Page:The Gael Vol XXII January to December 1903.djvu/318

October, 1903. was, almost without a doubt, the cause of their forming an alliance with the Danes, and fighting on their side at the battle of Clontarf, for they probably thought that if Brian Boramha became too powerful he would reimpose the tribute.

The story of the Leinster Tribute in the Book of Leinster, or Book of Glendaloch, as it is sometimes called, is regarded by Mr. Whitley Stokes as one of the greatest historical romances in literature, and he has said as much in his translation of it in the "Revue Celtique." There is also a version of the Tribute in the Book of Lecan, a manuscript compiled in the latter part of the fourteenth century, or nearly three hundred years after the Book of Leinster.

A transcription of the following poem may be seen in "Silva Gaedlica," but the transscription in it differs considerably from the text in the Book of Leinster from which it was taken: