“Dongalus a Fachtna ter nonus episcopus extat
Lugadia de gente, dedit cui Rossia mitram.”
Which another poet translates in this fashion:—
“Hail happy Ross, who could produce thrice nine
All mitred sages of Lugadia’s line,
From Fachtna crowned with everlasting praise
Down to the date of Dongal’s pious days.”
During the ninth century we find frequent mention of the “abbots” of Ross-ailithir in the Four Masters, and we are told that it was ravaged by the Danes in A.D. 840, along with the greater part of Munster. In the tenth and eleventh centuries we find reference is made, not to the “bishops” or “abbots,” but to the “airchinnech” of Ross-ailithir; and it is quite possible that during this disturbed period laymen took possession of the abbacy with this title, having ecclesiastics under them to perform the spiritual functions. Once only we find reference to a “bishop,” in A.D. 1085, when the death of Neachtain Mac Neachtain, the distinguished Bishop of Ross-ailithir is recorded.
But whether it was bishop, abbot, or airchinnech, who held the spiritual sway of the monastery, and its adjacent territory, the school continued to flourish even during those centuries most unpropitious to the cultivation of learning. In A.D. 866, or according to the Chronicon Scotorum, in A.D. 868, we are told of the death of Feargus, scribe and anchorite of Ross-ailithir, showing that the work of copying manuscripts was still continued in its schools. But we have still more striking evidence during the tenth century of the literary work done at Ross-ailithir, for a manual of Ancient Geography, written by one of these lectors in the Irish language, is happily still preserved in the Book of Leinster.
The author of this most interesting treatise, as we know from the same authority, was Mac Cosse, who was Ferlegind, that is a reader or lecturer of Ross-ailithir. A passage in the Annals of Innisfallen enables us to identify him, and his history furnishes a striking example of the vicissitudes of those disturbed times:—
“The son of Imar left Waterford and [there followed] the destruction of Ross of the Pilgrims by the foreigners, and the taking prisoner of the Ferlegind, i.e. Mac Cossa-de-brain, and his ransoming by Brian at Scattery Island.”[355]
This entry enables us to fix the probable date of this geographical poem of Mac Cosse, which seems to have been the manual of Classical Geography made use of in Ross-ailithir, and hence so full of interest for the student of the history of our ancient schools. The Imar, referred to in the above entry, was king of the Danes of Limerick, but in A.D. 968 the Danes of Limerick were completely defeated by Mahoun and his younger brother Brian Boru. Imar made his escape to Wales, but after a year or two returned again, first, it would seem, to Waterford; issuing thence he harried all the coasts and islands of the South, and finally returned to Limerick with a large fleet and army. But he deemed Scattery Island a more secure stronghold, and having fortified it he made that island his head-quarters, and no doubt kept his prisoners there also. Scattery itself was captured from the Danes by Brian, a little later on in A.D. 976, and there Imar was slain; so that it was the interval between A.D. 970-976 that Mac Cosse was kept a prisoner at Scattery Island, and ransomed by the generosity of Brian, who always loved learning and learned men.
This poem consists of one hundred and thirty-six lines, giving a general account of the geography of the ancient world, and was, no doubt, first got by rote by the students, and then more fully explained by the lecturer to his pupils. This tenth century is generally regarded as the darkest of the dark ages; yet, we have no doubt, whoever reads over this poem will be surprised at the extent and variety of the geographical knowledge communicated to the pupils of Ross-ailithir in that darkened age, when the Danish ships, too, were roaming round the coasts of Ireland. It is not merely that the position of the various countries is stated with much accuracy, but we have, as we should now say, an account of their fauna and flora—their natural productions, as well as their physical features. The writer, too, seems to be acquainted not merely with the principal Latin authors, but also with the writings of at least some of the Grecian authorities.
In the opening stanza he describes the five zones: “two frigid of bright aspect,”—alluding, no doubt, to their snowy wastes and wintry skies, lit up by the aurora borealis—and then two temperate around the fiery zone, which stretches about the middle of the world. There are three continents, Europe, Africa, and Asia; the latter founded by the Asian Queen, and much the larger, because she unduly trespassed on the territories of her neighbours. Adam’s paradise is in the far East, beyond the Indus, surrounded by a wall of fire. India “great and proud,” is bounded on the west by the Indus, on the north by the hills of Hindoo Coosh. That country is famous “for its magnets, and its diamonds, its pearls, its gold dust, and its carbuncles.” There are to be found the fierce one-horned beast, and the mighty elephant—it is a land where “soft and balmy breezes blow,” and two harvests ripen within the year. In like manner he describes the other countries of Asia; the mare rubrum “swift and strong,” and Egypt, by the banks of the Nile, the most fertile of all lands. He even tells us of the burning fires of the Alaunian land, alluding to the petroleum springs around the Caspian. He names all the provinces of Asia Minor—“little Asia,” he calls it—and says most accurately, that it was bounded on the west by the Propontus and the Ægean sea. In like manner he describes Africa, and derives its name from Apher, a son of Abraham and Keturah, showing that he was familiar with the Greek of the Antiquities of Josephus.[356] He then goes through the various countries of Europe, giving their names, and chief cities. The principal rivers, too, are named, and their courses fixed, as when he says that—