Literatures & Arts In This Period
Above : Brehon Laws (Inzet : St. Patrick)
The oldest Gaelic MSS. that we have, date from this period. They, however, are not literature, but are in the form of ” glosses.” These were not written in Ireland, but in the numerous monasteries established by Irish missionaries in Britain and Europe. They consist of notes and vocabularies written on existing Latin and other texts. The difficult words and passages in the original texts were translated or explained in Gaelic on the margins, or between the lines. These ” glosses ” are in the oldest form of Gaelic known, and many of them would be unintelligible were it not that their meaning is found from the original text which they themselves translate. They are preserved in the principal libraries of Europe, and they formed the materials upon which the German scholar Zeuss (a.d. i 806-1856) founded his famous ” Grammatica Celtica.”
It is from this period, nevertheless, that our earliest literature dates. The originals have been lost, and the oldest copies are those made in subsequent years, and found in the various ” Books” or great collections of MSS. transcribed from existing documents. But there is no reason to doubt that these pieces were composed in this period, and that the copies which have been preserved correctly attribute their authorship to the specified writers whom they name and who lived in this time.
Most of the «arly literature is, as might be expected, of a religious nature and consists, to a great extent, of lives of various saints. The oldest piece is the famous ” Lorica,” or ” Faedh Fiadha,” or ” Cry of the Deer,” said to have been composed by St. Patrick and chanted by him and his attendants in their progress from Slane to Tara (page 36). Next come the ” Life of St. Patrick,” attributed to his disciple, St. Fiach of Sletty, and the ” Tripartite Life ” of the Apostle, attributed to St. Eimhin of Monasterevan—but both of these are now supposed to be of later date. Besides the numerous Lives of Saints then written, we have the ” Voyages ” of St. Brendan of Clonfert, and the ” Visions ” of St. Fursa, composed respectively in the middle of the sixth and the middle of the seventh centuries, both of which are said to have formed the basis of Dante’s ” Inferno.”
The early Irish saints, however, did not confine their poetry to religious subjects. Many poems composed by St. Colmchille, St. Columbanus, St. Gall, and other saints, are devoted to secular topics. There were also writers of the time who do not figure amongst the saints. Most prominent of these was a bard called Dalian Forgaill, who wrote in a cryptic form of Gaelic, used only by the bards and called the ” Berla Feni.” It was this bard who was the champion of his order at the Convention of Druimceat {page 50).
At this time also were composed, in the form in which they have come down to us, works which give us the earliest information of the political constitution and laws of ancient Ireland. The original form of ” teatt^ i\& S-CeAfC,” or the ” Book of Rights ” {page 26) is traditionally, and with good authority, attributed to St. Benignus, the disciple and immediate successor of St. Patrick, who died A.D. 468. No modern nation of Europe can boast of such an ancient and detailed account of its early political system.
About the same time was compiled the ” Seancur tTlon,” which, with the ” Book of Aicill” (also added to at the same time), forms the compilation which is known as the ” Brehon Laws.” In this, too, Benignus had a part, for he was one of a commission of nine— three kings, three clerics, and three poets—appointed by St. Patrick to revise the ancient laws and to adapt them to Christianity. The result of the labours of that commission was the text which, together with the numerous commentaries noted on later copies of it, formed the Seanchus M6r, upon which the Brehons of Eire based their decisions down to the seventeenth century.
In the sixth century was originally written the “Dinnseanchus,” which gives in verse the fabulous origins of a great number of Irish place-names.
Apart from specific works like the preceding, those early centuries were fruitful in literary productions, the exact origins or authors of which cannot be identified. It was at this time, it is believed, that the great mass of ” Saga ” literature was thrown into its present form, and the numerous romantic stories of heroic adventure, expeditions, fights and chases were first written down. Then, too, the ” Tain B6 ” , and the other stories of the ” Red Branch ” first took literary shape.
The ” Fenian ” stories, however, are said to be of later date.
