Were we a powerful, well-armed warrior standing by the side of Maelseachlin (Malachy) on that day, we would certainly have endeavored to find a better occupation for his hands. Hear this bit of Pecksniffism uttered by him:
"It is one of the problems of Erinn whether the valor of those who sustained that crushing assault was greater than ours who bore the sight of it without running distracted before the winds, or fainting."
Conaing, Brian's nephew, and Maelmordha, fell that day by each other's swords. The Connacht forces and the Danes of Dublin assailed each other so furiously that only about a hundred of the Irish survived, while the Danes scarcely left a score. Murchadh's exploits, could we trust the chronicler and Malachy, could be rivalled only by those of Achilles of old. He went forward and backward through the enemies' ranks, mowing them down even as a person might level rows of upright weeds. He got his mortal wound at last from the knife of a Dane whom he had struck to the earth. He survived, however, till he had received the consolations of religion.
About sunset the foreigners, notwithstanding their superiority in armor, were utterly defeated. Striving to escape by their ships, they were prevented by the presence of the full tide, and those who flew toward the city were either intercepted by the same tide or by Maelseachluin's [Footnote 294] men. Dr. Todd inclines to this last theory. The heroic youth Torloch, son of Murchadh, pursuing the fugitive Danes into the sea, met his death at a weir.
[Footnote 294: This name implies the Tonsured, that is, devoted disciple of Saint Sechnal, contemporary with St. Patrick, and patron of Dunshaughlin.]
The aged monarch, while engaged at his prayers for the blessing of Heaven on the arms of his people, was murdered just at the moment of victory by the chief Brodar, who in a few minutes afterward was torn to pieces by the infuriated soldiers crowding to the spot.
The power of the foreigners was certainly crushed in this great and memorable combat, but disorder seized on the general weal of the island again. South-Munster renewed its contentions with North-Munster, and even its own chiefs with each other. Donnchad, Brian's remaining son, though a brave prince, had not the abilities of his father or elder brother. Malachy quietly resumed the sovereignty of the island, but found that the annoyances from turbulent petty kings and the still remaining foreigners were not at an end.
We join our regret to that of the editor that one of the unromantic books of Annals—that of Tiernach, or Loch Cé, or that of Ulster, has not inaugurated the publication of our ancient chronicles. Dr. Todd has done all that could be done by the most profound and enlightened scholar to disentangle the true from the false through the narrative by shrewd guesses, by sound judgment in weighing the merits and probabilities of conflicting accounts, by comparing the romantic statements with those set forth in the genuine annals and the foreign authorities, whether Icelandic or Anglo-Saxon. Many events in our old archives, pronounced by shallow and supercilious critics to have had no foundation, are found to possess the stamp of truth by the care taken by Dr. Todd and his fellow-archaeologists in comparing our own annals and those of the European nations with whom we had formerly either friendly or hostile relations.
Besides the anxious care bestowed on the comparison of the different MSS. and the translation, and the very useful commentary, the editor has furnished in the appendix the fragment (with translation) in the Book of Leinster, the Chronology and Genealogy of the Kings of Ireland and of Munster during the Danish period, Maelseachluin's account of the fight of Clontarf, in full from the Brussels MS., and the genealogy of the various Scandinavian chiefs who were mixed with our concerns for two centuries. The accounts given in detail of the fortunes of Sitric and others of these chiefs are highly interesting. The present volume will be more generally read than any of the mere chronicles, into whose composition entered more conscience and judgment—on account of the many poetic and romantic passages scattered through it. Let us hope that it is not the last on which the labors of the eminent scholar, its editor, will be employed, for we cannot conceive any literary task more ably and satisfactorily executed than the production of the Wars of the Gaedhil and the Gaill.