The Dean of Lismore's Book: A Selection of Ancient Gaelic Poetry

by Unknown

NOTE BY TRANSLATOR.

The Dean’s MS. was put into the hands of the present translator a few years ago by Mr. Cosmo Innes, with a view to a correct account being given of its contents. After a considerable time spent on deciphering the difficult handwriting, and resolving the strange and irregular orthography, he gave a fuller account of it than had been given before, in a paper read before the Society of Scottish Antiquaries. He was aware that a transcript of the MS. had been made by a Gaelic scholar of the highest reputation, the late Mr. M‘Lachlan of Aberdeen; but that transcript was altogether unknown save by one or two individuals, and was at the time thought to be lost. In December 1860, the publishers proposed to the writer that he should undertake transcribing and translating the MS. with notes, Mr. Skene undertaking to write a historical introduction, with additional notes. There was good reason for reluctance in undertaking such a work. There was immense difficulty in the task itself, consisting very much in an exercise of ingenuity, the results to be tested by comparison, in guessing the meaning of words phonetically spelled; there was the labour of writing the same thing in three different forms; and there was in all this large demands upon time otherwise engrossed by the duties of a profession, whose calls the keeping of a good conscience, and duty to a Divine Master, would not admit of being neglected or postponed. The work itself, however, was very congenial, as contributing somewhat to the literature of the Celtic countrymen of the writer, the literature of a period, too, of which few other literary remains of theirs exist. He therefore undertook to devote his spare hours for a season to the work, which is now laid before the public.

The difficulties did not become less than was anticipated when they came to be practically dealt with. There was first the transcription of the original. A facsimile specimen of the writing is given in this volume, from which some idea may be formed of its character. The handwriting is the current English hand of the fifteenth century, with a few additional peculiarities borrowed from the Gaelic writing of the same period, as practised both in Scotland and Ireland. As is common in the writing of the period, the same sign is used both for c and t. There is often no distinction between o and e, u and n, or ƒ and s; and in the hurry of writing the Dean often wrote m for n, and vice versâ; and the letter z stands for all the sounds resembling the consonant y. Besides, there are numerous contractions, the same sign being often used for in, im, and ir, and the Irish dot (·) is often used as a substitute for h. The MS. is in many places much decayed, and the writing in consequence much obscured, while the orthography is by no means quite regular. The transcript has, however, been carefully made from the original, and compared again in proof, and the reader, with the allowance necessary in the circumstances already described, may feel assured that in the original, as printed, he has a correct copy of the Dean’s work.

The work, however, was not beyond the threshold when the transcription was complete. It was in interpreting the Dean’s phonetic Gaelic, so as to form the modern Gaelic edition, that the chief difficulty arose; and here the translator was left altogether without guide to lead the way, except in the case of a few of the Ossianic poems. There were three peculiar difficulties to be encountered here,—first, the frequent occurrence of obsolete words,—words not to be found in any dictionary of the Scottish Gaelic,—and the meaning of which could only be learned from some acquaintance with the ancient MS. writings of Scottish and Irish scribes; secondly, there was the introduction into the Dean’s grammar of the Irish eclipsis, turning in his orthography f into w, c into g, b into m, and d into n, without any hyphen; and there was, last of all, the accentuation, which, in a number of the pieces, lays the emphasis on the latter syllable of dissyllabic words, and thus alters to a Scotch reader the whole rhythm of the lines. Many of these pieces will not read as poetry at all, unless read in accordance with the Irish method of accentuation. It was known to all acquainted with early Gaelic literature, how much there was that was common to the literature of Scotland and Ireland. This miscellany fully establishes the fact, while it also shows that, in the fifteenth century, Scottish Gaelic, as exemplified in some of these compositions, especially those of Finlay M’Nab, had its own distinctive features. There is nothing more interesting than the weight given in the allusions in these poems to the existence and influence of the Bardic schools at the period, and the large prizes usually conferred by the wealthy on successful poets.

The translation into English was, upon the whole, a less arduous process than the previous one. It might have been otherwise had the attempt been made to translate into English poetry. This, however, has been carefully avoided. The rendering has been made so literal as that the meaning of every sentence in Gaelic is conveyed in English, so far as the editor has been able to do it; and the translation is merely somewhat lightened, and the reading made more agreeable, by having the baldness of mere literality removed, and the lines made somewhat smooth and flowing.

In some cases the spelling and handwriting together have so obscured the words, that the editor has been quite unable to give anything like a satisfactory rendering; hence there will be found, in a very few instances, what are apparently different words in the original and modern version. Some instances will also be found of words written in the modern version according to the analogy of the Dean’s orthography, while the precise word intended has not been identified. The editor has only to say regarding these and any other cases of doubtful rendering, which in such a work must be numerous, that he will be happy to receive through the publishers any suggestions from Gaelic scholars which may help to secure greater accuracy.

It is only necessary to say farther, that in extending the modern Gaelic version of these poems, it was perfectly impossible to exclude all the older forms of the language. In many places to do so would have been to destroy the whole poetical structure of the composition. It was essential to retain the “da,” if, the “fa,” on, or under, and the “co” or “go,” with, besides numerous forms of the verb, which it is the practice now to call Irish, but which were common at an early period to the literature of both countries. It was perfectly impossible, with anything like justice to these compositions, to bring them into exact conformity with the rules of modern Scottish Gaelic.

The present volume contains every line of Ossianic or Fenian poetry in the Dean’s MS. It also contains every composition having reference to Scotland, with the exception of five; two of these being so much defaced, and so many of the words obscured by time and exposure, that it is impossible to give anything like an accurate version of them. The other three are eulogies on the clan Gregor chiefs, so much of a piece with those already given, that they would not contribute to the literary value of the work. The purely Irish poems of the O’Huggins, the O’Dalys, etc., are not given in this work, whose object is to illustrate the language and literature of the Scottish Highlands at an early period. A few specimens, such as the laments of Gormlay, wife of Nial Glundubh, and daughter of Flann Sionna, Queen of Ireland, have been transcribed as specimens, which may be not uninteresting either to the Scottish or Irish reader. The Irish compositions are, with few exceptions, of a religious character.

T. M‘L.

Edinburgh, December 1861.