Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Cat" to "Celt" / Volume 5, Slice 5

by Various

Celtic Literature

I. Irish Literature.—In the absence of a native coinage it is extremely difficult to say when the use of letters was introduced into Ireland. It is probable that the Latin alphabet first came in with Christianity. With the exception Ogam inscriptions. of the one bilingual Ogam inscription as yet discovered in Ireland (that at Killeen Cormac) all the inscriptions in Roman letters are certainly later than 500. Indeed, apart from the stone reading “LIE LUGUAEDON MACCI MENUEH,” they are all contemporary with or later than the Old Irish glosses. With regard to the Ogam inscriptions we cannot make any confident assertions. Owing to the lack of criteria for dating certain Irish sound-changes accurately it is impossible to assign chronological limits for the earlier stones. The latter cannot be later than the 5th century, but there is nothing to show whether they are Christian or not, and if pagan they may be a century or two earlier. It is true that the heroes and druids of the older epics are represented in the stories as making constant use of Ogam letters on wood and stone, and as the state of civilization described in the oldest versions of the Ulster sagas seems largely to go back to the beginning of the Christian era, it is not impossible that this peculiar system of writing had been framed by them. The Ogam system is certainly based on the Latin and not the Greek alphabet, and was probably invented by some person from the south of Ireland who received his knowledge of the Roman letters from traders from the mouth of the Loire. It may, however, be regarded as certain that the Ogam script was never employed in early times for literary purposes. We are told that the Gaulish druids disdained to commit their lore to writing, although they were familiar with the use of Greek letters, and their Irish confrères probably resembled them in this respect. Tradition connects the codification of the Brehon Laws with the name of Patrick, and there is reason for believing, as we shall see later, that the greatest Irish epic was first committed to writing in the 7th century.

The great bulk of Irish literature is contained in MSS. belonging to the Middle Irish period (1100-1550), and in order to be able to treat this literature as a whole it will be convenient for us to deal first with those documents which are Old Irish MSS. termed Old Irish, especially as the contemporary remains of the literature of the earlier period are almost exclusively of a religious nature. Most of the Old Irish documents have been printed by Stokes and Strachan in the Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, and where no reference is given the reader is referred to that monumental work. The extraordinary outburst of intellectual activity in Ireland from the 6th to the 9th centuries and the compositions of Irishmen in the Latin language, belong to the history of medieval European literature and fall outside the scope of this article. For the Confession of St Patrick and his “Letter to the Subjects of Coroticus” see [Patrick]. The only Irish document ascribed to the saint is the strange so-called “Hymn,” the fáeth fiada, more properly fóid fiada, “the cry of the deer.” This is a rhythmical incantation which is said Hymns. to have rendered the saint and his companions invisible to King Loigaire and his druids. The Trinity and powers of nature are invoked to help him to resist spells of women and smiths and wizards. The hymn, which contains a number of strange grammatical forms, is undoubtedly referred to in the Book of Armagh, and may very well go back to the 5th century. The Latin hymns contained in two MSS. dating from the end of the 11th or beginning of the 12th century, a Trinity College, Dublin, MS., and a MS. belonging to the Franciscan monastery in Dublin, are of interest to us as exhibiting the influence of the native metrical system. Quantity and elision are ignored, and rhymes, assonances, alliterations and harmonies abound in true Irish fashion. The line consists of two units which commonly contain either seven or eight syllables apiece. The earliest and best-known of these religious poems are the Hymn of Secundinus (Sechnall d. 447) on St Patrick, and the two hymns attributed to St Columba (d. 597) beginning “Noli pater” and “Altus prosator,” the latter of which exhibits some of the peculiarities of the so-called Hibernian Latin of the Hisperica Famina and the Lorica of Gildas. The date of the Irish hymns in the Liber Hymnorum ranges, according to Stokes and Strachan, from the 7th to the 11th centuries. Ultán’s hymn on St Brigit beginning “Brigit bé bithmaith,” which is by far the most artistic of the collection, was perhaps composed in the 7th century. Definite metrical laws had evidently been elaborated when this poem was written. The beat is iambic, but the natural accent of the words is rigidly observed. The long line consists of two units of five syllables each. The rhymes are dissyllabic and perfect. Alliteration is always observed in the latter half of each line and assonances are found knitting up the half-lines. The short prayer ascribed to Ninine or to Fiacc is a highly alliterative piece without rhyme, the date of which cannot be fixed. The well-known hymn on St Patrick traditionally ascribed to Fiacc, bishop of Sletty, and the piece beginning “Sén Dé,” traditionally ascribed to Colmán, are assigned on linguistic grounds to the beginning of the 9th century. The lines going by the name of “Sanctán’s Hymn” probably belong to the same century, whilst the metrical catalogue of marvels performed by St Brigit contains such a medley of older and later forms, probably due to interpolation, that it is impossible to determine its age. The few lines entitled “Mael-Ísu’s Hymn” are the most recent of all and probably belong to the 11th century (Mael-Ísu d. 1086). The Patrician documents by Muirchu Maccu Machthéni, who professed to write at the command of Bishop Aed of Sletty (d. 698), and by Tirechán, who is said to have received his information from Bishop Ultán (d. 656), are contained in the Book of Armagh, a MS. compiled by Ferdomnach in 807. These documents, like the Life of St Columba by Adamnan, the MS. of which was written by Dorbbéne, abbot of Hi (d. 713), contain a number of names and forms of great importance for the study of the language.

The earliest pieces of connected prose in Irish are three:—(1) the Cambray Homily, contained in an 8th-century codex at Cambray copied by a continental hand from a MS. in the Irish character; the language is very archaic and Earliest prose. dates from the second half of the 7th or the beginning of the 8th century; (2) the additions to the notes of Tirechán on the life of St Patrick in the Book of Armagh; these seem to go back to the early 8th century; (3) the tract on the Mass in the Stowe Missal, which is in all probability nearly as old as the Cambray Homily, though contained in a 10th or 11th century MS. Of especial interest are the spells and poems found in the Stowe Missal and two continental MSS. The Stowe MS. (now deposited in the Royal Irish Academy) contains three rather badly preserved spells for a sore eye, a thorn and disease of the urine. A St Gall codex has preserved four Irish incantations of the 8th and 9th centuries. These are respectively against a thorn, urinary disease, headache and various ailments. Another charm, which is partly obscure, occurs in the 9th-century codex preserved at the monastery of St Paul in Carinthia. The same MS. also contains (1) a humorous poem treating of the doings of a bookish writer and his favourite cat Pangur Bán; (2) a riddling poem ascribed to Suibne Geilt, a king who is said to have lost his reason at the battle of Moira (a.d. 637); (3) verses extracted from a poem ascribed to St Moling (d. 697), who may very well have been the actual author; (4) a poem in praise of some Leinster princeling called Aed.

For our knowledge of the older language, however, we have to rely mainly on the numerous glosses scattered about in a large number of MSS., which it is impossible to enumerate here. Indeed, such an enumeration is now rendered Old glosses. superfluous owing to the publication of the Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, in which all the various glosses have been collected. For our purpose it will be sufficient to mention the three most important codices containing Old Irish glosses. These are as follows:—(1) The Codex Paulinus at Würzburg, which contains the thirteen epistles of St Paul, and the Epistle to the Hebrews, with a great mass of explanatory glosses, partly in Latin, partly in Irish, partly mixed. The chief source of the commentary is the commentary of Pelagius, who is often cited by name. The date of this highly important MS. is much disputed; part of the Irish glosses seem to date from about 700, whilst the rest may be placed a little before 800. (2) The Codex Ambrosianus, formerly at Bobbio, now at Milan, which contains a commentary on the psalter with a large number of Irish glosses. In their present state these glosses were copied in the first half of the 9th century. (3) Glosses on Priscian contained in four MSS., of which the most important is the Codex Sangallensis, dating from the middle of the 9th century. Apart from the biblical glosses and scholia the other chief texts or authors provided with Irish glosses are Augustine, Bede, the Canons, the Computus, Eutychius, Juvencus, Philargyrius, Prudentius and Servius.

The Milan and the St Gall codices just mentioned both contain several short poems in Irish. In two stanzas in the Swiss MS. we find expressed for the first time that keen sympathy with nature in all her moods which is so marked a feature of Irish and Welsh verse.

Two ponderous religious poems have now to be noticed. To Oengus the Culdee is attributed the lengthy Félire or Calendar of Church Festivals, consisting of 365 quatrains in rinnard metre, one for each day in the year. The language of this dry compilation, which is heavily glossed and annotated, points to 800 as the date of composition, and Oengus, who is stated to have lived about that time, may well have been the author. This calendar has been twice edited by W. Stokes with an English translation, the first time for the Royal Irish Academy (Dublin, 1880), and again for the Bradshaw Society (London, 1905).

It may perhaps be as well to enumerate here the later Irish martyrologies. (1) The Martyrology of Tallaght (Tamlacht), founded on an 8th-century calendar, but containing additions down to 900 (ed. D.H. Kelly, Dublin, 1857). (2) The metrical Martyrology of O’Gorman, c. 1166-1174, edited by Stokes for the Bradshaw Society (London, 1895). (3) The Martyrology of Donegal, an important compilation in prose made by Michael O’Clery in 1630, edited by J.H. Todd (Dublin, 1864). A composition which is wrongly assigned to Oengus the Culdee is the Saltair na Rann or Psalter in Quatrains, contained in an Oxford MS. (Rawlinson B 502) and published without a translation by Stokes (Oxford, 1883). The work proper consists of 150 poems corresponding to the number of Psalms in the psalter, but 12 poems have been added, and in all it contains 2098 quatrains, chiefly in deibide metre of seven syllables. The poems are mainly based on biblical (Old Testament) history, but they preserve a large measure of medieval sacred lore and cosmogony. The psalter received additions as late as 998, and the Oxford MS. belongs to the 12th century. We should perhaps also mention here the famous Amra or Eulogy of St Columba, commonly attributed to Dallán Forgaill, a contemporary of the saint, but Stokes takes the view that it was written in the 9th century, and is intentionally obscure. The oldest but not the best copy of the Amra is preserved in the Trinity College, Dublin, MS. of the Liber Hymnorum, but it also occurs in LU. and elsewhere. It invariably appears heavily gloss-laden, and the glosses and commentary added thereto are out of all proportion to the text. This piece, which is not extant in its integrity, was probably intended as artificial alliterative prose, but, as we have it, it is a medley of isolated phrases and irrelevant comment.

During the 9th and 10th centuries Ireland was harassed by the Vikings, and a host of scholars seem to have fled to the continent, carrying with them their precious books, many of which are preserved in Italy, Switzerland, Germany Old collectors. and elsewhere. Hence very few early Irish MSS. are preserved in Ireland itself. When the fury of the storm was past, Irish scholars showed increased interest in the old literary documents, and copied all that they could lay hands on into miscellaneous codices. The earliest of these collections, such as the Cin of Druim Snechta, the Yellow Book of Slane, the Book of Dubdaleithe, the Psalter of Cashel, exist no longer, though their names have come down and certain of them were known in the 17th century. However, copies of a goodly portion of the contents of these old books are preserved to us in one form or another, but mainly in a series of huge miscellaneous codices Book of the Dun Cow. ranging in date from the 12th to the 16th century. The oldest is Lebor na h-uidre, or Book of the Dun Cow, preserved in the Royal Irish Academy and published in facsimile (Dublin, 1870). This MS. was compiled in part in the monastery of Clonmacnoise by Moelmuire MacCelechair, who was slain in 1106. The Book of the Dun Cow (where necessary we shall abbreviate as LU.) derives its name from a legend that Ciaran of Clonmacnoise (d. 544) took down the story of the Táin Bó Cualnge on a parchment made from the hide of his favourite cow. The name seems to have been wrongly applied to the 12th-century MS. in the 15th century. LU. is almost entirely devoted to romance, the stories which Book of Leinster. it contains belonging mainly to the Ulster cycle. The next MS. in point of age is the Book of Leinster (abbreviated LL.) now in Trinity College, Dublin. It was transcribed by Finn, son of Gorman, bishop of Kildare (d. 1160). LL. also contains a large number of romances in addition to other important matter, mainly historical and Yellow Book of Lecan. genealogical, bearing more particularly on the affairs of Leinster. The Yellow Book of Lecan (YBL.), also in Trinity College, Dublin, was written at different times by the MacFirbis family, but chiefly by Gilla Isa, son of Donnchad Mór MacFirbis about 1391. The MacFirbises were hereditary scribes and genealogists to the O’Dowds, chiefs of the Hy Fiachrach (Co. Sligo). YBL. contains a vast amount of romance, and is indispensable as supplementing and checking Book of Ballymote. the contents of LU. and LL. The most extensive collection of all is the Book of Ballymote (BB.), now belonging to the Royal Irish Academy, which was compiled about the beginning of the 15th century by various scribes. The book was in the possession of the chiefs of Ballymote for more than a century. In 1522 it was purchased by the O’Donnells for 140 milch cows. BB. only contains little romantic matter, but it has preserved much valuable historical and Speckled Book. genealogical material. The contents of the Leabhar Breac (LB.), or Speckled Book, now in the Royal Irish Academy, are chiefly ecclesiastical and religious. LB. seems to have been compiled in large measure before 1544. All these five codices have been published in facsimile by the Royal Irish Academy with a description of their contents. Two important Mid. Ir. MSS. in the Bodleian (Rawlinson B 512 and Laud 610), containing a good deal of romantic material, are also published in facsimile by Henry Frowde.

Other MSS. which require special mention are (1) The Great Book of Lecan, compiled in the year 1417 by Gilla Isa Mór MacFirbis, in the Royal Irish Academy; (2) The Book of Lismore, the property of the duke of Devonshire at Lismore Other MSS. material. Castle. This codex was compiled in the latter half of the 15th century from the lost book of Monasterboice and other MSS. Its contents are described in the introduction to Stokes’s Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore (Oxford, 1890). (3) The Book of Fermoy in the Royal Irish Academy. The contents are described in the introduction to O’Beirne Crowe’s edition of the Táin Bó Fraich (Dublin, 1870). (4) The Book of Hy Maine recently acquired by the Royal Irish Academy. The scribe who wrote it died in 1372. O’Curry, O’Longan and O’Beirne Crowe drew up a MS. catalogue of the Irish MSS. in the Royal Irish Academy, and O’Donovan performed the same service for the Trinity College, Dublin, collection. A briefer account of the Irish MSS. in TCD. will be found in Abbott’s Catalogue of the MSS. in that library. O’Curry also drew up a list of the Irish MSS. in the British Museum, and S.H. O’Grady has printed part i. of a descriptive catalogue of this collection (London, 1901), part ii. by T. O’Maille. The twenty-six MSS. in the Franciscan monastery in Dublin are described by J.T. Gilbert in the Fourth Report of the Royal Commission on Historical MSS. W.F. Skene catalogued the collection of MSS. in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh, a printed catalogue of which has been issued by D. Mackinnon (Edinburgh, 1909; see also Trans. Gaelic Soc. of Inverness, xvi. 285-309).