The Fatal Sisters, translated by Gray from the Norse, refer to the day at Clontarf. We quote three of the verses:
"Ere the ruddy sun be set
Pikes must shiver, javelins sing,
Blade with clattering buckler meet,
Hauberk crash, and helmet ring.
......
"Low the dauntless earl [Footnote 295] is laid,
Gored with many a gaping wound;
Fate demands a nobler head,
Soon a king [Footnote 296] shall bite the ground.
[Footnote 295: Earl Sigurd.]
[Footnote 296: Brian.]
"Long his loss shall Erinn weep,
Ne'er again his likeness see;
Long her strains in sorrow steep,
Strains of immortality!"
The appendix added by Dr. Todd to the work is exceedingly interesting and valuable, containing among other matters a carefully arranged genealogical list of the Irish princes and the foreign chiefs during the Danish wars, and an abstract of the fortunes of several of these kings. The accounts of the battle of Clontarf differed so much in form in the two MSS., that is, the Dublin and Brussels copies, that, instead of pointing out the various readings in notes to the body of the narrative, the editor has removed the account in the Brussels MSS., purported to have been given by Malachy, to the end of the book. Passages are worth preservation as literary curiosities. If Malachy felt any ill to Brian for wresting his independent sovereignty from him, there is not a trace of it discoverable in his narrative. Thus he speaks of the noble heir-apparent, Murchadh, who disdained to wear even a shield.
Malachy's Account of the Battle.
"The royal warrior had with him two swords, that is, a sword in each hand, for he was the last man in Erinn who was equally expert in the use of the right hand and of the left... He would not retreat one foot before the race of all mankind for any reason in the world, except this reason alone, that he could not help dying of his wounds. He was the last man in Erinn who was a match for a hundred. He was the last man who killed a hundred in one day in Erinn. His step was the last step which true valor took. Seven like Murchadh were equal to Mac Samhain," etc.
Then the writer indulged in a heroic series in geometrical progression, each hero being worth seven such as the man who preceded him, and the greatest of all being Hector of Troy. All native bards, school-masters, and school boys, who have flourished since first the siege of Troy was heard of in Ireland, have fixed on Hector as the matchless model of heroism, chivalric faith, courtesy, and tenderness; most of them have borne a cordial hatred to the son of Peleus. Has the feeling originated from the pseudo-work of Dares the Phrygian priest having arrived in the country before Homer's "Tale of Troy Divine"? The theory in the text would make Hector many times superior to Hercules, the heroic terms in the sevenfold progression being Murchadh, Mac Samhain, Lugha Lagha, Conall Cearnach, Lugha Lamhfada, (Long Hand,) Hector! After the list comes this rather startling assertion: "These were the degrees of championship since the beginning of the world, and before Hector there was no illustrious championship."