Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/477

The Bodleian Dinnshenchas.

(Rawl. B. 506, ff. 11^a 1—15^a 2.)

IN nomine^[1] Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti amen sosis. Sencas dinn erinn dorigni Aimirgin mac Amal[ga]dha, fili dona Deissib .I. fili Diarmata meic Cerbaill. Is e dorat algais for Fintan mac Bocra hi Temair dia mbae mordail fer nErinn hi Temair im Diarmait mac Cerbaill J im Flann Febla mac Scann- lain comarpa Patraic J im Cennfaelad mac Ailella meic Eogain meic Neill J im Finntan mac Bochrai amm ardsenoir Erenn, J coro throsc teora laithi J teora aithche for Finntan hi fiadhnaisi fer nErenn sceo macu J ingena hi Temair, co ndeicsed do senchasa fira dind insi hErind, fodeig rola cach duine J cach dine di o aimsir Cessrai na hingine do Grecaib Sceia — is i cetna rogab Erinn — co flathius Diarmata meic Cerbaill. Unde poeta dixit, Cuan .I. ua Lochan :

Temair, taillti, tir n-oenaig.

^[2]

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, amen, this below.

The story of the noteworthy steads of Ireland, which Amirgin MacAulay, a poet of the Dési, to wit, the poet of Diarmait, son of Cerball, composed.

He it is who made demand of Fintan, son of Bochra, at Tara, when there was a great gathering of the folk of Erin round Diarmait, son of Cerball, and Flann Febla, son of Scannlan, Saint Patrick's successor, and Cennfaelad, son of Ailill, son of Eogan, son of Níall, and Fintan, son of Bochra, the chief elder of Ireland. And Amirgin fasted on Fintan for three days and three nights in the presence of the men of Erin, both boys and girls, at Tara, so that Fintan might declare to him the true stories of the noteworthy steads of the Island of Erin, since he, Fintan, had dismissed (?) every person and every tribe from it from the time of Cessair, the maiden, of the Greeks of Scythia — she was the first that occupied Ireland — to the reign of Diarmait, son of Cerball. Hence said the poet, Cuan Ua Lochan,

"Tara, Teltown, land of the assembly," etc.

Also in BB. 349 a, and R. 90 a I.
As to the Dési, see Topogr. Poems, ed. O'Donovan, p. lxii, note 528.
Diarmait mac Cerbaill was king of Ireland from A.D. 539 to 558, and as Flann Febla, bishop of Armagh, died A.D. 704, they could not have been contemporaries.
As to Cennfaelad, see O'Curry's Lectures, pp. 47-49.
Fintan, son of Bochra, fabled to have survived the Deluge, and died in the seventh century after Christ.
Cessair, said to have been a granddaughter of Noah, and to have died A.M. 2242. See O'Mahony's Keating, pp. 106, 107. Her connexion with the "Greeks of Scythia" is unexplained.
Cuan O'Lochain died A.D. 1024.

1. MS. oimne.
2. I omit twenty stanzas, chiefly composed of stupid strings of place-names, and having no relation to any existing copy of the Dinnshenchas.