The Welsh poems attributed to the bards of the sixth and seventh centuries, contain no facts that will make part of any of our reasonings in the sequel. Their existence is, of course, a measure of the intellectual calibre of the time (whatever that may be) to which they refer. But this is not before us now.
In respect to the value of the Irish annals, the civil historian has a far longer list of problems than the ethnologist; since the latter wants their testimony upon a few points only, e.g., 1. The origin of the proper Irish themselves; 2. the affinities of the Picts; 3. the migration (real or supposed) of the Scots. These, at least, are the chief points. Others, of course, such as the details concerning the Danes, can be found; but the ones in question are the chief.
In respect to the first, whoever reads Dr. Prichard's[14] account of the contents of the earliest chronicles, consisting, amongst other matters, of an antediluvian Cæsar; a landing of Partholanus with his wife Ealga, on the coast of Connemara, twelve years after the Deluge, and on the 14th of May; the colony of the Neimhidh, descendants of Gog and Magog; the Fir-Bolg from the Thrace; the Tuatha de Danann from Athens;[133] and, above all, the famous Milesians, amongst whom was Nial, the intimate of Moses and Aaron, and the husband of Scota the daughter of Pharaoh, will soon satisfy himself that, with the exception of a little weight which may possibly be due to the prominence which the Spanish Peninsula takes in the several legends, the whole mass is so utterly barren in historical results, that criticism would be misplaced.
But the Pict and Scot questions are in a different predicament. Like the Roman and Anglo-Saxon conquests of Britain, the events connected with them may have occurred within the Historical period—provided only that that period begin early enough.
How far this may be the case with the Irish annals is a reasonable question.
That any existing series of Irish annals anterior to the time of the earliest extant annalist, Tigernach, who lived in the eleventh century, is cotemporary with the events which it records, so as to partake of the nature of a register, is what no one has asserted; and hence their credit rests upon that of such earlier records as may be supposed to have served as their basis.
These may be poems, genealogies, or chronicles; all of which may be admitted to have existed. How long? In a more or less imperfect form from the introduction of Christianity. Is this the[134] extreme limit in the way of antiquity? Probably; perhaps certainly. Out of all the numerous pieces of verse quoted by the annalists, one only carries us back to a Pagan period, and even this is referred to a year subsequent to the introduction of Christianity. An extract from the annals of the Four Masters is as follows, A.D. 458, twenty-seven years after the first arrival of St. Patrick "after Laogar, the son of Nial of the Nine Hostages, had reigned in Ireland thirty years, he was killed in the country of Caissi (?) between Eri and Albyn, i.e., the two hills in the country of the Faolain, and the Sun and Wind killed him, for he violated them; whence the poet sings—
"Laogar M'Nial died in Caissi the green land,
The elements of divine things, by the oath which he violated, inflicted the doom of death on the king."
The genealogies are generally contained in the poems.
As to annals partaking of the nature of registers the language of the extant compositions is unfavourable. They are mentioned, of course; but it is always some one's collection of something before his time—never the original cotemporary documents. Now the compiler is Cormac McArthur, now St. Patrick. The manner of their mention in the Four Masters is as follows:—