The Poem-Book of the Gael. Various
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may look to find a style unspoiled by imitation, and a sentiment moving because it is perfectly sincere. It is thus that such poems as "Donall Oge" or the "Roísin Dubh" or "My Grief on the Sea" come into existence.
Where the outward distractions of life are few, the grave monotony of sea and moor and bog-land, the swirl of cloud and mist, and the loneliness of waste places sink more deeply into the mind. The visible is less felt than the invisible, and life is surrounded by a network of fears and dreams to which the town-dweller is a stranger. To-day, in the Western Isles of Ireland and Scotland, the huntsman going out to hunt, the fisherman to fish or lay his nets, the agriculturist to sow or reap his harvest, and the weaver or spinner to wind his yarn, go forth to their work with some familiar charm-prayer or charm-hymn, often beautifully called "the Blessings," on their lips. The milkmaid calling her cows or churning her butter, the young girl fearful of the evil-eye, and the cottager sweeping up her hearth in the evening, laying herself down to sleep at night, or rising up in the morning, soothe their fears or smooth their way by some whispered paider or ortha, a prayer or a verse or a blessing. The deep religious feeling of the Celtic mind, with its far-stretching hands groping towards the mysterious and the infinite, comes out in these spontaneous and simple [Pg xxxvii] ejaculations; I have therefore endeavoured to bring together a few others to add to the groups gathered by Dr. Hyde in the west of Ireland and by Dr. Carmichael in the Western Hebrides; but in their original Gaelic they are the fruit of others' collections, not of my own.[8] They are the thoughts of such humble people as the poor farm-servant who "had so many things to do from dark to dark" that she had no time for long prayers, and knew only a little prayer taught her by her mother, which laid "our caring and our keeping and our saving on the Sacred Trinity."
I desire to inscribe here my sincere gratitude to the living authors and authoresses who have kindly given me permission to use their work, and my gratitude to those authors who have gone, that they have left us so much good work to use. Especially I desire to thank my friends, Mr. Alfred Perceval Graves and Mr. Ernest Rhys, for permitting the use of unpublished poems.
Many friends have given a ready helping hand in elucidating difficult words and phrases, and it is a pleasant task to thank them here. Dr. D. Hyde, Rev. Michael Sheehan, Rev. P.S. Dinneen, Mr. Tadhg O'Donoghue, Mr. R. Flower, Miss Hayes, especially, have always readily come to my assistance; to Miss Eleanor Knott I am indebted for valuable help in the translation of the "Saltair na Rann," and to Dr. R. Thurneysen for suggesting some readings in this difficult poem.
I gratefully acknowledge permission accorded to me by the following publishing houses to include poems or extracts from books published by them:—
[Pg xxxviii]
Messrs. Constable & Co., Ancient Irish Poetry, by Professor Kuno Meyer. T. Fisher Unwin, Bards of the Gael and Gall, by Dr. George Sigerson, F.N.U.I. Maunsel & Co., Irish Poems, by Alfred Perceval Graves; Sea-Spray, by T. W. Rolleston; The Gilly of Christ, by Seosamh mac Cathmhaoil. David Nutt, Heroic Romances of Ireland, by A. H. Leahy. Herbert & Daniel, Eyes of Youth, for a poem by Padraic Colum. Sealy, Bryers and Walker, Lays of the Western Gael, by Sir Samuel Ferguson; Irish Nóinins, by P. J. McCall. H. M. Gill & Son, Irish Fireside Songs and Pulse of the Bards, by P. J. McCall. Williams & Norgate, Silva Gadelica, by Standish Hayes O'Grady. Chatto & Windus, Legends, Charms, and Cures of Ireland, by Lady Wilde.
I also desire to acknowledge the courtesy of His Majesty's Stationery Department in permitting the use of drawings taken from initial letters in Sir John T. Gilbert's Facsimiles of Irish National MSS. Others of the initial letters used in the book are drawn from the Book of Lindisfarne and other Celtic manuscripts in the British Museum. I have to thank the Librarian of the Bodleian Library for permitting the reproduction of the photograph of the initial lines from the "Saltair na Rann" as a frontispiece to the book.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Printed in Skene's Celtic Scotland, iii. Appen. 2, p. 410, from a seventeenth century copy belonging to William Hennessy, compared with the copy in the Book of Fermoy.
[2] Duanaire Finn, edited by John MacNeill, pp. 34, 134 (Irish Texts Society, 1904).
[3] For this poem see Duanaire Finn, edited by John MacNeill (Irish Texts Society, 1904), pp. 21, 118.
[4] O'Grady's Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in the British Museum, p. 451.
[5] Dr. Kuno Meyer's Ancient Irish Poetry (Constable, 1911), p. 9.
[6] Ancient Irish Poetry, p. 19.
[7] King and Hermit (1901); Liadan and Curithir (1902); Four Songs of Summer and Winter (1903); all published by D. Nutt.
[8] Chiefly of Dr. Michael Sheehan's collections in Co. Waterford, and those made by Mr. Fionan M'Collum and others in West Kerry (see Notes).
THE SALTAIR NA RANN, OR PSALTER
OF THE VERSES
The Saltair na Rann, or Psalter of the Verses, so-called because it is divided into 150 poems in imitation of the Psalms of David, is undoubtedly the most important religious poem of early Ireland. It may justly be regarded as the Irish Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, for it opens with an account of the Creation of the Universe, the founding of Heaven and Hell, the fall of Lucifer, the creation of the Earthly Paradise and of man, the temptation and fall and the penance of Adam and Eve. After this it sketches the Old Testament History, leading up to the birth and life of Christ and closing with His death and resurrection. Though in general it follows the Bible narrative, it is peculiarly Irish in tone, and its additions and variations are of the greatest interest to students of mediæval religious literature. The conception of the universe in the first poem, with its ideas of the seven heavens, the coloured and fettered winds, and the sun passing through the opening windows of the twelve divisions of the heavens, is curious; the earth, enclosed in the surrounding firmament, "like a shell around an egg," being regarded as the centre of the universe.
In the portions which relate the life of Adam and Eve, the author evidently had before him the Latin version of the widely known Vita Adae et Euae, which he follows closely, introducing from it several Latin words into his text; but even here the colouring is purely Irish. The poem is ascribed to Oengus the Culdee, who lived early in the ninth century; but its language is later, probably the end of the tenth century.
In 1883 Dr. Whitley Stokes published[9] the text from the only existing complete copy, that contained in the Bodleian MS. Rawl. B. 502, but no part of it has hitherto been published in English. The present translation of the sections dealing with the Creation and with the life of Adam and Eve is purely tentative; the poem presents great difficulties, and we suffer from the lack of a second copy with which to compare it.[10] Miss Eleanor Knott has read the translations and has helped me with many difficulties; and I had the advantage of reading parts of the poem in class with Dr. Kuno Meyer. For the errors which the translation must undoubtedly contain, I am myself, however, alone responsible.
FOOTNOTES: