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TER VERKRIJGING VAN DEN GRAAD VAN
DOCTOR IN DE LETTEREN EN WIJSBE-
GEERTE AAN DE RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT TE
UTRECHT, OP GEZAG VAN DEN RECTOR-
MAGNIFICUS DR. J. BOEKE. HOOGLEERAAR
IN DE FACULTEIT DER GENEESKUNDE,
VOLGENS BESLUIT VAN DEN SENAAT DER
UNIVERSITEIT TEGEN DE BEDENKINGEN
VAN DE FACULTEIT DER LETTEREN EN
WIJSBEGEERTE TE VERDEDIGEN OP VRIJ-
DAG 6 MEI, TE 4 UUR, DOOR

Bij de voltooiing van mijn proefschrift is het mij een behoefte
mijn erkentelijkheid te betuigen aan allen, die tot mijn weten-
schappelijke vorming hebben bijgedragen, of die hun medewer-
king verleenden bij het tot stand komen van dit geschrift.

In de eerste plaats geldt mijn dank U, Hooggeleerde Van
Hamel, hooggeachte Promotor, voor de warme belangstelling,
die Gij mij steeds getoond hebt, en de krachtige steun, die ik
van U mocht ondervinden. Onder Uw bezielende leiding is de
studie van de Keltische en Germaanse oudheid mij een steeds
toenemende vreugde geworden.

Hooggeleerde Kernkamp, ik beschouw het als een groot voor-
recht dat ik Uw leerling heb mogen zijn. Uw boeiende en heldere
colleges zullen steeds in mijn herinnering voortleven.

U, Hooggeleerde De Vooys, U, Hooggeleerde Bolkestein en
U, Hooggeleerde Oppermann ben ik dankbaar voor het vele, dat
ik op Uw colleges heb geleerd.

Zeergeleerde Van Hoorn, Uw lessen in de archaeologie zijn voor
mij van grote waarde geweest.

Aan de vele Ierse geleerden, die mij behulpzaam waren bij het
verzamelen van mijn gegevens, betuig ik mijn welgemeende
dank, evenals aan Mejuffrouw H. C. W. Reese voor de door
haar aangebrachte correcties.

amp;s anfadh a mbliadhna d'fiannaih einge Fheidhlim
is bagar na sgian gach dia ar a muinelaih,
is mairg nach fiadaid triatha chloinne Eihhir
aithris ar riaghail Bhriain mhic Chinneide.

'Since now a storm bids fair to fall upon the
fighting men of Fehm's land, while daily the
knives are threateningly suspended over their
necks, alas that the leaders of Heber's children
cannot reproduce the rule of Brian mac

The battle of Clontarf (1014), which ended the glorious reign
of the high-king Brian Boramha, looms large in Irish history
and is described in two Icelandic sagas. Both traditions have been
studied, the Irish by J. H. Todd in his introduction to Cogadh
Gaedhel re Gallaibh and afterwards by J. H. Lloyd, the Norse
by Sophus Bugge, ®) Finnur Jonsson, ¹) K. Lehmann-H. Schnorr
von Carolsfeld, ®) and recently by Einar Olafur Sveinsson. ®)

1nbsp; Den oldnorske og oldisl. Litteraturs Historie, Köbenhavn 1920—'24,
II, p. 525, and: Om Njala (Aarb. f. nord. oldkyndighed og historie, 1904,
p. 89—166).

') Die Njalssage, insbesondere in ihren juristischen Bestandtheilen,
Berlin 1883, p. 140 sq.

Though most of these scholars also pay attention to the tradition
of the other country, a detailed study of the two traditions com-
bined, comparing them and separating the romantic elements
from the historical, was hitherto lacking. It is the aim of the
present mvestigation to fill this gap. while at the same time it
attempts, after establishing the relation between the three
manuscript texts of the principal Irish authority and fixing
the date of its origin, to investigate the correspondence of this
work and the Irish annals. By pointing out Irish literary elements
in the Norse work, this study hopes to contribute to the much
discussed problem of Irish-Norse literary relations.

The Irish account i) consists of a romantic record of the life
of Brian and of the battle of Clontarf. preceded by a survey of the
Scandinavian raids and depredations in Ireland, especially in
Munster. The mterrelation of the MSS., the time of origin of
this work, and its literary character will be examined in the first
section. The second section consists of a comparison between
Cogadh and the Irish annals in order to establish their mutual
relation and to distinguish romantic and historical elements. In
the following section some later works derived from Cogadh will
be inspected, the eariiest being a poem by Muiredach Ua Ddlaigh
which is edited here for the first time. The 17th century account
of the battle of Clontarf contained in the Leabhar Oiris and
a treatise by Duald mac Firbis will be considered only in so
far as they throw new light on the text of Cogadh. Besides, by
an analysis of a printed version of the former, the growth of legend-
aryelen^ts round the figure of Brian will be demonstrated.

Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh, the War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill
or the invasion of Ireland by the Danes and other Norsemen, the orig
Irish text ed. with transl. and introd. by J. H. Todd, London 1867
(Kolls series).

») Duald mac Firbis, On the Fomorians and the Norsemen, ed with
transl. and notes by Alexander Bugge, Christiania 1905.

The Norse tradition, to which the second chapter is devoted,
comprises a section of the Njdls Saga (or Njdla), namely ch.
CLIV, 4—14; ch. CLV, 11—CLVII near the end^) and a smaUer
section of the Porsteins Saga Siduhallssonar, p. 216,1. 27—p. 217,
1.19.Both spring from a common source, which has been given
the name of Br j ans Saga. The section in the Njala, however,
contains a poem, the Darradarljod, constituting, as appears
from its pagan character, a foreign element in the Br j ans Saga,
which is Christian in outlook. The elements out of which
the Darraöarljöö have been composed will be proved to be of
Irish origin and the poem, as the older source, will be analyzed
separately.

The third chapter is intended as a critical study of the character
of the two traditions and the historical development preceding
the battle of Clontarf. Here the earlier theories will be dis-
cussed and the causes which led to the great event will be
examined. The battle and its hero Brian Boromha never failed
to hold their grip on the imagination of the Irish nation. Of
this we find the literary reflexion, for instance, in Keating's
Foras Feasa and in the introduction to the translated Annals
of Clonmacnoise in the 17th century, in Moore's poems in the
19th century, and lastly in Canon O'Leary's historical novel
Niamh. On the other hand Saga af Brodur Ylfing, by the Iceland-
ic novelist Friörik Äsmundsson Brekkan, gives a vivid picture
of the same period from the Norse point of view.

Brennu-Njälssaga (Njäla), hrsg. v. Finnur Jönsson, Halle a.S. 1908
(Altnord. Sagabibl. 13).

Under the title 'The Fatal Sisters' this poem was first translated
into English by Thomas Gray (1716—1771), who drew from it the inspira-
tion for a part of his composition of 'The Bard', considered a precursor
of Macpherson's Ossian.

Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh ('The War of the Irish with the
Foreigners') was edited by J. H. Todd in 1867 from three MSS.,
denoted L, D, and B.

L contains only the first 29 chapters of the work. It is a leaf
of the Book of Leinster, a large compilation MS., the oldest part
of which was written about the year 1160. It is now preserved
in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.

D lacks the beginning and the end and has some more lacunae
owing to the loss of several leaves. It occurs in a volume made up
of various fragments, which also belongs to Trinity College
(press marking: H.2.17). There is no other indication of its age
but the handwriting and orthography. According to Dr. Todd
it was written in the fourteenth century.

B is a paper copy in the Burgundian Library, Brussels. It
was written by Friar Michael O'Clery, the most prominent of the
famous 'Four Masters'. According to his own statement, he
transcribed it from the Book of Cuchonnacht O'Daly, which is
now lost. O'Clery modernized the spelling. That he also deviated
from his original in another and a more serious way will be shown
below. Of B a copy was made by Eugene O'Curry in 1853 (T.C.D.,
H.6.18.).

Though the editor regards L as the oldest copy, he makes
no statement about the relation of the three MSS. It can easily
be proved that, at least indirectly, L is the original of both
B and D.

In the first section, only found in L and B, L has a marginal
note: bliadain sin ar marbad Diman Arad ocus in dar\a\ bliadain

rigi Fedilmid mic Crimthaind?) This has been incorporated in
the text of B: an Uiadhain ar marbadh Dimain Arad sin ...an
dara Uiadhain iar ngabhdil righe do Feidhlim mac Crimthainn.

Another marginal note in L reads: la Dondchadh ri .h. Conaill
tn tan sa ocus Domhnall mac Cindfaelaid ri .h. Cairfri. 2) This
note has been introduced, though in a modified form, into the
texts of B and D: Donchadh mac Scannlan ri ua Conaill ocus
Niall mac Cindfaelad.

A third proof is afforded by the words oc Loch Febail oc-
curring as a gloss in L, but found in the texts of B and D.

The O'Clery copy was probably written in the year 1635
and is, no doubt, the youngest of the three. The parentage of
L being proved, the question may be put whether B was a copy
of D, and D of L, in which case D would be the lost Book of
Cuchonnacht. This, however, is out of the question, since B in
many instances agrees with L against D, as will appear from the
following comparison:

L Cell ausailli B Cell uasaile
p. 8:
Tradraigi
Forannan
p. 10:
maith do morad . . .

Cogadh, p. 4 and p. 222.
Cogadh, p. 8, 224.
') Cogadh, p. 24, 231.

«) The quotations from L are taken from p. 223 sq. In quotations
no attempts at emendations have been made.

cella Derg deirc
p. 16:
. . .CO Ath Cliath
CO Liath Mochaemoc (id. p. 20)
p. 20:

On the other hand, there are many instances of agreement
between L and D against B:

L Dün Dermaigi D Dün
Dergmugi
ra hindred in tir leo
Land Lert
sldni
p. 8:
ra hindred ... leo
longes dib
Turgeis féin

L ra innarb ass D ro hinnarh
L CO rrocht Mumain D co
toracht Mumain
i nArd Macha
(deest)

L dam i n-inad innarba Colum
cilli dar muir D daim dib ar
Colum cilli dinnarba
p. 14:
aird inti . . .
CO diarmidi
Onphile
p. 18:
L anchora D ancair
L krd Ferta D Ard Fearadaig
p. 22:

L Scolph ocus Ona ocus Tom-
rair ocus Turgeis D Ona ocus
Scolph ocus Tomar . . .
p. 24:

L . . ia Aed Findliath mac
Néill Tgt;. ..la h Aed mac Néill
L du i torcair Constantin
mac Cinaeda ârdri Alban ocus
sochaidhe môr malle riss (D
similar)

Concubar mac Cinaeda . . .
re Murchadh mac Muchtigern
mic Rechtabhra i Mumhain
(deest)

Evidently both B and D are enlarged copies of L. They
had, however, a common source, which was not L, as wiU
appear from the following instances common to both, but
different from L.

B and D

a efscop

da airgset dna mag fos
ro hairged leo dna . . .

urmor cell £rend
ro hinrit... leo
amail ro tairngir Bercdn,
primfdith nimi ocus talman

p. 6:
epscop in hali
ra airgset Mag mBili
a tuaid arisi doib coro airg-
set. . .
p. 8:

urmor cell nSrend uile
ra hindrit. . . uathusaide
is andsin ra comallad fdstini
Berchdin in primfdda

In ch. X, L gives first the prophecy of Bee mac De and then
the words attributed in B an D to Ciaran Saighri without, how-

le hOifir iarla

(deest)
a tri iad

Ch. XXIX (B and D) is not found in L, except the concluding
passage: Ra chuatar . . . Oittir.

It appears from the preceding comparison that B and D must
go back to a common original. O'Clery mentions as his source the
BookofCuchonnacht. Since this text must have been of a later
date than the Book of Leinster, it cannot have been written, as
Dr. Todd supposed, i) during the lifetime of the ardollamh le dan
whose death the Four Masters record in the year 1139. Perhaps
the person referred to by O'Clery is Ciichonnacht mac Maoil-
shechlainn ua Dalaigh, who lived about 1590.^) If O'Clery's
original has been written in his time, it is not identical with C,
but must have been a copy of this manuscript. This, however,
must remain uncertain. The relation of the MSS. may be ex-
pressed by this pedigree (in which for the sake of simplicity the
Book of Cuchonnacht is regarded as the direct source of B and D):

The deviations of the younger MSS. from L are not aU of the
same character. Many are of a merely stylistic nature, as will be
shown by some instances from the first pages.

btli dochraiti mor for feraib bdi docraitte iongnadh adbal
Herennnbsp;mor ar amp;inn uile

6 Lochlannaib ocus ó Dan- d Danmarcachaibh allmardh-
araibnbsp;aib ocus ó dibergaibh bar-

The younger text shows a greater number of alliterating adjec-
tives, which stylistic figure, however, was not introduced by the
copyist. It is found already in L, even in the first sentence:
Danaraib dulgib durchridechaib. Other deviations must be due
to misreading or misunderstanding as, for instance, B Bendchair
(Bangor) for L Becherinn (Becc-Erinn, Beggary Island). Some-
times a word is replaced by a later form: B ro fhodaimsiot (p. 4)
for L ro fhulngetar.

The cases where B and D appear to have drawn materials
from some other source are comparatively few. On p. 20 B and
D read Saxulb iarla, where L has Raalb iarla. The greater part
of chapter XXIX is an interpolation, since L only has the last
four lines. An interesting interpolation, moreover, form the lists
of the kings of Ireland and of Munster in the chapters II and
III. 1)

For the larger and more important portion of the work we
possess only the texts of B and D, which are different at many
points. In B four long poems are found (on p. 62, 76, 80 and
96), which are absent from D. On the other hand, several sections
of D do not occur in B, namely, the poem which the messenger
Gilla Comgaill Ua Sléibhine addressed to Aedh Ua Néill to incite
him against Brian (p. 120); the arrival of Fergal Ua Ruairc
with his men (p. 154); part of the description of the mail-clad

Foreigners (p. 158); the mention of Brian's ten stewards and
Fergal Ua Ruairc, followed by a remark about rupture between
Brian and Maelshechlainn (p. 168); the appearance of Dunlang
ua hArtacain (p. 170); a section describing the feats of Fergal
Ua Ruairc (p. 176); the concluding lines of Maelshechlainn's
description of the battle and the combat between Dunlang and
Cornabbliteoc (p. 182). Whether these sections belonged to the
original work or not must be decided in each case separately.
There is no reason to suppose that their absence from B is due
to omission by Michael O'Clery. In the great compilation, known
as the Annals of the Four Masters, O'Clery carefully discarded
everything that could be conceived as detrimental to the Faith.
The same practice is noticed in his transcript of Cogadh, for in-
stance on p. 82, where he omits the words do rait anma na nGall
ro mar bait isin cath, 'for the good (?) of the souls of the Foreigners
who where killed in the battle'. The meaning of these words is
very obscure in the context.

The work falls into two parts. The first, consisting of the
chapters I—XXXIV, contains a chronological account of the
invasions, battles and settlements of the Foreigners in Ireland,
whereas the second and greater part of the work differs in style
from the introductory first section and is chiefly concerned with
Munster affairs.

There is an outstanding stylistic redundancy in the work that
affords an approximate date of its origin. Of this some instances
are found already in the introductory section, although here the
style is generally concise and annalistic, but the second part of
the work is dominated by it.

a. long sequences of adjectives, most of them alliterating, as
for instance cath dolig, dibergach, durcraideach, duabsech, dian,
denmnetach, dasachtach, na nAnmargach, ocus in damraid dian,
diulaind, direcra, ocus gamanraidh glan, gasda, gerata, garbeoda.

b. the use of several synonyms or words similar in meaning,
where a single expression would have given the same sense:
wdr de dod ocus dimned, de thdr ocus de tharcassul (p. 222)

ro marbsat treoin ocus treitill ocus trenmiledha, anraidh ocus
amsaigh ocus oicctigeirn, ocus forccla lathgaile ocus gaisccidh na
nGaoidhel uile (p. 42). As appears from these examples, here, too,
alliteration is used and as a rule the words occur in groups
of three.

Cogadh has been neither the first nor the last to employ these
peculiarities of style. They are used in other works throughout
the middle-Irish and the early modern period. We are able,
however, to ascribe the popularity of this typical element of
Irish literary style to a definite person: the redactor of the ver-
sion of the Tain B6 Ciialnge, preserved in the Book of Leinster.^)
It has been proved by Miss Aine de Paor that he was identical
with the author of the Book of Leinster (L.L.) version of Mesca
Ulad ®) and of the original work Cath Rnis na Rig for Boinn, an-
other L.L. text. He did not invent this style himself; instances
of it are found already in the earliest version of the Tain in
Leabhar na Huidre (L.U.), ®) especially in the sections entitled
In carpal serda ocus in brislech mdr Maige Murthemne (in Strachan's
edition line 1772—2054) and Aided Fhir Dead (2200—2733),
which are not by the same author as the rest of the L.U. version.
Now the origin of the L.L. version is dated by Thumeysen ®) in

') Ériu IX, p. 118. Cf. E. Thumeysen, Die irische Helden- und Königs-
sage, p. 33, 113, 364, 473.
') Ed. W. M. Hennessy, Todd Lecture Series I.
*) Ed. E. Hogan, Todd. L. S. IV.
') Ed. J. Strachan and O'Keeffe.
•) Heldensage, p. 114 sq.

the first quarter of the 12th century. His argument is the name of
Fergus' sword caladbolg (from caladcolc in L.U.), which is found
in the latinized form caliburnus in Geoffrey of Monmouth's
Historia Regum Britanniae, written between 1132 and 1135.
So if it can be proved that the author of Cogadh underwent the
influence of the second version of the Tain, he must have com-
posed his chronicle about the middle of the 12th century, in
any case before 1160, when the Book of Leinster was written.

Here follow some instances of paraUehsm or agreement in the
use of uncommon words between Cogadh on one side and the
L.L. version of the Tain and Cath Ruis na Rig on the other.

1.nbsp;Cog. p. 40 and passim: cdlmumch 'foreign, barbarous' occurs
once in the Tain: line 5616.

2.nbsp;trebraid, adj. of uncertain meaning, describing a mantle or
shirt. Cog. p. 52, 158; Tain 1716, 5273, 5388.

3.nbsp;Cog. p. 110: Cath fulech, fichda, forderc. Tain 5414: buiden
juilech fhordergg.

4.nbsp;Cog. p. 118: . . CO cosccrach, commaidhmech, Tain 4013:
Conall caem coscarach commdidmech.

5.nbsp;Cog. p. 152: {comthinol sloig) buirb barbardha. These two
adjectives are often found combined in Cogadh. Tain 1010:
ba borb barbarda-, 2216: dmthoclach horb barbarda. The word
barbarda or the substantive barhardacht occurs no less than
seven times in the L.L. fragment of Mesca Ulad. i) C.R.R.
p. 50: CO barbarda.

6.nbsp;Cog. 156: seolchrand 'a mast' ht. sail-tree, probably a transla-
tion from the Old Norse siglu-tre. 2) Tain 2622.

7.nbsp;Bodb or badb is originaUy the proper name of a battle demon.
In Cogadh the word is used in a more general sense. On p.
174 a 'badb' (here: battle demon in the form of a scaldcrow)

») Cf. C. J. S. Marstrander, Bidrag til det norske sprogs historie i
Irland, p. 46.

flutters over the heads of the combatants. The adjective
badbda 'furious, vehement' occurs on p. 158: saigitbuilc
badba (leg. badbda) barbarda (also p. 180); tsluaigh buirb
badbaidi (p. 52). For instances of a similar metaphorical use
in Tain, C.R.R. and M.U. see Ériu IX, p. 143.

8.nbsp;Cog. p. 174: ro eirgetar am bdnanaig ocus boccanaig ocus
geliti glinni ocus amati adgaill ocus siabra etc. Tain 2442 refers
to the same demoniacal beings: co ro recratar bdnanaig ocus
boccanaig ocus geniti glinni ocus demna aeoir, also Tain
1536, 2583, 3301.

10.nbsp;A parallel of idea, not of vi^ords. Cog. p. 114: a game of
chess gives rise to a conflict between Maelmordha and
Murchadh. In the Tain (p. 893) the same happens to Fergus
and Bricriu.

11.nbsp;Cog. p. 198: ocus bleith muilinn tuaithfil orra, C. R. R. p. 34:
el tue bleith mulind tuathbil forthu.

12.nbsp;Cog. p. 198: is amail sin amail ro hi caill Tomair ar loscad a
minbaig ocus a hoc crund, ocus na secht catha coecais ar mis ica
gerrad ocus a railge ro mhóra ocus a dairghe dhiomhóra ina sess-
amh, C. R. R. p. 42: acht na bäh rüad-daire ro-mór bar Idr mach-
aire acus na gabad mórslüag na farrad acus ra étlaithe a chdel
acus a min in fheda ass acus ra factha a railge rüada ro-móra
da éis.

These instances suffice to show that, as a matter of fact, the
author of Cogadh was influenced by the L.L. version of the Tain
and other stories by the same author. That Cogadh is the younger
work is proved by the fact that the style of the Tain is here
exaggerated to a degree which renders the work much less ex-
pressive than its example. Another difference is that the direct
speech, used regularly in Tain, C. R. R. and M. U. wherever
conversations are reproduced, has often been given up in Cogadh.

has been pointed out by A. Bugge, its author knew the Irish
translation of Dares Phrygius caUed Togal Troi, 'the Destruction
of Troy'. This is made probable by the fact that the chief heroes
m Cogadh are compared with Hector, son of Priam, and Her-
cules, and proved by cases of verbal agreement: gaili 'a bird
of valour' Cog. p. 188, T. T. 1706; ^a^nbsp;'a string around

sand Cog. p. 162, T. T. 629, 630; ia lunni latraind dar maig Ids
eturru 'his fury among them was that of a robber upon a plain'
Cog. p. 194, Idm latraind i n-drbaig T. T. 651.Now Togal Troi
contams many phrases also found in the Tain, as may be seen
from the footnotes in Windisch' edition. A decisive proof that
the translator of T. T. imitated the Tain is afforded by the plural
caladtuilc (T. T. 1716), a word denoting 'swords' in general
trom the proper name of Fergus' sword Caladbolg 3)

The second version of Cath Ruis na Rig, printed by Hogan
which IS only preserved in younger MSS., contains some striking
parallels with Cogadh.

1.nbsp;Cog. p. 162: ha sndm in-agaid srotha, C. R. R. p. 90: is sndmh
a n-aghaidh srotha sin.

2.nbsp;Cog. 162: ba hesargain darach du dorndaib, C. R. R. p 92-
is easargain darach do dhoirnihh sin anois «)

Although the date of this version has not been finally esta-
blished, no linguistic arguments prevent us from placing its
origin at least as early as that of the L. L. version

That later authors borrowed freely from Cogadh appears from
the following instances, taken from Cath Finntraga, an early
modem Irish tale, belonging to the Ossianic Cycle. ») The num-
bers refer to the lines of Meyer's edition.

Caithrtim Cellachamp;in Caisil, p. XVI.
Ed. W. Stokes, Calcutta 1882.
») See Thumeysen, Heldensage, p. 115.
These two expressions occur in a similar context in Eachtra cloinne
y na Moruo^ake ^ T. S. I, p. 86). an early modem Irish text ^h'^

1.nbsp;C. F. 773: . . amail buinne
mbhorbruadh mbreaclasrach fa
chnoc ardmhor aiteangharbh
no mar thuinn reachtmhoir
rahartha ac bimlad um gheal-
tracht ngainmighi 'like the
fierce-red blaze of motley flames
under a large hill rough with
furze, or hke a proud wave of
overwelming that beats a sandy
white strand'

2.nbsp;C. F. 734: Ro freagradar
imoro na duili uachtaracha a
comdail an chatha leo d'faisneis
na n-olc acus na n-imneadh budh
cinnti do dhenamh isin 16 sin
acus do merlabhair an muir
d'faisneis na n-easbadh ocus do
thogadar na tonna tromghair
truaghadhbal da sirchaineadh
acus do bhuiredar na piasta da
piastfhaisneis acus do gheisedar
na garbhchnuic le gabhadh na
greisi sin ocus do crithnaighea-
dar na coillti do chaineadh na
curadh acus ro gaireadar na
glaschlocha o ghnimaibh na n-
gerreann acus do ghuiledar na
gaetha ag admhail na n-ardecht
ocus do crithnaigh an talamh ac
tarrngaire an tromdir acus do
gormbrataigh an grian le gair
feadhaigh na n-glasshluag acus

Cog. p. 188: ..no mar borb-
ruathur dian bunni dilend,
brisseas ocus brecas cach ni cosa
ricc 'hke the fierce-swift onset
of a deluging blaze shattering
and smashing everything to
which it comes'.

Cog. p. 174: Ro erig em badb
discir, dian, denmnetach, dasacht-
ach, dur, duabsech, detcengtach,
cruaid, croda, cosaitech, co bai
ic screchaid ar luamain os a
cennaib. Ro eirgetar am bdna-
naig, ocus boccanaig, ocus geliti
glinni, ocus amati adgaill, ocus
siabra, ocus seneoin, ocus demna
admilti aeoir, ocus firmaminti,
ocus siabarsluag debil demnach,
CO mbatar a comgresacht ocus i
commorad aig ocus irgaili leo.
'And there arose a wild, im-
petuous, precipitate, furious,
hard, frightful, voracious, mer-
ciless, combative, contentious
badb, screaming and fluttering
over their heads. And there
arose also the satyrs, and the
ghosts, and the vampires of the
glen, and the witches, and the

do niamdhubadar na neoill re
hathaid na huaire sin acus do
chomgaireadar coin acus cuan-
arta acus badbha acus geilide
glinne acus arrachta aieir acus
jaelcon na fidhbidhe da gach
aird acus da gach oirchinn ana
timcheall acus sreath deam-
naighe diabalta do lucht aslaig
uilc acus ecorach da comgreas-
acht a ceann a cheili. 'Then the
beings of the upper regions
responded to the battle, telling
the evil and the woe that was
destined to be done on that
day, and the sea chattered
telling the losses, and the
waves raised a heavy woeful
great moan in wailing them,
and the beasts howled telling
of them in their bestial way,
and the rough hills creaked
with the danger of that attack,
and the woods trembled in
wailing the heroes, and the grey
stones cried from the deeds of
the heroes, and the winds sighed
telling the high deeds, and the
earth trembled in prophesying
the heavy slaughter, and the
sun was covered with a blue
mantle by the cries of the grey
hosts, and the clouds were
goblins, and the ancient birds,
and the destroying demons of
the air and of the firmanent,
and the ominous demoniacal
phantom host, and they were
screaming and glorifying the
valour and combat amongst
themselves'.

shining black at the time of
that hour, and the hounds and
the welps, and crows, and the
vampires of the glen, and
the spectres of the air, and the
wolves of the forest howled
together from every quarter
and every comer round about
them, and a demoniacal dev-
ilish section of the tempters
to evil and wrong kept urging
them on against each other'.
3. C. F. 829: Cubhais eili dam
fos, ar Ferghus, ndr theilg gaeth
da tainic 6 na duilibh riamh do
dhuilleabar do morcoill urdail
ar theilg gaeth aniuhh a nellaib
ocus a n-aer d'fholtaibh fada
finncasa forordha acus do chiab-
aibh casa cirdhubha acus d'urr-
laghaibh leabra lanmaiseacha
arna teascadh do bhiaillibh im-
leathna infhaehhracha. Uair do
muchadar na fola acus na fhuilt
sin fearas for na cathaibh leath
ar leath iad nach samalta co
ihuighthi 'sa bith neach d'aith-
neochadh aen dib seach a cheili
muna tucadh aithne aran-urrlab-
raibh, 'Again I pledge my
faith, said Fergus, no wind that
ever came from the elements
tore the like number of leaves

Cog. p. 182: ... in tan nach
tibred duni don da cath achni
ar celi, cid e a mac no a brath-
air bad comfagus do, mini
thugad aichni ar a guth, no a
fis remi acci in t-inad a mbiad,
ar n-ar linad eter cend ocus agid
ocus etuch do broengail na fola
forruam-anda la fogran na goeti
glanfuair, bai tarstib chucaind.
Ocus gid degengnum bad ail duin
do denum, ni fetfamais, daig ro
cenglait ocus ro cuibrigit angae
OS a cennaib da foltaib faidb ro
thafaind in goeth cugaind, arna
tescad do claidmib colgdirgib
ocus do thuagaib taidlechaib cor
ha let monur duin beith ic
rediugud ocus ica thaifneach
. . .'when not one person of the
two hosts could recognise an-

other, though it might be his
son or his brother that was
nearest him, unless he should
know his voice and that he
previously knew the spot in
which he was; we were so cov-
ered, our heads as well as our
faces and our clothes, with
the drops of gory blood, car-
ried by the force of the sharp
cold wind which passed over
them to us. And even if we
attempted to perform any
deed of valour we were unable
to do so, because their spears
over their heads had become
clogged and bound with knot-
ted locks of hair, which the
wind forced upon us, when cut
away by straight-edged swords
and gleaming axes, so that it
was half occupation to us to
endeavour to disentangle and
shake it off.

from a great forest that the
wind has now torn into the
clouds and into the air of long
fair-curled golden hair and of
curly jet-black locks and of
long beautiful hairs, that have
been cut off by broad, sharp-
edged axes. For that blood and
locks that rain down on the
armies side by side, have
smothered them, so that there
would not be in the world any-
body who would distinguish
any one of them from the
other, unless he recognised
them by their voices.

These instances only prove a direct or indirect hterary influen-
ce. They do not justify the opinion expressed by E. C. Quiggin,
that Cath Finntraga preserves traditions about the battle of
Clontarf. i) There is a large number of later stories recording an
invasion of foreigners, who are usually referred to as allmurach,
a word that occurs in Cogadh (p. 202) as a synon3mi of gall. Nor
is C. F. the only romantic tale influenced by Cogadh. In Cath

Mhuighe Rath, also preserved in a MS. belonging to the early
modem Irish period, the following passage shows a striking
agreement with the last-quoted fragment:
C. M. R. p. 238 sq.:. . ocus foUgrend feinned ar foluamain, co ndr ha
Uir leshaire lasamain, lainderda, lanfhairsing in aeoir uaistib,
re h-imad fholt ocus fhadb ocus finnfaid uathberrtha fhadbscailti
anaichnid ar na n-urthogbail do chennaib curad ocus cathmiled,
conad he sin adbar ddr fhasastar fuathnell foirtchide firdorcha
.. . 'and the hairy beards of the heroes hovering (in the air), so
that the bright, brilliant, broad lamp of heaven over them was
invisible with the quantity of hair, plaits and locks shorn, cut
off, and unrecognizable, raised up off the heads of heroes and
warriors, so that a terrible hidden truly dark cloud was produced'.

Another parallel is yielded by the famous anecdote illustrating
the security that prevailed during Brian's reign and a similar
passage in honour of the ardri Domhnall mac Aeda:
C. M. R. p. 104: gurab eadh Cog. p. 138: tainicc aenbhen 6
airmhid ughdair co n-imeochadh Thoraigh tuaisceirt Erenn co
ein-bhean ]S.re 'na h-aenar, gan Cliodhna deisceirt Erenn ocus
egla fuachadh na forecin fuirre, fail oir ar eachluisc re a hais
gen go mbeith fiadha aga for- ocus ni fhuair a slad na a
choimed, men ha eagla egna no saruccadh do dhenamh, conadh
ithimraidh 6 tha Osghleann iath- aire sin ro chan an file:
aicenta Umhaill, i n-iarthar

choigeadh Connacht, co Car- 0 Thoraigh co Cliodhna cais
raic n-oirdeirc n-iondchomar- Is fail oir aice re a hais
thaigh nEogain iar n-airthear, I re Briain taoibhghil nar tim
ocus 6 Inis fodghloin foithream- Do thimchil aoinbhen Erinn.
aigh feruaine Fail firdeis-

certaigh Banba bordghloine 'a solitary woman came from
... CO tracht-portaib tarmchr- Tory, in the north of Ireland,

The Banquet of Dun na nGedh and the Battle of Magh Rath, ed.
J. O'Donovan, Dublin 1842.

record that a sohtary woman
might travel in Ireland without
fear of being violated or molest-
ed though there were no witness-
es to guard her (if she were not
afraid of the imputations of
slander and backbiting) from
well-known Osgleann in Umh-
all, in the west of the province
of Connacht, to the famous
remarkable rock of Eoghan
in the east, and from fair-
surfaced, woody grassy-green
Inis Fail (Inch. co. Wexford)
exactly in the south of Ire-
land ... to the loud-roaring,
water-shooting cliffs of Tory
in the north'.

Cath Mhuighe Leana, another tale of the same category
edited from a 17th century MS., also contains at least one pas-
sage corresponding with Cogadh.

feadha no fear for fhaithche
'until the sands of the sea or
the leaves of the woods or the
grasses on the field are count-
ed.'

uaidetaescdihraicthechaToraighe to Cliodhna, in the south of
ar tuahceri, 'so that authors Ireland, carrying a ring of gold

on a horse-rod on her back,
without being either robbed
or insulted, whereupon the poet
sang:

From Tory to pleasant Chodh-
na with a ring of gold on her
back, in the time of bright-
sided fearless Brian, a sohtary
woman went round Ireland'.

gainemh mar a nd fer for faithce
nd rettlanda nimhe 'until the
sands of the sea or the grass-
es on the field or the stars
of heaven are counted.'

Gallaibh as a literary pattern becomes manifest. It has large-
ly influenced the style of Irish epical prose during the later
Middle-Irish period.

In the next section an attempt will be made to separate the
purely hterary additions in Cogadh from the historical facts.

The note on the Battle of Clontarf found in the Annals of
Ulster, the most important body of Irish annals, is of great-
er historical value than Cogadh, since these annals are con-
temporary with the events described in them.^) A close paral-
lel is found in the later compilation Chronicon Scotorum. The
text of A. U. is quoted here in full, whilst the variants from
C. S. are given below.

Slogud la Brian mac Cenn-
eitigh mic Lorcain, la righ
nErend, acus la Maelsechlaind
mac Domnaill, la righ Temhrach,
CO h-Ath Cliath. Laighin uile do
leir i Unci ar a cinn acus Gaill
Atha Cliath, acus a coimlin do
Ghallaihh Lochlaind led A. .x.c.
luirech. Gnithir cath crodha
etorra do na frith inntsamail.
Maidhis iarum for Gallu acus
for Laighniu i tosaigh co rus-
dileghait uile do leir, in quo bello
cecidit ex aduersa caterua Gal-
lorum Maelmordha mac Mur-
chada ri Laigen acus Domnall

A hosting by Brian son of
Cenneidigh, son of Lorcan,
King of Ireland, and by Mael-
shechlainn son of Domnall, King
of Tara, to Dublin. All the
Leinstermen were assembled
before them, and the Foreign-
ers of Dublin, and a equal
number of the Foreigners of
Norway along with them, viz.
1000 mail-clad men. A valorous
battle was fought between
them for which no hkeness had
been found. The Foreigners and
the Leinstermen were defeated
at first, however, so that they

mac Fergaile ri na Fortuath.
Cecidit uero a Gallis Dubghall
mac Amlaim, Siuchraidh mac
Loduir, iarla Innsi Orcc, acus
Gillaciardin mac Gluiniairnn,
rigdomna Gall, acus Oittir duh
acus Suartgair acus Donnchad
■H. Eruilb acus Grisine acus
Luimne acus Amlaim mac Lagh-
maind acus Brotor [qui occidit
Brian) A. toisech na loingsi
Lochlannaighi acus .ui. mile itir
marbad acus bathad. Dorochair
imorro a fritguin ó Gaidhel-
aibh A. Brian mac Cenneitigh,
ardri Gaidhel Erenn acus Gall
acus Bretan, August iartair
tuaisceirt Eorfa uile, acus a
mac A. Murchad acus a mac-
sidhe A. Toirrdelbach mac Mur-
chada acus Conaing mac Duinn-
chuan mic Cenneitigh, rigdomna
Muman, acus Mothla mac Dom-
naill mic Fhaeldin, ri na n-
Deisi Muman, Eocho mac Dun-
adhaigh acus Niall .H. Cuind
acus [Cuduiligh] mac Cennetigh,
tri coimthe Brian-, da righ .H.
Maine .H. Ceallaigh [leg. Tadg
.H. Ceallaig ri .H. Maine] acus
Maelruanaigh .H. hEidhinn ri
Aidhne acus Geibhinnach .H.
Dubagain. ri Fer maighi, acus
were entirely annihilated. In
this battle there fell of the
hostile band of the Foreigners
Maelmordha son of Murchadh,
King of Leinster, and Domhnall
son of Fergall, King of the
Fortuatha. But of the Foreign-
ers there fell Dubhgall son of
Amlaimh, Siucraidh son of
Lodur, jarl of the Orkneys, and
Gilladarain son of Glnniaimn,
royal heir of the Foreigners,
and Oittir the Black and
Suartgair and Donnchadh
grandson of Erulbh and Grisine
and Luimne and Amhlaimh son
of Lagmann and Brotor (who
slew Brian) i.e. chieftain of the
Norse fleet, and 6000 persons,
both by killing and drowning.
There fell of the Gaedhil in
the mutual wounding Brian son
of Cenneidigh, Arch-king of the
Gaedhil of Ireland, the Foreign-
ers and the Britons, the
Augustus of all the north-west
of Europe, and his son. viz.
Murchadh and his (Murchadh's)
son. viz. Toirdhelbhach and
Conaing son of Donnchuan
son of Cenneidigh. royal heir
of Munster. and Mothla son of
Domhnall, son of Faelan, King

Mac Beathadh mac Muiredaigh
cloin, n Ciaraidhe Luachra, acus
Domnall mac Diarmada, ri
Corco Baiscind, acus Scannlan
mac Cathail, ri Eoganachta
Locha Lein, acus Domhnall mac
Eimhin mic Cainnigh,mörmhaer
Mair i n-Albain, acus alii multi
nobiles. Luidh tra Maelmuire
{.i. mac Eochadha), comarba
Patraic, co sruithihh acus co
minnaibh, connice Sord Coluim
cille, CO tue as corp Briain righ
Erend acus corp Murchada a
mic acus cenn Conaing acus cenn
Mothlai, CO ro adhnacht i n-Ard
macha i n-ailaidh nui. Di
aidkchi dhec imorro do samhadh
Patraic ic are na corp, propter
honorem regis possiti.

of Desmond, Eocho son of
Dunadhach, and Niall Ua Cuinn
and [Cuduiligh] son of Cen-
neidigh — Brian's three com-
panions; Tadhg Ua Cellaigh,
King of Ui-Maine; and Mael-
ruanaidh Ua hEidhinn, King
of Aidhne; and Geibhennach
Ua Dubhagain, King of Fermoy
and Mac-Beathadh son of Muir-
edach Cloen, King of Kerry,
and Domnall son of Diar-
maid. King of Corcu-Baiscinn
and Scannlan son of Cathal,
King of the Eoghanacht of
Loch-Lein, and Domhnall son
of Emhin, son of Cainnech,
great steward of Mar in Scot-
land, and a great many other
nobles. Maelmuire (son of Eo-
chaidh), comarb of Patrick,
went, moreover, with seniors
and with relics to Swords, and
carried thence the body of
Brian, King of Ireland and
the body of Murchadh his son,
and the head of Conaing and
the head of Mothla, and in-
terred them in Armagh, in a
new tomb. Twelve nights, more-
over, were the congregation of
Patrick waking the bodies, in
honour of the dead king.

In C. S. the chieftains that fell on Brian's side are enumerated
first, then those of the Leinstermen, and lastly the Foreigners.
Further, C. S. has a lacuna after et alii, which is followed by the
words . .0 Tulcaid go Ath Cliath, gur raoinedh for Galloibh ocus for
Laignihh, tria nert cathaighte et imbualta et crodachta. Of Brian
C. S. adds that he was killed LXXXVIII anno aetatis suae, whilst
Murchadh was 63 years old at the time; however, C. S. records
nativitas Briain mic Cinnedigh at the year 923 and the Battle of
Clontarf at 1012, which would make Brian's age 89 instead of
88 years.

C. S. mentions the following Leinster chiefs: Maolmordha
mac Murchadha mic Finn, ri Laighen, et Tuathal .H. [U]gaire,
righdamna Laigen, et mac Brogarhdin, mic Concupair, rigdamna
.H. fFailge et multi.

After CO Ath Cliath (see the quotation from A. U. given above,
1. 5) the readmg of C. S. runs as follows: Gaill an domain do neoch
baoi diobh 6 Lochlain siar ro tionoilsit a n-aigaidh Briain ocus
Maoileclainn.

For da righ .H. Maine .H. Ceallaigh C. S. has the better
reading et Tadg .H. Ceallaigh ri .H. Maine. The name of the
jarl of the Orkneys, Siuchraid in A. U., is spelled Sichfrit with an
anorganic /; the form of the name represents the Old Norse
Sigrodr though this chieftain is called Sigurdr in Icelandic
sources.

Though the list of the Leinster chiefs is longer in C. S., only
the following slain Foreigners are recorded: Dupgall mac Amlaibh
et Gillaciardin mac Gluiniarainn, dd righdamna Gall, ocus Sich-
frith mac Lodair, iarla Innsi Ore et Bruadar taoisioch na nDanar
ocus as e ro marb Brian.

Although the record of A. U. is the oldest from a linguistic
point of view, C. S. has some better readings and was evidently
derived from some early MS. of A. U., which has not been
preserved.

The Annals of Loch Ce (A. L. C.) contain a record of the battle,
which represents a later stage of development of the tradition.
This body of annals begins at the year 1014. From 1015 to 1220,
apart from the period from 1138 tot 1170, where there is a
lacuna in A.L.C., this text agrees almost verbally with A.U.,
but for its modernized language and spelling and the absence
of some notes of minor significance, mostly obits. This proves
that the first chronicler of A. L. C. began his work after the
year 1220 and suppHed it with an opening section copied
from A.U., to begin with the year 1014, which he must have
considered important enough to open a new era. Although the
compiler of Cogadh cannot have been acquainted with the text
of A.L.C., the latter being the later work, it is very well possible
that he should have drawn from the same materials. The battle of
Clontarf is the only event before 1220 for which the author of
A.L.C. used another source besides A.U. He took over the entry
of 1014 but added a detailed account, which is not always con-
sistent with the record found in A.U. and also differs in certain
respects from that of Cogadh. It may be summarized as follows:

A great hosting was made by Brian Boromha of the men of
Munster, Meath and the south of Connacht, against the Foreign-
ers of Dublin and the Leinstermen. Of his attack on Dublin
it is said that it was not (only) a 'gap of danger' into which he
ventured: nir bho hern bdoghail aghaidh for Ath Cliath an ion-
budhsin, it was even 'a hand into a griffin's nest', Idmh i ned
gribhe.

In Dublin were gathered the choicest brave men from the
island of Britain from Caer-Eabhrogh (York), Caer-Eighist^)

The same expression is used to denote a dangerous situation in
Windisch T.B.C. line 3449: dat râla i mbeim mhaegail.

Cf. lâm i net nathrach 'a hand into an adder's nest' Tog. Troi 608.
Possibly Kingston Down, O.E. Hengestdun, in Cornwall; Eighist
represents the name Hengist.

and Caer-Goniath (Caergwent, Winchester). There came brave
men of the North of the world, both black Lochlannachs (Danes)
and white Lochlannachs (Norsemen).

Instead of Siucraid jarl of the Orkney islands, mentioned
in Cogadh, there come two sons of Lothar, jarl of the Orkneys,
named Sioghraidh Fionn and Sioghraidh Bonn ('the White'
and 'the Brown'). There come troops from the Innsi-Gall (the
Hebrides), Manainn (the Isle of Man), Renna (the Rinns of
Galloway, in Scotland), from the Britons and from the Flemings
{a Plemennoibh); Brodar, the jarl from Caer Eabhrog, with very
great hosts; Uithir duhh, a warrior of Caer Eighist; Grisine, a
champion of the Flemings and Greisiam (Gresham) of the Nor-
mans; a thousand heroes of the black Danars; the armies of the
Fine Gall (a district near Dublin) and the merchants who had
come from France, from the Saxons, from Britain and from the
Romans.

In Cogadh the Foreigners and the Leinstermen form three
battalions; here six, one of which remains in the fortress.

Brian, according to A.L.C., receives support only from the
men of Munster and of Meath, 'for there came not to him the
men of Ulster, nor the Arghialla (men of Oriel), nor the Cin^l
nEoghain, nor the Cinel Conaill, nor the men of Connacht,
except the Uf-Maine, the Ui-Fiachrach and Cinel nOedha, for
goodwill existed not between Brian and Tadhg-an-eich-ghil, son
of Cathal, son of Conchobar, king of Connacht'. Tadhg, son of
Cathal, however, was with Brian at Clontarf (Cog. p. 154).

Next, A.L.C. tells about a vision of Indeirghe, son of Uradhan,
Brian's orderly-servant. In the night before the battle he sees
a synod of many clerics coming towards the camp. They an-
nounce themselves as the clerics of St. Senan and come to
remind Brian of the debts he owes the saint, declaring that next
day shall be the time to pay them. Then they depart and
'Brian's mind was the worse for hearing the news'. The same

Of the appearance of Oebhinn or Aibhill A.L.C. gives a more
detailed account than Cogadh. She prophesies Brian that he
shall fall on the morrow and that the first son he will see shall
be king after him. Then Brian sends for Murchadh, whom he
wishes as his successor. Murchadh puts on his garment and in
the meanwhile Donnchadh, who has heard Brian's voice, enters
the tent. Brian in his disappointment receives him unkindly,
whereupon Donnchadh leaves him in anger.

Another difference from Cogadh is that Brian's nephew Con-
aing, son of Donnchuan, is praying with him during the battle
and that Brodar (here his name is not mentioned, but it occurs
in the entry taken from A.U.) beheads them both, but is slain
in the fight. In Cogadh Brian, whilst being slain alone, kills
Brodar and one of his men.

Evidently the annalist follows an oral tradition, partly differ-
ent from that which supplied the author of Cogadh with his in-
formation about the battle.

The curious splitting up into Sioghraidh Fionn and Sioghraidh
Donn of the one historical jarl of the Orkneys has a parallel in
Cath Ruis na Rig, where are named among Conchobar's foreign
auxiliaries Brodor Roth and Brodor Fiuit, which cannot represent
an3rthing but Norse Brodir raudi and Brodir hvtti, 'the red' and
'the white'. The fact that Irish tradition preserved the Norse
form of the names proves that this innovation, whether first
attached to BroQir or SigurSr, originated in the Norse tradition
about the battle and was adopted by the Irish.

C.R.R. p. 12. The parallel was noticed by Zimmer (Z.f. d. A. 32,
p. 219 sq.) and S. Bugge: The Home of the Eddie poems, London 1899,
p. 43 sq., who, however, regarded Cogadh as a trustworthy historical
account written shortly after the battle. For the Norse names in C.R.R.
of. Marstrander, op. cit.

pointed out by M. Deutschbein, i) It is found in the Gesta Her-
wardi, written in Ely probably about the year 1130. It relates
how Hereward, a Saxon hero who opposed the Normans, is
received with great honour at the Irish court. A short time
afterwards his two cousins Siward the White and Siward the Red
intimate to him that his father has died and that he has inherited
his father's property. Before his return he supports the Irish
king in a battle against the king of Munster. In this battle he
kiUs the hostile king, whom he finds lying in front of his tent in
the company of two old men. Hereward summons him to submit
to his master the king of Ireland, but the Munster king refuses and
defends himself bravely, even after seeing his two companions
kiUed. Hereward, however, slays him in single combat and
reaches his own army again with great difficulty, but some of
his followers fall and his cousins, the two Siwards, are severely
wounded.

This king of Munster, who plays an inactive part in the battle,
is evidently no other than Brian, whilst the two Siwards are
equivalents of Sioghraidh Fionn and Sioghraidh Donn, as well
as of Brodor Roth and Brodor Fiuit. The form of the epithets
in the last instance testifies to a Norse origin. The Gesta Her-
wardi prove that a version of the saga, still in the stage of oral
tradition, was transferred to England before 1130.

The different foreign countries and cities, from which the
invaders come according to A.L.C., are only partially the same
as those mentioned in Cogadh; of course, in both cases their
mention has no more historical value than that of Conchobar's
auxiliaries in the passage quoted from C. R. R., who are said to
come from Norway, the Faroe islands and the Orkneys. The
fact that merchants from different countries are also referred

1) Studien zur Sagengeschichte Englands, Göthen 1906, I, p. 28 sq.
Cf. J. de Lange, The relation and development of English and Icelandic
outlaw traditions, Haarlem 1935, p. 18 sq.

to is best explained when we remember that Dublin, the centre of
international trade in Ireland, must have swarmed with foreign
merchants. The naming of the Flemings must probably be
understood as an allusion to the Flemish settlers in Pembroke-
shire.

The miraculous appearance of St. Senan, who reminds Brian's
servant of debts that Brian owes him, and foretells the high-
king's death seems to indicate that Brian was not always on
good terms with the powerful monastic communities. This is
confirmed by a note in Tigemach i) and Chronicum Scotorum
A. D. 975: Inis Catha-gh do saruccadh do Brian mac Cinnedigh
for Galloibh Luimnigh 'Scattery Island (in the Shannon) was
profaned by Brian son of C. against the Foreigners of Limerick'.
That this profanation consisted in the killing of the Foreigners
appears from A. L. C. p. 8. A similar procedure by the clerics
of Senan, but not in the form of a vision, is found in a 14th
century treatise, edited by C. Plummer. 2)

The story about Oebhinn is also referred to in Cogadh (p. 200).
It continued to develop and will be examined in the next section
together with later additions.

Something must be said about the Annals of Inisfallen, a
chronicle that has been passed over in silence until now.®) A
comparison of this work with A. U. shows that A. I. is an extract
from a copy of the latter, slightly different from those that
have come down to us. Notwithstanding the utmost brevity of
its entries, A. I. sometimes preserves names which are absent
from the more elaborate work A. U. as we have it, for instance
Conaing mac Flaind (A. U. 918), who also occurs in the corres-
ponding note in Cogadh (p. 34).*)

The relation between A. U. and A. I. being estabhshed, we
cannot expect in the latter work much information about the
battle of Clontarf not found in the more detailed chronicle. The
note in A. I. runs as follows: i)

'A great war between Brian
and the Foreigners of Dublin,
so that Brian led a great host of
the men of Ireland towards
Dublin. Thereupon the Foreign-
ers of Dublin gave Brian
battle, wherein was killed Brian,
son of Cennedigh, and his son
Murchadh, crownprince of Ire-
land, and the latter's son Toir-
dhelbhach and the kings of
Munster with Conaing, son of
Donnchuan, and with Domhnall.
son of Diarmuid, king of Cor-
cubascind and Mac Bethad,
son of Muiredhach, king of
Kerry and Tadhg ua Cellaigh.
king of Ui Maine and many
others. In this battle were
killed Maelmordha, son of Mur-
chadh, king of Leinster and
the kings of Leinster with him.
and a slaughter of Foreigners of
the western world in the same
battle'.

This is nothing but an extract from A. U. Its briefness becomes
the more remarkable when we consider the interest A. I. takes

A I. p. 54. Cf. The Annals of Inisfallen reproduced in facsimile
published by the R. I. A. Dublin/London 1933, fol. 21».

Cocad mór etir Brian acus
Gullu Atha Cliath, co rue Brian
iarum mórthinól fer nÉrend
CO Ath Cliath. Is iarsain doratsat
Gain Atha Cliath cath do Brian
corro marbad Brian mac Cen-
netich acus a macc Murchadh
rigdamna Hérend acus a mac
side .i. Tairdelbach acus rigrad
Muman im Chonchang (leg.
Chonaing) m. Duindchuan acus
im Domhnall mac nDiarmata ri
Corcu Baschind acus im mac
mBethad mac Muirethaich ri
Ciarraige Luachra acus in Tadhg
hua Cellaich ri hua Maine acus
alii multi. Ro marbad dano isin
chath sein Moelmorda mac Mur-
chada ri Laigen co rigraid Laigen
imbi ocus dr Gall iarthair dom-
ain isin chat chédna.

in Munster affairs. Evidently the annalist of A. I. did not in-
corporate in his work any oral traditions about the battle, as
was done in A. L. C. No doubt such traditions existed at the
time when this part of A. I. was compiled (1092) but, if they
were famiUar to the annalist, he disregarded them completely.

We return to the Annals of Ulster, our chief annalistic source.
When comparing the list of fallen Foreigners in Cogadh (p. 206)
with the names recorded in these annals, we notice the following
variants. It must, however, be remembered that this part of
Cogadh is only found in the 17th century MS. B.

Siucraid is called in Cogadh Sitriuc mac Ladair iarla Indsi
AOrc, but there is also a Sioghradh, who is one of ceithre hurradha
Gall, the others being Oitir dubh, Grisin and Luiminin, who
are all found in A. U. This is not the case with some other
names given in Cogadh, namely:
Email Scot

Eon Barun ocus Ricard, dd mhac na hingine Ruaidhe
Oisill ocus Raghnall, dd mheic [leg. mhac] Imhair ua Imhair.
The names occurring in A. U. are probably historical. A
GUniarainn, ('iron-knee', probably a translation from the Norse
idrnkne), evidently the one mentioned as the father of Gilla-
ciarain, overcomes Domhnall Cloen and Imhar of Waterford in
982 (A. U.) and is killed in 988 by his own slave in drunkenness;
he is called king of the Foreigners. Amhlaimh, father of Dubhgall,
must be the son of Sitriuc (Sigtryggr) killed in 1012, according
to the Four Masters. The names added by Cogadh are for the
greater part not Norse at all: Ricard, Bernard, Simond, Goistilin

look more like the names of Norman nobles. This makes it
probable that they were inserted at a much later period. They
occur in a section of Cogadh only found in B and are absent
from the extract of Cogadh called Leabhar Oiris (see next
section).

The list of those who fell on Brian's side also contains a few
more names m Cogadh. Apart from these additions, the origin
of which cannot be made out, it is evident that this section of
Cogadh is based on the corresponding entry in the Annals of
Ulster, which must have been written shortly after the battle.

There is, however, much in the long and detailed description
of the battle of which no equivalent is found in the annals.
A fundamental trait, which is also preserved in Icelandic tradi-
tion, is that Brian himself does not take part in the battle.
This is not surprising, considering the high-king's age. Cogadh,
however, makes him stay praying in his tent (Cog. p. 196). This
is not the attitude one would expect of a warrior-king like
Brian, and if it were based on a historical fact, the annals would
certainly have recorded it. It is, however, related by Marianus
Scotus, in the third book of his Chronicle: Brian, rex Hiberniae,
parasceue Paschae, feria .VI., .IX. Kal. Maii, manibus et mente
ad Deum intentus, occiditur. Now Marianus lived from 1028
to 1082 and left Ireland in 1056. 2) This means that the story of
Brian praying during the battle arose between 1014 and 1056.
That the motif was not invented in Ireland is proved by a similar
story told about king Oswald of Bernicia in the Historia Eccle-
siastica by Bede who died in 735, a story similar enough to
preclude an independent origin of the later one. It runs as
follows: vulgatum est autem et in consuetudinem proverbii versum,
quod etiam inter verba orationis vitam finierit. Nam cum armis et
hostibus circumseptus iamiamque videret se esse perimendum,

oravit pro animabus exercitus sui. Unde dicunt in proverhio: 'Deus
miserere animabus, dixit Osvald cadens in terram'. i)

Bede's works were certainly well known in Ireland, but why
should the Irish have borrowed only this one anecdote out of
the great number told by Bede about his saints and heroes?
Evidently Bede was not the direct source. The explanation
hes in the words: vulgatum est et in consuetudinem proverhii
versum, which imply that Bede here records an EngHsh popular
tradition, current in his time. St. Oswald's relics, preserved in
several English monasteries, were famous even in Ireland and
this explains how the story migrated to that country. Perhaps
we must regard the Dublin Norsemen as mediators. An argument
in favour of this inference is the occurrence of similar hagio-
graphical elements in the Icelandic Brjanssaga. Moreover, the
scene of the king lying in his tent during the battle is also found
in the story of the Gesta Herwardi, which, as has been shown
above, is of Norse origin.

Cogadh contains another instance of an English popular
tradition that crossed the Irish sea. Let us compare the section
of Cogadh quoted above on p. 17, describing how a solitary woman
traversed Ireland with a ring of gold, without being either robbed
or insulted, with the following passage of Bede. It depicts
the state of peace and security during the reign of King Eadwine
of Northumberland, who flourished about the year 620:
Tanta autem eo tempore pax in Brittania, quaquaversum imperium
fegis Aeduini pervenerat, fuisse perhibetur ut, sicut usque hodie in
Proverhio dicitur, etiam si mulier una cum recens nato parvulo
vellet totam perambulare insulam a mari ad mare, nullo se ledente
valeret.

The resemblance is striking, but here, too, the author of
Cogadh did not use Bede as his source, for he would not have

transformed 'a woman with a newly bom child' into 'a woman
with a ring of gold'. This change is easily explained from the
centuries of oral tradition, in which the English folk story
{'sicut hodie in proverbio dicitur') became current in Ireland,
until it was noted down by the author of Cogadh.

In the account of the battle we have distinguished two sorts
of sources used by the author of Cogadh: annalistic works and
popular traditions. The opening part of the work shows no trace
of the latter; it has been extracted from some annalistic source
throughout. However, the compiler did not consult any of the
older bodies of annals in any form now in existence, since Cogadh
contains many details not registered in them. Still there are
many instances of agreement between Cogadh and our principal
body of annals, which prove that the compiler used a version
of A. U., slightly different from the one that has come down to
us. Even the wording is often the same, as will appear from a
comparison of the purely annalistic section in Cogadh with A. U.

Cogadh opens with the statement that the first invasion of the
Foreigners occurred during the reign of Airtri mac Cathail in
Munster and Aedh Oimidhe in Ireland. In fact, A. U. records
at 797, the second year of the reign of Aedh, 'great devastations
both in Ireland and Scotland' by Gentiles,^) which is the first
Norse invasion occurring on the mainland of Ireland.

Here follows an enumeration of all those cases, where the
earliest version of Cogadh has a parallel in A. U. Wherever L
is defective, the lack has been supplied from D or B.

1. p. 222. Tucsat Eoganachi A.D. 811: Ar gennte la Mumain^
Locha Lein cath ddib ocus ro id est la Cobthach mac Maele-

2.nbsp;ocus rucsat Etgal in Scelig
leo i mbrait, conid tre mirbail
atrulla uddib ocus ba marbh de
gortai ocus dittaid occo hé

3.nbsp;p. 223: ocus ra argset saide
Bendchuir Ulad, ocus ra briss-
eiar serin Chomgaill

II.nbsp;p. 226: Tanic iarsain Tur-
ges for Loch Ri, ocus ra indred
Midi uadass ocus Connachta
ocus ra hindred leiss Cluain mic
Nois ocus Cluain Ferta Bre-
naind ocus Lothra ocus Tir dd
Glas ocus Inis Celtra ocus cella
Derg Deirc archena
duin, ri Locha Lein

A. D. 823: Eitgal Sceiligg a
gentibus raptus est et cito mor-
tuus est fame et siti

A. D. 823: Orggain Benncair
ac airtiu 6 gentibh ocus coscradh
a derthaigi ocus reilgi Com-
ghaill do crothad as a serin
A. D. 824: Loscuth Maighi Bile
cona derthigib 6 ghentibh
A. D. 827: Loscadh Lainne Leire
Cluana moer ö Gallaibh
A.D. 831: Orggain Duimliacc
ocus fini Ciannactai cona chell-
aibh huilibh 6 genntibh
A. D. 833: Orgain Glinne dd
Locha 6 Genntib
A. D. 838: Fecht di Ghallaibh
for Loch Ecdhach
A. D. 839: Orggain Lughmaidh
di Loch Echdach 6 Genntibh
A. D. 831: Cetna orggain Airdd
Machae 6 genntib fo triinoenmhis
A. D. 844: Dunadh di Gallaibh
(added: .i. la Turgeis) for Loch
Ri, corortadar Connachta ocus
Midhe ocus co ro loscaiset Cluain
mic Nois cona dertaigibh ocus
Cluain Ferta Brendain ocus
Tir dd Glass ocus Lothra ocus
alaile cathracha

12.nbsp;Tucsat Connachtach [sic]
cath dô, i torcair Maelduin mac
Murgiusa rigdomna Connacht

13.nbsp;p. 227: is hi seo bliadain ra
gabad TuirgeislaMaelsechlainn.
Ro baided arsain hé i ILoch
Uair

14.nbsp;p. 228 Tainic longes aile
corragaib for Loch nEthach. Ra
hindred leosaide co Ardmacha
ocus ra loscset Ardmacha féin
ocus ra hairged

16.nbsp;p. 18 (not in L) : ocus ro tog-
lad Dûn Masc .i. du in drocair
Aed mac Duibdacrich, comarba
Coluim mic Crimthaind ocus
Findtain Cluana Ednig

17.nbsp;Tancadar iarsin Duibgeinti
Danarda, ocus ro laeset fo Érind,
ocus da badar ic diucur na
Findgenti a Hérind, ocus tucsat
cath, ocus do marbsat .v. mili
dono Fingentib ic Snam Ergda.

20. p. 20. Do rain Olchubur mac
Cineda rig Cassil, ocus Lorcan
mac Cellaig ri Lagen cath Sceith

A. D. 837: Bellum re Genntib
for Conachta in quo ceciderunt
Maelduin filius Muirgesa et alii
multi

A. D. 844: Turges du ergabhail
la Maelsechnaill ocus badudh
Tuirges i ILoch Uair iar um

A. D. 839: Orggain Lughmaidh
di Loch Echdach 6 Genntibh . . .
Loscadh Aird Machae cona
dertighibh ocus a doimliacc

A. D. 841 : Orggain Cluana mic
Nois ô Genntibh di Linn Dua-
chail. Orggain Biror ocus Saigh-
re Ö Genntibh di Duiblinn
A. D. 844: Orggain Dûin Masc
6 Genntibh, du in ro marbad
Aedh mac Duibhdacrich abb
Tire da Ghlais ocus Cluana
Eidhnigh

A.D. 851: Lucht ocht .XX.it
long di Fhindgentibh do
roachtadar du cath fri Dub-
gennti do Shnamh Aighnech.
Tri la ocus tri aithchi oc cathug-
ad doaib, acht is re nDuibh-
gennti rommeabaidh, co farggab-
sat a ceile a llonga leu
A. D. 847: Bellum re nOlcobur
ri Muman ocus re Lorggan mac
Cellaig co Laighniu for Gennti

Nechtain form, du i drocair
tanaissi ri Lochland, ocus da cdt
dec do maithih Lochland umi

21.nbsp;Ro bris, dna, Tigernach
cath \Jorra'\ ic Dairi Disiurt
Daconna du i drocradar .v. cet

22.nbsp;Ro bris, dna, Olcubur cetna
ocus Eoganacht Cassil cath fortu
ic Dün Maeltuli du i drocradar
da ficet dec

23.nbsp;p. 230: Tainic arsain Amh-
laib mac rig Lochlann ocus long-
es Idn mör leis .i. sin dechmad
bliadain re n-ec Maelsechlainn,
coro gaib rigi Göll Herend ocus
is leiss ra badad Conchobar
mac Dondchada rigdomna Tem-
rach

24.nbsp;p. 231: Is leo ra marbad
Maelguala mac Doindgaile ri
Caisil .i. a druim do brissed im
chloich

25.nbsp;p. 24: Is isin bliadain ro
bris Aed Findliath mac Neill
cath forthu (added in a gloss: ic
Loch Febail), du i drochairdar
da cet deg cend in oen inad dib,
ocus ruc a n-uili inmais ocus a
seodu

26.nbsp;p. 28: Cethri bliadna iarsin
ro fhacsat Gaill ßrind ocus
lottar in Albain im Sitriuc mac
Imar
ecc Sciaith Nechtain in quo
cecidit Tomrair ereil tanise righ
Laithlinne ocus da cet dec imbi-
Roiniudh re Tigernach for
Gennti inDairiu Disirt Dochon-
na in quo ceciderunt da cet decc
Roiniudh re nEuganacht Caisil
for Gennti icc Dün Maeletuile in
quo ceciderunt .v. cet

A. D. 852: Amhlaim mac righ
Laithlinde do tuidhecht a nßrind,
coro giallsat Gaill jSrend dö ocus
eis ö Goidhelaib

A. D. 917: Gaill Locha dd
Caech do dergiußrenn .i .Ragh-
nall ri Dubgall ocus na dd
iarla .i. Ottir ocus Graggabai

27.nbsp;p. 30; Tanic, imorro, iarsin
tola mör diarmithi re Ragnall
hua nlmair ocus re hOttir iarla
cor gabsat ar Loch dd Chaeich...

28.nbsp;p. 30: Is led sin ro marbad
Anle mac Cathail ri Uathni
Fidbaig ocus Longseach mac
Setna ri Uaihni Tiri

29.nbsp;p. 34: In hliadhain ro gabh
Niall Glunubh righe nßrend sin,
tanic, dna, langes ele la Sitriuc
ua nimar cor gabsat i Cind
Fuait ocus ro hinrit Lagin leo
ocus ro rainset cath for Ugairi
mac Aillella A. for ri Lagen, du
indrochair baidein ocus Mael-
morda mac Mureigean ri iarthir
Liphe ocus Mugroin mac Cein-
neittigh ri Laighse ocus na tri
Comann ocus Cionaeth mac Tua-
thail righ Ö nEneclais ocus
Maelmaedhoc mac Diarmata ab
Glinne Uisen ocus airdespug
Laighen ocus sai eccna na
nGaoidhel ocus se chet araen riu
im caeccat righ

30.nbsp;p. 34: Do ronadh dna
moirthionöl Leithe Cuinn la Niall
Glundubh mac Aodha co tue
cath doib ic Ath Cliath du in-
drocair Niall baiside ardri ßrend
ocus sagaith doib iarsin co firu
Alban

A. D. 915: Annie mac Cathan
ri Uathne Cliach, do bas\ugad] 6
Gallaibh Locha dd Caech

A. D. 916: Roinis cath Cinn-
fhuait foraib re Sitriuc hU Imair,
condid ann docer Augaire mac
Ailello ri Laigen ocus Mael-
mordha mac Muirecain ri air-
thir Liphi, Maelmoedhoc mac
Diarmata sui et episcopus Lai-
gen, Augran mac Cennetigh ri
Laichse et ceteri duces atque
nobiles

A. D. 918: Bellum renGentibh
occ Duiblinn for Goidhelu, du
i torcair Niall [A. glundub) mac
Aedho ri Érenn, tertio anno regni
sui .XVII. KI. Octimbris .IIII.

ocus dd ri dee do rigaih £rend
umi A. Niall haden ocus Con-
cubar mac Mailseclaind, rig-
domna Temrach ocus Conaing
mac Flaind ridomna £rend ocus
Flaithhertach mac Domnaill ri
{domna\ eile ßrend ocus Aed
mac Eochada ri Ulad ocus Mail-
mithig mac Flannugan ri Breg
ocus Erimon mac Cendneitig
flaith Ceneil Mani ocus Con-
galach mac Celi ri Ua Macuais
ocus Congalach mac Dremain ri
Crimthaine, Maelmuri mac An-
bita ri Mugornd ocus Deocan
mac Domnaill ri Cianachta ocus
Dunan mac Cerballan ocus Bre-
nan mac Fergusa ocus urmor
mathi Lethi Cuind aroen riu sin
ocus sluag diairmithi ele
31. p. 36: Ro hinred, dna, tuas-
cert F,rend re Gothrin mac Imar
iarsin ocus ro hairged Ard-
macha

32. . . .ro bris Donchad mac
Mailseclaind cath fortho som
iarsin ic Tig Mic Deicthig
ocus ro femed a airium and
ar marbad do Gallaib. Daig ni
mo na lin inninsi seel do cuaid
leo as do Gallaib
feria ocus du itorcair Aedh mac
Eochocain ri coicidh Concho-
bair ocus Maelmithid mac Flan-
nacain ri Breg ocus Concobar
.H. Maelsechnaill ridomna Tem-
rach ocus Flaithhertach mac
Domnaill ridomna ind Fhochlai
ocus mac Duibsinaigh .i. Mael-
craibi ri na n-Airgiallu et alii
nobiles multi

A. D. 920: Indredh Aird Macha
hi .///ƒ. id Nouembris ó
Gallaibh Atha Cliath .i. ó
Gothhrith oa Imhair cum suo
exercitu .i. hisint sathurn ria
feil Marthain

A. D. 919: Cathroiniudh re
nDonncadh .H. Maelshechnaill
for Genti, du itorchair dr n-dimh-
ar

These instances suffice to prove that the annalistic sections
of Cogadh go back to a version of A. U.

The first chapter that bears the stylistic mark of the author
of Cogadh is ch. XXXVI, p. 40. The names of leaders of Viking
fleets mentioned there are not supported by A. U. or any body
of annals not dependent on Cogadh, but many of them occur
in the list of Foreigners who fell at Clontarf, as it is found on
p. 206 of Cogadh. These names, though most of them are doubtless
Norse, do not appear to have a great historical value. In the case
of the Red Maiden {an Inghen ruadh), even a personage of a
purely legendary character has been inserted in the list (see next
section).

The description of Brian's sufferings during his guerilla
against the Foreigners i) reminds one strongly of a passage in
Asser's Life of King Alfred, describing how Alfred sojourned
in Athelney.

'In those days King Alfred, whom we have so often
mentioned above, with a few of his nobles and with some
soldiers and vassals also, passed his life in great sorrow
and unrest amid the woods and marshes of the land of
Somerset. Nor had he anything wherevrith to support
life, save that which by constant raids, either secretly
or openly, he might take from the pagans, and from the
Christians even, who had submitted to the pagan yoke'.

Brian endures exactly the same hardships; together with a
few followers, he 'used to set up rude huts instead of encamp-
ments in the woods and solitudes and deserts and caves of Ui
Blait . . . Great, indeed, were the hardship and the ruin, the bad
food and the bad bedding which they inflicted on him in the wild
huts of the desert, on the hard knotty wet roots of his own native

country, whilst they killed his people and his trusty officers and
his comrades'.

In two other cases Anglosaxon influence has already been
ascribed to oral tradition; therefore it is likely that this story,
too, travelled to Ireland only in the oral form. Literary influence
is less probable, since we find no other trace of Asser's work in
Irish writings.

The part of Cogadh following the annalistic section and preced-
ing the story of the battle of Clontarf is interspersed with poems.
In no case, however, can the poem have been the source of the
preceding or the following prose. It cannot be explained whence
the author of Cogadh took his information, unless we assume the
existence of an oral tradition about the exploits of Brian and
his brother Mathgamhain. Those poems that are not contempora-
ry with the events they describe, must have arisen out of the
same oral tradition in prose-form.

There is a poem glorifying the battle of Glenn Mama, fought
by Brian against the Foreigners and the Leinstermen (A. D. 1000),
which is interesting because it contains an allusion to the battle
of Clontarf. Its last quatrain runs as follows:

Cath Muige Rath re teasta
no cath mor Muige hEalta
nochan innsamail im rath
is baramhail don aon cath.

'The battle of Magh Rath, according to its description, or the
great battle of Magh Ealta are not equal in success nor to be
compared to this one battle'. Cluan Tairbh was a part of the plain
called Magh nEalta, where the battle was fought according to
Cogadh and A. L. C.') Evidently this poem was composed shortly

after 1014, at a period when the reputation of Clontarf was still
overshadowed by Glenn Mama.

Of the four poems only found in B, three are dialogues between
Brian and his brother Mathgamhain. In the first of these i) the
latter asks his brother why he comes with so few followers and
Brian rephes that the Foreigners have killed many of his men.
When questioned about the battles he has fought, Brian names
Craig Liath, Br^intir, Forgus as battlefields. Of the enemies that
were slain he mentions Bimn, Eodhonn, Ehus and Elgim. These
names are not found in any other source. Finally, Brian blames
his brother's weakness against the Foreigners and Mathgamhain
pays tribute to Brian's bravery in a quatrain beginning As
ogla sin a Briain Bregh. This line should be translated: 'This is
pride, O Brian of Bregh'. Magh Bregh is the plain where Tara
lies and 'Brian of Bregh' denotes Brian in his quality of high-king.
This proves for the poem a date of composition posterior to
A.D. 1002.

In the second poem *) Brian informs his brother about a battle
in which he took little less than a hundred heads from the Foreign-
ers. From the preceding prose it appears that this victory was
fought at Sulcoit. The third®) celebrates the same victory but
speaks of twelve hundred victims; it mentions Carran, Staball,
Eda, Treitill, Maghnus Berna, Torolbh and Ruadhmand of Limer-
ick as Norse chieftains that fell in the battle. The prose text preced-
ing the poem names the following Norse leaders: Carran Laig-
neach, Stabball mac Sigmaill, Etlla Tretel, Ruamand, SomarUd,
Manus of Limerick, Tolbarb and Infuit. Evidently the prose
and the poem go back to a common tradition (the names are not

found in any of the annals), but the difference makes it impos-
sible that, in their present form, one should be the source of
the other. Probably the prose formed part of the original work,
whilst the poem was inserted from some other authority.

The fourth poem is a complaint for the death of Mathgamh-
ain composed by his blind bard. Among many particulars about
Mathgamhain's life not recorded in any other source there is an
allusion to the hostihty prevailing between the two brothers,
which was caused by Mathgamhain's jealousy:

Cein ro bdbhair maille
ro ba maith bhar mbrdthairse
acht ro fdgbadh tolaibh gal
anfhod eiti don isinnsear,

'as long as you were together, good was your brotherhood, but
there was left — mighty deed — a storm of jealousy to the
senior'.

'it was not in friendship he shunned Brian by going to the
house of Donnabhan'. The latter, Donnabhan mac Cathail, is the
traitor who delivers Mathgamhain to his murderer Maelmuadh,
at the instigation of Imhar of Limerick (Cog. p. 86).

It is curious that the murder of Mathgamhain, described in
Cogadh with full details, is only recorded in a short note in
the Annals: A. U. 975 Mathgamhuin mac Cennetigh ri Caisil do

Cog. p. 96—100. The poet refers to his friendship with the Norse
chief Dubhgenn, which marks the poem as authentic, as this detail
could hardly have been invented at a later period.

marbad la Maelmuaidh mac mBrain. Tigemach i) and C. S. (974)
have the same note, but read ri Muman instead of rt Caisil
and add: do righ .H. nEchach, iar na tidhnacail do Dundubdin
mac Cathail do rig .H. fFidhgente a ffil '(Maelmuadh son of
Bran) kmg of Ui Echach, after having been treacherously sur-
rendered by Donnabhan, son of Cathal, king of the Ui Fidhghen-
te'. The fact is not mentioned in the Annals of Clonmacnoise
but A. 1.2) has: Aurgabail Matgamna meic Cennetic rig Cassil, a
aurgabail la Donduban tre fell acus a thabairt do mac Brain tar
sdrugud acus tar mallachtain sruihi Muman acus a marbad la
suide. The historical character of the event is sufficiently
established by the agreement of the annals with the contemporary
poem, but the details in the prose narrative of Cogadh show
that here we have another growth of legendary material
around the Dalcassian kings. To this category also belongs
the story of the gospel thrown by Mathgamhain upon the
breast of a priest of St. Columba, under whose protection he was.
Another legendary element is the curse of the clerk against
Maelmuadh after his sarcastic remark, a curse which caused the
murderer's death. His grave was on the north side of a hill,
where the sun never shines. A similar curse, but uttered by
Mathgamhain himself, is alluded to by the blind bard:

Ro rdidh Mathgamhain don muigh
breithir is [leg. agus} comhaillidh,
go fuicfeadh lecht fir rosmarbh
san tir aimhreidh aiteanngarbh,

'M. spoke on the plain a word which was fulfilled: that he
would leave there the tomb of the man that kiUed him ») in the
uneven rough-furzed land'.

These four poems, found only in B, were probably inserted by
O'Clery from some other manuscript. They never formed part
of C, since the scribe of D, who in another instance did not
shrink from swelling his text with additional poetry, would never
have expunged them. There is, however, no linguistic or prosodical
evidence preventing us from ascribing these poems to the eleventh
century. They contain particulars, including proper names,
which can only be explained from their being based upon oral
tradition.

Another poem is found only in D. Maelshechlainn, high-king
of Ireland, is threatened by Brian and sends a message to Aedh
Ua NeUl to ask for support. The messenger Gilla Comgaill Ua
Sleibhene, who according to the Four Masters died in 1031,
performs this task in a long poem in the metre called Rannaigecht
mdr, which is given there in extenso. Aedh refuses and Mael-
shechlainn has to yield the sovereignty to Brian (1002). The
message is briefly referred to in B, without any allusion to the
poem; 'the poet did his message best as he could for the infor-
mation of Aedh. Then Aedh Ua Neill answered . . It is not
found in any of the annals, but this could never have prompted
O'Clery to discard the poem and alter the preceding prose note.
Evidently the poem never formed part of the text C. On the
other hand, it does not agree in every detail with the contents
of the corresponding prose passage, where, for instance, Mael-
shechlainn sends different messengers to Ulster and Connacht
and tells Aedh to be prepared to the high-king's submission to
Brian, in case he should receive no support. Of all this there is
nothing in the poem. This precludes the hypothesis that the
poem should be the work of the scribe of D. Besides, there are
no internal arguments against assigning it to the same period
as the events it describes and thus regarding Gilla Comgaill
as its author.

Not all the insertions m the later MSS. of Cogadh bear the
mark of historical truth. In D there is a description of the
combat of Fergal Ua Ruairc and Dunnall mac Tuathail, king of
Liphe, in which the former is victor (Cog. 176). This section is
not found in O'Clery's MS., no more than two other passages
of D: chapter LXXXIX (p. 154), describing the arrival of Fergal
Ua Ruairc and his troops, and another mention of this chieftain
among the ranks ordered in battle-array on p. 168. Todd regards
these sections as later fiction i) and his judgement is confurmed
by a poem in the metre called deUde, addressed to the shield of
Fergal Ua Ruairc, which is preserved in a 17th century MS. in
the British Museum. 2) Here Fergal figures as Brian's opponent.
Among Fergal's exploits a victory over Brian is recorded in the
following quatrains:

Do chuamuirne toisg tre fheirg
a sgiath bhogoidigh bhdndeirg
dar sditheadh a nAth Dara
tu 'n aghaidh Briain Bhoramha

Brian Boramha gerb fer tenn
ag gabhdil giall fher namp;renn
do rad d'Ferghal re taohh brat
naonmhur ar fithchid brdghad.

'We set out on an expedition, pushed by wrath, O buckled
white-red shield, when in Athdare thou wast thrust into the face
of Brian Boramha.

B. B., although he was a strong man in taking hostages from
the men of Ireland, gave, besides booty, twenty-nine hostages
to Fergal'.

This is more in accordance with the statement in Cogadh
(p. 146, 148) that messengers were despatched by Maelmordha
and his aUies to Fergal Ua Ruairc, king of Brefni, and to Ualgarg
Ua Ciarda, king of Cairbi, who all consented to turn against
Brian. They plunder the territory of the Gailenga (Cog. p. 148),
but are beaten by Maelshechlainn, in which battle Ualgarg and
others are killed.

This note, found both in B and D, agrees with the quatrains
quoted above in describing Fergal as an opponent of Brian,
whilst the interpolation in D makes him fight on Brian's side.
Both statements, however, are contradicted by the Annals of
Ulster, which record the death of Fergal Ua Ruairc in 965:
Fergal .H. Ruairc do marbad la Domnall mac Congalaigh, la righ
Bregh. This proves how historical persons who were not even
contemporaries of the battle, were brought into connexion with
Brian in order to add to their glory and that of their descendants,
or, if they were persons of some consequence themselves, like
this king of Connacht, to increase Brian's fame.

There is a poem in the metre called Dehide scdilte about Brian's
battles, which is found only in the two 18th century MSS. R.I.A.
23. C. 18, p. 71 and F .6.2, p. 524. It is edited here for the first time.

6.nbsp;Do rad âr Bealuigh LeacÄ^a Brian, ar mbuinwe rabharta,
dâr vaaxhadh Maolmuadh mac Broin, an ri do bhi ar

7.nbsp;Conall mac Faolain nabfearg ri na nDéise do ion«arba«iÄ.
tug braighde Laighean ale agas xioghxadh Oisraighe.

11.nbsp;Coin diamar a mbiodh gach dâl as leis do l'dg{h)edh fa Mr,
CaîVge na nDruadh thoir ro leag dâr treasgair Ua Cuin«

1) leg. tuillmheach. ») MS. taras, with punct. del. under as.
gt;) leg. rioghradh. leg. cath. «) leg. Äth Cliath. One syllable wanting.

14.nbsp;Ni raibh loch a nÉirinM 3) gan loingeas Gall air (g)léibhionw,
ni raibhe dün na dioghna¹) gan longport Gall glais-

16.nbsp;Tuirgeis a longa tar lear seamp;cht mbliagwa ®) do gan AeaJoadh
'na abdhuine a nArd Macha, fa habduine an«fhlatha.

17.nbsp;Loingios mór iarla ó Ir cheithre fithid') long a ttfr,
loingios Him fa gnath air tuin«, loingeas Breas, loingeas

18.nbsp;Loingeas Geanain« na ttriath, loingeas mór Locha da Riach,
loingeas Locha Deirgeirc de is loingeas boirbBaoithine.

19.nbsp;Loingeas mór na mna ruaidhe, ba measa na gach cuaine,
duairc an phrimhghin tar muir mailc dingeine iniwe

') leg. fichid. ') leg. Deirgdeirc. ') leg. mbalc d'inghenaibh mine
macdacht. The MS. F. 6. 2. reads for the second half: learbh 4il Eire
do arguin, apparently a simplified reading.nbsp;leg. riu . .. cluiche.

24.nbsp;Loingios ïomhair tar an muir, sochaidhe da ttug diogail,
loingios ion«a cCrioslach de nochar bfearr loingeas caiwgne,

28.nbsp;InMis Labhruinwe na leag, Ros Oilithre ro airgsead,
Lios Mór gan crâbha[«ZÂ] gan crois, Imleach do \gt;h.eth gan

29.nbsp;Gleann dâ Lacha fâ dhaoire, Cluain loraird fâ éagcaoine,
gan cros gan cuinggan crâbha[(iÂ] Easdara fâmhiodhcacus.*)

30.nbsp;RÓ airgset Goill sin uile eidir dhion agus duin(w)e,
gonâr fhâgsad cros nâ cill gan aidhmhilleiÄ a nÉirin».

3L lar maxhadh riogh is ruireach Éirinn uile gan fhuireach,
rugach ®) tar an bhfairge dhe a mnâ sa a maca a ndaoirse.
32. Suaithreach gach tighe a nÉirinw ina pheata Goill gléighirr,
gion go ttucfadh d'olc asteach badh lór do lot an suaith-
__reach.

leg. bhuaidh. ') leg. bhfiadnaise. *) Two syllables wanting
at the end. *) leg. michâdud.nbsp;leg. Éireann. ') leg. rugadh.

35.nbsp;Gach a ndeama sin uile do thuit le Brian Böruimhe,
(dob) fiu(dh) a ndith rew righ Banba cor Danar a n-6ag-

37.nbsp;Lugh is Fion« na Fein(«)e. Fidraigh is Brian go bhf^e^
ceathrar a ttreasaibh när tim as mö do fhöir fiirin». s)

38.nbsp;Do leasaicc Brian an Banba air na Gallaibh glaschalma,
gan cumus criche nä cruidh, gan dithuirthe nä easbaidh.

41.nbsp;Do t[A]ion6ill buachuill Banba fir ßirion« 6n athardha,
go ttugaM leis a lämha a n-a.ighidh na trowdhäimhe(dh).

1) leg d'ass. ») leg. cor na nDanar n-eagcalma. ») leg. Cinn6idigh.
«) One syllable wanting. One syllable wanting. «) leg. commhaoidheam.

43.nbsp;Do ^edar cró bodhbha na Danair brodha i) bhorba,
go ttarla an uair sin san ngleo M.mc\iadh fa dhuais an

44.nbsp;Do thuit isin cró chatha Murcha^^Ä mac na hardfhlatha.
seisoir air dciét do thuit leis dona Gallaibh gan eisleis.

4 6. Do maxhadh le Bruadar Brian re taoibh an chatha thiar, s)
ag creidiomh do ChHost gan choir ag binwghabhail a

47.nbsp;Aoine casg do mashadh Brian ag dion Gaoidhiol na ngiall, 3)
mar do msxbadh Chriost gan coir ag diodhan chloinwe

49.nbsp;Ón ló thainic an t-iarla tig loingeas Gall gach bhagain, «)
gur ghabhsad Bawba na wbean», aca ata an chrioch go

50.nbsp;Rugsait aingil a bParthas anam Bhriain gan iomarbhas,
truagh an sgith a chorp gan chol frioth air Mhaigh nEalta

1.nbsp;Alone to thee, Brian of Ireland, as a king and inheritor of
the crown, alone to thee thy households came into the great
battle of Magh Ealta.

2.nbsp;Not alone wast thou in the south, O king of Ireland of the
high forts, in Ui Conuill of the perfect hosts when thou
foughtest the great battle of Murgan [Cog. p. 98].

3.nbsp;It is thou who foughtest the battle of Cnâm Coille [Cog. p.
74] against the bare Foreigners of Limerick; thy visit to
Limerick of herbs, profitable was the expedition [Cog. p. 78].

4.nbsp;The slaughter of Scattery Island was caused by thee, not
a coward's deed, in which the kings of the Foreigners were
killed around Ivar and Duibhghenn [Cog. p. 102].

5.nbsp;Thou foughtest the battle of Cathair Cuain against Donabhan
of the great host; Donabhan fell there and Aralt, Ivar's son
[Cog. p. 102],

6.nbsp;Brian made the slaughter of Belach Lechta, our flood of a
springtide, when was killed Maolmuadh son of Bran, the
king who was over Desmond [Cog. p. 106],

7.nbsp;Conall son of Faolan of fury, the king of Déise, was banished
[Cog. p. 106]; he (Brian) brought there the hostages of
Leinster and the kings of Ossory.

8.nbsp;Is is thou who broughtest a slaughter of the night over sharp-
dark Maolshechlainn, over Magh Adhair, i) abundant in off-
spring, over the five provinces of Ireland.

9.nbsp;He broke the weir of Athlone, he went north over Loch
Raoi so that he took hostages and power of Maolshechlainn
and Connacht [Cog. p. 132].

10. Brian Boroimhe made peace in all Ireland, so that the
woman went alone without offence from one coast to the
other [Cog. p. 138],

11.nbsp;Dark woods where all the [hostile] meetings took place, were
laid low by him; he demolished the eastern Rocks of the
Sorcerers when he overthrew Cormac Ua Cumn.

12.nbsp;Brian fought the slaughter of Glenn Mama against the
Foreigners, against the wild oxen [Cog. p. 110]; afterwards
he destroyed Dublin with its islands [Cog. p. 112].

13.nbsp;By him was waged the battle of Clontarf very fiercely on Magh
Ealta, in which the Irish and grey Foreigners fell body to
body.

14.nbsp;There was no lake in Ireland without a fleet of Foreigners
on its surface; there was no fortress or stronghold without
a camp of many grey Foreigners.

15.nbsp;Seven years for great Armagh without Mass on its altar
until came the king of the blessed land. Brian the profitable
head of the seed of Eoghan.

16.nbsp;Turgeis, whose ships were over the sea, seven years he was
without strife in the abbacy of Armagh, it was the abbacy
of a usurper [Cog. p. 8].

17.nbsp;A great fleet of the jarl from Ir, eighty ships on the land, a
fleet of Him. customary on the waves, a fleet of Bres. a
fleet of Echdonn.

18.nbsp;A fleet of Genann of princes, a great fleet of Loch da Riach.
a fleet of Loch Deirgdeirc moreover and a fleet of fierce
Baoithine.

19.nbsp;A great fleet of the Red Woman, which was worse than any
troop; cruel was the principal person [who came] over the
mighty sea towards sweet marriageable maidens.

20.nbsp;Against them she practised the rough play, chastizing
them until they were dead; she used to light candles under
their waists in the sidh of the beautiful maidens.

22.nbsp;Brian went from beautiful Echtga, i) four battalions in his
company; to the place where the camp of the woman was
the scouts came.

23.nbsp;Murchadh killed the Red Woman, better this victory than
any victory, and he put a pole through her head in the
presence of the men of Ireland.

24.nbsp;A fleet of Ivar over the sea, to many he brought punishment,
a fleet of the Crislachs moreover, better than which was no
tributary fleet.

25.nbsp;They plundered venerable Derryconny,Innis Bo Finne
under their spears, Inismurray of the stones, Arran Island
and Skellig.

26.nbsp;Clonmacnoise and Clonfert®) besides, Innis Celtrach of
gentle customs, Easdara and Dublin without concealing.
Limerick and Waterford.

27.nbsp;Cork and Scattery Island, Killamey, Roscrea were under
their battalions, Armagh and Dun Goire moreover and
venerable Derry of ColumciUe.

28.nbsp;They plundered Innis Labhruinne ®) of stones, Roscarbery,')
Lismore without devotion, without cross, Emly being
without church.

29.nbsp;Glendalough under slavery, Clonard -under lamenting,
without cross, without vows, without religion, Easdara under
chilliness.

30.nbsp;The Foreigners plundered all this, both roofs and men, so
that they left neither cross nor church without devastation
in Ireland.

31.nbsp;After killing the kings and princes of all Ireland without
delay, their women and children were then taken over the
sea in slavery.

32.nbsp;A soldier in every house of Ireland as a pet of a bright and
short(?) Foreigner; apart from all other evil that was brought
to the house, there was enough that the soldier spoiled.

33.nbsp;All sweet milk that was milked in the house was given into
the mouth of the soldier; whatever the idler asked for, it
was not ventured that he should not receive it.

34.nbsp;Alas the judgment, which was not a right judgment, he
took with him when going away an ounce of gold for every
nose that was there of the family [Cog. p. 48, 50].

35.nbsp;Everyone who did all this fell by Brian Boroimhe, worthy
was their destruction by the king of Ireland to make the
cowardly Danes weak.

36.nbsp;Brian son of Cennedigh relieved every sanctuary which they
had plundered and he established a school in every church
after chasing the evils from Ireland.

37.nbsp;Lugh and Fionn of the Fianna, Patrick and Brian with
generosity, four men that were not weak in battles, who
gave most support to Ireland.

38.nbsp;Brian defended Ireland against the grey, brave Foreigners,
without leaving to them power of territory or cattle, without
barrenness or want.

39.nbsp;The Foreigners left Ireland for fear of the slender-fingered
hero, around Ireland outside he made a platform of his
ships.

40.nbsp;The Danes moved to Dublin of the beautiful harbour, a
host over the blue sea that was not bright, to slaughter the
youths of the Irish.

41.nbsp;The guardian of Banba gathered the men of Ireland from
their homes, so that he took with him their hands against
the oppressive company.

42.nbsp;The Irish noblemen fell in the battle, it is right to praise
them, and the kings of the Foreigners were killed, who had
come from the islands of Scandinavia.

43.nbsp;The mighty rough Danes made a fatal bloodshed until at
that moment Murchadh came into the fight, who won the
prize of the fierce combat.

44.nbsp;There fell in the slaughter of the battle Murchadh, son of
the high prince; a hundred and six Foreigners, without
neglect, fell by him.

45.nbsp;After the slender-fingered Murchadh had left, the valour of
Ireland went, whilst there remained not a man of the descend-
ants of Mil who was the equal of a hundred, after his death.

46.nbsp;Brian was killed by Bruadar at the back side of the battle,
beheving in Christ without sin, sweetly singing his psalter.

47.nbsp;On Good Friday Brian was killed, defending the Irish of the
hostages, like Christ without sin was killed, defending the
children of Adam.

48.nbsp;Since Brian of the sweet mouth was killed, the Foreigners
did not inhabit Ireland from then onward until to-day,
until the Earl came to-day.

49.nbsp;From the day the Earl came, there comes a fleet of Foreigners
every year, until they took Ireland of the peaks; to them be-
longs the country completely.

50.nbsp;Angels from Paradise carried away the soul of Brian without
sin; woe the weariness of his body without sin that was
found on Magh Elta alone.

51.nbsp;When will there come the hke of Brian, south or north, east
or west, who will protect the Irish against evil as he alone
protected?

by Keating in his record of the plunder of Scattery Island, i)
The MSS. ascribe the poem to Muiredach Albanach or Muiredach
Ua Dalaigh, a poet who is named by the Four Masters in the
year 1213. He fell into a quarrel with the powerful Lord Richard
de Burgo, by whom he was driven away to Scotland. The quatrains
48 and 49 refer to the coming of the Earl, namely Strongbow,
and the arrival of a fleet of Foreigners year after year, until
the whole covmtry was occupied. The period that witnessed
regular English invasions runs from 1169 till about 1200. In
spite of the modernized spelling the text contains no linguistic
or prosodical evidence preventing us from dating it towards the
end of the 12th century.

A comparison shows that the greater part of the poem is based
on Cogadh. This is certainly not the case with the couplets
17—24, the contents of which must have been derived from
another source. None of the Viking names mentioned here, except
that of the Red Woman, is found in any other authority, unless
we identify Echdonn (17) with the Eodhond named in a poem in
Cogadh (p. 64) and Him (17) with Birn of Mac Firbis' treatise.
The remainder of the poem contains some names not found in
Cogadh, but it should be remembered that the two existing MSS.
of Cogadh, B and D, are of much later date and depart in many
respects from the fragmentary copy L. The latter, or a MS.
closely corresponding to it, must have been Muiredach's source.
The long hst of places plundered by the Vikings, however,
appears to have been enlarged at random by the poet. Many of the
names also occur in Cogadh, though not in the same order.

Generally speaking, the events are not recorded in the same
order as in Cogadh, except in the first ten quatrains. It is remark-
able that St. 10 ends in the word aonar, which is the opening word
of the poem. This observation might give rise to the supposition
that Muiredach Ua Dalaigh's original poem only comprised the

quatrains 1—10, the following being a later addition. Nothing,
however, would justify such a hypothesis. It is more probable
that by concluding st. 10 with aonar the poet indicated that
the first section of his work ended here and a new series of
quatrains began.

As to Brian's battles, the first of these, the great battle of
Murgan (2), is not mentioned in the prose-text of Cogadh. The
elegy by Mathgamhain's blind bard, however, which is found
only in B and therefore did not form part of the original work,
contains the following lines:

This defeat of Magh Morgain was evidently the battle referred
to in our poem; it is recorded under the name maidim Sengualand
in the prose-text. The inference is that the copy of Cogadh
used by Muiredach Ua Dalaigh gave the former name. The
battle was fought in the territory of the Ui Conaill and this
agrees with the situation of Seanguala, anglice Shanagolden,
in the barony of Lower Connello, co. Limerick.

The plunder of Scattery Island is ascribed to Brian by the
annals, which call it a 'violation'. Is is also recorded by Cogadh,
but there it is not caused by Brian. An event not mentioned in
Cogadh is the 'slaughter of the night' against Maelshechlainn
on Magh Adhair. Tigemach, however, mentions in 981 a plunder
of the Dal Cais by Maelshechlainn, who on this occasion cut
down the sacred tree of Magh Adhair, under which the kings of
the Dal Cais used to be crowned. The date agrees very well

with the statement of the poem, only the latter speaks of a
victory of Brian instead of a defeat. This change, however, may
be due to the poet, although it is equally possible that the latter
found the note in this form inserted into the copy of Cogadh
used by him.

The lines about the Red Woman are curious enough, since
there exist no other allusions to Brian's expedition against her.
She must be the same person as the Red Maiden, an inghen
ruadh, who is mentioned twice in Cogadh, on p. 40 among the
Viking chieftains who invaded Munster, and on p. 206, where
her two sons. Eon Barun and Ricard, are named among the
Norsemen slain at Clontarf. The second mention, among many
unhistorical names, has no doubt been derived from the first.
More than this lady's name, however, is not found in Cogadh
where, moreover, her activity occurs a long time before Brian's
reign.

Bugge tries to identify her with a historical person, but his
parallels are far from convincing. About the real nature of this
Red Woman we are informed by a poem in the Book of Leinster,i)
which consists of an enumeration of the famous burial-places of
Leinster. Its author Broccan Craibdech lived in the 10th century 2)
but the part of the poem quoted below may be of a later date.
The following passage records the victories of Aithbel, mother of
Hercules:

Aithbel ba buaid bantrochta mathair Ercoil hen Midgna,
romarb na deich fomoraig issin traig ic Tuind Chlidna.
raloisc na secht gelliti issin glind ic Sleib Eihlend,
robris forsin duhlongais for fhemdetar fir hErend.
rachonaig in ruadchallig, rosbdid for Idr na Berba,
roshaltair for {in) luchthigern i ndorus Derci Ferna.

The Red Hag (ruadchaillech) here appears in the company of
figures of a purely legendary character: ten Fomoire (sea-
giants), seven vampyres of the glens, the Black Exiles and the
Luchtigem.i) xhe next lines speak of the Amazons and Penthe-
silea. Evidently the ruadchaillech has nothing to do with the
Vikings. She appears to be one of the demoniacal beings who
act as a plague to the country. To destroy them is the task of the
exemplary hero, the protector of the land against all evil in-
fluences.

The Red Woman of the poem under consideration, is manifestly
of the same demoniacal nature, as appears from the fact that she
tortures her prisoners in the 'sidh of the beautiful maidens', the
fairy hill. It is not enough to kill her; Murchadh has to pierce
her head with a pole in order to destroy her perilous magical
influence, and slaying her is the best of all his victories. The
poem affords a curious piece of evidence that at the end of the
12th century Brian and Murchadh had become heroes of a
fairy tale and legendary protectors of the country against a
demoniacal enemy, which accounts for their acting the part of
the heroes in many a modem folktale.

It remains to be explained how the ruadchaillech became a
female Viking. Probably the word dublongais, which could
easily be connected with dubgaill 'Danes' formed the hnk with
history. Moreover, the reference in Broccan Crafbdech's poem
to the slaying of 50(X) Danes perhaps had its share in connecting
the event with the Viking invasions.

There is a record of the battle of Clontarf, which forms the
first part of the Leabhar Oiris, 'Book of Chronicles', no MSS.
of which are known earlier than the 18th century. L. O. has been

1) 'Mouse-lord'. I know of no mention of this personage in any other
source. Probably a magician, cf. the bishop in the Welsh tale of Manawy-
dan fab Lljnr.

edited by R. I. Best. Its opening section bears the title Cath
Cluana Tairbh, being an extract, with some additions, from
Cogadh (from ch. LXVI onward), a somewhat different version
of which was edited by E. Mac Neill. 2) Its second part is a tale
entitled Cath Muighe Guilidhe, which relates the anecdote how
Cian, son of Maolmuadh was defeated by Domhnall, son of
Dubhdabhoireann with the aid of St. Mocholmdg. It contains
two quatrains and is followed by a few longer poems with prose
introductions. The number of the poems varies in the different
versions. In some MSS. they are followed by annalistic notes
concerning Munster affairs.

Royal Irish Academy: 23. E. 4, 19th century p. 116. The sub-
heading is important, as it proves that L. O. was regarded as
consisting of two different elements: tuarasgbhail Chaitha
Chluana Tairbh agus analad air choigeaduibh Eiriond agus
tionsgnadh agus craobsgaoilead air imtheachtaibh an caite sin
Cluana Tarbh agus Muighe Guilide mar leanas. ®)

») Gaelic Journal VII, 8sq., 41sq., 55sq., 67sq. This version has as
introduction the story about Maolmordha (Cog. ch. LXXXI), which is
also found in other MSS., for instance R.I.A. 23.L.5. Moreover, it con-
tains the incident with Afbhell and the poem Ge maith do mhisneach a
ghrddh (see this section further down).

ductory part and begin with the battle itself, this one, like
the printed version of L. O., opens with the accession to the
throne of Maelshechlainn.

24.nbsp;C. 14, 18th cent. p. 1.
24. C. 28, 19th cent. p. 2.
23. K. 43, 18th cent. p. 205.
23. D. 12, 19th cent. p. 269 i.
23. D. 46, 19th cent. p. 155.

23. E. 4, 19th cent. p. 46 (A closely related copy in 23. E. 5).
23. L. 4, 18th cent. p. 165.

23.nbsp;C. 11, 19th cent. p. 123, beginning: sluagh mdr le Brian
Borumha mic Cinneide {— C. CI. T.?)

24.nbsp;L. 21, 19th cent. p. 251. The annahstic notes preceding
and following the tale appear to be different from those of
the other versions.

12. F. 13. 19th cent. p. 33.
12. F. 20, 18th cent. p. 209.
British Museum:
Add. 29614, 19th cent. f. 21b.
Egerton 106, 18th cent. f. 133.
Egeri;on 150, 18th cent. f. 129.
Add. 18945, 19th cent. f. 24.
The foUowing MSS., aU in R. I. A., contain Cath Muige

23.nbsp;G. 25, 18th cent. p. 313. Used by Dr. Best and referred
to as G. In his ed. §§ 49—53.

Cian, son of Maelmuadh has been introduced into the passages
taken from Cogadh and figures as Brian's ally in all his exploits.
In the second part of L. O., however, he is the central figure.
From this it appears that the second part, known as Cath Muighe
Guilidhe, is the older portion of L. O., and that Cath Cluana
Tairb has been written under its influence and in some MSS.
prefixed to it. The earlier tale begins at § 47 in Dr. Best's edition.
The contents of it are as follows: Cian and Domhnall mac Duib-
dabhoireann are preparing battle against each other. Cian is
careless enough to outrage St. Mocholmog by not offering any
excuse when his men take some horses and drink milk that
belongs to the community of the saint. Domhnall, however,
prays to MochoIm6g and addresses him in a quatrain, in which
he asks for the defeat of Cian. In the ensuing battle the latter
is slain by the aid of the saint, together with his brothers Cathal
and Raghallach, and, as our tale proceeds, 'there was no man in
his time more honourable and noble than Cian'. To illustrate
this statement a quatrain is quoted, which is ascribed to Mac
Coisi. This poet is the pHmeices amp;renn, who died in the year
990, according to A. U., but the quatrain is probably of a much
later date, like the other poems in this section. The prose passage
following the quatrain, describes how another poet, Mac Liag
(who died in 1016), visits Brian in Ceann Coradh and is asked
by the high-king to which king he is most grateful. Mac Liag
replies: to Domhnall mac Duibhdabhoireann. Brian asks whether
he has visited Cian and his wife Sadhb, Brian's daughter. The
poet now enumerates all the gifts he has received from the royal
couple, whilst Domhnall has enriched him with only a flint and
igniferrium. The latter, however, has given away a greater part
of his wealth than Cian.

island in the Shannon, Mac Liag looks back on the life in Ceann
Coradh in a poem of five quatrains, beginning Fada bheith gan
aoibhneas ann. He complains of his dreary life in the lonely
island, now that Brian, Murchadh, Conaing and Cian have
passed away. The same plaintive tone is heard in the poem that
follows, which is said to have been composed by Mac Giolla
Chaoimh, when he was travelling in the north of Greece on his
way to the river Jordan, in search of Paradise. These circum-
stances suffice to mark the poem as unhistorical. The language
is not older than the 17th century and older forms cannot be
restored without injuring the metre. The latter is still syllabic,
which means that it must have been composed in the 17th
century, the last period of this type of prosody. Mac Giolla
Chaoimh is dated in the 11th century by Kuno Meyer, i) so that
here we have another mystification. This poem, beginning
Uathmar an oidhche anocht, also commemorates Brian, Cian and
Murchadh and is followed by another poem, also attributed to
Mac Giolla Chaoimh, the opening line of which runs Rdith
Rdithleann rdith Chuirc is Chein. Two other poems are found
separately as well as in a few MSS. of L. O.: ^ Chinn Coradh
caide Brian 2) and Aniar thdinic tuitim Bhriain. All this poetry
is characterized by the same attitude of looking back on a glorious
past, complaining of the misery and neglect which has come over
the old royal halls. It is the outlook of the 17th century, when the
period of Brian Borumha was idealized under the pressure of
English oppression. No wonder that these poems were attributed
to poets who were known als Brian's contemporaries.

®) Another cycle of poems, ed. Z. C. P. VIII, p. 255 sq., is, probably
rightly, attributed to Mac Liag. One of them, mentioning Tadhg Ua
Ceallaigh, is referred to by O'Donovan in his edition of the Four Masters,
A. D. 1013, but contains no allusion to the battle of Clontarf, as O'Don-
ovan supposed.

As appears from the great number of copies, Cath Cluana
Tairbh must have been very popular in the 18th century. It
was used by Sean Ua Maolchonaire, who compUed a chronicle,
the so-called Dublin annals of Inisfallen, in Paris during the
years 1765—1775. The time of its origin can be fixed by ap-
proximation. There is a poem of a humoristic nature, consisting
of lines borrowed from different poems, written by Eamon
Mac Lachlainn in 1654 or '55. It contains the line fada fuar
an oidhche anocht (1.16) which is evidently the same as the
first line of one of the poems in L. O.: uathmar an oidche anocht)
besides, it mentions cath Cluain Tarbh (1. 12). Two other lines
run tdngadar Gaill a nkth Cliath (20) and do mharbhadh Gaill ac
Cluain Tarbh (39).

The tale called Cath Cluana Tairbh also occurs in the 18th
century MS. Egerton 150, which contains a series of texts: Cath
Cnucha, Cath Maighe L6ana, Cath Maighe Mucroimhe, Cath
Crionna, Cathugadh Ceallachain Caisil and Cath Cluana Tairbh,
all linked together by annalistic entries so as to form a kind of
romantic history of Munster from A. D. 174 to 1138. Part of the
same text is found in Add. 29614 and Egerton 106. The latter
MS. contains a note which the scribe copied from his original
and which affords another terminus ante quem. It runs as follows:

Ag sin foras feasa chlainne Mhileadh Easpainne agus ar ghab
Idnrighe Eireann diobh agus righe dha choigheadh Mumhan fo
leth. Sgriptum per me Eugenium Carti Baile an OiUin aedibus
domini Tadei Deirmisi Cormaci Carti anno domini 1648 un-
desimoque lanuarii.

Eoghan Mac Carrthaigh of Castleisland (Co. Kerry) was
probably the original compiler of this collection of historical
texts, which from its title seems to have been an imitation of

Keating's Forus Feasa ar Éirinn. This work was finished in
1633 or '34. Hence, if Cath Cluana Tairbh was in existence
and used by Mac Carrthaigh before 1648, it must have been
composed after 1634. In several instances it has borrowed from
Keating's history: the lists of names of the Irish chieftains that
fought in the battle (L. O. §§ 29—31) are much longer than those
in Cogadh; some of the additional names appear to occur in the
corresponding Hst of Keating (p. 272), viz. those of Brian's
sons. The erroneous date 1034, whilst the annals have 1014, for
the battle of Clontarf, was also taken from Keating i) and is
originally due to Marianus Scotus. For many of the names in the
hst of Cath CI. T. there exists no authority, they are simply
added because every sept wished to be represented by an an-
cestor in the famous battle. The quatrain beginning cheithre
bliadhna triochad (p. 276), is also incorporated in Cath CI. T.
with the addition of another quatrain (§ 40). In most copies
the battle is dated in 1014 and Keating's quatrain is changed in
accordance with this date.

The section taken from Cogadh begins at § 24: do rinne Brian
sluagh bhfear Mumhan. If Cath CI. T. was compiled from a MS.
other than D or B, it can be expected to contain sometimes old-
er and better readings than the two versions of Cogadh, which
are both considerably younger than the defective MS. L and differ
from it at many points, as has been shown above. A comparison
of this part of L. O. and the two versions of Cogadh from p. 150
onwards yields the following result.
§ 24: d'airgeadar Osraighe, in D, not in B.

do chuaidh Murchadh mac Briain go Cill Mhaighneann.
thus in D, in B this expedition is ascribed to Brian.
§ 25: Brodar agus Asgadhal, the second name is found in B,
whilst D reads Amlaih.

6 gCinnsealach, in D, not in B.
§ 32: the scene where Dnnlang Ua hArtacain appears (ch.

These instances are sufficient to prove that in most cases
Cath CI. T. agrees with D. There is only one instance of agreement
with B against D. Manifestly D was the source of the younger
work, but in the case of the name Asgadhal its author adopted
an emendation from B. Evidently he was acquainted with both
MSS.

Most passages in Cath CI. T. not found in the MSS. D and B of
Cogadh must be regarded as later additions. When, for instance,
to the list of Sitric's foreign auxiliaries are added Asgal mac
Gofraidh, ri Thire an tSncachta, Liath na Loingse, the warriors
of Lochlann from the Palus Maeotis (o na Gaothlaighibh Meodh-
eonacha) i) and from the Riffean Mountains, these very names
bear the mark of fiction. In two cases, however, Cath CI. T.
certainly preserves the original reading of Cogadh, as the agree-
ment with the Norse record proves. In L. O. § 32 the reason is
given why Brian did not take part in the battle: ar n-a rddh do
Bhrian nach e deireadh do chuirfeadh leis an gcorghas dul i gcath do
mharbhadh daoine. The same reason is given in the Njala: nii er
at segja frd Brjdni konungi, at hann vildi eigi berjaz fgstudaginn
'now it is said about King Brian that he would not fight on Friday
(viz. Good Friday)'. 2)

L. O. § 39 and § 42 mention Tadhg mac Briain as being present
immediately after the battle, together with his brother
Donnchadh. Our version of Cogadh does not mention this son
of Brian and, although the annals know him, they do not con-
nect him with the battle of Clontarf. According to the Njala,

1) Cf. K. Meyer, Cath FinntrAga. p. 76; Togal Troi 1132.
quot;) NjAla, ch. CLVII, 9.

however, he was in Brian's company during the battle, i)
For the text of Cogadh our only authority for these two passag-
es is the MS. B; from L. O. we learn that they must also have
been contained in the corresponding section of D.

The version of Cath CI. T. printed in Gaelic Journal VII,
like those of the MSS. 1289 (T. C. D.), D. III. 2 (R.I.A.), Egerton
106 (Br. Mus.) and Egerton 150, contains an additional romantic
story about the appearance of the fairy Dunlang (or Dubhlang)
Ua hArtacain and his fairy mistress {leanndn stdhe) Aoibheall,
which is interesting, as it forms a link between the historical
Murchadh mac Briain and the hero of many folk-tales. Brian
and his sons were even at an early period connected with fairy-
land. The incident with the Red Woman in the poem printed
above, proves that this was already the case at the end of the
12th century. Fairy-tales, connected with Brian and his son
Murchadh, are found in Cogadh. Thus the high-king's death is
predicted to him by Aibhell, who appears in later tradition as
the family spirit of the royal house of Munster. Brian then
addresses his attendant saying: 'Retreat becomes us not and I
myself know that I shall not leave this place alive, and what
would it profit me if I did? For Aibhell of Craig Liath came to
me last night and she told me that I should be killed this day,
and she said to me that the first of my sons I should see to-day
would be he who should succeed me in the sovereignty and that
is Donnchadh'.3) jhe incident is also found in A. L. C. Here the
detail is added that Brian sends for Murchadh, whom he wishes
to be his successor. Donnchadh, however, has heard Brian's
voice and, whilst his brother puts on his garment, enters

Njdla, ch. CLVII, 22.
») The Aithb61 of Broccin Craibdech's poem is of an entirely different
nature, but the similarity of their names is too striking to be accidental.
Aithb61 is connected with Brian only by the fact that both are opponents
of the Red Woman.
») Cog. p. 201.

the king's tent and is received unkindly.^) He angrily leaves
Brian and is not present at Clontarf. It has been stated above
that the compiler of A. L. C. never drew any information from
Cogadh. The appearance of Aibhell must be a legendary element
attached to Brian by some storyteller and written down by
both authors from a common oral tradition.

The incident with Dunlang Ua hArtacain, of which Murchadh
is the hero, is of a different kind and appears as a later inter-
polation in the text D of Cogadh. 2) I have not been able to
find any other allusion to it in middle-Irish literature. When the
battalions are ordered in battle-array, Murchadh sees a young
beautiful hero approaching him, whom he recognises as Dunlang
Ua hArtacain; he 'made three springs to meet him and he kissed
him and welcomed him and 'O youth', said he, 'it is long until thou
camest to us, and great must be the love and attachment of some
woman to thee which has induced thee to abandon me and to
abandon Brian and Conaing and Donnchadh and the nobles
of Dal Cais in like manner, and the delights of Ireland until
this day'. 'Alas, O king', said Dunlang, 'the delight that I have
abandoned for thee is greater if thou didst but know it, namely
life without death, without cold, without thirst, without hunger,
without decay, beyond any delight of the delights of the earth to
me until the judgment and heaven after the judgment, and if I
had not pledged my word to thee, I would not have come here,
and moreover it is fated for me to die on the day thou shaltdie'.
'Shall I receive death this day, then?' said Murchadh. 'Thou
shalt receive it, indeed,' said Dunlang, 'and Brian and Conaing
and almost all the nobles of Ireland and Toirdhelbhach thy son'.
'This is no good encouragement to fight', said Murchadh, 'and if
we had such news we would not have told it to thee, but, however,
often I was offered, in hills and in fairy mansions [i sithaib ocus

i sithhrugaih), this world and these gifts, but I never abandoned
for one night my country and my inheritance for them'.^) Dun-
lang then asks whom he shall fight in order to support Murchadh
in the battle. The latter suggests Brotor, Cornabbliteoc, Mael-
mordha and the Leinstermen, whereupon Dunlang promises to
fight Cornabbliteoc. This fight, in which Dunlang slays his
opponent, is described in Cogadh, ch. CIV.

The sections of Cogadh where Dunlang is mentioned, are only
found in D. They are not in O'Clery's copy and so never formed
part of C, but were inserted by the scribe of D. The prophecy of
Aibhell, told in a few words by Brian to his attendant, did not
take an outstanding place in the original narrative, but it may
have inspired the scribe of D to a similar prophecy to Murchadh.
Dunlang makes an allusion to his hfe in the happy otherworld,
known in Irish literature as Tir na nOg, 'the land of the young'.
Murchadh repHes that he has often been offered a similar life,
but has always rejected it. The whole incident is of a literary
character and is meant to illustrate Murchadh's constancy of
purpose.

In the version contained in the MSS. referred to on p. 67 the
two fairy-tales of the D-recension of Cogadh have been fused
together. This section was printed separately by N. O'Kearney
in his introduction to Feis Tighe Chonain from an 18th cen-
tury MS. Its translation runs as follows:

'This was the precise period of time when Dubhlaing Ua hArta-
cain, a fairy, who was the friend of Murchadh, happened to be
standing on the plain close to the battlefield: he had been a long
time expelled in disgrace by the king of Ireland. Aoibheall of Craig
Liath, his most potent leanndn, stood before him, and enveloped
him with the Feadh fia, because he would not consent to remain
with her. He rushed into the hosts of Norway, where Murchadh

was engaged in conflict; and wonderful was the havoc which
he made when he came to the side of Murchadh. Murchadh
having looked around him on every side, said, 'Methinks I hear
the sound and echo of the blows of Dubhlaing Ua hArtacain,
but I cannot see himself. 'It is my duty', exclaimed Dubhlaing
casting off the garment, 'that such a covering shall never envelop
my body since it prevents you from seeing me: give over the
conflict for awhile, and let us go to the plain over the battle-
field where Aoibheall is, and we shall obtain much information
from her'. They thereupon proceeded to the place where Aoibheall
was, and saluted her. Aoibheall returned the salutation, and
said: 'What benefit is it to you, O Murchadh, to engage in the
battle this day, since you yourself, your son Toirdhealbhach,
Brian Boroimhe, Conaing son of Donnchuan, Tadhg Ua Ceallaigh,
and many others shall be slain to-day? I have other news to com-
municate, were it the proper time'. Here follows a poem consisting
of seven quatrains, which belongs to the syllabic type, but was
evidently composed at a time when syllabic poetry was in its
decline, since the number of syllables is not always correct. Its
opening quatrain is addressed to Murchadh and runs thus:

'Though good is thy courage, my love, when all march to the
battle, thy bright face like soft red satin, its form and colour
shall be transformed'.

Murchadh replies that no fear shall keep him from the battle
and that the Foreigners shall fall as well as the Irish. Aoibheall
then beseeches Dubhlaing to avoid the battle, but the latter
replies that he will not leave Murchadh. Finally, Aoibheall

Another work containing an extract from Cogadh, is the Book of
Genealogies {Leabhar na Genealach), compiled in 1650 by Duald
Mac Firbis. A section of it, edited by A. Bugge under the title
'On the Fomorians and the Norsemen', is in its opening part 2)
but an extract of the first forty chapters of Cogadh. The only
exception is the list of the Vikings who settled in Ireland, to-
gether with the regions occupied by them. Most of these names,
with some additions owing to misunderstandmg of Irish words,

1) To another category belong the folk-tales in which Brian or his son
Murchadh (sometimes Donnchadh is also mentioned) are the heroes.
They are purely fictitious and contain no allusion to the battle of Clon-
tarf.

I have collected the following versions, including some Scottish va-
riants (Sc.):

Murchadh mac Bhriain agus an sgoldg as Tir na hOige.
B6aloideas VI, p. 108—116

An cloidheamh soluis agus fios fdth an aon sgdil ar na mndibh. Z. C. P. I.,
p. 477—491.

Seilg mhdr Shliabh Luachra. Misc. presented to Kuno Meyer, Halle
a.S. 1912, p. 185—192.

Murchadh mac Brian. J. F. Campbell, Popular tales of the Western
Highlands, Edinb. 1860, II, p. 206 (Sc.).

'The encounter of Murchadh and the princess of Dublin.' Reidar Chris-
tiansen, The Vikings and the Viking-wars, Skrifter N. vid. akad. 1932,
p. 397—400 (Ir. and Sc.).

'The Redlipped Maiden.' G. Henderson, The Norse influence on
Celtic Scotland, Edinburgh 1910, p. 288—291 (Sc.).

To the same category belongs a description of Murchadh in riding-
dress, written in a highly artificial style; in: Campbell, Leabhar na
F6inne I, p. 210 (Sc.).

are found in A. CI. i) but there exists no other authority for them.
There is a second hst of Vikings, which corresponds to that of
Cogadh p. 40, but contains some evidently more correct forms
as, for instance, Suatgair (O. N. Svartgeirr) for Snuatgaire,
Toirbeard Ruadh for Toirbeardaig, na cCrioslach for Liagrislach.
The latter name is also found in Muiredach Ua Dalaigh's poem,
St. 24: ionna cCrioslach. The first list even contains two Crioslachs.
The name probably owes its origin to a misunderstanding of
the expression ina gcrislach, 'in their hold'.

Was the copy of Cogadh used by Mac Firbis a MS. 'correspond-
ing to the defective copy of the Book of Leinster' as Bugge
supposes? His argument is the name Toirbeard dubh, for
which the printed text of Cogadh has the less correct form
Toirbeardach. But this name appears in the part of the work
which has not been taken from Cogadh, viz. the first list of
Vikings. The second list, corresponding with Cogadh, has Toir-
beard ruadh. Besides, this section of Cogadh exists only in the
17th century copy B and the form Toirbeardach must be due to a
miswriting by O'Clery.

A comparison proves that L cannot have been the copy used
by Mac Firbis. First of all, the names of the kings of Ireland
during the Viking ages are found in his tract and in B, but not
in L. Besides:

Amlaib {Olaf) is called ri Lochland by Mac Firbis as well
as in B and D, but mac rig Lochlann in L (Ch. XXIII),

D . . .gan tachailt B . . . gan iarrad ocus gan tochailt L . . .
can telach (Ch. XXV), Mac Firbis . . . gan tochuilt,

D . . . Sitriuc ri Gall B . . .Sitriucc mac rig Gall L . . .Siugrad
mac Imair ri Gall (Ch. XXVII), Mac Firbis . . . Sitric ri Gall.

under Sitriuc mac Imar. This is told in D, B as well as by Mac
Firbis, but not in L (concluding sentence of ch. XXVII).

In most cases Mac Firbis' treatise has the same readings as
Cogadh D. In one case, however, it agrees with B. When speaking
about the oppression excercised by the Foreigners over the men
of Ireland by means of the 'nose-tax', i) Mac Firbis tells us: . . .
ocus an duine ag nach beth a acmoing aige, a bheth fen i ndaoire,
no an tsron do bhen de, 'and the man, who had no means (of
paying it) had to go into slavery or his nose was cut off, Cogadh
B thus: acus an duine ag nach biodh a acfaing, a hheit fein i ndaire,
no barr a shrdna do buain de. But D reads only: ocus inti ica nach
hid acmaing, a ica e fein i ndairi and (Ch. XL, p. 50).

Evidently the MS. used by Mac Firbis was not D but a copy
closely corresponding to it.

The second part of Mac Firbis' treatise contains a few state-
ments regarding the battle of Clontarf, which are contradicted
by all the other evidence: that Amlaib Cuaran was a contemporary
of this battle and was married to Brian's daughter Sadb, and that
a king of Port Lairge (Waterford), named Amlaib, was present
at Clontarf.

As to the former remark, it is explained by Bugge as a mistake
arising from the fact that Sigtryggr in Cogadh, viz. in D, is called
Amlaib instead of mac Amlaib, and his wife ben Amlaib (p. 190,
192). There was, indeed, a daughter of Brian called Sadb but,
as appears from Leabhar Oiris, she was married to Cian mac
Maolmuaidh. The confusion could easily arise, for the name of
Brian's other daughter, who was married to Sigtryggr, is nowhere
recorded. The allusion to Amlaib of Waterford, whose name
is not known from any authority, is probably due to a confusion
of Amlaib mac Lagmain with Amond, king of Waterford.

If the 'song of Dgrrudr' represents a tradition independent of
the rest of the Brjanssaga, i) a separate treatment is justified.
The present investigation attempts to prove that such is really
the case. The first question to be answered is this: did the Dar-
ra9arlj6a form part of the original version of the Brs. ? Finnur
Jonsson and Sveinsson 2) answer the question in the affirmative,
in contrast with Carolsfeld. 3) The poem in question is preceded
by a prose introduction and followed by a few concluding sen-
tences, which will be quoted in full here:*)

'On Good Friday the event happened in Katanes
that a man named DprruSr went out. He saw that people,
twelve together, rode to a weaving-house and there they all
disappeared. He went to the house. He looked through the
window that was in it, and saw that there were women in-
side and that they had set up a weaving. Heads of men were
the weights, but men's bowels the warp and weft, a sword
was the sley and arrows were the reels. They sang the
following stanzas'.

(When the song is over:) 'Then they tore down the woof
and tore it to pieces and each kept what she held. Now
DgrruSr went away from the window and home, but they
mounted their steeds, and six rode to the south and the other

') F. J., Litt. hist. II. p. 525; Sv., Um Njilu, p. 79.
®) Die Njdlssage, p. 141 sq.
lt;) Njdla, ch. CLVII, 27 (ed. Finnur J6nsson).
quot;) Caithness, in the north of Scotland.

six to the north. A similar event happened to Brand Gneista-
son in the Faroe Islands.'

The poem itself consists of 11 stanzas; of these the first two
consist of 10, the last of 4 and the others of 8 lines. The opening
stanzas describe the gory woof, which is set up to announce a
murderous battle. The third mentions four of the women by
name: Hildr, Hjçrprimol, Sanngnpr, Svipol, who 'go weaving
with drawn swords'. They take part in the battle and stand
unquestionably on the side of the Norse: 'We will go forward and
rush into the struggle, where our friends handle the arms'
(st. 4). The next stanza names Gunnr and Ggndol, 'who have fol-
lowed the king'. This king (gramr), also referred to as ungr konungr,
'the young king', can only be Sigtryggr, king of Dublin; jarlmaâr
is Jarl Sigurôr of the Orkneys. Stanza 7 tells that the jarl fell
by spears, and st. 6 ('let him not lose his life, the valkyries decide
who shall fall') contains an allusion to the fact that king Sigtryggr
survived.

'Those men shall bear sway over the lands, who before dwelt
on distant promontories'. This can only refer to the Norse settlers
on the islands west and north of Scotland, perhaps to the people
of Norway itself, but never to the Irish:

of the result of the battle, which is contradicted by all other
sources, distinguishes the DarraQarljoS from the rest of the
Brs., which greets Brian as victor and honours him as the champ-
ion of Christianity, as is clearly expressed in a skaldic strophe
occurring in the Brs.; i) the last of its eight lines runs:

This contradiction renders it impossible to regard the Dar-
raSarljoS as introduced into the text by the author of the Brs.
Would not he have objected against accepting a conception of
the battle so divergent from his own, and refused to link it to
his work? The poem was either introduced by the author of the
Njala, or inserted already in a second recension of the Brjanssaga.

Sophus Bugge 2) explains the view taken of the battle in the
Darraaarlj65 by assuming that the poem was composed only
a short time after the event, when the tidings of Brian's death
gave new hopes to the Viking conquistadors. This assumption,
however, seems uncalled for. The battle did not cause the fall
of the Dubhn kingdom; Sigtryggr remained king, while his great
opponent was slain, and among the Irish there arose new troubles
in the contest for the hegemony. There is no reason to suppose
that the death of so many Viking chiefs caused great affhction
among the dispersed Norse settlers. No traces of national or
racial feeling are found; Norsemen fought at Clontarf in the ranks
of Brian just as there were Irish allies of Sigtryggr. To the Nor-
semen outside Ireland the battle meant no defeat.

The prose passages quoted above contain nothing that has
not been derived from the poem. The whole scene is represented
as being seen by a man on a particular day, which gives it the

») Norsk sagafortselling eg sagaskrivning i Irland, (Norsk) Hist. Tidskr.
1901, p. 75 sq.

character of a vision. So it was understood by the author of the
Sturlunga saga, to whom it suggested no doubt the passage often
quoted in this connexion. A man, in a dream, enters a house
where he sees two women covered with gore and rowing in a lake
of blood. One of them sings:

'Let us row and row, — blood is raining — GuSr and Ggndul,
for the fall of men. We shall enter RaptahlfS, there we shall be
cursed and execrated'.

The opening words are evidently an imitation of vindom,
vindom of the Darra5arlj65, while the rain of blood is another. 2)

The scene was laid in a weaving house, for weaving was
always done indoors. This, too, is borrowed by the Sturlunga
saga.

At the end the prose commentator makes the women ride
away, six to the north and six to the south. The riding has been
taken from the last stanza: 'Let us ride away quickly on unsad-
dled steeds, with drawn swords, away from here'. The poem gives
no number but mentions six valkyries by name. Six go to the
south, to the battle; the other six are added only to form the
number twelve, so important in the Edda. This riding in two
directions, again, must have influenced later authors: in the
Olafssaga Tryggvasonar a man goes out at night and 'he

») Golther. Der Valkyrjenmythus, Abh. der k. bayer. Akad., philos-
philol. KI. 18 (1890) p. 430.

heard that people had ridden from the north in the valley; he
saw that there were nine women all clothed in black, holding
drawn swords in their hands; he heard that people had also ridden
from the south and there were nine women clothed in white on
white steeds'.

The name DQrrudr (gen. Darradar) is not found anywhere else
and was evidently derived from vefr darradar. Here dgrrudr is,
according to Finnur Jdnsson, in his edition of the Njalssaga, a
heiti for 06in; it is also explained as a noun meaning 'a spear', i)
In both cases vefr darradar is a kenning for a battle. A derivation
of the name from the title of the poem. 2) cannot be maintained,
since the denotation 'DarraaarljoS' does not occur in the text
and the assumed equivalent geirljdd is based upon an evidently
corrupt reading (for geirfljdda, st. 10). No more can the kenning
vefr darradar be regarded as the source of the motif of the weaving
Valkyries; ») such a kenning could only arise if the motif existed
first, and no other instance of it is known in O.N. literature.

The women call themselves valkyrjur and the poem is often
quoted to illustrate the Scandinavians' behef in valkyries. al-
though their character differs widely from those usually met with
in Old Norse tradition. The latter stand in OSin's service, elect
the dead on the battlefield and attend the fallen heroes in
Valhgll. 4) The women of our poem have nothing to do with
Oain and Valhgll, they 'decide who shall fall', but that is only
one of their functions. Their character can be analyzed into the
the following elements:

1) Cf. Lex. Poet. s. v. Here Finnur J6nsson doubts the meaning 'spear
which does not fit for some of his instances. It is, however supported
by O. E. darop 'dart'.
') Eddica minora, p. LI.

Eddica minora, p. LII.
«) For instance: H4konarmamp;l (Finnur J6nsson, Skjaldedigtning I,
B, p. 57); Snorra-Edda, Gylfaginning. cap. 22 (ed. F. J6nsson p. 40)!

A.nbsp;they evoke a battle and its results; their action is of a
sinister character, its effect is bloodshed,

C.nbsp;their woof is of a horrid nature: it is composed of arms
and parts of the human body,

E.nbsp;they stand in a particular relation to King Sigtryggr,
who 'had their weaving before' {vefr darradar panns ungr
konungr dtte fyrre),

H.nbsp;natural phenomena add more evidence of the slaughter: a
rain of blood, red clouds and sky.

women as norns. According to Mogk norns are 'superior
beings ruling the fate of men or gods'. They are not always
three in number, like those in Vgluspa, who are concerned
with the fate of the gods. When Helgi is born, norns come
(their number is not named) to weave his future. ®) The norns
of our poem are of the same nature, they have already predicted
the fate of king Sigtryggr, as may be inferred from the words
quoted under E. The whole poem is sung for Sigtryggr: Vel
kvópom vér of konung ungan sighljópa fjoip, 'well did we sing for
the young king many tones of victory' (st. 10).

Besides norns, the women are valkyries. They decide who
shall fall (G), which is exactly the activity expressed by the word
val-kyrja. The six names mentioned are typical for valkyries and

') J. Hoops, Reallexicon der germ. Altertumskunde, s.v..
») Vgluspä, 20 (Edda, ed. Neckel, I, p. 5).
») Helgakviöa Hundingsbana I, 2 (Edda I, p. 126).

That the women in the Darradarljda are noms as well as val-
kyries, was stated by Carolsfeld. i) He supposed the first two
stanzas, which describe the weaving, to be the oldest part, the
other stanzas being a later addition. However, the horrid charac-
ter of the weaving, as illustrated in this portion, sets the scene so
far apart from all the other traditions about the norns, that we
can never explain it without regarding the poem as a unity.
Carolsfeld's argument that the first two stanzas consist of 10
lines and the others, except the last, of 8, is of no value, since
stanzas of unequal length are not uncommon in eddic poetry
either.

The combination of the elements enumerated above, is unique
in Scandinavian literature. The only other possible instance of
a fusion of norns and valkyries is the name Skuld, occurring in
the VQluspa among both categories. But here this name for a
nom is too evidently a creation of the poet to allow of any
farther reaching conclusion. It was from the VQluspa that
Snorri borrowed it.

Although single elements can be explained from Norse tra-
dition, as has been shown above for B, E, and G, the fusion of
them remained obscure until A. H. Krappe looked for an ex-
planation in the rich Irish legendary material. ®) The two in-
stances quoted by him can be multiplied by many others and the
fusion of the elements can be followed throughout Irish hte-
rature.

The Irish epic Tain Bo Cualnge affords an uistance of a
weaving profetess. In its second version, preserved in the 12th
century manuscript, called the Book of Leinster (L.L.), queen

Medb of Connacht intends to attack the people of Ulster, i)
Suddenly she sees a solitary woman coming towards her on the
pole of a chariot. 'It is thus the maiden was: weaving a border
and a [weaving] sword of white bronze in her right hand with its
seven edges of red gold in its points': is amlaid hoi ind ingen:
ic figi conthairi ocus claideb findruini ina Idim deiss cona shecht
n-aslib do dergor ina dessaib. The Lebor na hUidre, which was
written shortly after the year 1100 and preserves fragments of
the oldest version of the Tain Bo Cualnge, reads: Claideb corthaire
do findruine inna Idim; esnaid oir and, 'A weaving sword of
white bronze in her hand, inlaid figures of gold in it'. Of this
original text the obscure reading of L.L. seems to be both an
extended and a corrupt rendering. The woman, whose name is
Fedelm, is in the earher version a poetess and a sorceress. She
has learned magic in Scotland and is able to foretell the future
by means of imbas forosnai. In the later version she has become
a fairy a sid Cruachna, 'from the fairy hill of Craachan'. Both
texts describe her as extremely beautiful and call her banfdith,
'a profetess'.

Medb questions her three times how she sees her army, remem-
bering the weakness {cess) of her adversaries, but each time
Fedelm replies: Atchiu forderg atchiu riiad', 'I see purple, I
see red.' Finally she sings a poem foretelling the deeds of Cuchu-
lainn, the Ulster champion, who will cause havoc in Medb's
army.

Here we recognise two elements of the Darra6arlj65, namely,
A and B. Though Fedelm cannot be said to weave fate, her
handiwork is certainly not merely an incidental ornament. It is

1)nbsp;Tain Bö Cüalnge, ed. E. Windisch, 1. 203 sq. About MSS. see: R.
Thurneysen, Die irische Helden- und Königsage, p. 27 sq.

2)nbsp;About this magic practice see: R. D. Scott, The Thumb of Knowledge,
and N. K. Chadwick, Scottish Gaelic Studies, IV, p. 97 sq.

connected with her original character as a sorceress, for weaving
includes a magical power in primitive belief, i)

From Fedelm it seems a long way to the hideous witches
referred to by Dr. Krappe. 'Before the battle of Magh Leana
three repulsive-looking witch-hags with blue beards appeared
before the armies, hoarsely shrieking victory for Conn the Hun-
dred Fighter, and defeat and death for the rival king Eoghan'. 2)
And in a 14th century account of the Wars of Thomond, when
the men of Clan Brian Roe are marching towards their destruc-
tion, they see a terrible looking gigantic hag, covered with gore
and washing in the ford a heap of human heads and limbs. She
tells the warriors in a loud, croaking voice that she is the Washer
of the Ford and that the bloody human remains are their own
heads and limbs which shall be lopped off and mangled in the
coming battle, whereupon she vanishes. The gory washing
reminds us strongly of element C, which is here combined
with A.

Another story forms a link between the spectral Washer of
the Ford and the beautiful Fedelm. When Cuchulainn, together
with his fosterfather Cathbad, drives in his chariot to his last
and fatal battle ni cian rdngatar on dunad an tan tarrla doibingen
chdem chorpgeal chubhaidh ar hel Atha na Foraire ar Mag na
hEamna acus si ac torrsi acus ac truaghnemelai acus faidhbh
corcra cirtha crechtnaigthi aca fdsgadh acus aga fuarnighi a
heocharimlibh in atha aid, 'they had arrived not far from the
fortress when there came towards them a beautiful white-bodied
well-proportioned maiden in front of Ath na Foraire on the plain
of Emain, who was moaning and complaining and squeezing
and washing purple hacked wounded spoils on the banks of the

Cf. K. R. V. Wikman, Die Magie des Webens im schwedischen Volks-
glauben (Acta Acad. Aboensis, I, 6).

ford'. Cathbad tells his pupil that she is a daughter of the Badb
and that she prophesies his death, but Ciichulainn replies that he
shall not go back 'though the Badb be washing my spoils', i)

In this tale, which belongs to the early modem Irish period,
the magic weaving of Fedelm has been replaced by an incident
for which the belief in the 'second sight' is responsible. A person
sees in a vision some event related with his own (or somebody
else's) death, mostly his funeral. This behef is found among
many peoples and has often been recorded in Celtic Scotland.

Machae A. badb no asi an tres morngan, mesrad machae A.
cendae doine iarna n-airlech. 'Machae, id est badb, or it is one of
the three morrigan's, mast-food of Machae, i.e. the heads of men
that were slaughtered'. This proves that the motive of mangled
heads was originally connected with battle demons. The idea of
washing must have arisen from the association of the bloody
armour of the slain hero and was hence transferred to human
remains.

Battle demons appear in the form of women or birds, mostly
scaldcrows who haunt the battlefields and bring destraction
upon the armies. One of them is called Bodb or Badb) the name
is also used for the whole category, and in a later period means
a scaldcrow. The demoniacal daughters of Cailitin, for instance,
are called tri badhba sirthacha siublacha sin acus tri hamaidhi
dubha duaibsecha drochdathacha diablaidi, 'three begging moving

1) Aided Con Culainn, in: Compert Con Culainn and other stories, ed.
A. G. van Hamel, Dublin 1933, p. 95 sq.
«) Three Irish glossaries, ed. W. Stokes, London etc. 1862, p. XXXV.
») Cf. R. Thurneysen, Op. cit. p. 63. Traces of them are also found in
Welsh literature, where the hero Owein is accompanied by 300 ravens,
which make him victorious wherever he comes (The Red Book of Hergest,
ed. J. Rhys and J. Gwenogvryn Evans, I, p. 158, 192).

badhba and three black hateful ill-coloured devilish witches' i)
Another representative of this type, the Nemain, brings con-
fusion upon an army, so that the men kill each other in their
camp. 2) The Morrigan or Morrigu ('Mare-queen' according
to Dr. Thumeysen) is the most important for our purpose. She
appears as a profetess when, in a long poem, she warns the
Donn Cualnge. the brown bull, which Medb and her army
wish to drive away; another time she incites the Ulstermen as well
as their enemies by promising them victory. ») In the older
Tain Bo Cualnge*) she appears to Ciichulainn in the form of a
beautiful young woman in a many-coloured dress and offers him
her love together with rich gifts of wealth and cattle. The hero,
however, refuses her, whereupon she threatens him: she will
come in the form of an eel and make him fall when fighting in
a ford. Ciichulainn retorts: in that case he will break her ribs.
Then she will come as a she-wolf and drive the cattle towards
him in the ford, but he menaces to destroy one of her eyes with
a sling. Lastly, she declares that she will come as a red heifer
to lead the cattle, and Ciichulainn replies that then he will
crush her leg with a stone. The next chapters of the Tain Bo
Cualnge relate the duel of Ciichulainn and Loch, during which
the Mom'gan carries out her threats. She attacks Ciichulainn
and wounds him, but is unable to kill him. Here she stands
decidedly on the side of Loch. A similar partiality is shown by
the two fairies Dolb and Indolb, who fight on the side of Ciichu-
lainn against Fer Diad. The reason given for this is the fact that
they are related to him. They are invisible to Fer Diad and wound
him severely, but still he succeeds in killing them by thrusting
his sword both left and right of Ciichulainn.«)

Aided Con Culainn, ed. cit. p. 80.
') Tamp;in B6 Ciialnge, ed. Windisch, p. 709.
quot;) Tdin B6 Cfialnge, ed. Windisch. p. 185 sq.; p. 829 sq.
«) Tdin B6 C6alnge, ed. Strachan and O'Keeffe, p. 59 sq.
») Comhrag Fir Diadh ocus Chon cCulainn (ed. Best, Z. C. P. X, p. 298)

As an old hag, grey-haired and lean, the Morrigan appears
in the battle of Magh Rath where she was seen hovering and
hopping about the points of the spears and shields of the royal
army who were victorious in the battle that followed. In another
tale she appears all in red, in the ominous colour which Fedelm
sees upon Medb's army going to its defeat.

The instances adduced above are sufficient to prove that all
the elements of the Darra5arlj63, except two, are centred around
the Irish conception of battle-demons. They have the power of
prophecy (A), which, as in the case of the classical sibyl, usually
has an ominous character. The same power has Fedelm, who is no
battle-demon, but whose supernatural character links her to
the Morrigan, so that we can add her weaving (B) to the complex
of motifs. The mangled heads and limbs (C) are an old attribute
of the battle demons; the Morrigan takes part in the battle (D)
and sides with Ciichulainn's adversary. In the same way Dolb and
Indolb take Ciichulainn's part against Fer Diad, the relation
between these two and their favourite being not of a momentary
but of a lasting nature (E); they follow him in the battle (F) and
fight by his side. The element G has no Irish equivalent and is a
characteristical trait of the Norse valkyries.

The rain of blood is no doubt connected with the fatal red
colour referred to above and reflects a phenomenon often
mentioned in the Irish annals. The Annals of Ulster, for instance,
record for A. D. 717: Pluit frois sanguinis super fossam Laginarum,
'a shower of blood rained upon the ditch of the Leinstermen'.
For the lake of blood in the Sturlunga saga an equivalent is
found in the same work A. D. 865: Loch Leibinn do shoudh i
fuil CO tarla a partiu croo amail scamhanu inna imbechtar, 'Loch

1) Battle of Magh Rath, p. 199:
Fuil OS a chind ag eigmig caillech lom, luath ag leimnig
6s eannaib a n-arm 'sa sciath, is i in Mom'gu mongliath.

Leibhinn was turned into blood, which became lumps of gore
like lungs round its border'. It is more probable that this trait
is of Irish origin than that, as Neckel i) suggests, the sky should
have assumed a red colour since the way of the dead leads through
the air; nothing, in fact, in our poem points in this direction
As to I, due to the prose commentator, this trait is clearly
based on the belief in the perilous magic embodied in the woof.
According to Swedish popular behef a person who enters the
room while the woof is taken off the loom, will soon die. Broken
threads must not be thrown away, for the witches pick them up
and use them for magic purposes. 2)

Since the poet called his prophesying battle-demons valkyries.
he must have noticed some similarity between the latter and
the Irish badba. This affinity of character can be proved from many
sources. The earHest mention made of valkyries is found in
the Anglosaxon glossaries, the oldest of which is dated in the
8th century; «) here they appear as sinister demoniacal creatures.
It is curious that the waelcyrige is identified with Allecto, like
the Morrfgan in the Tain Bo Ciialnge. In Norse literature we
fmd the conception illustrated above, which connects the val-
kyries with oain and his ValhQll, but beside this there is an
older current that finds its expression in names like Herfjgtur 'fet-
ter of the army', Hlgkk 'chain', which suggest a fatal paralysis of
the warrior, due to a demon. «) The first stanzas of Hakonarmal «)
introduce a valkyrie conversing with a raven about the events
of the battle. In Old-English the raven bears the epithet wael-
ceasig, which is composed of the same elements as valkyrja. This

J. de Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, II p 384 sq
Golther, op. cit. p. 415.nbsp;'

recalls the raven-shaped Irish battle demons, who, however,
differ from the valkjn-ies in so far that a hostile meeting with
the latter always has a fatal result.

When Gunnr and Ggndol of our poem follow the king, they
do not act as valkyries, but as fylgjur. A fylgja is a being,
usually in the form of an animal, but in the heroic atmosphere
also assuming the form of a woman, who becomes visible when
a man's death approaches. Numerous instances of this belief
are found in the sagas, but only in heroic literature one gets
the impression that the fylgja is sometimes identified with a
Valkyrie, namely, in the Helgi-lays. At all events, both in
Sigriin and Svava, the shield-maidens of Helgi Hundingsbani
and of Helgi HjervarSsson, their characteristics are to a certain
extent combined.

The norns, in the early Germanic conception, may have woven
the fate of battle as may be inferred from the Old-English ex-
pression wigspeda gewiofu, 'woof of battle-luck', found in Beo-
wulf. But the fusion of norns, valkyries and fylgjur into an organic
whole could never be explained if we had no recourse to the Irish
example. It is a sufficiently established fact that the literary
relations between the two peoples were very close, Irish bards
being honoured at the Norse court in Dublin. We have every
reason to expect Irish elements in those products of Norse
Hterature, for which not the poets of Norway and Iceland, but
of Scotland and the adjoining islands are responsible. To these,
of course, belong the Darra6arlj65.

Cf. A. Walsh, Scandinavian relations with Ireland during the
Viking period, Dublin 1922, and K. Meyer, Nordisch-Irisches (Sitz.
Ber. d. preuss. Ak. d. Wiss., 1918, XLV).
2) Um Njälu, p. 77.

that have discussed the subject, the first section of the Brjanssaga
as surviving in the Njala, runs from ch. 154. 4 to ch. 154. 14. i)
Here Sigurör is introduced without any further information
about his person. Evidently this was given in the opening section
of the saga, now lost. GiUi jarl. the brother-in-law of Sigurör,
here makes his first appearance in the Brjanssaga; we learn that
he was married to Svanlaug, Sigurö's sister. The expressions
konungr sd er Sigtryggr hét af Irlandi and módir hans hétKormlgÓ
prove beyond doubt that of king Sigtryggr and his mother
Kormlgö (Gormfhlaith) no mention had yet been made in the
saga. The same can be said of Brian and his relatives. There are.
however, several persons who are spoken of in the second section
of the Brjanssaga (ch. 155. 11, to near the end of ch. 157) in a
way that suggests their familiarity to the readers: 'Porsteinn
Hallsson for med jarli. Hrafn enn raudi. Erlingr af Straumey'.
When Sigurör asks ïgt;orsteinn to carry his standard, Amundi hviti
advises him not to do so. Porsteinn Siöuhallsson is mentioned
once before in the Njala. but this is not the case with the three
other men. If the Brjanssaga had contained any particulars about
them at this point, they would have been preserved in the
Njala.

Our conclusion is that the lost beginning of the Brjanssaga
must have contained information about Sigurör, his residence
and family.Besides, the companions cannot have been in-
troduced merely because they sojourned with Sigurör in his
residence on the Orkneys. They must have done something.
What were the exploits of Sigurör and his companions, in the
time preceding the battle of Clontarf?
Fortunately, the tgt;orstemssaga Sföuhallssonar, the only

') The numbers are those of Finnur Jónsson's edition
') According to Carolsfeld (Die Njélssage, p. 140), the brief genealo-
given m ch. 85 of the Njdla, formed part of the Brs., but this is con-
tested on solid grounds by Sveinsson (Um Njdlu, p. 77).

other saga that made use of the Brjanssaga, gives some in-
formation about them. 2) In the autumn of the year 1013 Igt;or-
steinn visits jarl SigurSr in the Orkneys; he is received with
dinstinction and is invited by the jarl to accompany him on a
looting expedition. Porsteinn and the jarl were related to each
other. They plunder in Scotland 'and no man denied Igt;orstein's
courage'. Next they plunder and burn in Vestrlgnd. Late in the
autumn they come home and stay there for three months. This
is a simplified version of the story the original Brjanssaga must
have contained. That iJs. omits every mention of Hrafn enn
Raudi, Erlingr af Straumey and Amundi hvUi need not surprise
us, for Ps. curtails the number of proper names. It leaves out
Sigtryggr, KormlgS and the relatives of Brian; for Kerpjdlfadr
it simply reads einn madr. In the Njala Hrafn the Red says to
the jarl: pii, sjdlfr fjanda (originally: krdk) pinn'] in E's. these
words are pronounced by I^orsteinn.

There is another argument to the effect that the opening
portion of the Brs. must have contained some information about
tgt;orsteinn. The Njala tells us that, when the Norsemen are beaten,
Porsteinn does not try to escape. When KerJ)jalfa3r asks him
why he does not fly, he replies: 'Because I shall not get home
to-night since my home is in Iceland'. Why should the author
have made him play such a heroic part, if the story had not
recorded any glorious feat of his before?

We conclude that the original Brjanssaga opened with a story
about the intercourse of jarl SigurSr with Egt;orsteinn and other
men. The name Brjanssaga, preserved by Igt;s. {Brjdn konung . . .

1) There is also an allusion to the Battle of Clontarf in the
Orkneyjinga Saga, cap. 12 (ed. Nordal, p. 23), which was probably
derived from the Brs.

') Here the genealogy of SigurSr is given, and it agrees with that in
Njamp;la, ch. 85. This is, however no proof for Carolsfeld's supposition,
as the author of f)s. must have known the Njamp;la as well as the Brjamp;nssaga.

sem segtr i sQgu hans) does not exclude an opening section in which
Brian played no part. Njall. for instance, does not occur until
comparatively late in the saga caUed after him. Since ïgt;s also
knows the Njâla ('sm segir i Njâls sçgu'), its author must have
used the original Brs. as well as the Njâla. Such is the opinion
first expressed by Finnur Jonsson. i)

An outstanding characteristic of the Brs. is, as Sveinsson
points out, 2) its definitely Christian attitude. Brian (Norse-
Brjann) is represented as the champion of the Christian faith
and provided with all the moral quahties that beseem a Christian
hero. He becomes the fosterfather of the son of his former enemy
he pardons the criminals three times and punishes them only when
they transgress a fourth time. Ok md af sUku marka hvilikr konungr
hann hefir verit. 'And hereby one can see what sort of a king he
was ; the sagawriter expresses clearly enough what impression
those details are meant to convey. Besides good and generous
Brian is pious; he wiU, for instance, not fight on Good Friday
His slayer Brôôir is painted in the darkest colours. This man has
been a mass-deacon, but has thrown off his faith and become a
gudnidingr, 'enemy of God'; he is versed in sorcery and sacrifices
to heathen gods. His appearance marks him as more than an
ordmary man; 'He had an armour which iron could not pierce
he was taU and strong and his hair was so long that it hung
below his belt, it was black.'

KormiQÔ, once Brian's wife, 'had become so angry with Brian
that she wished his death' and she 'strongly incited her son
i^igtryggr to kill Brian'. Like Brôair, she is a formidable opponent
She was the most beautiful of all women and exceUent in every
thing that did not depend on herself, but this was what people
said, that she was bad in everything that depended on herself.

Ospakr, the viking and companion of Brodir and his brother,
according to Igt;s., refuses to fight against 'such a good king',
goes over to Brian and becomes a Christian, after hearing the
evil omens that threaten BroSir. No wonder that he is called
allra manna vitrastr, 'most clever of all men'. His story is, as
Sveinsson remarks, a typical conversion tale.

To the author of Brs. the battle of Clontarf is the struggle
between Christianity and paganism, which ends in the defeat
of the latter. Not only men, but even superhuman forces join
in the struggle. This explains the great number of miracles.
For instance: one night Br69ir and his men see a rain of blood,
the next night arms fall upon them from the air, and the third
night the are attacked by ravens with iron beaks and claws.
Ospakr explains this as a presage of a battle in which their blood
will be shed; the ravens are the devils whom they worship as
gods, and who will drag them to hell.

The day before the battle there comes to KormlgS a man on
an applegrey horse, who carries a spear in his hand; he speaks
with Br69ir and KormlgS for a long time. Nothing more is said
about him. Probably the original Brs. had a fuller account,
but from the way he is introduced we infer his supernatural
character. To the same category belongs the raven-banner of
Sigurar, referred to above. Before their death Sigurar and his
men hear a voice in the air.

Hrafn the Red sees Hell in the form of a river filled with de-
mons who will drag him down. He saves himself by promising
a pilgrimage to St. Peter: 'Thy dog, apostle Peter, has twice run
to Rome and will run a third time, if thou savest (him)'. The
blood of Brian heals the hand of his son Tadhg.

The origin of these miracles will be discussed further down.
Here they are only mentioned to state their Christian character,
different from the miracles usually met in Icelandic family sagas.
Sveinsson supposes that the author of Brs. must have been a cleric.

Jarl Si^rör invites his brother-in-law jari GiUi to celebrate
the Yule festival with him in his residence on the Orkneys Here
they are also met by king Sigtryggr. the son of ólafr Kvaran and
Kormlgö^ Jari Sigurör. son of Hlgövér. is the Siucraid mac
Lotatr of Cogadh. Sigtryggr is found there as the 'son of Amhlaibh' •
the Irish annals call him Sitric. Jari GiUi did not fight at Clontarf
and the Insh sources do not name him.

Brian is called allra konunga bezt at ser. 'the mightiest of
aU kings . The name of his residence. Kantaraborg. is a mis-
wntmg for Kankaraborg. i.e. Cenn Coradh. A brother of Brian
with the purely Norse name of ülfr hreda has been identified
on account of the sound of his name with Maelruartaidh Ua h-
Etdhtn, an Irish chieftain, who fell at Clontarf. More probable
however, is the explanation given by J. H. Uoyd. i) that his
name is nothing but a Norse rendering of the genitive of Murchadh
which m its aspirated form must have sounded like *Wurchadha'
The fact that he is called enn mesti kappi og hermadr is an argu-
ment m favour of his being identical with the prominent Irish
hero. Brian has a fosterson Kerpjdlfadr-, this name is supposed
to be a Norse rendering of the Irish name Toirdhelbhach. but
the warrior of this name was Brian's grandson, not his fosterson
The part assigned to him by the Brjanssaga is played in Cogadh
by his father. Murchadh. Kert)jalfaö's father was Kylfi a
king who has been Brian's enemy. Brian had adopted his former
adversary's son and 'loved him more than his own sons'

Brian's sons are Dungadr, Margadr. and Tadkr (also caUed
Tann) This agrees with the Irish sources: Donnchadh and
Murchadh are named in Cogadh; Tadhg in the annals, as

well as in Leabhar Oiris. Everything except their names is,
however, contradicted by Irish tradition: that they were frumvaxta
(15 to 20 years old); that KormlgS was not their mother (Donn-
chadh was her son) and that, while Brian was slain, Tadhg was
in his company. The first part of the Brs. ends at ch. CLIV, 14.

The second section begins in the next chapter of the Njala,
§ 11: King Sigtryggr succeeds after much reasoning in persuading
jarl SigurSr to support him against Brian by promising him the
hand of Korml^a and a kingdom in Ireland. SigurQr is to come
to Dublin on Palm Sunday. When Sigtryggr comes home,
he tells his mother what has been decided about her. She approves
of what he has done, but tells him to meet two Vikings, who are
lying west of the isle of Man with thirty ships, and to secure their
support; he is even entitled to promise to one of them, too,
marriage with her. The Vikings are caUed BroSir and Ospakr;
the former is known to the Irish sources as Brodar, but Ospakr
is not named there. Sigtryggr has a meeting with BroQir, who
promises his aid on the same conditions as SigurSr; of course
their agreement is to be kept from the jarl's knowledge. When
Sigtryggr is gone. Broair tries to persuade Ospakr to join him,
but the latter refuses to fight against such a good king as Brian,
and their meeting ends in a quarrel. Ospakr is a heathen; BroSir
has been a Christian, even a mass-deacon {messudjdkn), but has
fallen back into paganism. The description of the two. which is
certainly romantic rather than historical, has been cited at
length above.

During three nights Broair and his men are visited by miracu-
lous attacks from the air. The first night there falls a rain of
blood, then swords, axes and spears come down upon them
and in the third night they are assailed by a great number of
ravens with iron beaks and claws, so that they are obliged to
defend themselves with swords and shields. Each time one man
is killed. BroSir has a boat put to sea and is rowed to Ospakr

to ask him for an explanation. The latter refuses to answer until
Broair gives him grid, safeguard. This is granted, but still Ospakr
waits until it is night and then gives an interpretation, which is
unfavourable to Br6air. Cspak's precautions are justified,
for Broair turns so angry that he cannot reply, returns to his
men and blockades the bay, where Ospakr lies with his ships.
The latter succeeds in breaking through and escapes, although
his opponent had twice as many ships; he goes straightway to
Cenn Coradh and offers his service to Brian. There he is accepted
and baptized and reports to the king all the plans of his
enemies.

After a few introductory phrases (ch. CLVII, 1—3) the Brs.
continues in § 4: The jarl comes to Dublin with his whole army
on Palm Sunday and so does Br6air. The latter has the result
of the battle predicted: if they fight on Friday Brian shaU be
victorious but fall, but if they fight before that date, all shall
fall. Therefore Br6air decides that the battle shall not be fought
before Friday. When that day has come, the troops are ordered
into battle-array; BroBir leads one wing, Sigtryggr the other and
Sigurar the centre.

For this section no equivalent is found in Irish tradition.
The devision of the army into three parts is also mentioned
in Cogadh, but there the three battalions consist of foreign
auxiliaries under Br6air and Sigurar, the men of Dublin, and the
Leinstermen. King Sigtryggr, according to Cogadh, did not take
part in the battle, but watched it from the fortress with his
wife, who was a daughter of Brian. When the Foreigners were
routed, she taunted him with their defeat, which made him so
furious that he knocked out one of her teeth.

Brian, says the Brs., declines to fight because it was Friday
(viz. Good Friday) and is protected by a 'shieldburgh', a typical
Norse formation. In our version of Cogadh Brian stays in his
tent praying, while no reason is given why he did not fight, but

Nowhere in Brs. is there any mention made of the Irish
auxiharies of Sigtryggr, namely the Leinstermen under their
king Maelmordha. Brian's army is also divided into three bat-
tahons: one wing under Ulfr hreSa, another onder Ospakr and
the sons of Brian, while the centre is led by KerJ)jalfa5r. Cogadh
gives the division thus: the Dal Cais under Murchadh, Toir-
dhelbhach and others, the other Munstermen under Mothla,
son of Domhnall, king of Desi a.o., and the troops of Connacht
under Maelruanaidh Ua hEidhin, Tadhg Ua Cellaigh a.o.

According to the Njala tflfr hreSa attacks BroSir and forces
him to fly and hide in a wood. KerpjalfaQr fights against the
battahons of Sigur6r and kills the man who carries the banner.
Another man, who takes it up, is also killed. Then the jarl
requests Porsteinn Si9uhallsson to carry the banner. Amundi
hviti remarks: 'Carry not the banner, fgt;orsteinn, for all who
carry the banner are killed'. SigurSr asks Hrafn rau5i the same.
He repHes: 'Carry your devil yourself, jarl'. Then the jarl takes
the banner and hides it under his clothes. Soon afterwards
Amundi hviti falls and subsequently the jarl himself is killed
by a spear.

The situation in Igt;s. is somewhat different. Here three standard-
bearers fall and Egt;orsteinn answers the jarl: 'Carry your raven
[krdk) yourself, jarl'. A man remarks: 'You did rightly, Porsteinn,
for thereby I have lost my three sons'. Sigur5r takes the banner
off the staff, puts it under his clothes and fights bravely. A
short time afterwards a voice in the air is heard: 'If jarl SigurSr
will be victorious, let him go to Dumazbakki^) with his foUow-

This place has been identified with much probability by J. H.
Lloyd (loc. cit.) as Magduma, the present Phipsborougl^ mentioned in
an old calender of Christ Church. Cf. the O. N. form Uladhsiir (Ulster)
for Tir Uladh.

The version of the Njala is the more original of the two. i) Igt;s.
departs more from the Brjanssaga than the Njala, but in the case
of krdk ('raven', the banner of the Orkney jarls), where the Njala
reads fjanda 'devil', it has preserved the original wordmg. It
has simplified the story by disregarding several persons, but in
some cases has added a more dramatic touch to the situation.

In Cogadh the slaying of Sigurar is performed by Murchadh.
When the army of Brian has routed the enemies and driven them
into the sea, SigurBr and some of his men hold their place on
the battlefield. Sigurar is kiUing and wounding their opponents
and 'his fury among them was that of a robber upon a plain
and neither pointed nor any kind of edged weapon could harm
him and there was no strength that yielded not. nor thickness
that became not thin'. Murchadh attacks him. cuts the fastenings
of his helmet with his sword and kills him with a second blow. 2)

The Brs. makes Sigtryggr, who in Cogadh does not take a
share in the battle, fly from Ospakr, who has been severely
wounded. When all the Norsemen are flying, Igt;orsteinn Sfauhalls-
son remains where he is, fastening his shoestring, s) Kerfijalfaar
reaches him and asks him why he does not run away. tgt;orsteinn
replies: 'Because I shall not get home to-night as I have my
home in Iceland'. Kertjjalfaar grants him peace. This is the
story as given in the Njala. According to Igt;s., Igt;orstemn and some
men with him halt near the wood. Then a man asks: 'Why do
you not fly, tgt;orsteinn?' 'Because I shall not get home to-night

») The fastening of the shoestring was probably introduced by the
author of the Njamp;la; it is also found in Nj. ch. XCII and ch. XLVIII.
Cf. A. Kersbergen. Litteraire motieven in de Nj41a, p. 76, 77.

even though I fly'. Igt;orsteinn is given peace. Here Kert)jalfa6r
is not named.

The slaying of Brian is not alluded to in Igt;s. In the Njala
BroSir notices that many men of Brian's guard leave the ranks
to join in the pursuit. Hereby the 'shieldburgh' is weakened. He
comes out of the wood where he has hidden, breaks through the
circle of guards and hews with his axe at the king. The young
Tadhg hfts his hand to protect his father, but Br65ir in one
stroke cuts off his hand and Brian's head. When the blood of
Brian covers the stump of the lad's hand, it is healed at once.
BroSir boasts: 'Now people can say that BroSir slew Brian'.
When these tidings reach tFlfr hreSa and KerJ)jalfa9r, they sur-
round BroQir and throw sticks upon him; in that way he is
captured. Ulfr kills him by winding his entrails round a tree.

The event is told in Cogadh in the following manner. Brian
is in his tent praying, while his attendant Latean tells him what is
happening on the battlefield. The latter sees BroSir approaching
with two of his men. Brian understands from the description
of their armour that they must be vikings; he rises from the couch
upon which he is seated and unsheathes his sword. When BroSir
notices the king, he takes him for a priest, but one of the vikings,
who had been in Brian's service, informs him about the old man's
identity. BroSir swings his battle-axe but Brian cuts off his legs,
whilst BroSir cleaves the king's head; Brian, however, with
a final blow kills him and one of his followers.

When the Brs. and Cogadh record certain facts in a different
manner, this must be due to the divergence 1° of the historical
material or the traditions used by the authors of these works

The incident probably had a historical foundation: according
to the fantastic account of the battle of Clontarf in Ademar of Chavannes'
chronicle (II, 55), the whole invading army is destroyed except one man,
whose life is spared, because he is recognised as a Christian captive
(Mon. Germ. IV, p. 141).

It is not known with certainty when the Brs. was written, but
Finnur Jonsson dates its origin about 1200. In contrast with
Bugge, he assumes that the work originated in Iceland, as
there is no proof that sagas were written anywhere except in
this country, i) The author must have got his information in
the form of short tales, frdsagnir, which were brought to Iceland
by travellers. The author's point of view, though Christian, is
ethical, not pohtical. Unlike Cogadh, where Brian's opponents
are represented unhistorically as 'pagans, without reverence,
without veneration, without honour, without mercy for God or
for men' 2) and where the high-king is compared with legendary
heroes that protected the country against invaders, the Brs.
shows no political partiahty. As in the case of other Icelandic
sagas, its author is chiefly interested in the personal fate of his
heroes, for which political circumstances form only the back-
pound. The Brs. however, lacks the refined psychology which
is the high merit of Icelandic sagahterature. It breathes a clerical
spirit, its characters are sharply divided into black and white.
The basis of the Brs. must have been a frasQgn, in which Brian
was described as a very pious man. Probably this was the record
of the high-king's death. It has been stated in the preceding
chapters that the story of Brian's prayer during the battle
is of Anglosaxon origin, a legend about king Oswald of Bernicia.

The arguments of S. Bugge to the contrary (in Norsk Sagaskrivning)
are of no value.

The record in the Brs. is more probably historical. The king, who
must have been an old man, did not join in the battle, but was
surrounded by a body of well-armed men (the saga naturally
regards it as a 'shieldburgh', a Norse formation). When the battle
is won, this bodyguard takes part in the pursuit and leaves the
king unprotected. This gives BroSir, who has hidden in a wood, a
chance to reach the king and slay him. Brobir was subsequently
killed, possibly by the high-king himself (Cogadh), more probably
by Brian's attendants, but certainly not in the way described
in the Brs., which was unknown in ancient Ireland, like any
other form of torture.

A legendary incident in the story of Brian's death is the
healing of Tadhg's hand, when the king's blood covers the stump.
As in the case of the king's prayer, this element is evidently of
hagiographical origin. It is not known from Bede or any other
ecclesiastical author, but a similar incident is recorded in the
Old Norse version of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum
Britanniae. i) Although absent from the Latin version printed
by Griscom, it must have formed part of the MS. text used
by the translator. The redactor of this Latin version in several
other cases enlarged Geoffrey's chronicle with passages borrowed
from hagiographical sources.

When legend had made a saint of Brian, it was necessary for
the author of Brs. to paint Gormfhlaith in as black colours as
possible. Her extreme beauty was well as her wicked character
make her a formidable enemy. On the other hand, neither of
these qualifications is justified by the Irish authorities. There
Gormfhlaith's hatred against Brian is not imputed to perverse-
ness, but to family pride. 'She began to reproach and incite her
brother, because she thought it ill that service or vassalage should
be yielded by him to anyone, a thing that his father or grand-

father never yielded, and she said that Brian's son would
hereafter require it from his son and all other men after-
wards.'

The characters of the Brs. are influenced by the law of con-
trast, as formulated by A. Olrik. 2) Brôôir's companion Ospakr
IS possibly the same person as the Ascadcd of Cogadh, 3) although
the name evidently stands for the Old-Norse *Askell or *Asketill
Brôôir and Ascadal are 'the leaders of ships and outlaws', which
agrees very well with the rôle of the two men as vikings in the
Brs. The last-named warrior, however, is never mentioned again
in Cogadh and no deed of his is recorded. The miracles related
in the story of Ospak's conflict with Brôôir have already been
stated to be of an ecclesiastic nature, but apart from this they
are of Irish origin. Though the raven as an evil omen was well-
known among the Norsemen, too,-») the demoniacal beings
described here, who attack warriors, have their equivalents in
the Irish badba referred to in the foregoing section. The rain of
blood occurs in Irish annals, as has also been shown, while arms
fighting on their own account are found nowhere else in the
Icelandic sagas, but have paraUels in Irish literature as, for in-
stance, the magical spear of Lug mac Ethlenn.

Other frdsagnir have left their traces in the Brs., though
they have reached us in an abridged form. The man on an
applegrey horse,®) who talks a long time to Brôôir and Kormlgô,
has no function in the story. Finnur Jonsson in his note refuses to'
regard him as a supernatural being, but it seems difficult to

Cog. p. 143, note 15.
p Danske Studier, 1908. p. 75. Cf. A. Kersbergen, op. cit. p. 114 sq
=) Cog. p. 151. This is the reading of B. D has Amlaib (Ôlafr) which
must be incorrect, since the scribe of B could not have invented Ascadal
while the name Amlaib is very common.

separate this incident from a similar one in the Njala.^) Hildigliimr,
the son of the farmer at Reykir, goes out at night and hears a
terrible crash, so that heaven and earth seem to tremble. He sees
a circle of fire in the air and therein a man, as black as pitch,
on a grey horse, who is riding fast and carrying a firebrand in
his hand. He recites a strophe in which he warns against Flosi,
who intends to burn Njal's farm. Finally he swings his firebrand
eastwards over the mountains; immediately a great fire bursts
out, into which the man disappears. Hildiglumr does not under-
stand the meaning of the vision, nor does his father, but Hjalti
tells him that he has seen a witch-ride and that this always hap-
pens before great events: hefir set gandreid, segir Hjalti, ok
er pat jajnan fyrir stortidendum.

The vision of Hrafn the Red may be compared with a passage
in an Irish battle description: ba dub in t-der uasaibseom colleic
do na demnaib oc irnaide na n-anman truag dia tarrung dochum
iffrin 'The air above them was black with the demons waiting
for the poor souls to drag them towards hell'.®) He calls himself
'St. Peter's dog'. A name like this, unusual as it is in Old-Norse
literature, is easely recognised as an equivalent of the Irish
names beginning with Cu and affords another proof of Irish
influence in the Brs.

Among the miracles that happened on the day of the battle,
there is one for which Dr. Sveinsson supposes Celtic influence.
A man named Harekr on the Orkneys sees in a vision jarl
Sigurar with some of his men. He mounts his horse and rides out
to meet him; they ride together and are seen disappearing to-
gether into a hill, and no trace of Harekr was ever found. This
subterranean abode of the dead reminds us strongly of the

1) Njdla, ch. CXXV. According to Ssemundur Eyj61fsson, this man on a
grey horse is OQinn, who prophesies a battle as a warrior-god (Timarit
1894, p. 134 sq.).

sidh, into which, for instance, Froech mac Idaith is carried by
women clad in green. It has only partial parallels in the sagas.
In the Eyrbyggja saga (XI, 4), for instance, Porstein's shepherd
sees one autumn night that a mountain is opened on the north
side, a great fire is burning inside, and a feast is prepared, while
it is said that Porsteinn shall sit on the high-seat opposite his
ancestors. The belief that the dead dwell in a mountain is also
found in Germany, witness the Kyffhauser-legend and the troop
of horsemen in fiery armour, mentioned in Ekkehard's Chronicle,
who ride out of a mountain and announce themselves as the
spirits of soldiers killed in battle, i)

The story of Harekr, however, who disappears alive into a
mountain, shows more likeness to the Irish story of Froech than
to these Germanic instances and it seems beyond doubt that this
detail, too, was introduced from Ireland.

Its Christian character, plain psychology and great num-
ber of miracles, the latter borrowed from hagiographical sources
as well as from Irish popular belief, set the Brjanssaga apart from
Icelandic sagahterature.

In the preceding chapters an attempt was made to prove that
the tradition about the battle of Clontarf, both in Irish and
Norse sources, is for a great part legendary rather than historical.
J. H. Lloyd, who tried to reconstruct the history of the battle,
states that 'both the Irish and the Norse accounts of this eventful
battle are greatly mixed with legendary details', but makes
little attempt to separate history from fiction.

As regards the two traditions, it is evident that the Brjanssaga
has the advantage of being politically impartial. It was, accord-
ing to all probability, composed for oral recitation, within a
century after the battle. It is founded, however, on separate
records that migrated from one country to another; the author
formed his characters after a certain pattern. Cogadh, on the
other hand, was written about 150 years after the battle and
shows many traces of partiality in favour of Brian. None of his
unsuccessful exploits mentioned in the annals have found their
way into Cogadh. The poetical prophecies, attributed to St.
Bercan, St. Colum Cille, St. Ciaran of Saigher and Bee Mac De,
aU predicting the coming of the Norsemen, are evidently un-
historical, and so is also the strophe ascribed to St. Colman mac
L^inin, 3) promising sovereignty to the Dal Cais 'except three,
until Flann comes'. Moreover, the poem by Cormac mac Cuilen-
nain about the privileges of the Dal Cais is a mystification, as
this sept was of very little importance in the time of this sage
and king of Munster, whose death is recorded in 908 (F.M.)
or 920 (A.U.) In several instances the record of Cogadh has been
proved to be romantic rather than historical: the story of the

woman who crossed Ireland without being harmed, the king's
suffenngs during his gueriUa against the Norse, only supported
by a few followers, and the prayer of the king during the battle
are all stories that existed as popular traditions in England at
an earher period. The exploits of the individual heroes during
the battle do not agree in any detail with the Brjanssaga and are
of the same character as the battle descriptions in any unhistor-
ical Irish tale. Moreover, the author was a Munsterman, as appears
from the fact that he takes a greater interest in the Viking in-
vasions in Munster than in those in the other provinces. He had
no clear ideas about the topography of the battlefield either
Still, his work, if used with caution, forms the most valuable
source of information, apart from the Book of Rights, for Brian's
reign, the importance of which for Irish history we should not
realise if we only had the scanty notes in the annals to depend
on for our knowledge.

In the opinion of many writers about Irish history, the battle
of Clontarf is one of those decisive events which mark the end
of a period and the beginning of a new era. The defeat of the
invading army is considered a national victory, which put an end
to a Norse oppression of about two centuries. Such is the popular
view and Father O'Leary's novel Niamh, which is based on
Cogadh and still more on Keating, bears witness of it It is
however, not confirmed by the facts. Firstly, Brian's opponents
were not the Norsemen settled in Ireland. Although the Dublin
king had invited the invaders at his mother's instigation he
did not take part in the fight, but kept the gates of the town weU
closed, so that none of the defeated army could seek refuge in
Dublin. After the battle, the body of Tadhg Ua CeUaigh, one of
Bnan's followers, was carried to Dublin, where it was buried
as appears from Mac Liag's elegy, i) The attitude of the Dublin

Norsemen after the battle, when they protest against the slaugh-
ter of their oxen by Donnchadh, is not that of vanquished
people. Three years later we find them again on the side of
their old allies, the Leinstermen, in the offensive against Mael-
shechlainn, by whom they are severely defeated. The Limerick
Norsemen, far from opposing Brian, seem to have been on his side
since the taking of their last stronghold in 977; at least Osh, a
son of their king Dubchenn, is slain in 1013 as 'a man of rank to
Brian and a great steward of his stewards'.

True, the invasion led by SigurSr was different from the
raids into the interior so characteristic of the early phase of Viking
invasions in Ireland. It was an organised attempt at conquest,
comparable to the attacks on England, which in 1013 resulted in
the occupation of that country. This does not imply that it was
either the first or the last attack on a large scale. The first was
led by Turgeis, who seized Armagh after three assaults in one
month (832) and, controlling Loch Neagh and the important
waterways by means of a great fleet, 'was in Armagh and in the
sovereignty of the North of Ireland' until the high-king
Maelshechlainn I captured him by stratagem (845). Cogadh even
speaks of Turgeis' abbotship of Armagh. The Norse supremacy
collapsed after his death; since 866, long before Brian's time, the
North was completely free from Norsemen.

At a much later period Ireland was invaded by Magnus Bareleg,
king of Norway, who after re-establishing Norse rule over the
Orkneys, the Hebrides, Cantire and the Isle of Man, landed in
Ulster (1103) where he was cut off and slain. His existence is
remembered in Ossianic hterature, where the legendary king of
Norway often bears the name Magnus or Manus.

®) Cf. Reidar Christiansen, The Vikings and Viking wars in Irish and
Gaelic tradition, p. 154 sq.

Earl Sigurd might have been, as his defeat must have been, a
decisive event in European history'? i) This would imply that by
overcoming Brian Sigurôr would have become lord of all Ireland.
The pohtical institutions of Ireland during the Viking period
afford strong evidence against such a hypothesis, which will
be discussed below. Here we will deal with Dr. Mac Neill's chief
argument. He says: Tt is enough to say that the Norse sagas
regard the battle as the Irish popular view regards it — a con-
test between Irishmen and Norsemen about the sovereignty
of Ireland. The kingdom of Ireland was the prize which king
Sigtrygg of Dubhn offered to Earl Sigurd of the Orkneys. It
was to win Ireland that the Norsemen came from distant Iceland
and from Normandy; and the Norse poet who tells of the event
says 'Brian fell but saved his kingdom'.

This passage is based on a misunderstanding, and partly
a mistranslation, of the words in the Njâla to which it refers.
Sigtrygg's offer to Sigurôr runs thus:

'King Sigtryggr . . . asked him to go to battle with him
against king Brian. The jarl was unwilling for a long time,
but at last he stated his terms. He claimed this: to have his
(Sigtrygg's) mother in marriage and to be king in Ireland
{mcelti hann }at til, at eiga modur hans og vera konungr à
Irlandi) if they should slay Brian. All, however, dissuaded the
jari from participating, but without success; they separated
on the understanding that jari Sigurôr promised the expe-
dition, but Sigtryggr promised him his mother and a king-
dom {modur sinni og konungdomi)'.
Apart from the fact that the îrland of the Icelandic sagas has
been stated to refer to Dublin only, 3) the kingdom 'in Ireland'
can never mean the kingship of Ireland. Sigtryggr, pressed hard
by Brian and despairing to maintain his power, could yield the

kingdom of Dublin to the man who would marry his mother, but
neither he nor Gormf hlaith had any control over the high-kingship
and Norse rulers of that time were not hkely to be lured by
imaginary grants. The course of the negotiations, as can be in-
ferred from the Njala, was thus: Sigtryggr comes to the Orkneys
to persuade the jarl to come to his aid, at first without success.
He only gives his consent when Sigtryggr yields his kingdom to
him, in the same way as Maelshechlainn had tried to obtain
Aedh's support against Brian by offering him his own dignity.
Having accepted, SigurSr is obliged to depart with a strong
force to his newly acquired realm and to defend it against Brian,
whose enemies Gormfhlaith and Maelmordha have dragged
Dublin into war. This fits the jarl very well, for he is a great
fighter, who has just come home from a looting expedition in
Scotland. His brother-in-law Gilli, however, the jarl of the He-
brides, who is present at Sigur5's court, refuses to take part in
the expedition. Sigtryggr craftily tries to save both Dublin from
Brian and his throne from SigurSr by obtaining Br65ir's support
on the same conditions, evidently expecting that after their
victory the two rivals would destroy one another.

The words 'Brian fell but saved his kingdom', quoted by Dr.
Mac Neill, probably from Dasent's translation 'Burnt Njai',
constitute the last line of a skaldic strophe of eight verses. The
original text runs

Brjdnn fell og helt velle i)
which means 'Brian fell and was victorious'. These words do not
provide any argument for Dr. Mac Neill's view, nor do they
justify the conclusion which Mrs. Green draws from them:
'That day finally ended the possibihty of a foreign Scandinavian
conquest and sovereignty of Ireland'. If such a possibility ever

1)nbsp;Njala, ch. CLVII, 36. Halda velle: lit. to hold the battlefield. Cf.
Orkneyjinga saga, cap. 12. Brjdnn konungr fell med sigri ok gagni.

existed, it continued to exist as long as there were Scandinavian
attacks, that is until the days of king Magnus.

While the facts force us to reject the conception of the battle
of Clontarf as a national victory over the Norsemen, they are
equaUy unfavourable to the idea of a victory of Christianity
over paganism. Neither Norse nor Irish tradition bears any
evidence that, as Dr. Dasent holds, 'the spells of heathendom were
deemed to have been vanquished for ever by the superior power
of the Faith, so that it was considered hopeless to continue the
contest'. 1) The only conversion recorded in the Norse account
of Clontarf. namely that of Ospakr, occurs before the battle On
the other hand, the Norse settlers in Ireland were Christians
m this penod. For Dublin this appears from the opening quatrains

Leasg amleasg sind gu Ath Cliath. co diln Amlaib na n-6rsciath.
6 Ath Chath na Hand's na lecht is dian. is mall m'imthecht.
A lucht Atha Cliath na clog eidir abaidh is easbog,
nd cuiri[d] liir tar Tadg toir co tair\i]g duinn a dechain.

'Half reluctant, half eager we go towards Dublin, towards the
fortress of A. of the golden shields; from Dubhn of the churches
and the graves my going away is quick and slow. O people of
Dubhn of the bells, abbot as well as bishop, throw no earth upon
Tadhg yonder, until we have seen him again.'

All attempts to summarize in a brief formula the meaning of
this great battle, which loomed so large in the memory of both
nations, being rejected, a new light will be shed on the event by

strander s theory about Thor-worship in Dublin is refuted. Besides
one of the legendary gifts bestowed by St. Patrick upon the Dubto
men is the -gift of veneration in their churches' (Book of Rights, p. 231).

a survey of the political development preceding it. At the be-
ginning of the Scandinavian attacks, about the end of the eighth
century, we find Ireland divided into a number of small states,
tuatha — the Book of Rights mentions about a hundred —,
each 'ruled by a patrician class to whom war was a sort of noble
pastime'. At their head there was an elected king as chief judge
and leader in war. The power of this king must have been limited,
especially after the disappearing of the fianna, the mercenary bands
which existed when Niall of the Nine Hostages invaded Roman
Britain. The high-king of Tara figured as the primus inter pares,
not as the sovereign of the whole country, and no high-king ever
succeeded in uniting all the forces of the island against an in-
vader. Even if the ruling aristocracy rejoiced in cattle-raids into
neighbouring territories, they were not inclined to follow their
king in long campaigns to establish his authority over another
state. The balance between the small states was fairly well
held in the absence of the only factor that could upset it: a strong
kingship with expansive aspirations. No wonder that there
was no aggression against foreign powers, so that Bede could
describe the Irish as 'a harmless nation, ever most friendly to the
English'. There is in ancient Ireland only one instance of a per-
petually aggressive attitude: the exaction of the hated tribute
called horama (cattle-counting) from the Leinstermen by the king
of Meath, which was never obtained except by force. This ex-
plains why the Norse settlers of Dublin were welcomed as allies
by the Leinstermen and are mostly found on their side.

This political system, whatever its drawbacks, — in most
respects it contrasts favourably with contemporary conditions
on the continent — provided very effective means of defence
against the Scandinavian invaders. Whilst the weak Carolingian

iquot;) They did not, as Dr. Mac Neill supposes {Phases, p. 249), call them-
selves Northmen because they considered themselves the northern

rulers proved unable to keep the Vikings outside their boundaries
and yielded the Netherlands and Normandy to pirate chiefs,
hoping to profit from them as a barrier against new raiders, there
was no central power in Ireland the paralyzing of which would
leave the country open to the invaders without means of defence.
Although the Vikings did enormous damage to civihsation by
their raids against defenceless monasteries, they were unable to
maintain themselves anywhere except in fortified settlements
on the coast. A country where every district had its own politic-
al and mihtary organisation could not be subdued; the author-
ity of Turgeis in the North was of short duration. We must
consign the idea of a permanent Norse oppression, described so
eloquently in Cogadh, i) to the realm of literary fiction, as it
clashes with every contemporary record.

The lack of a central mihtary organisation lasted throughout
the whole Norse period. It need only be recalled that at Clontarf
Leinster opposed Brian, while the North stood aloof. However,
a political evolution was going on, which was to continue till long
after the Norse period had passed. It is the strengthening of the
kingship which upset the existing belance between the states.
This movement was contemporary and probably closely connected
with the Viking invasions. Firstly, the king gained in importance
when his activity as the military leader of his state was per-
manently required against the ever threatening attacks, and
secondly, in a later phase of the Norse period his material wealth
must have increased considerably. As soon as the Vikings settled
permanently on the coast, they became traders rather than pi-

branch of the German people. There is not the slightest evidence that the
ancient Scandinavians regarded themselves as related to the Germans
They were 'Northmen' because they lived north of that civilized world
by which they were so much attracted. The distinction between 'White'
and 'Black' Foreigners (Norwegians and Danes) was probably based on
the colour of their sails.

rates. We read of 'saddles beautiful and foreign, gold and silver,
beautifully woven cloth of all colours and of all kinds, satins and
silken cloth, pleasing and variegated, both scarlet and green,
and all sorts of cloth in like manner' in Limerick and 'the greatest
quantity of gold and silver and bronze, and precious stones and
carbuncle gems and buffalo horns, much also of various vestures
of all colours and beautiful goblets', found in Dublin after its occup-
ation.^) These foreign articles of luxury were not collected on
raids in Ireland but brought there for trading purposes. Wine,
too, was an important article, and another profitable trade, in-
troduced by the Norse, was the slavetrade, for though slavery
was known in pre-Viking Ireland, it seems to have been of little
economic consequence. After Brian's occupation of Limerick,
if we may believe Cogadh, 'every one of them that was fit for
war was kiUed, and every one that was fit for a slave was en-
slaved'; generally speaking about his treatment of the Foreigners
it is said that they were 'bondaged and enslaved' {rodoerait is
romugsanaigit) by him. Imported slaves, together with other
foreign valuables, figure among the tributes fixed in the 'Book
of Rights'.

The relation between a king and his clients was expressed
by the giving and receiving of gifts. They were called tuarastal
'wages' and the receiver acknowledged by the acceptance to
be in the giver's pay. The gift mostly consisted in articles acqui-
red by foreign trade. Brian, for instance, gives gold, silver and
clothing, besides twelve hundred horses, to the Ulstermen who pro-
vide him with victuals. It is evident that the influence of the
kings increased as foreign trade brought more valuables into the
country. The importance attached to these royal gifts cannot be
easily overrated. It is strikingly illustrated by the story in

Cogadh about the cause of the battle of Clontarf, where Gorm-
fhlaith in her pride bitterly reproaches her brother Maelmordha
for wearing a silken tunic given to him by Brian.

There are three kings of Munster whose careers mark three
stages of the evolution outlined above. Thefirst isFeidhlimidhmac
Crimthain, who reigned from 820 to 847. The Annals of Ulster,
when recording his death, describe him as a 'king of Munster, thé
best scribe of the Irish {optimus Scotorum scriba) and an anchorite'
but in another passage speak of 'the crozier of vigil-keeping
Feidhhmidh' (A.U. 840). As a bishop he is also named in an old
poem. 1) He was a ruthless warrior, very different from Brian,
and few Norse sea-kings surpassed him in burning churches and
monasteries. The chief principles of the policy of these two
Munster kings, however, show a remarkable resemblance: op-
position to the Ui Neill, if necessary with the aid of Leinster, in
order to acquire the high-kingship, and aUiance with Armagh in
order to enforce the claim to primacy of St. Patrick's successor.
The second principle appears in the beginning of Feidhlimidh's
reign, when in 823, together with Artri bishop of Armagh, he

establishes the 'Law of Patrick' in Munster. In 831 he invades
Bregia at the head of an army from Munster and Leinster. After-
wards he takes the hostages of Connacht, plunders in Meath and
Bregia, and in 841 encamps with his army in Tara. In the same
year he attempts to secure the support of Leinster by aspiring at
the sovereignty over this province. This time, however, the
high-king Niall saves his reign by infUcting upon him a crushing
defeat, which ends Feidhlimidh's victorious career. The tide
turned against the South, for the next high-king Maelshechlainn
I, the slayer of Turgeis, invaded Munster and took its hostages,
whilst the abbot of Armagh was on his side.

The next Munster king who took up again the aggressive atti-
tude, the learned bishop Cormac mac Cuilennain (901—908),
compiler of a glossary still extant, had to experience that the
Ui Neill considered Leinster as their own vassal state and were
not inclined to suffer any encroachment on their rights over this
province. He invaded Ossory, forced its king to take his side
and prepared to do the same with Leinster, but was surrounded
by the armies of the high-king and Leinster at Belach Mugna,
defeated and slain. The cry raised by his men 'Let the clergy
fight their own battles' shows that the king's political ideals
failed to kindle his followers to enthusiasm.

Munster was weakened by his death, which broke the power
of the Eoghanachta of Cashel; there was no force left to prevent
the establishment of Norse settlements at Waterford, Wexford,
Limerick, Cork, Youghal, Thurles and even Cashel. From 916 to
918 Ireland had a strong high-king in NiaU GMndubh, who
attacked Waterford and Dublin, but was mortally wounded in
an encounter with the army of the latter town. The general
strengthening of the kingship was not confined to one province;
in the 10th century we find many a powerful high-king on the
throne of Tara. A remarkable feat was accomplished by Niall's
son Muirchertach of the Leather Cloaks, king of Ailech, who

made a circuit of all Ireland with a thousand men in 941 and
brought back the hostages of the kingdoms, except those of
the Dal Cais in co.Clare. The hostages were handed over to the
reigning high-king Donnchadh. This campaign was held in winter
and the warriors protected themselves against the cold by the
leather cloaks from which the king received his surname. Their
arrival must have made a deep impression, for the circuit was
achieved almost without a blow being struck. A campaign round
the whole country, and in winter too. was an event without prec-
edent. High-kings usually preferred to interfere as httle as
possible with the neighbouring kingdoms, especially with
Munster, which for a long time had held an isolated
position.

The Dâl Cais, the only kingdom that had not given its hostages
to Muirchertach, is scarcely even mentioned in the annals before
this time. It first began to occupy an important position in
Munster after the weakening of the traditional rulers, the Eogh-
anachta of Cashel. Another Eoghanacht line, the Ui Eachach of
Desmond under their kingMaelmuadh. aspired to the sovereignty
in Munster in competition with the Dâl Cais; a strife, which led
to the violent death of Mathgamhain, Brian's brother (976). The
career of the Dâl Cais and the hfe of Brian are described with
full details in Mrs. Green's 'History of the Irish State to 1014'
and will not be repeated here. The origin of the future high-
king's power lies in his — or his brother's — occupation of Lime-
rick in 967 and his taking of Scattery Island, the last stronghold
of the Limerick Norsemen, in 977. Cogadh is eloquent about the
treasures found in the conquered town. The inhabitants of
Limerick seem to have been on Brian's side ever since. After
his victory over his brother's slayers at Belach Lechta (978) had
made him undisputed king of Munster, we find Brian continuing
the policy of his predecessors. No doubt, though, the plundering
and burning Feidhhmidh was a personality very different from

Brian, with his zeal for arts and learning, who resembles more
the venerable Cormac. Brian, too, began his attempt at establish-
ing a central government with the subjugation of Leinster,
which was completed in 984, so that by this time he ruled the
whole of Leth Mogha. Understanding that the tradition which
assigned the kings of Meath and Ailech as the only legitimate
holders of the high-kingship, could never be destroyed by suc-
cessful campaigns or by the occupation of Tara, he first proceeded
to establish his authority firmly in the South. To this end he
maintained a system of fortified places all over Munster. Mrs.
Green supposes that this was directed against the Norse, but
her suggestion that the latter were ignorant of the art of siege
is quite unfounded. On the contrary, on the occasion of their
siege of Paris (886) they showed themselves masters in this art.
Moreover, the period of inland raids was long over. Brian's
strongholds were evidently destined to keep order among his
countrymen. Neither he nor his rival, the reigning high-king
Maelshechlainn, ever tried to expel the Norsemen from Ireland.
The latter, after his victory over Dublin (980), proclaimed:
'Let every one of the Gaels who is in the Foreigners' province
come forth to his own country in peace and comfort' and the
annahst regards this as the end of the 'Babylonian captivity of
Ireland'. This can only mean that a number of Irish captives in
Fine Gall, the district near Dublin, were freed by Maelshechlainn.
On the other hand Brian had to fight Dublin in 999, when this
town supported Maelmordha, king of Leinster, in his revolt
against Brian's usurpation of the control over this province. ®)

3)nbsp;Brian's surname Boromha is explained as being derived from his
supposed birth in the village of that name near Killaloe {Green, op. cit.
p. 359). It may well be asked if there was anything remarkable about
this village that would justify this use of its name. B6romha means the
tribute which the king of Meath exacted from Leinster and, as we find

After the defeat of the allies at Glenn Mama - a battle surpassing
Clontarf, according to the poet i) — Brian plundered Dublin,
but this did not prevent him from concluding a treaty with king
Sigtryggr, who married Brian's daughter. Backed by Dublin
and in the west by Connacht, Brian thought himself strong
enough to wrest the high-kingship from Maelshechlainn; Tiger-
nach records in the same year the 'first revolt through treachery
{cét imfodh . .Are mebail) of Brian and Connacht against Mael-
shechlainn theGreat'.2) Except by Connacht Brian was supported
by Ossory, Leinster and the Dubhn Norsemen. The latter went
before him into Magh Bregh with a battalion of cavalry, which
was overtaken and slaughtered by Maelshechlainn. Hereupon
Brian withdrew but in 1002 made a fresh and successful attempt.
Maelshechlainn, not backed by the northern kings, had to yield
the high-kingship to him.

Political propaganda in Cogadh and moralizing legend in the
Brjanssaga give us a distorted view of Brian's great personahty,
whilst the contemporary notes in the annals are more trust-
worthy but very meagre. Brian was neither the saint of the
Norse saga, who pardoned the criminals three times, and punished
them only when they transgressed a fourth time, nor was the
aim of his life the defence of his country against the Norse enemy.
The fantastic account of Cogadh, describing how Brian killed
and enslaved the Foreigners, is strikingly contradicted by the
fact that he never made war against them except for the pur-
pose of drawing them on his side. The end in view of his lifelong
activity was to obtain the high-kingship and after obtaming it to
strengthen his position in order to estabhsh an effective central

Brian subduing this province, it is probable that his epithet labels him
as enforcmg tribute from the Leinstermen. which before his time had been
a privilege of the kings of Meath.

power. The same tendency has been recognised in other Munster
kings. It is a significant illustration of this continuity that
Brian had a new version made of the Book of Rights, which was
begun by Cormac mac Cuilennain. The same apphes to his strong
support to Armagh, where he placed a ring of gold on the altar
and where he ordered his body to be buried. Brian did not always
respect ecclesiastical prerogatives, as appears from his 'violation',
according to the annals, of Scattery Island (977) and from the
fact that he 'took the hostages of the principal churches of
Munster that they should not receive rebels nor thieves to sanc-
tuary in the churches', i) but in the primacy of Armagh he must
have recognised an ally in his centralizing policy. He was the
first man outside the two privileged families to obtain the high-
kingship and he had more power than any historical high-king
before him, but still more remarkable is the fact that he expanded
his power by diplomatic rather than by military means and
took his final step to the highest dignity without any act of
violence. It was, in fact, not a surrender of power, but a recog-
nition of the fact that the power was already in Brian's hands.
The latter's position was not the old high-kingship but a new
dignity, a fact which Brian emphasized by giving himself the
title of 'emperor of the Irish' {imperator Scotorum).^)

The strife from which the battle of Clontarf sprang, originated
in a rebellion against Brian by the king of Leinster, who received
the usual support from Dublin. King Sigtryggr, in his turn,
secured the aid of jarl Sigurör of the Orkneys. In 980 his father
Ólafr Kvaran had already received support from the Hebrides,
as appears from the statement in the Annals of Ulster that the
battle of Tara was won 'against the Foreigners of Dublin and the
Islands'. Sigtrygg's allies from the other countries mentioned in
Cogadh (p. 152) are not recorded in the Norse sources. Sigurör and

his army were coldly received, as we must infer from the fact
that the Dublin people did not offer them the slightest help
either during the battle or after their defeat, and perhaps also
from the words 'Some, indeed, have said that the pay of the
pirates was spent the night before that battle and that they had
gone as far as Howth, when they saw the conflagration and
devastation of the country', i) The words following this passage

As to the foreign chieftains who fell in the battle, the Norse
and Irish sources agree only in the cases of jarl Sigurôr and
Brôôir. In A.U. the latter is called chief of the Norse fleet, which
agrees with his rôle in the Brs. When Cogadh styles him mac Osli
iarla Cwiri hEbroc, 'son of Osli, jarl of York', this statement
lacks all historical foundation. 2) The list of fallen Foreigners in
Cogadh is full of additions of a similar nature. Even among the
names borrowed from the annals a name hke Oitir Dubh really
belongs to a viking invader in the beginning of the 10th century,
who occurs in Enghsh chronicles as Ohter (Ohthere). Cogadh
has added many names that are Anglo-Norman instead of
Norse: Goistilin. Simond. Sefraid (Geoffrey), Bernard. Richard.
and makes them the children of contemporaries of Oitir Dubh:
Turgeis, Suinin, Suainin, even the legendary Red Maiden.«)
To this category also belongs Eon Barun (John the baron).
Amond son of Dubhgen is called king of Waterford, but the only
Dubhgen known in Irish history was a son of Ivar of Limerick
and not a Waterford king. Amond is consequently as unhistorical
as his brother Goistilin Gall and cannot be identified wth the
Amundi hviti of the Njala.

The Irish and Norse traditions agree in accusing Gormfhlaith
of having caused the confhct. In Cogadh she incites her brother
against her husband out of family pride; in the Njâla she urges
Sigtryggr, her son by Ôlafr Kvaran, to kill Brian, from whom
she has been divorced. In the latter source, moreover, she is
represented as residing in Dublin, whilst in Cogadh she sojourns
with Brian in Cenn Coradh. The Norse account is less trust-
worthy in this respect, since here the figure of Gormfhlaith has
been purposely blackened in contrast to Brian and her presence
in Dubhn fitted better in the narrative, but the agreement of
our two unrelated traditions is a sufficient proof of the dominant
rôle played by Gormfhlaith in Irish politics, or at least ascribed
to her by pubhc opinion. It is remarkable that her brother
Maelmordha king of Leinster is absent from the Brs., but it is
not surprising that Norse tradition is better informed about the
Norse than the Irish personalities. Yet it knows the two prom-
inent figures of the battle: Ulfr hreôa (Murchadh) and KerJjjâl-
faôr (Toirdhelbhach) and is well informed about the names of
Brian's sons, of whom Tadhg was certainly present on the
battlefield, although our version of Cogadh does not name him.
The reason why the high-king did not take part in the battle, to
wit because it was Good Friday, even though in itself Brian's age
would have been a sufficient reason to refrain from fighting,
must also spring from a common tradition, illustrating the
king's piety.

These historical data were combined into a Brjânssaga, to-
gether with numerous hagiographical details. They illustrate the
Christian character of the saga, which was doubtless due to the

Brjdnn hét konungr sd er hana hafdi dtta, Nj. ch. CLIV, 7. The Irish
annals as well as Cogadh are silent about Gormfhlaith's supposed three
marriages, apart from a quatrain in F. M. (II, p. 820) where they are
denounced as 'three leaps which a woman should never leap'.

Icelandic author, although the frdsagnir used by him have
evidently already spoken of Brian as a Christian hero. They
probably originated among the Norsemen of Dublin, who were
Christians. The battle meant no real defeat to them and this
perhaps explains why the Norse tradition about the high-king
places him in a not unfavourable light.

The Darraöarljóö, as has been demonstrated, are of an en-
tirely different nature and show no trace of a Christian outlook
The prose commentator locates the vision in Caithness and this
directs us towards the region where we have to seek their origin-
Scotland or the adjacent islands, i)

The battle of Clontarf effected no change in the activity
of the kingdom of Dublin, which, three years later, we find again
on the side of the king of Leinster at war against the high-king
though It has been recognised that the Norsemen of Ireland were
not defeated at Clontarf, the overthrow of Sigurör and his army
is often regarded as a severe blow to the Norse power generaUy
It IS enough to state that neither Norse nor Irish tradition bears
any evidence that the Norsemen regarded it as such. Sigurör
IS not only a late (not the last) Viking invader in Ireland but
also a forerunner of the galloglasses, the warriors from Scotland
and the islands, who play an important part in the history of
medieval Ireland.

From a note by the French chronicler Adémar de Chavannes
who was bom about 988, it appears in what form the tidings of thé
battle reached the continent. Here we read that the fighting
lasted three days, that the Norse women with their children
drowned themselves in the sea and that the surviving Norsemen
were thrown to the wild beasts. One of the captives was recognised
as a Chnstian slave by the Irish king, who spared his life. The

latter anecdote finds a parallel in the Brjanssaga and was prob-
ably based on an historical fact. Ademar also tells us that the
Norse had never before dared to invade Ireland and gives some
information about the island, which shows how little he knows
about it. His note about the battle must be based on a very
vague rumour.

There is no evidence that the battle of Clontarf greatly changed
the position of the Norsemen in or outside Ireland. Its immediate
result in the internal pohcy of Ireland, is that Maelshechlainn
took up the high-kingship again, which he held undisputed
until his death in 1022. On this occasion the Annals of Ulster
call him 'pillar of the dignity and nobility of the western world'.
After his death the regular alternate succession of the kings of
Meath and Ailech appears to be broken for ever; no new high-
king is recognised until the end of the century. That long before
Brian's time the prestige of the traditional high-kingship had
been weakened by the increasing power of the provincial kings,
shows itself in the fact that towards the end of the 9th century
the national assembly at Tailtiu was interrupted and gradually
abandoned. An attempt to renew this 'Fair of Tailtiu' was made
in 1007 by Maelshechlainn, who must be regarded as the last
upholder of the old tradition. His loyal submission to Brian and
the latter's lenient attitude towards his old rival testify to the
noble characters of these two great kings.

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Campbell, J. F. Leabhar na F6inne. London 1872.
Catalogue of Irish MSS. in the Royal Irish Academy. Dublin 1926— .
Cath Finntrdga, The Battle of Ventry, ed. Kuno Meyer. Oxford 1885.
Cath Muighe Leana or the Battle of Magh Leana, ed. E. O'Curry. Dublin
1855.

Cath Ruis na Rig for Bdinn, ed. E. Hogan (Todd Lect. S. IV) Dublin 1892.
Chronicon Scotorum, ed. W. M. Hennessy (Rolls Series) London 1866.
Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh, The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill or
the invasion of Ireland by the Danes and other Norsemen, ed. J. H.
Todd (Rolls Series) London 1867.
Compert Con Culainn and other stories, ed. A. G. van Hamel. Dublin 1933.
Deutschbein, Max. Studien zur Sagengeschichte Englands, vol. I. Cothen
1906.

V. G. Neckel. 2 vols. Heidelberg 1927.
Eddica Minora. Dichtungen eddischer Art aus den Fornaldarsögur und
anderen Prosawerken, eingel. v. A. Heusler und W. Ranisch. Dort-
mund 1903.

rev. by Finnur Jónsson. Köbenhavn 1913—'16.
Ekkehard von Aura. Chronik, übers, v. W. Pflüger. Leipzig 1879.
Feis Tighe Chonäin, ed. N. O'Kearney (Transact. Ossianic Soc. II)
Dublin 1855.

Flower, Robin. Catalogue of the Irish MSS. in the British Museum, vol. II.
London 1926.

KI. 18 (1890), p. 339—438.
Green, A. S. History of the Irish state to 1014. London 1925.
Hardiman, J. Irish minstrelsy. 2 vols. London 1831.
Hoops, J. Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde. 4 vols. Strass-
burg 1911—'19.

Jónsson, Finnur. Skjaldedigtning. 4 vols. Köbenhavn 1912—'15.
Jónsson, Finnur. Den oldnorske og oldisl. literaturs historie. 3 vols.

Köbenhavn 1920—24.
Joyce, P. W. A social history of ancient Ireland. 2 vols. London etc. 1903.
Keating, Geoffrey. Foras Feasa ar Éirinn, History of Ireland. (I.T.S. vols.

4, 8, 9, 15) Dublin 1901—'13.
Kersbergen, A. Litteraire motieven in de Njó,la. Rotterdam 1927.
Krappe, A. H. The Valkyrie episode in the Njdls saga (Modern Language

Notes 43 (1928), p. 471—474).
Lange, J. de. The relation and development of English and Icelandic

outlaw-traditions. Haarlem 1935.
Leabhar na gCeart or the Book of Rights, ed. J. O'Donovan. Dublin 1847.
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in ihren juristischen Bestandtheilen. Berlin 1883.
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Meyer, Kuno. A primer of Irish metrics. Dublin 1909.
Meyer, Kuno. Nordisch-Irisches (Sitz. Ber. preuss. Ak. d. Wiss. 1918, XLV).
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O'Grady, S. H. Catalogue of the Irish MSS. in the British Museum vol
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Windisch, E. Die altirische Heldensage Täin Bö Cüalnge nach dem Buch
von Leinster. Leipzig 1905.

Ten onrechte zegt W. Krause: 'Seit Sophus Bugge ist die
Abhängigkeit der altnordischen Literatur von der altirischen im
Prinzip eine feststehende Tatsache' (Die Kenning als typische
Stilfigur der germ, und kelt. Dichtersprache, p. 3).
/

De vermelding van Noorse geschiedschrijvers in Cogadh
Gaedhel re Gallaibh (p. 188) heeft geen enkele historische waarde.

In het gedieht Raith Raithleann leze men st. 17, regel 3: fa
minie iadsan re Cian.nbsp;(Ériu, I, p. 100).

De naam Suibne is niet van Noorse oorsprong, maar een
tegenhanger van Duibne, Ogham: Dovvinias.

Ten onrechte vermeldt Dinneen's Irish Dictionary een werk-
woord taraim bij de imperatief tar.

sproken, zoals blijkt uit de O.N. spelHng: Dungaör (Donnchadh),
Margaör (Murchadh) (Cf. T. 0'Maille, The Language of thé
Annals of Ulster, p. 128).

De Oud-Ierse korte e voor niet-palatale medeklinker, als in
jer. die in het Schots Gaehc zijn oorspronkelijke klank heeft
behouden, was in het Iers reeds in de 10de eeuw een tweeklank
(in het Oud-Noors gespeld ja), waaruit zich de moderne uit-
spraak a ontwikkelde.

Een juist begrip van het Ierse werkwoord is verbiedt bij dit
werkwoord onderscheid te maken tussen logisch en grammatisch
predikaat.

De naam Qoicogini in een Ogham-inscriptie betekent: als
vijfde geboren (Scottish Gaehc Studies, I, p. 11).

Het woord bard is door de Europese talen via het Engels aan
het Gaelisch of Welsh ontleend, niet aan laat-Latijn bardus.

Mommsen's beschrijvmg van het karakter der Kelten (in
boek II van zijn Römische Geschichte) kan de toets der kritiek
niet doorstaan.

De door Thomas O'Rahilly (Proc. Brit. Ac. 1935) voorgestelde
identificatie van de Goidelen met de Helvetiërs is onaanvaard-

baar, o.a. omdat de volksverhuizing van de Helvetiërs onmoge-
lijk die omvang gehad kan hebben die uit Caesar's bericht zou
blijken (Vgl. Delbrück, Geschichte der Kriegskunst, I, p. 487 sq.).

Vita Oswaldi in J. Capgrave's Nova Legenda Anglie is ge-
compileerd uit Beda, Hist. Eccl. en Reginald van Durham. Aan
de eerstgenoemde is ontleend het gebed van den koning tijdens
de slag (Cf. Etudes celtiques, I. p. 241).

Ten onrechte zegt Japikse (Handboek, p. 505) naar aanleiding
van het confhct in 1650: 'Vl^illem II had in hoofdzaak gewonnen'.

Uit Bismarck's Gedanken und Erinnerungen (II, p. 52) blijkt
dat hij, in tegenstelling met de bewering van Erich Mareks (Otto
von Bismarck, ein Lebensbild, p. 114), na 1866 een oorlog met
Frankrijk voor onvermijdelijk hield.

A. Roland Hoist's inleiding bij zijn dichterlijke bewerking van
'De Zeevaart van Bran' geeft geen juiste indruk van het karakter
van deze Ierse sage.

In het 11de vertoog van Justus van Effen's HoUandsche
Spectator (2de druk, dl. I, p. 112), in de passage 'dat zy my met
hair van de trappen zouden slepen', heeft 'met hair' de betekenis
'bij het haar'.

Een vruchtbare beoefening der geesteswetenschappen is on-
mogelijk onder een regime, dat de waarde der menselijke per-
soonlijkheid niet erkent.

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