Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/319

Rh CELTIC LITERATURE 307 The knowledge of writing does not necessarily involve tiie entire supplanting of tradition by written narrative. Many Asiatic nations who possess alphabets from olden time nevertheless still transmit their history by oral tradition. The account which we have given of the organization and method of instruction of the poets clearly shows that in early times genealogies, laws, history, tales, itc., were trans mitted orally, or, as was said, &quot;from mouth and tongue.&quot; This should always be borne in mind when discussing the antiquity or genuineness of poems, prose tales, or histories. Here it may be well to remark that verse is a better vehicle for the oral transmission of knowledge than prose. Besides being more difficult to remember than verse, prose offers greater facility, not to say inducements, to introduce new matter by way of explanation or commentary, or to fuse legends of different kinds. Hence laws were transmitted in verse, and wherever we have a legend embodied in verse, it will be found to be both more archaic and purer than when in prose. The use of prose seems to indicate the passage from oral to written tradition. Another point which should be kept in view in judging of such literatures as those of Ireland and of Wales, is that after the traditions of a country have been committed to writing the different kinds of knowledge will not be transmitted in equal purity or preserve thsir original form and language equally. Every fresh copy of an account of a battle, a legend, or a life of a saint, or of a narrative or description, would follow the change in the spoken language, and to some extent in the acces sories of the picture, such as dress, arms, &c. ; in other words it would be a new and popular edition made intelligible to all. On the other hand, the exact words of a law or decision are important and would be sure to be copied without other changes than what the carelessness or ignorance of the scribe would produce. As vellum was dear and not easily pro cured everywhere the words were written close together and contractions were used, especially for the terminations j here was a fertile source of error and of the corruption of grammatical forms by ignorant and careless scribes. The most cursory examination of Irish manuscripts will illustrate the preceding remarks. In the same manuscript may be found pieces which differ in language by centuries. If the manuscript contain law-tracts, or pieces on subjects not of common or popular interest, they will be found written in obsolete language, and generally noted with explanatory glosses or commentaries. The language of the tales and popular poems on the other hand will represent exactly the period of the compilation of the manuscript ; and yet they may have been originally composed long before the law. We need not dwell on the first category of Irish literature further than to observe that Irish scribes seem to have had a special liking for glossing, and that if all the existing glossaries, old and new, were added together we should have at least 30,000 words besides those in printed dictionaries, a richness of vocabulary unequalled perhaps by any living language. Among the old glossaries we may mention that attributed to Cormac Mac Cuilenndin, king and bishop of Cashel, who was killed in 903, as an early attempt at com parative etymology, the author referring to Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Norse, and British. Many of these derivations are no doubt wrong, but as an early attempt it is curious. The earliest copy of this glossary is to be found in the Book of Leinster. compiled in the first half of the 12th century, but though some articles may have been added, there is no reason to doubt that it was the work of Cormac. As grammar formed an important subject of the course of Filidecht we might expect to find many treatises on it in Irish manuscripts. Several are mentioned, but they appear to be lost. There is, however, one deserving of much attention, written perhaps in the 9th or 10th ceotury ; the oldest copies now known, however, are those in the Books of Ballymote and of Lecan, manuscripts compiled towards the end of the 13th century. Annals form a notable element in Irish literature, Annals, but we can do little more than mention a few of the more important compilations. During the llth century attempts were made to synchronize Irish events with those of other countries. Of these may be mentioned the synchronisms of Flann of Monasterboyee, already mentioned. But the most notable attempt to synchronize events is that made by Tigkernach O Braoin, abbot of Clonmacnoise, who died in 1088. Tiyhernack in his Annals displays considerable scholarship, and for the time fair critical power. He was probably the first to intro duce the common era into Irish annals. The oldest copy, and unfortunately only a fragment, is in a manuscript of the 12th century in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, nor can a perfect copy be made out of the six or seven other copies which are known. The Annals called by most writers since the times of Usher and Ware the Annals of Ulster, but more correctly the Annals of Senat Mic Maghnusa, or Mac Manus, compiled or copied by Cathal Maguire iu 1498, in an island in Upper Lough Erne called Senat Mic Maghnusa, and continued in some copies to 1604, are of special importance, because the book contains notices of comets, eclipses, and other natural phenomena, which appear to have been recorded by eye witnesses, as is proved by the day and hour of the eclipse of the sun on 1st May 664 being correctly recorded, while Bede, who records the same eclipse post-dates it, as the result of calculation, by two days, as does the Saxon Chronicle also. Tighemach, like the Annals of Ulster, gives the right date. This fact shows that both Tighernach and the compiler of the Annals of Ulster must have had access to contemporary documents, at least as old as the middle of the 7th century. But the most extensive though the latest-compiled Annals is the collection called by Father John Colgan, editor of the Acta Sanctorum Hibernice, the Annals of the Four Masters, the chief of whom was Michael O Clery, a Franciscan friar, who, after collecting materials from the then existing Irish manuscripts, com menced in 1632, amidst the ruins of the convent of his order in Donegal, the compilation of this very remarkable monument, and in four years completed it. The Annals of the Four Masters extend from fabulous antiquity to 1616. Down to the 4th century the entries are little more than lists of kings, but thenceforward they become fuller and more trustworthy. The political and social organization of Ireland, and Pedigrees, especially the custom of gavel-kind, made pedigrees and genealogies matters of great importance. The Irish gene alogies are usually carried up to Noah, and include on the way many eponyms and even divinities. The Biblical portion may be easily removed without detriment to the Irish part ; but it is not so easy to say where the legendary and the true touch. Within the historical period the pedigrees and genealogies afford great help in historical inquiry, though it should not be forgotten that a Sai was quite as capable of inventing a pedigree as any modern herald. Topography may be said to be the complement Topo- of pedigrees, and like the latter was of great use to Irish graphy. families, and was accordingly, as we have already pointed out, well attended to. Of this kind of literature the most curious and valuable example is the tract called the Dinnsenchas, said to have been compiled at Tara by a Sai, named Amergin Mac Amalgaidh, or Macauley, about the year 550. This work, the oldest copy of which is in the Book of Leinster, gives an account of the legendary origin of several places of note, and thus preservefa invalu able mythological materials.