co-arb of Patrick and the Society of Armagh come to meet me at Lughmhagh.'
"While they were engaged in this conversation the attendant perceived a party of the foreigners approaching them. The Earl Brodar was there and two warriors along with him.
"'There are people coming towards us here,' said the attendant.
"'What kind of people?' said Brian.
"'Blue stark-naked people,' said the attendant.
"'My woe,' said Brian, 'they are the foreigners of the armour, and it is not for good they come.'
"While he was saying this he arose and stepped off his cushion and unsheathed his sword. Brodar passed him by and noticed him not. One of the three who were there and who had been in Brian's service said 'Cing, Cing!' said he, that is, 'This is the king.' 'No, no! but príst príst,' says Brodar, 'not he,' said he, 'but a noble priest.' 'By no means,' said the soldier, 'but it is the great king Brian.' Brodar then turned round and appeared with a bright gleaming battle-axe in his hand, with the handle set in the middle [of the head]. When Brian saw him he looked intently at him, and gave him a sword-blow that cut off the left leg at the knee and the right leg at the foot. The foreigner gave Brian a stroke which crushed his head utterly, and Brian killed the second man that was with Brodar, and they fell mutually by each other.
"There was not done in Erin, since Christianity—except the beheading of Cormac mac Culinan—any greater deed than this. He was, in sooth, one of the three best that ever were born in Erin, and one of the three men who most caused Erin to prosper, namely, Lugh the Long-handed, and Finn mac Cúmhail [Cool], and Brian, son of Kennedy; for it was he that released the men of Erin and its women from the bondage and iniquity of the foreigners and the pirates. It was he that gained five-and-twenty battles over the foreigners, and who killed them and banished them.... In short, Erin fell by the death of Brian."
The "War of the Gael with the Gaill" appears to me to be a book which throws a strong light upon the genesis and value of the historical saga of Ireland. Here is a real historical narrative of unquestionable authority, and of the very highest value for the history of these countries, which is contemporaneous,[30] or almost so, with the events which it relates. Its accuracy on matters of fact have been abundantly proved from Danish as well as from Irish sources. And yet the whole account is dressed up and bedizened in that peculiarly Irish garb which had become stereotyped as the dress of Irish history. It contains the exaggeration, the necessary touch of the marvellous, and above all the poetry, without which no Irish composition could hope for a welcome.
First as to the exaggeration: the whole piece is full of it. A good example is the description of the armies meeting on Clontarf:—
"It will be one of the wonders of the day of judgment to relate the description of this tremendous onset. There arose a wild, impetuous, precipitate, furious, dark, frightful, voracious, merciless, combative, contentious vulture, screaming and fluttering over their heads. There arose also the Bocanachs and the Bananachs and the wild people of the glens, and the witches and the goblins and the ancient birds, and the destroying demons of the air and firmament, and the feeble demoniac phantom host, and they were screaming and comparing the valour and combat of both parties."
The reader expected some traditional flourish such as this, and the essential truth of the narrative is no whit impaired by it.
Nor does the miraculous episode of Dunlang O'Hartigan, fresh from the embraces of the fairy queen, foretelling to Murrough that he must fall, detract from the truth that he does fall. Dunlang had promised Murrough not to abandon him, and he appears beside him on the very eve of the battle. Murrough gently reproaches him and says:—
"'Great must be the love and attachment of some woman for thee which has induced thee to abandon me.' 'Alas, O King,' answered Dunlang, 'the delight which I have abandoned for thee is greater, if thou didst but know it, namely, life without death,[31] without cold, without thirst, without hunger, without decay, beyond any delight of the delights of the earth to me, until the judgment, and heaven after the judgment, and if I had not pledged my word to thee I would not have come here, and, moreover, it is fated for me to die on the day that thou shalt die.'
"'Shall I receive death this day then?' said Murrough.
"'Thou shalt, indeed,' said Dunlang, 'and Brian and Conaing shall receive it, and almost all the nobles of Erin, and Turlough thy son.'
"'That is no good encouragement to fight,' said Murrough, 'and if we had had such news we would not have told it to thee, and moreover,' said Murrough, 'often was I offered in hills, and in fairy mansions, this world and these gifts, but I never abandoned for one night my country nor mine inheritance for them.'"
Some such touch as this, of the weird and the miraculous, the reader also expected.
As for poetry, the whole piece is full of it. It contains over five hundred lines of verse, in poems attributed to Brian Boru himself and his brother Mahon, to Maelmhuadh or Molloy, who so treacherously slew Mahon, to the sister of Aedh Finnliath [Finleea], king of Ireland in 869;[32] to Cormac mac Culinan, the king-bishop; to Cuan O'Lochain, a great poet who died in 1024; to Beg mac Dé the prophet, and to Columcille, his contemporary; to Colman mac Lenin, the poet-saint; to Gilla Mududa O'Cassidy, a poet contemporaneous with Mac Liag; to Mac Liag himself; to Gilla Comgaill O'Slevin, inciting O'Neill against Brian; to a poet called Mahon's blind man; to St. Bercan the prophet; to an unnamed cleric, and to at least six anonymous poets.