THE
POEM-BOOK OF THE GAEL

[Pg i]

[Pg ii]

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
at Paul's Work, Edinburgh

[Pg iv]

Opening passage of the "Saltair na Rann."
from the MS. in the Bodleian Library.

[Pg v]

THE POEM-BOOK OF
THE GAEL

Translations from Irish Gaelic Poetry into
English Prose and Verse

SELECTED AND EDITED BY

ELEANOR HULL

AUTHOR OF "THE CUCHULLIN SAGA IN IRISH LITERATURE,"
"A TEXT-BOOK OF IRISH LITERATURE," ETC.

WITH A FRONTISPIECE

LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS

1913

[Pg vi]

A NEW IMPRESSION

All rights reserved

[Pg vii]

CONTENTS

(Where not otherwise indicated, the translation or
poetic setting is by the author.)

[Pg xv]

INTRODUCTION

"An air is more lasting than the voice of the birds,
A word is more lasting than the riches of the world."

The truth of this Irish proverb strikes us forcibly as we glance through any such collection of Gaelic poetry as this, and consider how these lays, the dates of whose composition extend from the eighth to the present century, have been preserved to us.

On the border of some grave manuscript, such as a Latin copy of St. Paul's Epistles or a transcript of Priscian, a stray quatrain may be found jotted down by the tired scribe, recording in impromptu verse his delight at the note of a blackbird whose song has penetrated his cell, his amusement at the gambols of his cat watching a mouse, or his reflections on a piece of news brought to him by some wandering monk, about the terror of the viking raids, or a change of dynasty "at home in Ireland."

Several of our Ossianic poems are taken from a manuscript of lays collected in 1626-27 in and about the Glens of Antrim, and sent out to while away the tedium of camp life to an Irish officer serving in the Low Countries, who wearied for the poems and stories of his youth. The religious hymns of Murdoch O'Daly (Muredach Albanach), called "the Scot" on account of his affection for his adopted country, though he was born in Connaught, [Pg xvi] are preserved in a collection of poems gathered in the Western Highlands, many Irish poems, even from so great a distance as Munster, being found in it.

The Saltair na Rann or "Psalter of the Verses," the most important religious poem of ancient Ireland, is preserved in one copy only. It seems as though a miracle had sometimes intervened to guard for later generations some single version of a valuable tract at home or abroad; but it is a miracle which we could have wished to have taken place more often, when we reflect upon the large number of manuscripts forever lost to us.

Many of the most beautiful of the ancient poems, as well as of the popular songs, are anonymous; they are frequently found mixed up with material of the most arid description, genealogies, annals, or miscellaneous matter. It is easier to guess from the tone of the poems under what mood of mind they were composed than to tell exactly who wrote them. Even when they come down to us adorned with the name of some well-known saint or poet, we have an uncertain feeling about the accuracy of the ascription, when we find a poem whose language cannot be earlier than the tenth or eleventh century confidently connected with a writer who lived two or three centuries earlier. In some cases, no doubt, the versions we possess, though modernised in language and rhythm, are in reality old; in others the ascription probably bears witness to the desire of the author or his public to win esteem for his work by adorning it with some famous name. Some of these poems, of which only one copy has come down to us, were, however, well known in an earlier day, and are quoted in old tracts on Irish metric as examples of the metres used in the bardic [Pg xvii] schools. It is evident that though standards of taste may change, the recognition of what is really beautiful in poetry remains as a settled instinct in man's nature. Many of those poems which now appeal most strongly to ourselves took rank as verses of acknowledged merit nearer to the time of their composition. This we can deduce from their use as examples worthy of imitation in these mediæval Irish text-books, where the names of songs we still admire are quoted as specimens of good poetry.

It is remarkable that a very large proportion of fine poetry comes to us from the period of the Norse invasions, a time which we are accustomed to think of as one continuous series of wars, raids, and burnings; but which, if we may judge by what has come down to us of its verse, shows us that the Irish gentleman of that day had ideas of refinement that raise him far above the mere fighting clansman; his critical view of literature was a severe one. The fine freedom shown in many of these poems is surprising, both as regards the sentiments and the metres. They possess a mastery of form that argues a high cultivation, not only of the special art of poetry, but of the whole intellectual faculties of the writers.

Some of these poems are strangely modern, even fin de siècle in their tone. The poem of the "Old Woman of Beare" has often been compared to Villon's "Regrets de la Belle Heaulmière ja parvenue à viellesse," or to Béranger's "Grand'mère." But the Irish poem is far more artistically wrought than either of these comparatively modern poems. For in the ancient verses, the old woman is set, a lonely and forsaken figure, against the background of the ebbing tide, and the slow throbs of her heart, worn with age and sin, beat in unison with the [Pg xviii] retreating motion of the wave. There is also a further significance in the poem which we must not miss. It is the earliest of the long series of allegorical songs in which Ireland is depicted under the form of a woman; though, unlike her successors of a later day, she is here represented, not as a fair maiden, a Grainne Mhaol, or Kathleen ni Houlahan, or Little Mary Cuillenan, but as an aged joyless hag, forlorn and censorious, bemoaning the loss of bygone pleasures, and the gravity of her nun's veil. The "Cailleach Bheara," the "Hag" or "Nun of Beare" is known in many place-names in Ireland. It is on Slieve na Callighe, or the "Hill of the Hag" or "Nun," in Co. Meath that the great cairns and tumuli of Lough Crew are found; it was evidently, like the neighbourhood of the Boyne, a place of pagan sanctity; and such names as Tober na Callighe Bheara, the "Well of the Hag of Beare," are found in different parts of the country. The "Hag of Beare" seems to be symbolic of pagan Ireland, regretting the stricter regime of Christianity, and the changes that time had brought about. The curious legend which prefaces the poem suggests the same idea. She is said to have seen seven periods of youth, and to have outlived tribes and races descended from her. For a hundred years of old age she wore the veil of a nun. "Thereupon old age and infirmity came upon her." We catch the same note of regret for the days of paganism through many legends and poems. It is mystical and veiled in such stories as that of "King Murtough and the Witch-woman"; it is fierce, but also often touched by the grotesque, in the innumerable colloquies between Patrick and Oisín (Ossian), the last of the ancient pagan heroes. But in all this there is a note of apology. It is not so outspoken in its revolt [Pg xix] against the new system of life and thought as are the Norse chronicles and the Icelandic Sagas. After all, Christianity was an accomplished thing; quietly but persistently it took its place, sweeping into its fold chiefs and common folk alike. No resistance could stop this universal progress. And the literary man or the peasant, dwelling on his early legends, the outcome of a state of thought passed or passing away, dared only half-heartedly bemoan the former days, when wars and raids, the "Creach" and the "Táin" were the highest way of life for a brave man, and no Christian doctrine of forgiveness of enemies and charity to foes had come in to perplex his thoughts and confuse their issues. The Raid remained, it was an essential part of actual life; and burnings and wars went on as before, but they were no longer, theoretically, at least, matters to win praise and honour, they were condemned beforehand by the Christian ethic. A chief, to hold his own, must still throw open doors of hospitality to his tribe, must dispense largesse to all-comers, must gather about his board the neighbours and dependents in riotous assemblies and festivals. But all this the Christian monk and priest looked upon with suspicion; they bade him fill his thoughts with a future Kingdom, rather than with the earthly one to which he had been born, and to keep his soul in humble readiness by prayers and fastings, by seclusion and self-sacrifice. The great disjointure is everywhere apparent; chiefs are seen flying from their plain duties to their clans in order to win a heavenly chiefdom, not of this world; kings retire into hermitages, and whole villages take on the aspect and system of life of the monastery. To escape a network of religious service so closely spread throughout the country was [Pg xx] impossible; all that the half-convinced could do was to relieve his soul in legend and song and jest. Hence the large amount of this literature of protest, coming to us curiously side by side with poems breathing the very spirit of religious devotion, the work of peaceful recluse or retired monk.

For the movement had its other aspect. If the warrior or chief resigned much in becoming a Christian monk, there is no doubt that he gained as well. Contemporaneous religious poetry in the Middle Ages is elsewhere overshadowed by the cast of theologic thought. The "world" from which the saint must flee is no mere symbol, denoting the perils of evil courses; it is the actual visible earth, its hills and trees and flowers, and the beauty of its human inhabitants that are in themselves a danger and a snare. St. Bernard walking round the Lake of Geneva, unconscious of its presence and blind to its loveliness, is a fit symbol of the tendency of the religious mind in the Middle Ages. Sin and repentance, the fall and redemption, hell and heaven, occupied the religious man's every thought; beside such weighty themes the outward life became almost negligible. If he dared to turn his mind towards it at all, it was in order to extract from it some warning of peril, or some allegory of things divine. In essence, the "world" was nothing else than a peril to be renounced and if possible entirely abandoned.

But the Irish monk showed no such inclination, suffered no such terrors. His joy in nature grew with his loving association with her moods. He refused to mingle the idea of evil with what God had made so good. If he sought for symbols, he found only symbols of purity and holiness. The pool beside his hut, the rill that flowed across his green, became to his watchful eye the [Pg xxi] manifestation of a divine spirit washing away sin; if the birds sang sweetly above his door, they were the choristers of God; if the wild beasts gathered to their nightly tryst, were they not the congregation of intelligent beings whom God Himself would most desire? The friendly badgers or foxes of the wood that came forth, undismayed by the white or brown-robed figure who seemed to have taken up his lasting abode amongst them, became to his mind fellow-monks, authorised members of his strange community. Amongst his feathered and furred associates, he read his Psalms and Hours in peace; sang his periodic hymn to St. Hilary or St. Brigit, and performed his innumerable genuflexions and "cross-vigils." Here, from time to time, he poured forth in spontaneous song his joy in the life that he had elected as his own. When King Guaire of Connaught stands at the door of the hermitage in which his brother Marvan had taken refuge from the bustle of court life, and asks him why he had sacrificed so much, Marvan bursts forth into a poem in praise of his hermit life, and the King is fain to confess that the choice of the recluse was the wiser one; when St. Cellach of Killala is dragged into the forest by his comrades and threatened with death, not even the sight of the four murderers lying at his feet with swords ready drawn in their hands to slay him can prevent him from greeting the Dawn in a beautiful song.

The saint who, like St. Finan, lived shut up within his cell, in many cases lost his mental balance, and degenerated into a mere Fakir, winning heaven by the miseries of his self-imposed mortifications; but the monk who trusted himself to untrammelled intercourse with nature, preserved his underlying sanity. For whether or no the hundreds of daily genuflexions were [Pg xxii] performed, the patch of ground around the solitary's cell must be ploughed or sown or reaped; the apples must be gathered or the honeysuckles twined. The salmon or herring must be netted or angled for. Thus nature and its needs kept the hermit on the straight and simple paths of physical and mental healthfulness, however he might try to escape into a wilderness of his own imaginings.

The early poetry, we feel, is on the whole joyous; whether pagan or Christian in tone, it arises from a happy heart. The pagan is more robust, more vigorous; the Christian gentler and more reflective; but alike they are free from the mournful note of despair that throws a settled gloom over much of the later literature.

The Ossianic poems have quite a distinctive tone; in them we catch the abounding energy belonging to the days of the hunt of the wild native boar or stag, when all the country was one open hunting-ground, fit for men whose ideal was that of the sportsman and the warrior. Besides romantic tales, we have a whole body of poetry, loosely strung together under the covering name of Oisín, or Ossian, and usually ascribed to him or to Fionn mac Cumhall, his father and chief, dealing with the themes of war and of the chase. They are often in the nature of the protest of the fighting and hunting-man against the claims of religion. He is perpetually proclaiming that the sounds and sights of the forest and seashore are more dear to him than any others, and when he is called upon to give the first place to the duties of religion, placed before him, as it usually is, in its most enfeebling aspect, he raises the stout protest that the hunting-horn has greater attractions for him than the tinkling bell which calls to prayer.

[Pg xxiii]

There is the ring of the obstinate pagan about such verses; and many poems are wholly occupied by an unholy wrangling between the representative of the old order, Oisín, and the representative of the new, St. Patrick. The poems themselves probably date from a far later period than either.

More healthy are the true hunting songs. Many of these are in praise of the Isle of Arran, in the Clyde, a favourite resort during the sporting-season both for the Scottish and Irish huntsman. In the poem we have called "The Isle of Arran," from the "Colloquy of the Ancient Men," the charm of the Isle is well described. We have in it the same pure joy in natural scenery that we find in the poems of the religious hermits, but the tone is manlier and more emphatic.

Occasionally a fiercer note creeps into the hunter's mood. The chase of the boar and deer was not without its dangers. Winter, and the unfriendly clan hard by, or the lean prowling wolf at night, were real terrors to the small companies encamped on the open hill-side or in the forest. Though the warrior in peaceful times loved the chase of swine and stag, his hand had done and was always ready to do sterner work when opportunity offered. The poem "Chill Winter" has a note of almost [Pg xxiv] savage exultation; the old fighter turns from his present perils and discomforts to remember the warrior onslaughts which had left the glen below him silent, and its once happy inhabitants cold in death; colder, as he gladly reflects, than even he himself feels on this chill winter's night. It is the voice of the ancient warrior, who thought no shame of slaying, but thanked God when he had knocked down his fellow. Whether he, in his turn, were the undermost man, or whether he escaped, he cared not at all.

Two difficulties face the modern reader in coming for the first time upon genuine Irish literature, whether poetry or prose. The first is the curious feeling that we are hung between two worlds, the seen and the unseen; that we are not quite among actualities, or rather that we do not know where the actual begins or where it ends. Even in dealing with history we may find ourselves suddenly wafted away into some illusory spirit-world with which the historian seems to deal with the same sober exactness as in detailing any fact of ordinary life. The faculty of discerning between the actual and the imaginary is absent, as it is absent in imaginative children; often, indeed, the illusory quite overpowers the real, as it does in the life of the Irish peasant to-day.

There is, in most literatures, a meeting-place where the Mythological and the Historic stand in close conjunction, the one dying out as the other takes its place. Only in Ireland we never seem to reach this point; we can never anywhere say, "Here ends legend, here begins history." In all Irish writing we find poetry and fact, dreams and realities, exact detail and wild imagination, linked closely hand in hand. This is the Gael as revealed in his literature. At first we are inclined to doubt the accuracy of [Pg xxv] any part of the story; but, as we continue our examination, we are surprised at the substantial correctness of the ancient records, so far as we are able to test them, whether on the historical or on the social side. The poet is never wholly poet, he is also practical man; and the historian is never wholly chronicler and annalist, he is also at the back of his mind folklorist, lover of nature, dreamer. It is the puzzle and the charm of Ireland.

A good example of this is the very beautiful anonymous Irish poem, rich in poetic imagery, addressed to Ragnall or Reginald, son of Somerled, lord of the Isles from 1164-1204. This poem, written for an historical prince, begins with a description of the joys of the fairy palace, "Emain of the Apples," whence this favoured prince is supposed by the poet to have issued forth:

The poet's mind wanders from the ancient Emain, capital of Ulster, to the allegorical Emain, the dwelling of the gods or fairy-hosts, who were thought of as inhabiting the great tumuli on the Boyne; again, he transplants his fairy-land to the home of Ragnall, and seems to place it in Mull or the Isle of Man, which was indeed the especial abode of Manannan, the Ocean-god and Ruler of Fairy-land.

[Pg xxvi]

We recognise that this is fine poetry, but we feel also that it needs a specialised education thoroughly to understand it. The world from which it hails is not our world, and to comprehend it we must do more than translate, we must add notes and glossary at every line; but no poetry, especially poetry under the initial disadvantage of a translation, could retain its qualities under such treatment.

In all the ancient verse we meet with these obstacles. Even much of the most imaginative Ossianic poetry becomes too difficult from this point of view for the untrained reader.

Take the fine poem detailing the history of the Shield of Fionn. Poetic addresses to noted weapons are common enough, and are not confined to Irish literature; but the adventures of this shield pass beyond the ordinary uses of human battles, and enter the realm of mythology. The very name given to it, the "Dripping Ancient Hazel," carries us into a world of poetic imagination.

[Pg xxvii]

[Pg xxviii]

Or take again the strange mythological poem of the "Crane-bag," made out of the skin of a wandering haunted crane, which had once been a woman; condemned for "two hundred white years" to dwell in "the house of Manannan," i.e. in the wastes of the ocean, ever seeking and never finding land. When the wanderings came to an end, and the unhappy Crane-woman died, Manannan (the Ocean-god) made of her skin a bag into which he put "every precious thing he had; the shirt of Manannan and his knife, the girdle of Goibniu (the Vulcan of Irish legend); the king of Scotland's shears, the king of Lochlann's helmet, and the bones of the swine of Asal—these were the treasures that the Crane-bag held.... When the sea was full, its treasures were seen in its midst; when the fierce sea was on ebb, the Crane-bag was empty." The story has the impress of great age, and manifold changes; it belongs to the period when the gods were not yet transformed into human beings, but were still primæval elemental powers, impersonations of fire and light and water, and the wisdom that is above mankind. But the link is lost, and the story remains a suggestion only, vague and indistinct. As an image of the hollow ocean, holding the treasures of the Sea-god, the idea is, however, full of force and beauty.[3]

The second difficulty, which is closely connected with the first, lies in the retention of the ancient and unfamiliar nomenclature; the old geographical and family names, which have dropped out of actual use, being everywhere found in the poetry.

Scotland is still Alba in Irish, as it was in the sixth century; Éire (gen. Érinn) is the ordinary name for Ireland, not only in poetry, as is commonly supposed, but in the living language of the country. But it has besides an abundance of specially poetic names, such as Inisfail, "the island of Destiny," Banba, Fodla, &c., connected with early legends, and these, if we are to understand the poetry, we must accustom ourselves to.

[Pg xxix]

England is still to-day the land of the Saxons to the Gael, and its inhabitants are the "Sassenachs"; the Irishman persists in disregarding the coming of the Angles. We may talk of the extinction of the Gaelic tongue, but in his poetry, as in every place-name of stream or hill or townland all over the country, it is about us still. In the poetry we are back in Gaelic Ireland; the old tribal distinctions, the old clan names, meet us on every page. What does the modern man know of Leth Cuinn or Leth Mogha, the ancient divisions of the North and South, or of the stories which gave them birth? What of Magh Breagh or Magh Murtheimne? What of Emain Macha and Kincora? Who, again, are the Clann Fiachrach or the Eoghanacht, or the Children of Ir or Eiber? Even before the much later titles of Thomond and Desmond, of Tyrconnell and Tyrowen he is somewhat at a loss.

But to the bard the past is always present, the ancient nomenclature is never extinct. The legend which caused the River Boyne to be called "The forearm of Nuada's wife," or the tumuli on its banks to be thought of as the "Elfmounds of the wife of Nechtan," are familiar to him; and to enter into the spirit of the mythological poetry we must know something of Irish folklore and tradition. Many of these expressions have a high imaginative significance, as when the sea is called the "Plain of Ler" (the elder Irish Sea-god), or its waves are "the tresses of Manannan's wife" or the "Steeds of Manannan."

Of the large body of bardic poetry we have been unable to give an adequate representation, partly from considerations of space, but also because we are not yet, until a larger quantity of this poetry has been published, able to estimate its actual poetic value. Much fine poetry [Pg xxx] by the historic bards undoubtedly exists, but we have as yet only a few published fragments to choose from. The first specimen we give, Teigue Dall O'Higgin's appeal to O'Rourke of the Bulwarks (na murtha), must stand as an example of much similar poetry in and about his own day.

The call to union against England or against some local enemy sounds loud and constant in the bardic poems. There is much anti-English poetry; poetry which has for its object the endeavour to unite for a single purpose the chiefs who had split up the provinces into small divisions under separate leaders, each fighting for his own hand.

To stir up the lagging or too peaceful chief was one of the prime duties of the bard; to address to him congratulations on his accession, or to bewail him when he died, was his official function; and to judge by the quantity of paper covered with these laudatory effusions and elegies, he performed his task with punctilious care. It was likely that he would do so, for the fees for a poem that gave satisfaction were substantial. We miss the family bard in these days; there is no one at hand to praise indifferently all that we do.

The bardic poetry attracted the genius of Mangan, and his "Farewell to Patrick Sarsfield" and O'Hussey's "Ode to the Maguire," are not only fine poetry, but excellent representations of two of the finest of the bardic poems. Elsewhere in his poems, we have usually too much Mangan to feel that the tone of the original is faithfully conveyed. His soaring poem, "The Dark Rosaleen," can hardly be said to represent the Irish "Roisín Dubh," of which, for purposes of comparison, we give a literal rendering; beautiful as Mangan's poem is, it has to our mind lost something of the exquisite grace of the original.

[Pg xxxi]

It may be well to indicate here the relations between Mangan's version and the original in the poem in which he keeps most strictly to the words of the bard. "O'Hussey's Ode to the Maguire," that fine address of the Northern bard, O'Hussey, to his young chief, whose warlike foray into Munster in the depth of winter filled his mind with anxiety and distress. A literal translation of the opening passage reads as follows:

But it is not, after all, the verses of the bards, even of the best of them, that will survive. It is the tender religious songs, the passionate love-songs, the exquisite addresses to nature; those poems which touch in us the common ground of deep human feeling. Whether it came to us from the sixth century or from the sixteenth, the song of Crede for the dead man, whom she had grown to love only when he was dying, would equally move us; the passionate cry of Liadan after Curithir would wring our hearts whatever century produced it. The voice of love is alike in every age. It has no date.

[Pg xxxii]

Having written so far, we begin to wonder whether it was wise or necessary to set so much prose between the reader and the poems which, as we hope, he wishes to read. In an ordinary anthology, the interruption of a long preface is a mistake and an intrusion, for, more than any other good art, good poetry must explain itself. The mood in which a poem touches us acutely may be recorded, but it cannot be reproduced in or for the reader. He must find his own moment. For the most part, these Irish poems need no introduction. We need no one to explain to us the beauty of the lines in the "Flower of Nut-brown Maids":

or to remind us of the depth of Cuchulain's sorrow when over the dead body of his son he called aloud:

or to tell us that the "Blackthorn," or "Donall Oge," or "Eileen Aroon," are exquisite in their pathos and tenderness. But there are, besides these enchanting things, which we are prepared to expect from Irish verse, also [Pg xxxiii] things for which we are not prepared; unfamiliar themes, treated in a new manner; and to judge of these, some help from outside may be useful. The reader who does not know Ireland or know Gaelic, is ready to accept softness, the almost endless iteration of expressions conveying the sense of woman's beauty and of man's affection, in phrases that differ but little from each other; what he is not prepared for is the sudden break into matter-of-fact, the curt tone that cuts across much Irish poetry, revealing an unexpected side of life and character. Even the modern Irishman is tripped up by the swift intrusion of the grotesque; the cold, cynical note that exists side by side with the most fervent religious devotion, especially in the popular poetry, displeases him. He resents it, as he resents the tone of the "Playboy of the Western World"; yet it is the direct modern representative of the tone of mind that produced the Ossianic lays.

We find it in all the popular poetry; as an example take the argument of the old woman who warns a young man that if he persists in his evil ways, there will be no place in heaven for such as he. The youth replies:

The same chill, almost harsh tone is heard in the colloquy between Ailill of Munster and the woman whom he has trysted on the night after his death,[5] or in the poem, "I shall not die for you" (p. 286), or in the verses on the fairy-hosts, published by Dr. Kuno Meyer, where, instead of praise of their ethereal loveliness, we are told:

[Pg xxxiv]

Could anything be more matter-of-fact than the clever chess-playing of the shee-folk and their pride in it?

A collection of translations must always have some sense of disproportion. It is natural that translators should, as a rule, have been attracted, not only to the poems that most readily give themselves to an English translation, but to those which are most easily accessible. The love-songs, such as those collected by Hardiman and Dr. Douglas Hyde, have been attempted with more or less success by many translators, while much good poetry, not so easily brought to hand, has been overlooked. Dr. Kuno Meyer's fine translations of a number of older pieces, which came out originally either in separate publications,[7] or in the transactions of the Arts Faculty of University College, Liverpool, have now been rendered more accessible in a separate collection; but the English ear is wedded to rhyme, and a prose translation, however careful and choice, often misses its mark with the general reader. Long ago, Miss Brooke (in her Reliques of Irish Poetry) and Furlong (in Hardiman's Irish Minstrelsy) essayed the translation of a number of the longer "bardic remains"; and these earlier collectors and translators will ever retain the gratitude of their countrymen for rescuing and printing, at a time when little value was placed upon such things, these stores of Irish song.

[Pg xxxv]

But the translations suited better the taste of their own day than of ours; we cannot read them now, nor do they in the slightest way represent the verse they are intended to reproduce. Naturally, too, it is easier to give the spirit and language of a serious poem than that of a humorous one in another tongue, so that the more playful verse has been neglected.

It may be thought that this book is overweighted by religious and love poems; but in a collection essentially lyrical, religion and love must ever be the two chief themes. In Ireland, the inner spirit of the national genius ever spoke, and still speaks, through them.

Among the people of the quiet places where few strangers come, and where night passes into day and day again to night with little change of thought or outward emotion, simple sorrows and simple pleasures have still time to ripen into poetry. The grief that came to-day will not pass away with a new grief to-morrow; it will impress its groove, straight and deep, upon the heart that feels it, lying there without hope of a summer growth to hide its furrow. The long monotonous days, the dark unbroken evenings are the nurseries of sorrow; the white open roads are the highways of hope or the paths for the wayfaring thoughts of despair. The stranger who came one day comes again no more, though we watch the long white track never so earnestly; the boy or girl who went that way to foreign lands has not thrown his or her shadow across the road again. Where the turf fire rises curling and blue into the air, where the young girl stands waiting by the winding "boreen," where the old woman croons over the hearth, there we [Pg xxxvi] shall surely find, if we know how to draw it forth, that a well of poetry has been sunk, and that half-unconsciously the thought of the heart has expressed itself in simple verse, or in rhythmic prose almost more beautiful than verse. The minds that produced the touching melodies that wail and croon and sing to us out of Ireland, have not the less expressed themselves in melodious poetry. Here, if anywhere, we may look to find a style unspoiled by imitation, and a sentiment moving because it is perfectly sincere. It is thus that such poems as "Donall Oge" or the "Roísin Dubh" or "My Grief on the Sea" come into existence.

Where the outward distractions of life are few, the grave monotony of sea and moor and bog-land, the swirl of cloud and mist, and the loneliness of waste places sink more deeply into the mind. The visible is less felt than the invisible, and life is surrounded by a network of fears and dreams to which the town-dweller is a stranger. To-day, in the Western Isles of Ireland and Scotland, the huntsman going out to hunt, the fisherman to fish or lay his nets, the agriculturist to sow or reap his harvest, and the weaver or spinner to wind his yarn, go forth to their work with some familiar charm-prayer or charm-hymn, often beautifully called "the Blessings," on their lips. The milkmaid calling her cows or churning her butter, the young girl fearful of the evil-eye, and the cottager sweeping up her hearth in the evening, laying herself down to sleep at night, or rising up in the morning, soothe their fears or smooth their way by some whispered paider or ortha, a prayer or a verse or a blessing. The deep religious feeling of the Celtic mind, with its far-stretching hands groping towards the mysterious and the infinite, comes out in these spontaneous and simple [Pg xxxvii] ejaculations; I have therefore endeavoured to bring together a few others to add to the groups gathered by Dr. Hyde in the west of Ireland and by Dr. Carmichael in the Western Hebrides; but in their original Gaelic they are the fruit of others' collections, not of my own.[8] They are the thoughts of such humble people as the poor farm-servant who "had so many things to do from dark to dark" that she had no time for long prayers, and knew only a little prayer taught her by her mother, which laid "our caring and our keeping and our saving on the Sacred Trinity."

I desire to inscribe here my sincere gratitude to the living authors and authoresses who have kindly given me permission to use their work, and my gratitude to those authors who have gone, that they have left us so much good work to use. Especially I desire to thank my friends, Mr. Alfred Perceval Graves and Mr. Ernest Rhys, for permitting the use of unpublished poems.

Many friends have given a ready helping hand in elucidating difficult words and phrases, and it is a pleasant task to thank them here. Dr. D. Hyde, Rev. Michael Sheehan, Rev. P. S. Dinneen, Mr. Tadhg O'Donoghue, Mr. R. Flower, Miss Hayes, especially, have always readily come to my assistance; to Miss Eleanor Knott I am indebted for valuable help in the translation of the "Saltair na Rann," and to Dr. R. Thurneysen for suggesting some readings in this difficult poem.

I gratefully acknowledge permission accorded to me by the following publishing houses to include poems or extracts from books published by them:—

[Pg xxxviii]

Messrs. Constable & Co., Ancient Irish Poetry, by Professor Kuno Meyer. T. Fisher Unwin, Bards of the Gael and Gall, by Dr. George Sigerson, F.N.U.I. Maunsel & Co., Irish Poems, by Alfred Perceval Graves; Sea-Spray, by T. W. Rolleston; The Gilly of Christ, by Seosamh mac Cathmhaoil. David Nutt, Heroic Romances of Ireland, by A. H. Leahy. Herbert & Daniel, Eyes of Youth, for a poem by Padraic Colum. Sealy, Bryers and Walker, Lays of the Western Gael, by Sir Samuel Ferguson; Irish Nóinins, by P. J. McCall. H. M. Gill & Son, Irish Fireside Songs and Pulse of the Bards, by P. J. McCall. Williams & Norgate, Silva Gadelica, by Standish Hayes O'Grady. Chatto & Windus, Legends, Charms, and Cures of Ireland, by Lady Wilde.

I also desire to acknowledge the courtesy of His Majesty's Stationery Department in permitting the use of drawings taken from initial letters in Sir John T. Gilbert's Facsimiles of Irish National MSS. Others of the initial letters used in the book are drawn from the Book of Lindisfarne and other Celtic manuscripts in the British Museum. I have to thank the Librarian of the Bodleian Library for permitting the reproduction of the photograph of the initial lines from the "Saltair na Rann" as a frontispiece to the book.

[Pg 1]

THE SALTAIR NA RANN, OR PSALTER
OF THE VERSES

[Pg 2]

The Saltair na Rann, or Psalter of the Verses, so-called because it is divided into 150 poems in imitation of the Psalms of David, is undoubtedly the most important religious poem of early Ireland. It may justly be regarded as the Irish Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, for it opens with an account of the Creation of the Universe, the founding of Heaven and Hell, the fall of Lucifer, the creation of the Earthly Paradise and of man, the temptation and fall and the penance of Adam and Eve. After this it sketches the Old Testament History, leading up to the birth and life of Christ and closing with His death and resurrection. Though in general it follows the Bible narrative, it is peculiarly Irish in tone, and its additions and variations are of the greatest interest to students of mediæval religious literature. The conception of the universe in the first poem, with its ideas of the seven heavens, the coloured and fettered winds, and the sun passing through the opening windows of the twelve divisions of the heavens, is curious; the earth, enclosed in the surrounding firmament, "like a shell around an egg," being regarded as the centre of the universe.

In the portions which relate the life of Adam and Eve, the author evidently had before him the Latin version of the widely known Vita Adae et Euae, which he follows closely, introducing from it several Latin words into his text; but even here the colouring is purely Irish. The poem is ascribed to Oengus the Culdee, who lived early in the ninth century; but its language is later, probably the end of the tenth century.

In 1883 Dr. Whitley Stokes published[9] the text from the only existing complete copy, that contained in the Bodleian MS. Rawl. B. 502, but no part of it has hitherto been published in English. The present translation of the sections dealing with the Creation and with the life of Adam and Eve is purely tentative; the poem presents great difficulties, and we suffer from the lack of a second copy with which to compare it.[10] Miss Eleanor Knott has read the translations and has helped me with many difficulties; and I had the advantage of reading parts of the poem in class with Dr. Kuno Meyer. For the errors which the translation must undoubtedly contain, I am myself, however, alone responsible.

[Pg 3]

THE SALTAIR NA RANN, OR PSALTER OF THE VERSES

I. THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE

y own King, King of the pure heavens,
without pride, without contention,
who didst create the folded[11] world,
my King ever-living, ever victorious.

King above the elements, surpassing the sun,
King above the ocean depths,
King in the South and North, in the West and East,
with whom no contention can be made.

King of the Mysteries, who wast and art,
before the elements, before the ages,
King yet eternal, comely His aspect,
King without beginning, without end.

[Pg 4] King who created lustrous heaven,
who is not arrogant, not overweening,
and the earth, with its multitudinous delights,
strong, powerful, stable.

King who didst make the noble brightness,
and the darkness, with its gloom;
the one, the perfect day,
the other, the very perfect night.

King who fashioned the vast deeps
out of the primary stuff of the elements,
who ...
the wondrous formless mass.

King who formed out of it each element,
who confirmed them without restriction, a lovely mystery,
both tempestuous and serene,
both animate and inanimate.

King who hewed, gloriously, with energy,
out of the very shapely primal stuff,
the heavy, round earth,
with foundations, ... length and breadth.[12]

King who shaped within no narrow limits
in the circle of the firmament
the globe, fashioned
like a goodly apple, truly round.

[Pg 5] King who formed after that with fixity
the fresh masses about the earth;
the very smooth currents above the world
of the chill watery air.

King who didst sift the cold excellent water
on the earth-mass of the noble cliffs
into rills, with the reservoirs[13] of the streams,
according to their measures, with moderation.

Creation of the winds with their colours

Measurements of the Universe

The poem goes on to speak of the division of the universe into five zones, a torrid, two temperate, and two frigid zones, and of the earth revolving in the centre of the universe, with the firmament about it, "like a shell encircling an egg." The passage of the sun through the constellations is then described, each of the twelve divisions through which it passes being provided with six windows, with close-fitting shutters, and strong [Pg 10] coverings, which open to shed light by day. The constellations are then named, and the first section of the poem ends as follows:—

[Pg 11]

II. THE HEAVENLY KINGDOM

[Pg 20]

III. THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT. (vii.)

l. 1081

rince who gave a clear admonition to Eve and to Adam,
that they should eat of the produce of Paradise
according to God's command:

"Eat ye of them freely,
of the fruits of Paradise—sweet the fragrance—
many, all of them (a festival to be shared)[34]
are lawful for you save one tree.

"In order that you may know that you are under authority,
without sorrow, without strife,
without anxiety, without long labour,
without age, evil, or blemish;

"Without decay, without heavy sickness;
with everlasting life, in everlasting triumph
on your going to heaven (joyous the festival)
at the choice age of thirty years."

[Pg 21] A thousand years
and six hours of the hours,
without guile, without danger, it has been heard,
Adam was in Paradise.[35]

O God our help, whom champions prove,
who fashioned all with perfect justice,
not bright the matter of our theme (?)[36]
the King who spake an admonition with them.

Prince who gave a clear admonition.

(The figures in brackets after the title of the chapters are the numbers of the poems or cantos in the text.)

[Pg 22]

IV. THE FALL AND EXPULSION FROM PARADISE. (viii.)

[Pg 31]

V. THE PENANCE OF ADAM AND EVE. (xi.)

(A long conversation follows between Adam and the Devil; Adam demands why the Devil pursues them with such perpetual hatred and, in reply, Lucifer recounts his fall from heaven, which he says was caused by his refusal to obey the command of God that he should worship Adam. [Pg 42] This command he refused, because he, as the first-created, felt it unworthy of him to adore Adam, the youngest-born of created things. He details his present miseries, and his determination to take revenge on Adam and Eve. The poem or canto ends with the coming of Adam out of the river, and the history of their children, Seth, Cain, and Abel.)

[Pg 43]

VI. THE DEATH OF ADAM. (xii.)

l. 2021

dam's lifetime was not short;
that ye may know, without risk (of error),
thirty years had he, it was exactly proven,
with nine hundred years.[70]

Then came a complete sickness to Adam,
such as comes to everyone,
his wife Eve with every goodness
was receiving his last bequests.

Adam knew his destiny,
he spake to splendid Eve:
"I have parted from thee and from thy children;
of this sickness I die."

"It is hard of God,"
said she, said Eve, to Adam,
"that thou art not sojourning here,(?)
that it is not I who go first.

[Pg 44] "My grief! that thou should'st change,"
said she, said Eve to Adam;
"that I should be here sorrowful without strength,
that thou should'st go first."

"O Eve of the pure clear form,
understand clearly in thy mind;
thou wilt not be any length, it is clear,
here in pain after my departure.

"Short was the time, though it be without deception,
between thy creation and mine,
thou wilt not be in danger of attack,[71] bright is the outlook,
but nine months after me."

"Tell me without error, O Husband,
what I shall do with thy fair dear body?
since thou deemest thy death is certain,
O my Lord, O Adam!"

"Let not foot or hand touch me,
let not any interfere with me,
till one is sent from God from heaven
to arrange my fair dear body.

"Leave my body (fair the fashion),
in its bonds without disturbance;
I am certain that the noble Artificer who formed me
will provide for the needs of my body.

[Pg 45] "Arise, O Eve, cheerfully,
and begin a 'cross-vigil';[72]
send thou from thee, O Wife, to God's right hand
my pure soul to holy heaven.

"The soul that God created in me,
it is He who recalled it in its uncleanliness;
let it go to him perfectly to His dwelling
with the accompanying of angel-hosts.

"O Wife, I am not bold, in truth,
concerning the actions of my good King;
the wrath that He showed (pure His sway),
was an act of affection and mercy."

(Eve kneels and prays to God. A heavenly messenger is sent to her, to tell her that the soul of Adam is parted from the body, and that it is safe in the charge of the hosts of the archangel Michael.)

l. 2105

Then Eve went
quickly towards Adam;
until she found Adam (great the love)—
no longer inhaling breath.

When she heard not
the voice of Adam speaking to her with fair beauty,
her senses out of measure overpowered her,
with long lamentations, with lasting sorrow.

[Pg 46] (The heavenly messenger speaks)

"O Eve, lift up thine eyes,
and suffer us to instruct thee;
set thy keen pure glance
upwards clearly to the heavenly ones.

"O Woman, raise thy pure face,
to behold the soul of Adam,
as it is uplifted brightly
between hosts of archangels."

On that Eve turned
to behold the soul of Adam,
and she saw the beautiful peaceful soul
of Adam in the company of Michael.

While Eve was thus
recognising the soul of Adam,
she beheld coming towards it along the ways
hosts of angels chorus-singing.

Eve beheld a Seraph
moving nobly in front of the host
on three golden wings;
fair was the beloved thing[73] which he bore.

Then Eve beheld
three white shining birds
(which) across the sky from holy heaven
had arrived (?) in their lustre.

[Pg 47] While she was watching the birds,
Eve herself without great trouble,
as with a flash of the full sun,
she became unable to look at them.

Up unto cloudy heaven was heard
the choir of the holy angels around Michael;
they spread their pleasant ranks then
circling about the altar of Adam.

The angels sustained a fitting harmony
round about the altar;
before all the host they burned a herb
which is called "ornamentum."

The strong smoke[74] spread
directly through the air;
the doors of the firmament opened
without any force (?)[75]

God came in holiness from heaven
to the service of Adam's soul;
the Soverain King over every sphere
sat down on His royal throne.

There went before the pure King
a noble angel of the angels;
he sounded melodiously a clear, shrill note,
its beautiful report was heard throughout the seven heavens.[76]

[Pg 48] Towards the sound of the trumpet, purely splendid,
went the host of the nine holy grades;
truly strong were their clear numbers,
before the royal throne of the Creator!

(The hosts unite in praising the Lord for His mercy to Adam)

l. 2177

Then the King of Wisdom[77]
sent from Him quickly a Seraph
across the slopes of the great mass of the hosts
with wings of red gold.

Until they took the soul of Adam without pain,
so that it was bathed
in the unpassable (?) river of the ever-living host[78]
"indatinum ciriasu."

So that he brought with him Adam's pure, clear soul
thus out of the stream,
then he placed himself as at the first
before the presence of the Creator.

Then the King laid His hand,
without any consuming (?) upon the soul of Adam.
He commended it to Michael,
fair is the tale!

"Be thou not harsh, O Michael,
towards its great bliss,
place thou the soul of Adam here
in Paradise.

[Pg 49] "Bear the bright pure soul
of splendid Adam with his accompanying bands,
place it ...
in the third kingly division of Paradise."

"'In the third heaven,' said God,
'which is called Ficconicia;
let it be there without sign of pain
till the time of the Resurrection.'"

All the grades in every sphere
both of angels and archangels,
sweet was their pure chorus
praising the Creator;

For the remission to the soul of Adam
from its sins, from its vices;
that it should be brought
again to Paradise.

Let the oil of mercy
and the herb "ornamentum" be bestowed
about the body of Adam
to cleanse it from its vileness.

Around the body of Adam
let three wholesome linen cloths, of special honour, be arranged;
and let it be buried exactly
at the side of Abel's sepulchre.

[Pg 50] The body of our fore-father Adam,
according to writings of manifold genius,
from afar, under the heavy, sorrowful bonds of death,
was buried in Hebron.

It was there under a strong, firm tower[79]
till the coming of the wave-strength of the flood,
the body of Adam, with honours in its sepulchre,
under assemblies of the strong.

The flood of the deluge over every land,
many countries did it upturn,
it carried his head from Adam
and brought it to Jerusalem.

There the head remained
before Jerusalem;[80]
without grief the cross of Christ afterwards
was planted in the flesh[81] of Adam.

---

l. 2385

High King of the Sun, clearly hath it been heard,
He it was who created Paradise;
He who is better than all kings, royal His form,
there is no limit to His existence.

[Pg 51]

ANCIENT PAGAN POEMS

[Pg 52]

"One day the young poet Nede fared forth till he stood on the margin of the sea, for the poets believed the brink of water to be the place of poetic revelation. He heard a sound in the wave, even a chant of wailing and sadness, and he marvelled thereat.

"So the youth cast a spell upon the wave, that it might reveal to him the cause of its moaning."—Book of Leinster, 186a.

[Pg 53]

THE SOURCE OF POETIC INSPIRATION

A Colloquy between the Old Poet and the Young Poet. Time: The beginning of the Christian era.

he old poet spake to the young poet:—

"Who is this sage around
whom is wrapped the robe of splendour?
and whence comes he?"

The young poet answered:

"I spring from the heel of a wise man,
From the meeting-place of wisdom I come forth;
From the place where goodness dwells serene.
From the red sunrise of the dawn I come,
Where grow the nine hazels of poetic art.
From the wide circuits of splendour
Out of which, according to their judgment, truth is weighed.
There is a land where righteousness is instilled,
And where falsehood wanes into twilight.

[Pg 54] There is a land of varied colours[82]
Where poems are bathed anew.
And thou, O well-spring of Knowledge, whence comest thou?"

"Well can the answer be given:
I move along the columns of age,
Along the streams of inspiration,
Along the elf-mound of Nechtan's wife,
Along the forearm of the wife of Nuada,[83]
Along the fair land of knowledge
The bright country of the sun;
Along the hidden land which by day the moon inhabits;
Along the first beginnings of life.
I demand of thee, O wise youth, what it is that lies before thee?"

"That I can answer thee.
I travel towards the plain of age,
Through the mountain-heights of youth.
I go forward to the hunting-grounds of old age,
Into the sunny dwelling of a king (death?),
Into the abode of the tomb;
Between burial and judgment,
Between battles and their horrors
Among Tethra's mighty men.[84]
And thou, O master of Wisdom, what lies before thee?"

[Pg 55] "I pass into the lofty heights of honour,
Into the community of knowledge,
Into the fair country inhabited of noble sages,
Into the haven of prosperities,
Into the assembly of the king's son.
Into contempt of upstarts,
Into the slopes of death where great honour lies.
O Son of Instructions, whose son art thou?"

"I am the son of Poetry,
Poetry son of investigation,
Investigation son of meditation,
Meditation son of lore,
Lore son of research,
Research son of enquiry,
Enquiry son of wide knowledge,
Knowledge son of good sense,
Good sense son of understanding,
Understanding son of wisdom,
Wisdom son of the three gods of Poetry.
O Fount of Wisdom, of whom art thou the son?"

[Pg 56] "I am the son of the man who has lived, but has never been born;
Of him who was buried in the womb of his own mother;[85]
Of him who was baptized after his death.[86]
He of all living, was first betrothed to death,
His is the first name uttered by the living,
His the name lamented by all the dead:
Adam, the High One, is his name."[87]

[Pg 57]

AMORGEN'S SONG

[Pg 59]

THE SONG OF CHILDBIRTH

Ness, let all men stand,
The hour of thy peril is at hand;
Pale daughter of old Eochad Buidhe the mild
We rise to greet thy child!
Wife of the ruddy palms
Let not thy mind be filled with terror's qualms;
The head of hosts, the one
Whom thousands shall extol, shall be thy son.

In the same timely hour upon this earth
He and the King of the World have their birth;
Through the long ages' gloom
Now and to the day of doom
Praises shall echo through the realm of life.
Heroes, at sight of him, cease their strife;
Hostages they twain shall never be
The Christ and he.

On the plain of Inisfail he shall come forth,
On the flagstone of the meadow to the North.

[Pg 60] Hostages every battle-chief to him will send,
Through the great world his glory will extend;
The king of grace is he,
The Hound of Ulster he;
But and if he falls,
Darkness and woe descend on Erin's halls.

Conchobhar, son of Ness "ungentle," is his name;
Raids and red routs his valour will proclaim.
There he will find his death
Where the expiring breath
Of the suffering God his vengeful sword demands,
In the dark hour upon the Holy Lands;[91]
Shining his red sword's track,
Over the sloping plain of Liam's back.

[Pg 61]

GREETING TO THE NEW-BORN BABE

[Pg 62]

WHAT IS LOVE?

From the "Wooing of Etain."

love much-enduring through a year is my love,
It is grief close-hidden,[92]
It is stretching of strength beyond its bounds,
It is (fills?) the four quarters of the world;
It is the highest height of heaven;
It is breaking of the neck,
It is battle with a spectre,
It is drowning with water,
It is a race against heaven,
It is champion-feats beneath the sea,
It is wooing the echo;
So is my love, and my passion, and my devotion to her to whom I gave them.

[Pg 63]

SUMMONS TO CUCHULAIN

From the "Sickbed of Cuchulain."

[Pg 65]

LAEGH'S DESCRIPTION OF
FAIRY-LAND

From the "Sickbed of Cuchulain."

[Pg 69]

THE LAMENTATION OF FAND WHEN SHE IS
ABOUT TO LEAVE CUCHULAIN

From the "Sickbed of Cuchulain."

t is I who must go on this journey,
Ou great necessity were best for me;
Though another should have an equal fame
Happier for me could I remain.

Happier it were for me to be here,
Subject to thee without reproach,
Than to go,—though strange it may seem to thee,—
To the royal seat of Aed Abrat.

The man is thine, O Emer,
He has broken from me, O noble wife,
No less, the thing that my hand cannot reach,
I am fated to desire it.

Many men were seeking me
Both in shelters and in secret places;
My tryst was never made with them,
Because I myself was high-minded.

[Pg 70] Joyless she who gives love to one
Who does not heed her love;
It were better for her to be destroyed
If she be not loved as she loves.

With fifty women hast thou come hither,
Noble Emer, of the yellow locks,
To overthrow Fand, it were not well
To kill her in her misery.

Three times fifty have I there,
—Beautiful, marriageable women,—
Together with me in the fort:
They will not abandon me.

[Pg 71]

MIDER'S CALL TO FAIRY-LAND

From the "Wooing of Etain."

[Pg 73]

THE SONG OF THE FAIRIES

When they made the road across the bog of Lamrach for
Mider, their King.

[Pg 74]

THE GREAT LAMENTATION OF DEIRDRE
FOR THE SONS OF USNA

"As to Deirdre, she was a year in the household of Conchobar, after the death of the Sons of Usna. And though it might be a little thing to raise her head or to bring a smile over her lip, never once did she do it through all that space of time.... She took not sufficiency of food or sleep, nor lifted her head from her knee. When people of amusement were sent to her, she would break out into lamentation:—

[Pg 79]

OSSIANIC POETRY

[Pg 80]

[Pg 81]

FIRST WINTER-SONG

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ake my tidings!
Stags contend;
Snows descend—
Summer's end!

A chill wind raging;
The sun low keeping,
Swift to set
O'er seas high sweeping.

Dull red the fern;
Shapes are shadows:
Wild geese mourn
O'er misty meadows.

Keen cold limes
Each weaker wing.
Icy times—
Such I sing!
Take my tidings!
Alfred Perceval Graves.

[Pg 82]

SECOND WINTER-SONG

[Pg 83]

IN PRAISE OF MAY

Ascribed to Fionn mac Cumhaill.

[Pg 85]

THE ISLE OF ARRAN

[Pg 87]

THE PARTING OF GOLL FROM
HIS WIFE

When they are shut up by Fionn on a sea-girt rock,
without chance of escape.

A Dialogue

(Goll speaks)

(Goll's wife replies)

(Goll speaks)

[Pg 91]

YOUTH AND AGE

From the "Poem-book of Fionn."

nce I was yellow-haired, and ringlets fell,
In clusters round my brow;
Grizzled and sparse to-night my short grey crop,
No lustre in it now.

Better to me the shining locks of youth,
Or raven's dusky hue,
Than drear old age, which chilly wisdom brings,
If what they say be true.

I only know that as I pass the road,
No woman looks my way;
They think my head and heart alike are cold—
Yet I have had my day.

[Pg 92]

CHILL WINTER

[Pg 94]

THE SLEEP-SONG OF GRAINNE
OVER DERMUID

When fleeing from Fionn

From the "Poem-book of Fionn."

[Pg 97]

THE SLAYING OF CONBEG

A beloved hound of Fionn's which Goll mac Morna drowned
in despite of Fionn.

Caoilte sang this:

[Pg 98]

THE FAIRIES' LULLABY

 
 
 
 
y mirth and merriment, soft and sweet art thou,
Child of the race of Conn art thou;
My mirth and merriment, soft and sweet art thou,
Of the race of Coll and Conn art thou.

My smooth green rush, my laughter sweet,
My little plant in the rocky cleft,
Were it not for the spell on thy tiny feet
Thou wouldst not here be left,
Not thou.

Of the race of Coll and Conn art thou,
My laughter, sweet and low art thou;
As you crow on my knee,
I would lift you with me,
Were it not for the mark that is on your feet
I would lift you away,
and away,
with me.

[Pg 99]

SONG OF THE FOREST TREES

[Pg 103]

EARLY CHRISTIAN POEMS

[Pg 105]

ST. PATRICK'S BREASTPLATE

 
arise to-day
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendour of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.

I arise to-day
Through God's strength to pilot me:
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's host to save me
From snares of devils,
From temptations of vices,

[Pg 106] From every one who shall wish me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone and in a multitude.

Christ to shield me to-day
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that there may come to me abundance of reward.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every one who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise to-day
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness
Of the Creator of Creation.

Kuno Meyer.

[Pg 107]

PATRICK'S BLESSING ON MUNSTER

[Pg 109]

COLUMCILLE'S FAREWELL TO
ARAN OF THE SAINTS

St. Columcille, or Columba, was born 521, died 597 a.d.

[Pg 111]

ST. COLUMBA IN IONA

From an Irish MS. in the Burgundian Library, Brussels.

[Pg 113]

HYMN TO THE DAWN

Ascribed to St. Cellach of Killala, when imprisoned in a hollow oak on the morning before his murder by his old comrades, circa 540.

[Pg 117]

THE SONG OF MANCHAN
THE HERMIT

Abbot of Liath Manchan, now Lemanaghan, in King's Co.
Died 665 a.d.

[Pg 119]

A PRAYER

[Pg 121]

THE LOVES OF LIADAN
AND CURITHIR

St. Cummine, in whose days the lovers lived, died 661. The
language is of the ninth century.

A young poet and poetess of Connaught were betrothed; but during the year's interval preceding their marriage, Liadan, for some unexplained reason, took the veil. When Curithir returned to fetch her to his home, he found that by her vows she had for ever separated herself from him. In his despair he determined to follow her example and become a monk. The lovers placed themselves together under the direction of St. Cummine, a severe and hard man, who permitted them to meet, with the object of accusing them of wrong-doing. Finally, he gave Curithir the choice of seeing Liadan without speaking to her, or speaking to her without seeing. He chooses the latter, and henceforth they wander round each other's cells, speaking together through the wattled walls, but never looking on each other's faces. The time comes when this can be no longer borne, and Curithir sails away to strange lands on pilgrimage, so that Liadan saw him no more. She died upon the flagstone on which Curithir was wont to pray, and was buried beneath it.

The poem is in the form of a dialogue.

[Pg 122]

(Liadan speaks)

(Curithir speaks)

(Liadan speaks)

The Cry of Liadan after Curithir

[Pg 125]

THE LAY OF PRINCE MARVAN

In praise of his hermit life. A reply to his brother, King Guaire, of Connaught, when asked by him why he did not dwell in the Palace.

King Guaire died 662; but the poem, as we have it, is of
the tenth century.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
here is a shieling hidden in the wood
Unknown to all save God;
An ancient ash-tree and a hazel-bush
Their sheltering shade afford.

Around the doorway's heather-laden porch
Wild honeysuckles twine;
Prolific oaks, within the forest's gloom,
Shed mast upon fat swine.

[Pg 126] Many a sweet familiar woodland path
Comes winding to my door;
Lowly and humble is my hermitage,
Poor, and yet not too poor.

From the high gable-end my lady's throat
Her trilling chant outpours,
Her sombre mantle, like the ousel's coat,
Shows dark above my doors.

From the high oakridge where the roe-deer leaps
The river-banks between,
Renowned Mucraime and Red Roigne's plains
Lie wrapped in robes of green.

Here in the silence, where no care intrudes,
I dwell at peace with God;
What gift like this hast thou to give, Prince Guaire,
Were I to roam abroad?

The heavy branches of the green-barked yew
That seem to bear the sky;
The spreading oak, that shields me from the storm,
When winds rise high.

Like a great hostel, welcoming to all,
My laden apple-tree;
Low in the hedge, the modest hazel-bush
Drops ripest nuts for me.

[Pg 127] Round the pure spring, that rises crystal clear,
Straight from the rock,
Wild goats and swine, red fox, and grazing deer,
At sundown flock.

The host of forest-dwellers of the soil
Trysting at night;
To meet them foxes come, a peaceful troop,
For my delight.

Like exiled princes, flocking to their home,
They gather round;
Beneath the river bank great salmon leap,
And trout abound.

Rich rowan clusters, and the dusky sloe,
The bitter, dark blackthorn,
Ripe whortle-berries, nuts of amber hue,
The cup-enclosed acorn.

A clutch of eggs, sweet honey, mead and ale,
God's goodness still bestows;
Red apples, and the fruitage of the heath,
His constant mercy shows.

The goodly tangle of the briar-trail
Climbs over all the hedge;
Far out of sight, the trembling waters wail
Through rustling rush and sedge.

[Pg 128] Luxuriant summer spreads its coloured cloak
And covers all the land;
Bright blue-bells, sunk in woods of russet oak,
Their blooms expand.

The movements of the bright red-breasted men,
A lovely melody!
Above my house, the thrush and cuckoo's strain
A chorus wakes for me.

The little music-makers of the world
Chafers and bees,
Drone answer to the tumbling torrent's roar
Beneath the trees.

From gable-ends, from every branch and stem,
Sounds sweetest music now;
Unseen, in restless flight, the lively wren
Flits 'neath the hazel-bough.

Deep in the firmament the sea-gulls fly,
One widely-circling wreath;
The cheerful cuckoo's call, the poult's reply,
Sound o'er the distant heath.

The lowing of the calves in summer-time,
Best season of the year!
Across the fertile plain, pleasant the sound,
Their call I hear.

Voice of the wind against the branchy wood
Upon the deep blue sky;
Most musical the ceaseless waterfall,
The swan's shrill cry.

[Pg 129] No hired chorus, trained to praise its chief,
Comes welling up for me;
The music made for Christ the Ever-young,
Sounds forth without a fee.

Though great thy wealth, Prince Guaire, happier live
Those who can boast no hoard;
Who take at Christ's hand that which He doth give
As their award.

Far from life's tumult and the din of strife
I dwell with Him in peace,
Content and grateful, for Thy gifts, High Prince,
Daily increase.

(Guaire replies)

Wisely thou choosest, Marvan; I a king
Would lay my kingdom by,
With Colman's glorious heritage I'd part
To bear thee company!

[Pg 130]

THE SONG OF CREDE, DAUGHTER
OF GUARE

(In the battle of Aidne, Crede, the daughter of King Guare of Aidne, beheld Dinertach of the HyFidgenti, who had come to the help of Guare, with seventeen wounds upon his breast. Then she fell in love with him. He died and was buried in the cemetery of Colman's Church.)

[Pg 132]

THE STUDENT AND HIS CAT

The Irish of this playful poem was written by a student of the Monastery of Carinthia on a copy of St. Paul's Epistles about the close of the eighth century.

[Pg 134]

THE SONG OF THE SEVEN
ARCHANGELS