MOB Online – Colwell Hopper

I had begun to write a series of novels about Salisbury. (I’m still working on it.) One of the characters was an archaeologist with an interest in Roman Britain.

I wanted him to know more than you’d find in the usual history books. He had to be an expert who could quote all the original information written by ancient Romans at the time.

I assumed there would be a reference web page, but I could find nothing.

All the information was on the internet of course, but spread across hundreds of sites, and it took some finding. That’s when I thought of collecting it together myself and putting it all in date order on my own web site http://edwinhopper.com.

This collection proved useful to historians and students round the world with about 20 downloads a day. An early version is held on the Oxford University woruldhord web site at

http://poppy.nsms.ox.ac.uk/woruldhord/contributions/120

and several other sites like Yampu have distributed their own copies.

I have only included material about Britain before 650 AD. After this date, the Victoria County Histories cover local areas in much more detail.

I have not written or translated any of the contents.

I have merely tracked down documents freely available on the internet and extracted and edited parts that refer to Britain and the surrounding territories. The bibliography contains all the authors and translators who did the real work and the web sites where I found them.

Forward to the on-line edition

I intended collecting all primary written sources together in date order. This would give a clear narrative of events in Roman and Dark Age Britain. Of course, I failed.

There are no real primary sources. For centuries everything was re-copied, translated, and glossed over.

Then there were my subjective decisions on which versions to use. What religious discussion or Roman political intrigue would I leave out to save space?

I have put in the secondary source works of Sabine Baring-Gould, (SBG) because I could find little else. Worse, I have edited and cut his work to a more succinct length.

And what was Britain? I am part Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish. So, I include Ireland, but many do not. Then what about Brittany? Northern Gaul? Germany? Surely events there affected Britain?

Thus, my original clear narrative became a heap of odd facts in rough date order.

I invite you to make the best of it.

Colwell Hopper

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND LINKS

Please contact ed@edwinhopper.com; if you have any suggestions or complaints.

General sites about the period include the following,

Early British kingdoms at

http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/index.html

Eternal Idol at

http://www.eternalidol.com/

The History Files at

http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/MainFeaturesIndex.htm

Vortigern Studies at

http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/vortigernhomepage.htm

Roman Britain Organisation at

http://www.roman-britain.org/

Roman Britain at

http://www.romanbritain.freeserve.co.uk/

BBC History at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/

English Heritage at

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/

Welsh heritage at

http://www.cadw.wales.gov.uk/

National Museum Scotland at

http://www.nms.ac.uk/our_museums/national_museum.aspx

British History at

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/

And many, many others.

I chose to leave out the Ravenna Cosmography and the Antonine Itineries since they are basically lists of place names and the distances between them rather than a record of events.

The British section of the Antonine Itinery can be found at-

http://www.roman-britain.org/antonine-itinerary.htm

The Ravenna Cosmography can be found at several sites including-

http://www.roman-britain.org/frontiers/hw_ravenna.htm

and

http://www.kmatthews.org.uk/Ravenna_Cosmography/index.html

With reluctance, I have left out the wonderful History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffery of Monmouth. Many people, much more learned than I, have condemned it as a work of fiction. And it would have added hundreds more pages to an already over long document.

But his work is available at several sites including-

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/gem/index.htm

http://www.caerleon.net/history/geoffrey/

www.yorku.ca/inpar/geoffrey_thompson.pdf

http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/sources/authorshton.shtml

THERE FOLLOWS AN ALPHABETICAL LIST OF THE ANCIENT AUTHORS I HAVE USED, WITH THEIR TRANSLATORS AND PUBLISHERS.

Acta Concilii Arelatensis.

From ALF Rivet & Colin Smith, Place Names of Roman Britain ISBN 0713420774

Adomnán of Iona.

The Life of Columba, William Reeves Funded by University College, Cork and Professor Marianne McDonald via the CELT Project CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork College Road, Cork, Ireland ― http://www.ucc.ie/celt Distributed by CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland. Text ID Number: T201040

http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T201040/index.html

Homilies of Aelfric of Eynsham.

Translated by Benjamin Thorpe for the Aelfric Society London 1846 downloaded from the University of Toronto at

http://www.archive.org/stream/sermonescatholic02aelfuoft/sermonescatholic02aelfuoft_djvu.txt

Pseudo-Agathemerus.

From ALF Rivet & Colin Smith, Place Names of Roman Britain ISBN 0713420774

Ahmad ibn Fadlan.

James E. Montgomery. Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies CONTENTS Volume III, 2000

http://www.uib.no/jais/content3.htm

King Alfred.

The Anglo-Saxon version from the historian Orosius by Aelfred the Great. Translated into modern English by Daines Barrington, London 1773. from

http://books.google.com/books?id=aT0JAAAAQAAJ

Ammianus Marcellinus.

From

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Ammian/home.html

Aneurin.

The Gododin The Project Gutenberg EBook of Y Gododin, by Aneurin

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/gddn10.txt

The Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

Ingram, James, translator. London: Everyman Press, 1912. Available at several sites including-

http://ww.gutenburg.org/etext/657

and

http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/asintro2.html

and

http://omacl.org/anglo/

Annales Cambriae.

From, Medieval Sourcebook: The Annales Cambriae 447-954 (The Annals of Wales)

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/annalescambriae.html

Annals of Clonmacnoise.

Translated in 1627 by Conell Macgeoghagen, from the Internet Archive University of Toronto.

http://www.archive.org/stream/annalsofclonmacn00royauoft/annalsofclonmacn00royauoft_djvu.txt

Annals of the Four Masters.

Compiled by Emma Ryan. Funded by University College, Cork and Seoirse Ó Luasa, An Caifé Liteartha, An Daingean, who donated a copy of the Annals of the Four Masters to the CELT Project.

ftp://ftp.ucc.ie/pub/celt/texts/T100005A.txt

Annals of Inisfallen.

Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: T100004. compiled by Beatrix Färber. Funded by University College, Cork and Professor Marianne McDonald via the CELT Project. First draft, revised and corrected. Proof corrections by Pádraig Bambury, Stephen Beechinor, Julianne Nyhan

http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T100004/index.html

Annals of Ulster.

Compiled by Pádraig Bambury, Stephen Beechinor. Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition

ftp://ftp.ucc.ie/pub/celt/texts/T100001A.txt

St. Aristobulus.

[IrishCatholicChurch] [celt-saints] 16 March Celtic and Old English Saints 6 March

http://www.mail-archive.com/irishcatholicchurch@yahoogroups.com/msg00111.html

Pseudo Aristotle.

Text ed DJ Furley, London & Cambridge Mass, 1955 From ALF Rivet & Collin Smith, Place names of Roman Britain, Cambridge 1979.

Dialogue of Arthur and Eliwlod.

From Jes. 3, a 16th century manuscript, Norris J. Lacy holds it to be a much older poem than that. It originally appeared in Britannia After the Romans, by Algernon Herbert. Henry Bohn Co., 1836. at-

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/eagle.html

Arthur and Kaledvwlch.

Llanstephan MS 201. From Davies, J.H. “Arthur a Kaledvwlch: a Welsh Version of the Birth of Arthur (From a Fifteenth Century M.S., with Translation).” Y Cymmrodor: Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion. v. 24. London: Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1913. at

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/kaledvwlch.html

Athanasius.

Under the editorial supervision of Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Church History in the Union Theological Semimary, New York, and Henry Wace, D.D., Principal of King’s College, London Published in 1892 by Philip Schaff, New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co.

http://www.mb-soft.com/believe/txuc/athana38.htm

St Augustine.

The City of God.Translated by Marcus Dods. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 2. Edited by Philip Schaff. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120115.htm;

Ausonius.

Partly from From ALF Rivet & Collin Smith, Place names of Roman Britain, Cambridge 1979. Text ed DJ Furley, London & Cambridge Mass, 1955. Partly from The Loeb Classical Library edited by B Capps, TE Page, WHD Rouse.

http://www.archive.org/stream/ausonius00ausogoog/ausonius00ausogoog_djvu.txt

Avienius.

From A. Schulten, Barcelona and Berlin 1922. and Geographi Graeci Minores, ed K Muller 1861, reprinted Hildesheim 1965, shown in ALF Rivet & Collin Smith, Place names of Roman Britain, Cambridge 1979.

Baptista Egnatius.

Transcribed by Roger Pearse, Ipswich, UK, 2002.

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/zosimus01_book1.htm

St Basil of Caesarea.

From Christian Classics Ethereal Library at

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf208.viii.i.html

The Battle of Airtech.

From The Great Book of Lecan with additions from H.3.18, T.C.D. In Best, R.I. “The Battle of Airtech”. Eiru. at-

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/airtech.html

Bede.

Ecclesiastical History of England. Revised, translated by AM Sellar 1907. Sacred texts web site

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/bede/hist006.htm

Bede.

The Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, translator not clearly indicated (But it seems to be L.C. Jane’s 1903 Temple Classics translation), introduction by Vida D. Scudder, (London: J.M. Dent; New York E.P. Dutton, 1910)

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/bede-book1.html

Bede.

The Life of the Holy Confessor Saint Felix translated by J.A Giles at

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Life_of_the_Holy_Confessor_Saint_Felix

The Book of Invasions.

Lebor Gabála Érenn: Book of the Taking of Ireland Part 1. ed. and tr. by R. A. S. Macalister. Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1941. This teext was originally downloaded from,

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/lebor1.htm

The Boyhood Deeds of Finn mac Cumhaill.

Laud 610. Ancient Irish Tales. ed. and trans. by Tom P. Cross & Clark Harris Slover. NY: Henry Holt & Co., 1936 at

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/f02.html

St Brendan.

The Celtic Christianity e-Library Text [translation]: Nauigatio sancti Brendani abbatis [the Voyage of St Brendan the Abbot] Source: Edition by Archbishop P. F. Moran Translator: Denis O’Donoghue Published: D. O’Donoghue, Brendaniana Date of Translation: 1893 This text scanned by: Jonathan M. Wooding (29/4/2003)

http://www.lamp.ac.uk/celtic/Nsb.htm

St Bridget.

Bethu Brigte. Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: T201002 BETHU BRIGTE compiled by Elisabeth Janney Funded by University College, Cork and Professor Marianne McDonald via the CELT Project CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork College Road, Cork, Ireland (2001) Distributed by CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland. Text ID Number: T201002

http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T201002/index.html

Caesar.

The Gallic Wars Translated by W. A. McDevitte and W. S. Bohn

From http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.html

Caradoc of Llancarfan.

The Life of St Gildas. Translated by David Parsons in 2004 from the web site of Street Parish Church in Church Road, Street Somerset. http://www.streetandwalton.co.uk/church/gildas.php

Also at

Caradoc of Llangarfan.

Two Lives of Gildas by a monk of Ruys and Caradoc of Llancarfan.. Medieval Sourcebook: translated by Hugh Williams in the Cymmrodorion Record Series, 1899. Facsimilie reprint by Llanerch Publishers, Felinfach, 1990. This text has been prepared for the internet by M Ziegler 2000 and P Halsall March 4 2001 as part of the website Early Medieval Resources for Britain, Ireland and Brittany

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/1150-Caradoc-LifeofGildas

Titus Lucretius Carus.

Translated by William Ellery Leonard from http://www.gutenberg.org/files/785/785.txt

Cassiodorus.

The Letters of Cassiodorus Variae Epistolae Of Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator Translated by Thomas Hodgkin The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Letters of Cassiodorus,

www.gutenberg.org

Cassius Dio.

From Ed Thayer at

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/7*.html

Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

An Historical Narrative Originally Composed in Greek During the Reigns of Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus and Alexander Severus Translated by HB Foster. From Project Gutenberg

www.gutenberg.org

(Ed. These two Cassius Dios may be the same historian and the name Cocceianus may be a Byzantine copyists mistake?)

C Valerius Catulus.

The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus, by Caius Valerius Catullus Now first completely Englished into Verse and Prose, the Metrical Part by Capt.Sir Richard F. Burton, R.C.M.G., F.R.G.S., etc., etc., etc., and the Prose Portion, Introduction, and Notes Explanatoryand Illustrative by Leonard C. Smithers LONDON: MDCCCXCIIII: PRINTED FOR THE TRANSLATORS: IN ONE VOLUME: FOR PRIVATE SUBSCRIBERS ONLYfrom

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20732/20732.txt

A more modern version from http://.rudy.negenborn.net/catullus/text2/e11.htm

The Cause of the Battle of Cnucha.

Ancient Irish Tales. ed. and trans. by Tom P. Cross & Clark Harris Slover. NY: Henry Holt & Co., 1936 at

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/f01.html

Colloquy with the ancients.

Translated by Standish Hayes O’Grady

In parentheses Publications, Medieval Irish Series. Cambridge Ontario 1999

Chronica Gallia.

The Gallic Chroniclers of 452 and 511 (AD 452 and 511) Robert Vermaat VortigernStudies is copyright © Robert Vermaat, 1999-2007. All rights reservedThe Gallic Chroniclers of 452 and 511 is Copyright © 2002, Robert Vermaat. All rights reserved.

http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/artsou/chron452.htm

Cicero.

From, The Letters of Cicero, athttp://www.gutenberg.org/files/21200/21200.txt

and

Cicero.

From Tusculan Disputations, at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14988/14988.txt

Claudian.

(Claudius Claudianus). From Ireland and the Classical World By Philip Freeman, at Google Books

St. Columban:

Boat Songin Brian Tierney, The Middle Ages, Volume I: Sources of Medieval History, 5th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992), p. 72 [with no copyright information give] From Medieval Sourcebook: at

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/columban1.html

Constantine.

The Epistle of the Emperor Constantine, Translated by DD Schaff. from

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/203/2030030.htm

Cronicum Scotorum.

Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: T100016

Chronicon Scotorum: Author: Gearóid Mac Niocaill and William M. Hennessy from. ftp://ftp.ucc.ie/pub/celt/texts/T100016.txt

ftp://ftp.ucc.ie/pub/celt/texts

Elegy to Cynddylan.

From, Williams, Mary. “An Early Ritual Poem in Welsh.” Speculum vol. 13 no. 1. January 1938. pp 38-51. at

http://www.kmatthews.org.uk/history/marwnad_cynddylan/dyhedd.html

Cynegeticon of Grattius Faliscus.

Published in the Loeb Classical Library, 1935 From Ed Thayer Lacus Curtius at

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Grattius/Cynegeticon*.html

Death of Duran ap Arthur.

From Mostyn 131, p.770. 15th century. Welsh given in Evans’ Reports on Manuscripts in the Welsh Language, vol. I, p. 95.

Early Welsh Saga Poetry: a Study and Edition of the Englynion. by J. Rowland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. pp.250-1.

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/duran.html#english

The Death of Maelgwn Gwynedd.

Panton MS. 51: Evan Evan’s copy of Robert Vaughan’s notes to Trioedd Ynys Prydein in NLW MS.7857D. translated by Rachel Bromwich in Trioedd Ynys Prydein. Cardiff: UWP, 1963. pp. 438-439. at

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/maelgwn.html

St. Declan of Ardmore.

Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: T201020 Life of St. Declan of Ardmore Patrick Power donated by Dennis McCarthy (Atlanta, Georgia, USA) Funded by University College, Cork and Professor Marianne McDonald via the CELT Project 1. First draft, revised and corrected. Extent of text: 16288 words

Publication CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork College Road, Cork, Ireland ― http://www.ucc.ie/celt (2003) Distributed by CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland. Text ID Number: T201020

http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T201020/index.html

and

LIFE OF ST. DECLAN OF ARDMORE.

(Edited from MS. in Bibliotheque Royale, Brussels), http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11168/11168.txt

Destruction of Dind Ríg.

Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: T302012A The Destruction of Dind Ríg Translated by Whitley Stokes compiled by Benjamin Hazard Funded by University College, Cork and The Higher Education Authority via the LDT Project Publication CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork College Road, Cork, Ireland — http://www.ucc.ie/celt (2004) Distributed by CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland. Text ID Number: T302012A http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T302012A/index.html

Dialogue of Arthur and Eliwlod.

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/eagle.html

The Dialogue of Melwas and Gwenhyfer.

From Mary Williams, “An Early Ritual Poem in Welsh.” Speculum vol. 13 no. 1. January 1938. pp 38-51.In Celtic Literature Collective, at-

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/melwas.html

Dicuili.

Liber de Mensura Orbis Terrae, available in Latin at Lacus Curtius –

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Dicuil/De_mensura_orbis_terrae/text*.html

The translation I show is from Wikipedia at-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Faroe_Islands

Dindshenchas.

The Metrical Dindshenchas Author: unknown] ed. by Edward Gwynn Electronic edition compiled by Beatrix Färber, Saorla Ó Corráin Funded by University College, Cork and The Connacht Project, the Centre for the Study of Human Settlement and Political Change, NUI Galway and the HEA via the LDT Project Publication CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork College Road, Cork, Ireland ― http://www.ucc.ie/celt (2004) Distributed by CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland. Text ID Number: T106500A http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T106500A/index.html

Diodorus Siculus.

Library of History Book XIV from Ed Thayer athttp://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/2A*.htm

Dioysius Periegetes.

Geographi Graeci Minores. Text from K Muller Paris 1861, reprinted by Hildesheim 1965. shown in ALF Rivet & Collin Smith, Place names of Roman Britain, Cambridge 1979.

Dream of Macsen Wledig.

Breuddwyd Macsen Wledig. Translated by G & T Jones 1949, Everyman. From Robert Dafydd Cadwalader – October/Hydref 1997 on

http://freespace.virgin.net/r.cadwalader/macsen.htm

Elegy to Cynddylan.

From, Williams, Mary. “An Early Ritual Poem in Welsh.” Speculum vol. 13 no. 1. January 1938. pp 38-51. at

http://www.kmatthews.org.uk/history/marwnad_cynddylan/dyhedd.html

Emperors dates from Edward Gibbon. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. (Abridged by D.M.Low) Washington Square Press. 1962

Erik the Red.

The Saga of Erik the Red. 1880, English, transl. J. Sephton, from the original ‘Eiríks saga rauða’.. TheIcelandic Saga Database at:-

http://sagadb.org/eriks_saga_rauda.en

The Wooing of Etain.

From the Yellow Book of Lecan inHeroic Romances of Ireland, Volume II ed. and trans. A.H. Leahy. London: David Nutt, 1906. at

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/etain.html

Eusebius.

Caesariensis De Vita Consnantini Eusebius Pamphilus of Caesarea

the life of the blessed Emperor Constantine. The Bagster translation, revised by Ernest Cushing Richardson, Ph.D., Librarian and Associate Professor in Hartford Theological Seminary. © Paul Halsall May 1997 halsall@murray.fordham.edu

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/vita-constantine.html

Eusebius.

Church History Translated by Arthur Cushman McGiffert. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 1. Edited by Philip Schaff. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1890.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2501.htm

Eutropius.

Abridgement of Roman History translated, with notes, by the Rev. John Selby Watson. London: Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Convent Garden (1853).

http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/eutropius/trans1.html

Evagrius.

St. Simeon Stylites From: William Stearns Davis, ed., Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources, 2 Vols. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1912-13), Vol. II: Rome and the West, pp. 348-349.Scanned in and modernized by Dr. Jerome S. Arkenberg, Dept. of History, Cal. State Fullerton.This text is part of the Internet Medieval Source Book. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts related to medieval and Byzantine history. Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use. © Paul Halsall June 1998halsall@murray.fordham.edu

Evagrius,

Ecclesiastical History, I.13: From: William Stearns Davis, ed., Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources, (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1912-13), Vol. II: , pp. 348-349. Scanned, modernized by Dr. Jerome S. Arkenberg, Dept. of History, Cal. State Fullerton. at . http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html

Excerpta Valesiana.

Latin text is that of the Loeb edition, 1939; which in turn appears to be that of Mommsen, Chronica Minora I, 1885: If the URL has none the item is © Bill Thayer.at

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Excerpta_Valesiana/home.html

Expositio Totius Mundi at Gentium.

From ALF Rivet & Collin Smith, Place names of Roman Britain, Cambridge 1979. Text Geographi Latini Monores, ed A. Riese, berlin, 1978. repr Hildesheim 1964.

The First Battle of Mag Tuired.

Cét-chath Maige Tuired (“The First Battle of Mag Tuired”) or Cath Maighe Tuireadh Cunga (“The Battle of Mag Tuired at Cong” Translated by Fraser, J. “The First Battle of Moytura.” Ériu v.8 (1915), at

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/1maghtured.html

Four Ancient Books of Wales.

Containing the Cymric Poems attributed to the Bards of The Sixth Century translated by William F Skene 1868.Scanned at sacred-texts.com, March 2003. John Bruno Hare, redactor. This text is in the public domain. These files may be used for any non-commercial purpose, provided this notice of attribution is left intact.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/fab/index.htm

Gennadiu of Massilia.

Christian Classics Ethereal Library a select library of the nicene and post-nicene fathers of the christian church. second series translated into English with prolegomena and explanatory notes. volumes i–vii. under the editorial supervision of Philip Schaff, d.d., ll.d., professor of church history in the Union Theological Seminary, New York. and Henry Wace, d.d., principal of King’s College, London. volume iii Theodoret, Jerome, Gennadius, and Rufinus: historical writings t&t Clark Edinburgh wm. b. Eerdmans publishing company Grand Rapids, Michigan

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf203.toc.html

Gerald of Wales.

Geraldus Cambrensis. The Journey Through Wales and The Description of Wales. Translated by Lewis Thorpe. Penguin Books, England, 1978.

Also, the following:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1223gerald-arthurtomb.html

©1994, translated by Scott McLetchie. Permission granted for non-commercial educational use. Specifically allowed are copies for course packets. For any other printed use (including use by university presses), contact Scott McLetchie. Do not duplicate this etext file on other sites. (Ed, I’m not doing all of it.)

http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/margam.html

Translation of Gerald of Wales by Lewis Thorpe http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/coggeshl.html

Etext prepared by David Price, ccx074@coventry.ac.uk, from the 1912 J. M. Dent edition. At

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1148/pg1148.txt

Gildas.

Gildas Sapiens.

On The Ruin of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae) by Gildas

Translation by J.A. Giles. Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/otrob10.txt

Gododin.

The Gododin. Project Gutenberg EBook of Y Gododin, by Aneurin

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/gddn10.txt

Grattius Faliscus.

Cynegeticon published in the Loeb Classical Library, 1935 from Lacus Curtius at

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Grattius/Cynegeticon*.html

Saint Gurthiern.

The text of the Vita sancta Gurthierni This translation into English by Karen Jankulak, Director, MA in Arthurian Studies, Department of Welsh University of Wales, Lampeter. From the published edition of the Latin text which was corrected by Le Duc, available on Robert Vermaat’s site at:-

http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/artsou/gurtex.htm

Herodian of Antioch.

Transcribed by Roger Pearse, Ipswich, UK, 2007.

Translated from the Greek by Edward C. Echols

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/index.htm#Herodian_Roman_Histories

Herodotus.

Translated by George Rawlinson Provided by The Internet Classics Archive at http://classics.mit.edu//Herodotus/history.html

http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.html

Historia Augusta.

The Text on LacusCurtius

From the Loeb Classical Library edition. The Latin text is that of Susan H. Ballou (thru Avidius Cassius), then that of Hermann Peter (from Commodus on). The English translation is by David Magie.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/home.html

Horace.

From Projest Gutenberg, translated by By C. Smart, A.M. Of Pembroke College, Cambridge Revised by Theodore Alois Buckley B.A. Of Christ Church. Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed ProofreadingTeam at

http://www.gutenberg.net/1/4/0/2/14020/

Julius Honorius.

Cosmographia From ALF Rivet & Collin Smith, Place names of Roman Britain, Cambridge 1979. Text A Riese Berlin 1878, reprinted Hildesheim 1964

How Maelgwn Became King.

Miscellanous law texts. Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales, Vol. II. ed. and trans. Aneurin Owen. 1848. pp 48-51. at

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/maelgwn2.html#english

Íslendingabók, Libellus Islandorum

The Book of Icelanders Íslendingabók, Libellus Islandorum by Ari Þorgilsson from

ttp://en.wikisource.org/wiki/%C3%8Dslendingab%C3%B3k

Ahmad ibn Fadlan.

James E. Montgomery. Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah.

Journal of Arabic and IslamicStudiesCONTENTSVolume III, 2000

http://www.uib.no/jais/content3.htm

The Book of Invasions.

Lebor Gabála Érenn: Book of the Taking of Ireland Part 1. ed. and tr. by R. A. S. Macalister. Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1941. This text was originally downloaded from

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/lebor1.htm

Saint Isidor of Seville.

(Isidorus Hispalensis) In ALF Rivet & Collin Smith, Place names of Roman Britain, Cambridge 1979.

Saint Jerome.

Translated by the hon. w. h. fremantle, M.A., Canon of Canterbury Cathedral and Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford, with the assistance of the rev. G. Lewis, M.A., Of Balliol College, Oxford, Vicar of Dodderhill near Droitwick, and The rev. w. g. martley, M.A., Of Balliol College, Oxford. A select library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene fathers of the christian church. at

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf203.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf203.vi.xii.i.i.html

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf206.toc.html

St Jerome.

Also from Ireland and the Classical World by Philip Freeman, at Google Books.

Josephus.

The Jewish War, translated by GA Williamson, Penguin Books, England, 1959.

Flavius Claudius Julianus,

known also as

Julian or Julian the Apostate

From ALF Rivet & Collin Smith, Place names of Roman Britain, Cambridge 1979.

text from FC Hertlein Leipzig 1875 ed WC wright London & New York 1923.

Julius Caesar.

The Gallic Wars Translated by W. A. McDevitte and W. S. Bohn.

From http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.html

Juvenal.

Translated by G. G. Ramsay.

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/juvenal_satires_00_eintro.htm

Landnama-Book.

The Book of Settlements in Origines Islandicae; a collection of the more important sagas and other native writings relating to the settlement and early history of Iceland. Edited and translated by Gudbrand Vigfusson and F. York Powell. Oxford at the Clarendon Press. Printed by Horace Hart, M.A. Date unknown. Found in the library of the University of California, Los Angeles at,

http://www.archive.org/stream/originesislandic01guiala/originesislandic01guiala_djvu.txt

Libellus Islandorum.

Edited and translated by Gudbrand Vigfusson and F. York Powell. Oxford at the Clarendon Press. Printed by Horace Hart, M.A. Date unknown. Found in the library of the University of California, Los Angeles at,

http://www.archive.org/stream/originesislandic01guiala/originesislandic01guiala_djvu.txt

Liber Britannicus.

The Irish version of the Historia Britonum of Nennius funded by University College, Cork and Professor Marianne McDonald via the CELT Project Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition Background details and bibliographic information

http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/T100028.html

Liber Hymnorum.

Translations, notes, and glossary, by J. H. Bernard and R. Atkinson published by Henry Bradshaw Society London 1898. From Digital Library of Cornel University Ithaca, New York at

http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=cdl;idno=cdl074

Liber Pontificalis.

Perhaps started by Saint Jerome between 382 and 420 AD. Edited by James T Shotwell Ph.D Professor of History, Columbia University 1916 at

http://www.archive.org/stream/bookofpopesliber00loom/bookofpopesliber00loom_djvu.txt

Llywarch Hen.

The Battle of Llongborth, (The Elegy for Geraint.) from sacred texts at

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/fab/fab025.htm

Lucan.

(Marcus Annaeus Lucanus) Project Gutenberg’s Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars, by Lucan Produced by Douglas B. Killings This electronic edition was edited, proofed, and prepared by Douglas B. Killings (DeTroyes@AOL.COM), May 1996.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/602/602.txt

Lucretius.

On the Nature of Things Translated by William Ellery Leonard Provided by The Internet Classics Archive.

http://classics.mit.edu//Carus/nature_things.html

How Maelgwn Became King.

Miscellanous law texts. Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales, Vol. II. ed. and trans. Aneurin Owen. 1848. pp 48-51. at

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/maelgwn2.html#english

The Death of Maelgwn Gwynedd.

Panton MS. 51: Evan Evan’s copy of Robert Vaughan’s notes to Trioedd Ynys Prydein in NLW MS.7857D. translated by Rachel Bromwich in Trioedd Ynys Prydein. Cardiff: UWP, 1963. pp. 438-439. at

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/maelgwn.html

Mananan Mack Clere.

From Insula de Man AD 1573 in Lansd. Mss. In Manx Soc vol IV,VII & IX from

http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/manxsoc/msvol04/v1p084.htm

Marcian.

Of Heraclea (Marcianus Heracleensis)

From ALF Rivet & Collin Smith, Place names of Roman Britain, Cambridge 1979. Text K Muller, Paris 1861, reprinted Hildesheim 1965.

Margham Abbey Chronicle.

At http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/margam.html

Martial.

Bohn’s Classical Library (1897) transcribed by Roger Pearse, Ipswich, UK, 2008.

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/index.htm#Martial_Epigrams

More risqué translations of Martial are made by Joseph S Salemi at

Artful Dodge Magazine, Department of English, The College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio 44691

http://www.wooster.edu/artfuldodge/introductions/1819/salemi.htm#ix

Martial.

On Claudia Rufina. from Tertulian project at

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/martial_epigrams_book11.htm

The Dialogue of Melwas and Gwenhyfer.

From Mary Williams, “An Early Ritual Poem in Welsh.” Speculum vol. 13 no. 1. January 1938. pp 38-51. In Celtic Literature Collective, at-

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/melwas.html

Minucius Felix.

The Octavius of Minucius Felixs translated by Robert Donaldson

from

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/octavius.html

St. Mochuda of Lismore.

Edited from MS. in the Library of Royal Irish Academy. With Introduction, Translation, and Notes, by Rev. P. Power, M.R.I.A.,University College, Cork.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11168/11168.txt

Nennius.

Project Gutenberg’s History Of The Britons (Historia Brittonum)

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1972/1972.txt

Nennius:

Historia Brittonum, 8th century Medieval Sourcebook:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/nennius-full.html

Nemesianus.

Marcus Aurelius Olympius Nemesianus. The Latin texts and their English translations by J. Wight Duff and Arnold M. Duff, as well as the Introduction, are those found in Volume II of the Loeb Classical Library’s Minor Latin Poets,

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Nemesianus/home.html

Nomina Provinciarum Omnium.

Laterculus Veronensis. From ALF Rivet & Collin Smith, Place names of Roman Britain, Cambridge 1979. Text from Geographi Latini Minores, ed A. Riese, Berlin 1878. Hildesheim 1964

The Notitia Dignitatum.

From William Fairley, Notitia Dignitatum or Register of Dignitaries, in Translations and Reprints from Original Sources of European History, Vol. VI:4 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. This text is part of the Internet Medieval Source Book. © Paul Halsall, November 1998

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/notitiadignitatum.html

Latin text from http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/notitia1.html

With English place names from ALF Rivet & Collin Smith, Place names of Roman Britain, Cambridge 1979.

Olympiodorus of Thebes.

Priscus at the court of Attila

Translation by J.B. Bury (Priscus, fr. 8 in Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum)

Oppian of Cilicia.

The Cynegetica. Full text of “Oppian, Colluthus, Tryphiodorus, with an English translation by A.W. Mair” The Loeb classical library edited by T E Page,

Ovid.

Project Gutenberg’s The Metamorphoses of Ovid, by Publius Ovidius Naso

Translator: Henry Thomas Riley.Produced by Louise Hope, Ted Garvin and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Ovid

The Love Books of Ovid Translated by J. Lewis May [1930]

http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/ovid/lboo/index.htm

Panagyric on Constantius Caesar.

From Ireland and the Classical World, by Philip Freeman, at Google Books

The Panegyric of Conn’s son Cormac and the Death of Finn son of Cumhall.

Ilva Gadelica. ed. and trans. Standish Hayes O’Grady. 1892. reprint: NY: C. Lemma Publishing Corporation, 1970. at

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/panegyriccormac.html

Panegyric of Maximian.

In Praise of Later Roman Emperors. By C.E.V Nixon and Barbara Saylor Rogers

1993 Published by the University of California

St. Patrick.

Life of St. Patrick (Leabhar Breac). Translated by Whitley Stokes compiled by Ruth Murphy Funded by University College, Cork and Professor Marianne McDonald via the CELT Project Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork College Road, Cork, Ireland

http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T201009/index.html

Pausanius.

Description of Greece, trans. by W.H.S. Jones.

Classical e-text at

http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias8C.html

Pelagius.

Letter to Demetrias. (Epistola ad Demetriadem, Epistle to Demetrias) From The Letters of Pelagius, edited by Robert Van de Wever. Robert Van de Weyer Published by Little Giddings Books. Copied from http://thechurchofjesuschrist.us/2010/09/letter-of-pelagius-to-demetrias-385/

Pliny.

Plinius Secundas, Natural History.

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plin.+Nat.+toc

Plutarch.

De Mulierum Virtutibus as published in Vol.III of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1931 From Ed Thayer Lacus Curtius at http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Bravery_of_women*/home.html

Plutarch’s Lives.

Translated from the Greek with_notes and a life of Plutarch_.

by Aubrey Stewart, M.A.,_Late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge_,and the late George Long, M.A.,_Formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge_,.

www.gutenberg.org

Plutarch.

Moralia Ed Thayer Lacus Curttius The Obsolescence of Oracles

From Loeb classic library 1936

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/home.html

Pomponius Mela.

From ALF Rivet & Collin Smith, Place names of Roman Britain, Cambridge 1979. Text G Ranstrand Goteborg, 1971

Polybius.

Polybius histories book III chapter 57 Loeb Classical Library edition, 1922 thru 1927 from http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/3*.html

Popes.

Dates from from the Catholic Encyclopaedia at

http://www.newadvent.org/cathe/

Procopius.

With an English Translation by H. B. Dewing History of the Wars, In Seven Volumes. London William Heinemann Ltd Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard University Press. MCMLXXI First Printed 1916

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16765/16765.txt

And

ALF Rivet & Collin Smith, Place names of Roman Britain, Cambridge 1979. Text from J Haury & G Wirth, Leizig 1914, reprinted 1962-3

And

Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittia)

Prosper of Aquitaine.

Edited by Johannes Quasten, S.T.D. Professor of Ancient Church History

and Christian Archaeology JOSEPH C. PLUMPE, PH. D. Professor of Patristic Greek and Ecclesiastical Latin The Catholic University of America Washington, D. C.

http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/artsou/prosp.htm

Prudentius.

(Aurelius Clemens Prudentius). From Ireland and the Classical World By Philip Freeman, at Google Books

Pseudo-Agathemerus.

From ALF Rivet & Colin Smith, Place Names of Roman Britain ISBN 0713420774

Pseudo Aristotle.

From ALF Rivet & Collin Smith, Place names of Roman Britain, Cambridge 1979.Text ed DJ Furley, London & Cambridge Mass, 1955

Ptolemy.

Transcribed by E Thayer from a transcript of a Dover edition, first published in1991, itself an unabridged republication of a public domain work, originally published in1932 by The New York Public Library, N.Y. and English translation by Frank Egleston Robbins in the Loeb Classical Library, 1 volume, Greek text and facing English translation: Harvard University Press, 1940. at

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Periods/Roman/_Texts/Ptolemy/home.html

(Ed) I have inserted (in brackets) the modern place names from ALF Rivet & Collin Smith, Place names of Roman Britain, Cambridge 1979.

The First Age, from Adam to the Flood.

NENNIUS

The first age of the world is from Adam to Noah; the second from Noah to Abraham; the third from Abraham to David; the fourth from David to Daniel; the fifth to John the Baptist; the sixth from John to the judgement, when our Lord Jesus Christ will come to judge the living and the dead, and the world by fire.

Cronicum Scotorum

The First Age of the world contains 1656 years according to the Hebrews, but 2242 according to the Seventy Interpreters; all which perished in the Deluge, in the same manner that oblivion is wont to swallow up infancy. Ten generations. Thus do the Gaedhel express the number of this age:—

Six years, fifty, and six hundred, as I reckon,

A great thousand I count from Adam to the Flood.

Anno Mundi 1599. A.M. 1599 In this year the daughter of one of the Greeks came to Hibernia, whose name was Eriu, or Berba, or Cesar, and fifty maidens, and three men, with her. Ladhra was their conductor, who was the first that was buried in Hibernia. This the antiquaries of the Scoti do not relate.

Annals of Clonmacnoise.

ADAM in the 130 yeare of his age Begatt Seth, and after- wards Adam Liued 800 yeares & in all he lived 930 yeares. Seth in the 105 th yeare of his age Begatt Enos, and lived afterwards 137 yeares. Enos in the Qo th yeare of his adge Begatt Cainan and liued after his Birth 815 yeares. Cainan in the yo th yeare of his age Begatt Malalle and lived himself after 840 yeares. Malalele in the 65 th yeare of his age Begatt Jareth and lived after 830 yeares. Jareth in the 62 nd yeare of his adge begatt Enoche and lived after 800 yeares. Enoche in the 65th yeare of his age Begatt Methusalem, after whose Byrth He Waked with God. Methusalem in the age of 187 yeares Begatt Lamech and lived himself after 782 yeares. Lamech in the yeare of his age 182 Begat Noeh and lived after 595 yeares.

This yeare of Lamech’s age came the woman called Cesarea or Keassar accompanied onely with three men and 50 Women to this Land which was the first habitacon of Ireland, though others say this land was first Discovered and found by three fisher men who were sayleing in these parts of the world, and Because they made no Residence in the Land I will make no mention of them. The 3 men that came with the said Keassar were called Layerie, Bethe, and Fintan. Leyerre after 7 years continuance in the Land Dyed, and was the first that ever Dyed in Ireland of whome Ardleyren (where he died and was entered) tooke the name. Beth Dyed at the mount called Sliew Beth. Fintan survived and was Drowned where the Generall flood did overtake him. Keassar Died at Keassra 1 in Connaught and soe every of the 50 women were Drowned where each of them was ouertaken as my Author Eochy O’Flannigan Reporteth, whoe giueth no credit to that ffabulous tale of many that giue out that fintan Lived in Ireland before the fflood, shunned himselfe from the violence thereof In a cave at Lochdeirke untill the flood was past and then after lived in the Kingdom for many Hundred years, is a thing contrary to Holy Scripture sayeth that all the world was Drowned in the Generall fflood saueing Noech and his 3 sonnes Sam, Cham, and Japhett with their 4 wives.

Dindshenchas SLIAB BETHA

I behold the grave of a stranger from afar, the monument of a leader, crowned with sad splendour, whose name, bright in lustre, was Bith son of Noah, vast of vigour. Forty days by tale before the doleful Deluge, to Erin came the shortlived swarm, a multitude, a numbered array. Hither came Bith, skilled in battle, marching before his noble wives: five and twenty wives, by firm bond, made up his family. As for Bith, the chieftain’s time was short; shaking seized him and sore sickness: his own wives dug a grave on the mountain for his burial. From him, high above the planets’ path, is named Sliab Betha, the wild bulls’ home; the body of the corsair, who lived not long, lies yet under the cairn thou seest. O Christ, unshaken, above all coasts, that didst not abandon Bith eternally, be mine no sadness in thy dwelling yonder, when I have told of each thing I see!

Liber Britannicus.

The Britons at first filled the whole island with their children, from the sea of Icht to the sea of Orck, both with glory and excellency.

Now after the deluge the world was divided into three parts; between the three sons of Noe, viz.: Eoraip, Affraic, and Asia. Sem was in Asia; Cam in Affraic; Jafeth in Eoraip. The first man of the race of Jafeth that came into Eoraip at the beginning was Alanius, with his three sons; viz.: Isacon, Gothus or Armion, and Negua. Isacon had four sons, Francus, Romanus, Britus, Albanus. Now Armion had five sons, Gotas, Uilegotas, Cebetus, Burgandus, Longobardus. Negua had three sons, Vandalus, Saxo, Boarus. It is from Saxo, son of Negua, that the Saxons are descended; but it is from Britus the Britons come. He is the son of Isacon, the son of Alanius, the son of Fethuir, the son of Ogaman, the son of Tai, son of Boidhbh, son of Semoibh, son of Athacht, son of Aoth, son of Abar, son of Raa, son of Asra, son of Iobaith, son of Ioban, son of Japeth, son of Noe, son of Laimiach. Thus it is recorded in the histories of Britain.

Furthermore, it is related in the Annals of the Romans, that Aenias the son of Anacis arrived in Italy after the destruction of Troy, and took to wife Lavina the daughter of Ladin, son of Pan, son of Pic, son of Saturn, &c. After having slain Turn, and after the death of Ladin the king, Aenias took the kingdom of Ladianda; and the city of Alba Longa was founded by Ascan, son of Aenias, and he married a wife, and she bore him a son, viz. Silvius, shortly after. Silvius afterwards married a wife, and she became pregnant, and it was told to Ascan that his son’s wife was pregnant; and he sent a messenger to his son to say that he would send his Druid to give an opinion on his wife, to know whether it was a son, or whether it was a daughter she was about to bring forth. The Druid went, and after his return the Druid said to Ascan, that it was a son that was in her womb; and said that he would be powerful, and that he would kill his father and his mother, and that he would be hated by all. In fact, his mother died in giving him birth. He received a name, viz. Britus, and afterwards he was nursed.

Now Britus was the son of Silvius, son of Ascan, son of Aenias, son of Anacis, son of Caipen, son of Essarc, son of Tros, son of Airic, son of Idus, son of Dardain, son of Jove, son of Sardain, son of Ceil, son of Polloir, son of Zororastres, son of Mesraim, son of Cam (filii maledicti ridentis patrem), son of Noe. Moreover, Tros, son of Airictondus, had two sons; viz., Ilium Ilus and Asarcus; it was by him i. e. by Ilus was founded Ilium, i. e. Troy he had a son, Laimidoin, the father of Priam. Assarc, moreover, was the father of Capen, Capen was the father of Anacis, Anacis the father of Aenias, Aenias the father of Ascan, the grandfather of Britan exosus, i. e. of Britan the abhorred. It was in this way that our noble elder Guanach deduced the pedigree of the Britons, from the Chronicles of the Romans.

After many years subsequently, according to the prophecy of the Druid, it happened to Britus to be shooting arrows in presence of the king, i. e. his father, and an arrow from him pierced the temple of the king, and the king died immediately there, i. e. his own father and afterwards he was driven out of Italy, to the islands of the Torrian, Mediterranean Sea, and the Greeks expelled him out of the Islands in revenge for Turn, who had been killed by Aenias. After this he came to France, and Torinis was founded by him, and he was not suffered to remain there, but came afterwards into the island of Britain, where he took possession of the kingdom, and the island was named from him, and became full of his children and his descendants. And thus, was it first peopled, according to the Romans.

From the conquest of Britus to the conquest of the Picts in the islands of Orc, were nine hundred years, and they took the northern third part of the island of Britain by force from the Britons, and they dwell there unto this day.

Afterwards the Gaels took the same division occupied by the Picts; and they made a treaty with the Picts against the Britains.

Annals of the four masters

2952 BCE. Forty days before the Deluge, Ceasair came to Ireland with fifty girls and three men; Bith, Ladhra, and Fintain, their names. Ladhra died at Ard Ladhrann, and from him it is named. He was the first that died in Ireland. Bith died at Sliabh Beatha, and was interred in the carn of Sliabh Beatha, and from him the mountain is named. Ceasair died at Cuil Ceasra, in Connaught, and was interred in Carn Ceasra. From Fintan is named Feart Fintain, over Loch Deirgdheirc.

From the Deluge until Parthalon took possession of Ireland 278 years; and the age of the world when he arrived in it, 2520.

The age of the world when Parthalon came into Ireland, 2520 years. These were the chieftains who were with him: Slainge, Laighlinne, and Rudhraidhe, his three sons; Dealgnat, Nerbha, Ciochbha, and Cerbnad, their four wives.

2667 BCE. Fea, son of Torton, son of Sru, died this year at Magh Fea, and was interred at Dolrai Maighe Fea; so that it was from him that the plain is named.

The Second Age, After the Flood.

Cronicum Scotorum

The Second Age of the world begins, which contains 292 years, that is

according to the Hebrews, as the poet says: —

From the Flood to Abraham, who was happily born,

Two full, prosperous years, ninety and two hundred;

but according to the lxx. Interpreters, 940 years.

Anno Mundi 1859. A.M.1859 Ten years after that to the demolition of the Tower. Nine years after that to Fenius. In this year Fenius composed the language of the Gaeidhel from seventy-two languages, and subsequently committed it to Gaeidhel, son of Agnoman, viz., in the tenth year after the destruction of Nimrod’s Tower.

The Book of Invasions

Magog, son of Iafeth, of his progeny are the peoples who came to Ireland before the Gaedil: to wit Partholan s. Sera s. Sru s. Esru s. Bimbend (sic) s. Magog s. Iafeth; and Nemed s. Agnomain s. Pamp s. Tat s. Sera s. Sru; and the progeny of Nemed, the Gaileoin, Fir Domnann, Fir Bolg and Tuatha De Danann. As the poet said, Magog son if Iafeth there is cerainty of his progeny; of them was Parthalon of Banba –decorous was his achievement. Of them was noble Nemed son of Agnomain, unique; of them were Gand and Genand, Sengand, free Slaine. The numerous progeny of Elada, of them was Bres, no untruth: son of Elada expert in arms, son of Delbaeth son of Net. S. Inda, s. Allda -Allda who was s. Tat, s. Tabarn s. Enda, s. Baath, [son of] pleasant Ibath. s. Bethach s. Iardan s. Nemed grandson of Paimp: Pamp s. Tat s. Sera s. Sru s. white Braiment. Of Braiment s. Aithecht, s. Magog, great in reknown: there happened in their time a joint appearance against a Plain. Baath, one of the two sons of Ibath s. Gomer s. Iafeth, of him are the Gaedil and the people of Scythia. He had a son, the noble eminent man whose name was Feinus Farsaid.

It is he who was one of the seventy-two chieftains who went for the building of Nemrod’s Tower, whence the languages were dispersed. Howbeit, Nemrod himself was son of Cush s. Ham s. Noe. This is that Feinius aforesaid who brought the People’s Speech from the Tower: and it is he who had the great school, learning the multiplicity of languages.

Now Feinius had two sons: Nenual, [one of the two] whom he left in the princedom of Scythia behind him; Nel, the other son, at the Tower was he born. Now he was a master of all the languages; wherefore one came [to summon him] from pharao, in order to learn the multiplicity of languages from him. But Feinius came out of Asia to Scythia, whence he had gone for the building of the Tower; so that he died in the princedom of Scythia, at the end of forty years, and passed on the chieftainship to his son, Nenual.

At the end of forty-two years after the building of the Tower, Ninus son of Belus took the kingship of the world. For no other attempted to exercise authority over the peoples or to bring the multitude of nations under one had, and under tax and tribute, but he alone. Aforetime there had been chieftains; he who was noblest and most in favour in the community, he it was who was chief counsellor for every man: who should avert all injustice and further all justice. No attempt was made to invade or to dominate other nations.

Now that is the time when Gaedel Glas, [from whom are the Gaedil] was born, of Scota d. Pharao. From her are the Scots named, ut dictum est Feni are named from Feinius a meaning without secretiveness: Gaedil from comely Gaedel Glas, Scots from Scota. It is Gaedel Glas who fashioned the Gaelic language out of the seventy-two languages: there are their names, Bithynian, Scythian, etc. Under poeta cecinit The languages of the world, see for yourselves Bithynia, Scythia, Cilicia, Hyreania, Gothia, Graecia, Germania, Gallia with horror, Pentapolis, Phrygia, Palmatia, Dardania. Pamphylia, Mauretania, populous Lycaonia, Bacctria, Creta, Corsica, Cypros Thessalia, Cappadocia, noble Armenia, Raetia, Sicilia, Saracen-land, Sardinia. Belgia, Boeotia, Brittania, tuneful Rhodos, Hispania, Roma, Rhegini, Phoenicia, India, golden Arabia, Mygdonia, Mazaca, Macedonia. Parthia, Caria, Syria, Saxones, Athenae, Achaia, Albania, Hebraei, Arcadia, clear Galatia, Troas, Thessalia, Cyclades. Moesia, Media, Persida, Franci, Cyrene, Lacedaemonia, Langobardi, Thracia, Numidia, Hellas (?) — hear it! Lofty Italia, Ethipia, Egypt. That is the tally of languages without tarnish out of which Gaedel cut Gaedelic: known to me is their roll of understanding, the groups, the manifold languages.

Bede.

There are in the island at present, following the number of the books in which the Divine Law was written, five languages of different nations employed in the study and confession of the one self-same knowledge, which is of highest truth and true sublimity, to wit, English, British, Scottish, Pictish, and Latin, the last having become common to all by the study of the Scriptures. But at first this island had no other inhabitants but the Britons, from whom it derived its name, and who, coming over into Britain, as is reported, from Armorica. They possessed themselves of the southern parts thereof. Starting from the south, they had occupied the greater part of the island, when it happened, that the nation of the Picts, putting to sea from Scythia, as is reported, in a few ships of war, and being driven by the winds beyond the bounds of Britain, came to Ireland and landed on its northern shores. There, finding the nation of the Scots, they begged to be allowed to settle among them, but could not succeed in obtaining their request. Ireland is the largest island next to Britain, and lies to the west of it; but as it is shorter than Britain to the north, so, on the other hand, it runs out far beyond it to the south, over against the northern part of Spain, though a wide sea lies between them. The Picts then, as has been said, arriving in this island by sea, desired to have a place granted them in which they might settle. The Scots answered that the island could not contain them both; but “We can give you good counsel,” said they, “whereby you may know what to do; we know there is another island, not far from ours, to the eastward, which we often see at a distance, when the days are clear. If you will go thither, you can obtain settlements; or, if any should oppose you, we will help you.” The Picts, accordingly, sailing over into Britain, began to inhabit the northern parts thereof, for the Britons had possessed themselves of the southern. Now the Picts had no wives, and asked them of the Scots; who would not consent to grant them upon any other terms, than that when any question should arise, they should choose a king from the female royal race rather than from the male: which custom, as is well known, has been observed among the Picts to this day. In process of time, Britain, besides the Britons and the Picts, received a third nation, the Scots, who, migrating from Ireland under their leader, Reuda, either by fair means, or by force of arms, secured to themselves those settlements among the Picts which they still possess. From the name of their commander, they are to this day called Dalreudini; for, in their language, Dal signifies a part.

It (Ireland) is properly the country of the Scots, who, migrating from thence, as has been said, formed the third nation in Britain in addition to the Britons and the Picts.

Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

The island Britain is 800 miles long, and 200 miles broad. And there are in the island five nations; English, Welsh (or British), Scottish, Pictish, and Latin. The first inhabitants were the Britons, who came from Armenia, and first peopled Britain southward. Then happened it, that the Picts came south from Scythia, with long ships, not many; and, landing first in the northern part of Ireland, they told the Scots that they must dwell there. But they would not give them leave; for the Scots told them that they could not all dwell there together; “But,” said the Scots, “we can nevertheless give you advice. We know another island here to the east. There you may dwell, if you will; and whosoever withstandeth you, we will assist you, that you may gain it.” Then went the Picts and entered this land northward. Southward the Britons possessed it, as we before said. And the Picts obtained wives of the Scots, on condition that they chose their kings always on the female side; which they have continued to do, so long since. And it happened, in the run of years, that some party of Scots went from Ireland into Britain, and acquired some portion of this land. Their leader was called Reoda, from whom they are named Dalreodi (or Dalreathians).

2664 BCE The Third Age.

Cronicum Scotorum.

The Third Age commences, which contains 942 years, and it begins with the birth of Abraham, as the poet said:—

From that birth, without peril, to David, the faithful prince,

Forty-two years and nine hundred, certainly.

In the sixtieth year of the age of Abraham, Parrthalon arrived in Hibernia.This Parrthalon was the first who occupied Erinn after the Flood. On a Tuesday, the 14th of May, he arrived, his companions being eight in number, viz.: —four men and four women. They multiplied afterwards until they were in number 4,050 men and 1,000 women.

There were four plains cleared in Erinn by Parrthalon, viz.: —Magh Tuiredh, or Edara, in Connacht; and Magh Sere in Connacht; and Magh Ita in Laighen; and Magh Latrainn Dál Araidhe; and Lecmagh in Ui Mac Uais, between Bir and Camus.

Seven years after the occupation of Erinn by Parrthalon, the first man of his people died, viz.: Fea was his name. In Magh Fea he was buried; from him, therefore, it has been named.

There were seven lake eruptions through the land in the reign of Parrthalon, viz.: Loch Mesca, and Loch Decet, Loch Laighline, Loch Rudhraidhe, Loch Echtra, and the sea inundation of Brena, and Loch Con.

Three years afterwards occurred the first battle which Parrthalon gained, in the Slemains of Magh Itha, over the Fomorians, viz.: they were Demons, truly, in the guise of men, i.e. men with one hand and one leg each.

In the succeeding year died Slangia, the fourth chieftain of Erinn, who was interred by Parrthalon in Sliahh Slanga; hence from him the mountain has been named.

The year after Slanga’s death occurred the eruption of Loch Laighline, and his death; unde prius nominatur; (he was the fourth chieftain of Erinn; in digging his grave the lake burst forth); and the eruption of Loch Echtra, between Sliabh Modharn and Sliabh Fuaid. Twenty years afterwards occurred the eruption of Loch Rudraidhe, in Uladh.

In the same year the sea inundation of Brena broke over the land, so that it is the seventh lake; for Parrthalon found in Erinn before him but three lakes and ten rivers, viz.: Loch Luimnigh, Loch Fordremuin at Sliabh Mis, in Mumhan, and Finn Loch of Irrus Ui Fiachrach. The ten rivers, moreover, were, the Buas, between Dál Araidhe and Dál Riada, and the Ruirtech or River Liffe; and the Berbha of Laighen; and the Laoi in Mumhan; and the Samaoir, between Ui Fiachrach and Cinel Conaill; the Modharn, between Cinel Conaill and Cinel Eoghain; and the Finn and Banna in Uladh; the Muaidh and Sligech in Connacht.

Four years after the eruption of Brena, the death of Parrthalon took place. In Sen Magh Ealta he was buried. The reason, moreover, why that is called Sen Magh is because no tree ever grew there. Five hundred and two, or 402 years, as Eochaidh sang, Parrthalon’s people were in Erinn. The first plague that happened in Erinn after the Flood was the pestilence of Parrthalon’s people. It commenced on Monday, the 1st of May, and prevailed until the succeeding Sunday. From that plague of Parrthalon’s people the Tamhleachda of the men of Erinn are called. Erinn was waste for thirty years after the death of Parrthalon, until Nimhedh, son of Adhnoman (.uu.)1 came to Inbher Sgene. He occupied Erinn afterwards, as it is related in the Invasions of Erinn.

The Book of Invasions.

The Invasions of Cessair and of Partholon

Let us cease [at this point] from the stories of the Gaedil, that we may tell of the seven peoples who took Ireland before them. Cessair, d. Bith s. Noe took it, forty days before the Flood. Partholon s. Sera three hundred years after the Flood. Nemed s. Agnomain of the Greeks of Scythia, at the end of thirty years after Partholon. The Fir Bolg thereafter. The Fir Domnann thereafter. The Gailioin thereafter [al., along with them]. The Tuatha De Danann thereafter. [The sons of Mil thereafter as Fintan said]. Unde Fintan cecinit, Ireland–whatever is asked of me I know pleasantly. Every taking that took her from the beginning of the tuneful world. Cessair came from the East, the woman was daughter of Bith; with her fifty maidens, with her three men. Flood overtook Bith in his Mountain, it is no secret; Ladra in Ard Ladrand, Cessair in her Nook. But as for me, He buried me, the Son of God, above [the] company; He snatched the Flood from me above heavy Tul Tuinde.

I had a year under the Flood in strong Tul Tuinde; I found nothing for my sustenance, an unbroken sleep was best. I was in Ireland here, my journey was everlasting, till Partholon reached her, from the East, from the land of Greeks.

I was here in Ireland and Ireland was desert, till the son of Agnomain reached Nemed, brilliant his fashion.

The Fir Bolg and Fir Gailian came, it was long ago; the Fir Domnann came, they landed on a headland in the west.

Thereafter the Tuath De came, in their masses of fog, so that there was sustenance for me though it was a long lifetime.

The sons of Mil came from Spain, from the south, so that there was sustenance for me at their hands, though they were strong in battle.

A long life fell to my lot, I shall not conceal it; till Faith overtook me from the King of Heaven of clouds.

I am Fintan the white son of Bochna, I shall not conceal it; after the Flood, here I am a noble great sage.

Incipit de The Takings of Ireland. Thereafter Cessair daughter of Bith s. Noe took it, ut poeta dixit, forty days before the Flood.This is the reason for her coming, fleeing from the Flood: for Noe said unto them: Rise, said he [and go] to the western edge of the world; perchance the Flood may not reach it.

The crew of three ships arrived at Dun na mRarc in the territory of Corco Daibne. Two of the ships were wrecked. Cessair with the crew of her ship escaped, fifty women and three men: Bith s. Noe, of whom is Sliab Betha (named) – there was he buried, in the great stone-heap of Sliab Betha; Ladra the pilot, of whom is Ard Ladrand – he is the first dead man who went under the soil of Ireland; Fintan s. Bochra, of whom is “Fintan’s Grave” over Tul Tuinde. Cessair died in Cul Cessrach in Connachta, with her fifty maidens.

These are their names, ut Fintan cecinit A just division we shared between us, myself and Bith and bold Ladra; for peace and for reason was it done, in the matter of the fifty magnificent maidens. Seventeen women I took, including Cessair–Lot, Luam, Mall, Mar, Froechar, Femar, Faible, Foroll, Cipir, Torrian, Tamall, Tam, Abba, Alla, Baichne, Sille: That is the tale which we were there. Seventeen Bith took, with Bairrfhind, Sella, Della, Duib, Addeos, Fotra, Traige, Nera, Buana, Tamall, Tanna, Nathra, Leos, Fodarg, Rodarg, Dos, Clos:be it heard those were our people further. Sixteen thereafter with Ladra: Alba, Bona, Albor, Ail, Gothiam, German, Aithne, Inde, Rodarg, Rinne, Inchor, Ain, Irrand, Espa, Sine, Samoll: that was our fair company. None of the seed of Adam took Ireland before the Flood but those.

Now Ireland was waste [thereafter], for a space of three hundred years, [or three hundred and twelve, quod uerius est] till Partholon s. Sera s. Sru came to it. He is the first who took Ireland after the Flood, on a Tuesday, on the fourteenth of the moon, in Inber Scene: [for three times was Ireland taken in Inber Scene]. Of the progeny of Magog son of Iafeth was he, [ut dixi supra]: in the sixstieth year of the age of Abraham, Partholon took Ireland.

Four chieftains strong came Partholon: himself and Laiglinne his son, from whom is Loch Laighlinne in Ui mac Uais of Breg; Slanga and Rudraige, the two other sons of Partholon, from whom are Sliab Slanga and Loch Rudraige. When the grave of Rudraige was a-digging, the lake there burst forth over the land.

Seven years had Partholon in Ireland when the first man of his people died, to wit, Fea, from whom is Mag Fea; for there was he buried, in Mag Fea.

In the third year thereafter, the first battle of Ireland, which Partholon won in Slemna of Mag Itha against Cichol clapperlag of the Fomoraig. Men with single arms and single legs they were, who joined the battle with him.

There were seven lake bursts in Ireland in the time of Partholon: Loch Laighlinne in Ui mac Uais of Breg, Loch Cuan and Loch Rudraige in Ulaid, Loch Dechet and Loch Mese and Loch Con in Connachta, and Loch Echtra in Airgialla; for Partholon did not find more than three lakes and nine rivers in Ireland before him–Loch Fordremain in Sliab Mis of Mumu, Loch Lumnig on Tir Find, Loch Cera in Irrus; Aba Life, Lui, Muad, Slicech, Samer (upon which is Ess Ruaid), Find, Modorn, Buas, and Banna between Le and Elle. Four years before the death of Partholon, the burst of Brena over the land.

Four plains were cleared by Partholon in Ireland: Mag Itha in Laigen, Mag Tuired in Connachta, Mag Li in Ui mac Uais, Mag Ladrand in Dal nAraide. For Partholon found not more than one plain in Ireland before him, the Old Plain [of Elta] of Edar. this is why it is called the “Old Plain” for never did branch of twig of a wood grow through it.

And it is there that Partholon died, five thousand men and four thousand women, of a week’s plague on the kalends of May. On a Monday plauge killed them all except one man tantum–Tuan son of Starn son of Sera nephew of Partholon: and God fashioned him in many forms, and that man survived alone from the time of Partholon to the time of Findian and of Colum Cille. So he narrated to them the Takings of Ireland from the time of Cessair, the first who took, to that time. And that is Tuan son of Cairell son of Muiredach Muinderg. Of him the history-sage sang the following song–

Ye scholars of the Plain of fair, white Conn, of the land of the men of Fal, as I relate, what company, after the creation of the world, first lighted upon Ireland? Ireland before the swift Flood, as I reckon her courses, knowing, pure-white kemps found her, including Cessair daughter of Bith. Bith son of Noe of the many troops, though he overcame with a trench-achievement, he died in warlike Sliab Betha; Ladra died in Ard Ladrann. Fintain went on a journey of weakness, his grave was found, it was a leap of impetuosity; he was not in haste into the trench of a churchyeard, but a grave over Tul Tuinde.To Dun Nam Barc for a separation-festival faring without scale of reckoning brought them; at the stone-heap, beside a fruitful sea Cessair died in Cul Cessrach.

Forty days full-scanty the slender and graceful troop arrived in their ship, before the noise of the Flood they landed on a place of the land of Ireland. He rose on a journey for truth deciding by the might of the King whom he used to adore; Fintan, who was a man with tidings for lords, for mighty ones of the earth. Three hundred years, I boast of it, I speak through the rules which I reckon, pleasant Ireland, I proclaim it against the soothsayers was waste, after the Flood. Partholon the eminent came, a royal course across an oar-beaten sea: his quartet of heroes, fair and faithful among them was the free-born Slanga.

Slanga, Laiglinne the brilliant, boardlike, noble and strong was his canoe; these were his ready trio of chieftains, along with the lordly Rudraige. Plains were cleared of their great wood, by him, to get near to his dear children; Mag Itha southward, a hill of victory-head, Mag Li of ashes, Lag Lathraind.

Seven lake-bursts, though ye measure them, with renown of name, though ye should set them forth they filled, amid the fetter of valleys, insular Ireland in his time. Loch Laiglinne, bold Loch Cuan, the Loch of Rudraige, (he was) a lord without law-giving, Loch Techet, Loch Oese abounding in mead, Loch Cou, Loch Echtra full of swans.

Over Ireland of beauty of colour, as I relate every foundation on the fortress of Bith he found not more than three lakes before him. Three lakes, vast and tideless (?) and nine rivers full of beauty: Loch Fordremain, Loch Luimnig, Findloch over the borders of Irrus. The river of Life, the Lee let us mention, which every druid humms who knows diana senga; the history of the old rivers of Ireland has demonstrated the true height of the Flood. Muad, Slicech, Samer, thou dost name it, Buas, a flood with the fame-likeness of a summit, Modorn, Find with fashion of a sword-blade (?) Banna between Lee and Eille. He died after pride, with warriors, Partholon, of the hundredfold troop: they were cut down with possessions, with treasures, on the Old Plain of Elta of Edar. This is why it is the forutnate Old Plain It is God the fashioner who caused it: over its land which the sea-mouth cut off no root or twig of a wood was found.

His grave is there according to men of truth, although he had no power among saints: Silent was his sleep under resting places which are no pilgrimage-way for our scholars. Three hundred years, though ye should know it, over lands secret to the exalted, had the troop, brightly tuneful and lasting, over age-old, noble Ireland. Men, women, boys and girls, on the calends of May, a great hindrance, the plaguing of Partholon in Mag Breg was no unbroken summer-apportionment of peace. It was thirty lean years that she was empty in the face of war-champions, after the death of her host throughout a week, in their troops upon Mag Elta.

Let us give adoration to the King of the Elements, to the good Head, the Fortress of our people, whose is every troop, every generation, whose is every head, every scholarship. I am Ua Flaind who scatters truths; an apportionment with kings hath he chosen; may everything whatsoever he may say be a speech of grace, may it accord with holiness, ye scholars!

It was the four sons of Partholon who made the first division of Ireland in the beginning, Er, Orba, Fergna, Feron. There were four men, namesakes to them, amoung the sons of Mil, but they were not the same. From Ath Cliath of Laigen to Ailech Neit, is the division of Er. From Ath Cliath to the island of Ard Nemid, is the division of Orba. From Ailech to Ath Cliath of Medraige, is the division of Feron. From that Ath Cliath to Ailech Neit, is the division of Fergna. So that is that manner they first divided Ireland.

Partholon had four oxen, that is the first cattle of Ireland. Of his company was Brea, son of Senboth, by whom were a jouse, a flesh [cauldron], and dwelling first made in Ireland. Of his company was Samailiath, by whom were ale-drinking and suretyship first made in Ireland. Of his company was Beoir, by whom a guest house was first made in Ireland.

As the poet saith: Partholon, whence he came to Ireland, reckon ye! on the day when he reached across the sea, what was the land from which Partholon came?

He came from Sicily to Greece–a year’s journey, with no full falsehood: a month’s sailing from Greece westward, to Cappadocia.From Cappadocia he journeyed, a sailing of three days to Gothia, a sailing of a month from white Gothia, to three-cornered Spain. After that he reached Inis Fail, to Ireland from Spain: on Monday, the tenth without blemish one octad took Ireland.

He is the first man who took his wife in the time of Partholon without falsehood: Fintan, who took the woman through combat. Aife, daughter of Partholon. Parthlolon went out one day, to tour his profitable land: His wife and his henchman together he leaves behind him on the island. As they were in his house, the two, a wonder unheard-of, she made an advance to the pure henchman, he made no advance to her. Since he made her no answer promptly the henchman, stubborn against an evil intention, she doffs her in desperation, an impulsive action for a good woman! The henchman rose without uncertainty, a frail thing is humanity, and came, a saying without pleasure, with Delgnat to share her couch.

Insolent was the prank for a pleasant henchman which Topa of tuneful strings wrought: to go by a rough trick, a happiness without pleasure, with Delgnat, to share her couch. Partholon, who was a man of knowledge, had a vat of most sweet ale: out of which none could drink aught save through a tube of red gold.

Thirst seized them after the deed, Topa and Delgnat, according to truth: so that their two mouths drank their two drinks (?) in the tube. When they did it, a couple without remorse, there came upon them very great thirst; soon they drank a bright coal-drink, through the gilded tube.

Partholon arrived outside, after ranging the wilderness; there were given to him, it was a slight disturbance, his vat and his tube. When he took the straight tube, he perceived upon it at once, the taste of Topa’s mouth as far as this, and the taste of Delgnat’s mouth.

A black, surly demon revealed the bad, false, unpleasant deed: “Here is the taste of Topa’s mouth” said he, “And the taste of Delgnat’s mouth.” Then said the sound son of Sera, the man called Partholon: “though short the time we are outside, we have the right to complain of you.” The man smote the woman’s dog with his palm –it was no profit–he slew the hound, it was a treasure that would be slender; so that is the first jealousy of Ireland. Degnat answered her husband: “Not upon us is the blame, though bitter thou thinkest my saying it, truly, but it is upon thee.” Though evil thou thinkest my saying it to thee, Partholon, its right shall be mine: I am the ‘one before one’ here, I am innocent, recompense is my due.

Honey with a woman, milk with a cat, food with one generous, meat with a child, a wright within and an edged tool] one before one, ’tis a great risk.’ The woman will taste the thick honey, the cat will drink the milk, the generous will bestow the pure food, the child will eat the meat. The wright will lay hold of a tool, the one with the one will go together: wherefore it is right to guard them well from the beginning. That is the first adultery to be heard of made here in the beginning: the wife of Partholon, a man of rank, to go to an ignoble henchman.

He came after the henchman and slew him with anger: to him there came not the help of God upon the Weir of the Kin-murder. The place where that was done, after its fashioning certainty–great is its sweetness that was there of a day in the land of Inis Saimera. And that, without deceit, is the first judgement in Ireland so that thence, with very noble judgement, is “the right of his wife against Partholon.” Seventeen years had they thereafter, till there came the death of that man; the battle of Mag Itha of the combats was one of the deeds of Partholon.

Further of the voyaging of Partholon, Good was the great company that Partholon had: maidens and active youths, chieftains and champions. Totacht and strong Tarba, Eochar and Aithechbel, Cuaille, Dorcha, Dam, the seven chief ploughmen of Partholon. Liac and Lecmag with colour, Imar and Etrigi, the four oxen, a proper group, who ploughed the land of Partholon. Beoir was the name of the man, with his nobles and with his people, who suffered a guest in his firm house, the first in Ireland’s island.

By that Brea son of Senboth a house was first, a cauldron on fire; a feat that the pleasant Gaedil desert not, dwelling in Ireland. By Samaliliath were known ale-drinking and surety-ship: by him were made thereafter worship, prayer, questioning.

The three druids of Partholon of the harbours, Fiss, Eolas, Eochmarc: the names of his three chamions further, Milchu, Meran, Muinechan.

The names of the ten noble daughters whom Partholon had, and the names of his ten sons-in-law I have aside, it is a full memory. Aife, Aine, lofty Adnad, Macha, Mucha, Melepard, Glas and Grenach, Auach and Achanach. Aidbli, Bomnad and Ban, Caertin, Echtach, Athchosan, Lucraid, Ligair, Lughaid the warrior, Gerber who was not vain of word. Beothach, Iarbonel, Fergus, Art, Corb, who followed (?) without sin, Sobairche, active Dobairche, were the five chieftains of Nemed, good in strength. Bacorb Ladra, who was a sound sage, he was Partholon’s man of learning: he is the first man, without uncertainty, who made hospitality at the first.

Where they ploughed in the west was at Dun Finntain, though it was very far: and they grazed grass of resting in the east of Mag Sanais. Bibal and Babal the white, were Partholon’s two merchants: Bibal brought gold hither, Babal brought cattle.

The first building of Ireland without sorrow, was made by Partholon: the first brewing, churning, ale, a course with grace, at first, in good and lofty Ireland. Rimad was the firm tall-ploughman, Tairle the general head-ploughamn: Fodbach was the share, no fiction is that, and Fetain the coulter. Broken was the name of the man, it was perfect, who first wrought hidden shamefulness: it was destroyed with a scattering that was not evil, Partholon thought this to be good.

So, these are the tidings of the first Taking of Ireland after the Flood.

Annals of the Four Masters.

2664 BCE. In this year the first battle was fought in Ireland; i.e. Cical Grigenchosach, son of Goll, son of Garbh, of the Fomorians, and his mother, came into Ireland, eight hundred in number, so that a battle was fought between them and Parthalon’s people at Sleamhnai Maighe Ithe, where the Fomorians were defeated by Parthalon, so that they were all slain. This is called the battle of Magh Ithe.

2662 BCE. The eruption of Loch Con and Loch Techeat in this year.

2661 BCE. Slainge, son of Partholan, died in this year, and was interred in the carn of Sliabh Slangha. Also, the eruption of Loch Mesc in the same year.

2659 BCE. Laighlinne, son of Parthalon, died in this year. When his grave was dug, Loch Laighlinne sprang forth in Ui Mac Uais, and from him it is named. The eruption of Loch Eachtra also.

2649 BCE. Rudhruidhe, son of Parthalon, was drowned in Loch Rudhruidhe, the lake having flowed over him; and from him the lake is called.

2646 BCE. An inundation of the sea over the land at Brena in this year, which was the seventh lake eruption that occurred in the time of Parthalon; and this is named Loch Cuan.

2644 BCE. Parthalon died on Sean Magh Ealta Eadair in this year. In the time of Parthalon’s invasion these plains were cleared of wood; but it is not known in what particular years they were cleared:

Magh nEithrighe, in Connaught; Magh Ithe, in Leinster; Magh Lii, in Ui Mac Uais Breagh; Magh Latharna, in Dal Araidhe.

2374 BCE. Nine thousand of Parthalon’s people died in one week on Sean Mhagh Ealta Edair, namely, five thousand men, and four thousand women. Whence is named Taimhleacht Muintire Parthaloin. They had passed three hundred years in Ireland. Ireland was thirty years’ waste till Neimhidh’s arrival.

2344 BCE. Neimhidh came to Ireland. On the twelfth day after the arrival of Neimhidh with his people, Macha, the wife of Neimhidh, died. These were the four chieftains who were with him: Sdarn, Iarbhainel the Prophet, Fearghus Leithdheirg, and Ainninn. These were the four sons of Neimhidh. Medu, Macha, Yba, and Ceara, were the four wives of these chieftains.

2335 BCE. In this year, Loch Dairbhreach and Loch Ainninn in Meath sprang forth.

These were the forts that were erected, the plains that were cleared, and the lakes that sprang forth, in the time of Neimhidh, but the precise years are not found for them: Rath Cinnech, in Ui Niallain; Rath Cimbaeith, in Seimhne; Magh Ceara, Magh nEabha, Magh Cuile Toladh, and Magh Luirg, in Connaught; Magh tochair, in Tir Eoghain; Leagmhagh, in Munster; Magh mBrensa, in Leinster; Magh Lughadh, in Ui Tuirtre; Magh Seredh, in Teffia; Magh Seimhne, in Dal Araidhe; Magh Muirtheimhne, in Conaille; and Magh Macha, in Oirghialla; Loch Cal, in Ui Niallain; Loch Muinreamhair, in Luighne, in Sliabh Guaire. The battle of Murbholg, in Dal Riada; the battle of Baghna; and the battle of Cnamh Ross against the Fomorians. Neimhidh gained these battles.

Neimhidh afterwards died of a plague, together with three thousand persons, in the island of Ard Neimhidh, in Crich Liathain, in Munster.

2128 BCE. The demolition of the tower of Conainn in this year, by the race of Neimhidh, against Conainn, son of Faebhar, and the Fomorians in general, in revenge for all the oppression they had inflicted upon them the race of Neimhidh, as is evident from the chronicle which is called Leabhar Gabhala; and they nearly all mutually fell by each other; thirty persons alone of the race of Neimhidh escaped to different quarters of the world, and they came to Ireland some time afterwards as Firbolgs. Two hundred and sixteen years Neimhidh and his race remained in Ireland. After this Ireland was a wilderness for a period of two hundred years.

Cronicum Scotorum.

Anno Mundi 2355. A.M.2355 At this time the Fir Bolg occupied Erinn. But this has not been proved.

Lebor Gabála Érenn: The Book of Invasions.

The Nemedians and the Fir Bolg

Now Ireland was waste thereafter, for a space of thirty years after Partholon, till Nemed son of Agnomain of the Greeks of Scythia came thither, with his four chieftains; [they were the four sons of Nemed]. Forty-four ships had he on the Caspian Sea for a year and a half, but his ship alone reached Ireland. These are the four chieftains, Starn, Iarbonel the Soothsayer, Annind, and Fergus Red-Side: they were the four sons of Nemed.

There were four lake-bursts in Ireland in the time of Nemed: Loch Cal in Ui Niallain, Loch Munremair in Luigne, Loch Dairbrech, Loch Annind in Meath. When his grave [of Annind son of Nemed] was being dug and he was a-burying, there the lake burst over the land.

It is Nemed who won the battle of Ros Fraechain against Gand and Sengand, two kings of the Fomoraig, and the twain were slain there. Two royal forts were dug by Nemed in Ireland, Raith Chimbaith in Semne, Raith Chindeich in Ui Niallain. The four sons of Matan Munremar dug Raith Cindeich in one day: namely, Boc, Roboc, Ruibne, and Rotan. They were slain before the morrow in Daire Lige by Nemed, lest they should improve upon the digging

Twelve plains were cleared by Nemed in Ireland: Mag Cera, Mag Eba, Mag Cuile Tolaid, and Mag Luirg in Connachta: Mag Seired in Tethba; Mag Tochair in Tir Eogain; Mag Selmne in Araide; Mag Macha in Airgialla; Mag Muirthemne in Brega; Mag Bernsa in Laighne; Leccmag and Mag Moda in Mumu.

He won three battles agains the Fomoraig [or sea-rovers]: the battle of Badbgna in Connachta, of Cnamros in Laigne, of Murbolg in Dal Riada. After that, Nemed died of plague in Oilean Arda Nemid in Ui Liathain.

The progeny of Nemed were under great oppression after his time in Ireland, at the hands of More, s. Dela and of Conand s. Febar [from whom is the Tower of Conand named, which to-day is called Toirinis Cetne. In it was the great fleet of the Fomoraig]. Two thirds of the progeny, the wheat, and the milk of the people of Ireland (had to be brought) every Samain to Mag Cetne. Wrath and sadness seized on the men of Ireland for the burden of the tax. They all went to fight against the Fomoraig. They had three champions, Semul s. Iarbonel the Soothsayer s. Nemed, Erglan s. Beoan s. Starn s. Nemed, Fergus Red-Side s. Nemed. Thirty thousand on sea, other thirty thousand on land, these assaulted the tower. Conand and his progeny fell.

So, after that capture, More son of Dela came upon the, with the crews of three-score ships, and they fell in a mutual slaughter. The sea came up over the people of Ireland, and not one of them fled from another, so severe was the battling: none escaped but one ship, in which there were thirty warriors. They went forth, parting from Ireland, fleeing from the sickness and taxation: Bethach died in Ireland of plague; his ten wives survived him for a space of twenty-three years. Ibath and his son Baath went into the north of the world. Matach and Erglan and Iartach, the three sons of Beoan, went to Dobar and Iardobar in the north of Alba.

Semeon went in the lands of the Greeks. His progeny increased there till they amounted to thousands. Slavery was imposed upon them by the Greeks; they had to carry clay upon rough mountains so that they became flowery plains.

Thereafter they were weary of their servitude, and they went in flight, five thousand strong, and made them ships of their bags: [or, as the Quire of Druim Snechta says, they stole the pinnaces of the king of Greece for coming therein]. Thereafter they came again into Ireland, their land of origin: that was at the end of two hundred and thirty years after Nemed.

These are their five chiefs, Gand, Genand, Rudraige, Sengand and Slaine.

As for Fergus Red-Side and his son, Britain Mael of whom are all the Britons in the world, they took Moin Conain and filled with their progeny the great island, Britannia Insula: till Hengist and Horsa, the two sons of Guictglis, King of the Old Saxons, came and conquered them: and they drove the Britons over the borders of the Island. These are the adventures of the progeny of Nemed after the taking of Conand’s Tower: under the Historian cecinit

Great Ireland which the Gaedil regulate, I tell some of her concerns: Great chiefs spear-armed took her, of the proud race of Adam.

From Adam the truly tuneful, the ruthless, to the Flood, a tumult that was prepared, none warmed her very powerful household except Cessair of the fifty maidens. Except Bith and Ladru–let us relate it– Fintan, with darkness of the land, no man found it, who revealed the stately superiority of Ireland, before the time of the Flood.

After the Flood of secret going three hundred years, whoso relates it, he who was a bright crown for deeds of valour, Partholon son of Sera, comes.

Notwithstanding every stately psalm-canon, the people of Partholon the sinner–dead was the whole tally of his household, upon the Old Plain, in the course of a week.

Six fives of years without increase, without a guard, it was dark obscurity, Desert was every side to the proud sea; Not a person took it save Nemed.

Nemed with wrath (?) of them all, with store of feters and valour, he possessed the land of the warring of hosts, after the destruction of the other companies.

He used to effect victory without hazards, Nemed, with pride and intelligence: the son of Agnomain with haughtiness, although his troop was weak, it was stately. Starn, who fell at the hands of Mac Faebuir, Iarbonel the Soothsayer, who was joyous, Ainnind with fetters of leather, were the three venemous chieftains of Nemed. Nemed who paid them in the matter of securities, it was a pestilence of fire over a death-doom; in his time, with a great noise of rushing, there was an outburst–four lakes. Loch Munremair, a pleasant sea, of broad-ridged, firm fury; Loch Dairbrech over a hedge of a king (?) Loch Cal and Loch Ainnind. Vigorously there were dug by his host two forts with strength and firmness, Raith Cindeich in which he apportioned weapons, Raith Cimbaeith in Semne. Cleared by him, it was a road of pleasure, twelve plains of good eye (-prospect), Mag Cera in Connachta of mists, Mag Moda and Mag Eba. Strong Mag Tochair was cleansed, Leemag of the great plain of Muma, Mag Bernsa with a mystery of great graces, Mag Cuile Tolad, Mag Lughad. Mag Sered of drying-up of a river, Mag Semne of lightness of colouring, Mag Luirg of little darkness of side, Mag Muirthemne, Mag Macha.

The routs–a work to recount them–which he broke against the warriors of Fomoire of much sharpness; the battle of huge Morbole of great sharpness the battle of Badgna, and the battle of Cnamros. In the territory of Liathan by Muma, the dark lord of slaughter died of plague: with the rude company of clean grass in Oilean Arda Nemid. They were not in security as regards oppression–the progeny which Nemed fertilised–at the hands of Conaing with hard body and at the hands of More son of Dela.

Two-thirds of their shapely children, it was not generous against military weakness–a lasting tax through ages of the world–two-thirds of corn and of milk. To hard Mag Cetna of weapons, Over Eas Ruaid of wonderful salmon, it was prepared against help, against feasting (?) for them, every Samain eve. Semeon son of joyful Iardan, Fergus pure and generous, an effort of pride, Erglan son of warlike Beoan, were the three freemen for their hosts.

The host of Ireland with her troop came–it was steppings a power–a warrior-band who had blood through the body, westward to the capture of Conaing’s tower. Conaing’s tower with store of plunder of a union of the crimes of hundreds of rapines, a fortress of assembly of the art of the rage of the Fomoire of the sea. The men of Ireland after its capture, with the great valour of the courses before them, of these, tidings of loss, none escaped except thirty of the children of Nemed.

They were not at peace regarding their inheritance, that host with great valour of despair; of the thirty noble warriors, every chieftain went his ways. Into the land of Greeks, the remnant of the troop went Semeon, it was a road of happiness: with wisdom over the pre-eminent division went Fergus into Moin Conain. Britan Mael son of the prince free the multitude of tracks over streams, son of Lethderg from Leemag from whom are the Britons of the world. Bethach under steps of forms of fame died in Ireland according to truthfulness: his ten wives behind him, thereafter, for a space of twenty-three years.

Hundreds sprang from Semeon, the Greeks thought them a numerous legion: they were not accepted by the warriors but were enslaved by the Greeks. This was the order of the chieftains, carrying round bags–it was not fraught with fame [of] clay upon a rocky stony mountain so that it was a plain rich in flowers and flocks.

They departed with no treacherous covenant upon the wrathful very black sea, out of the captivity of hard fosterage with ships and with bags. These were their names of pride, of the kings, spirited, with agility, Gann, Genann with choice men of good divisions, Rudraige, Sengann, Slanga. The seed of Semeon of a row of spear-divisions, a deed of pure will of purity of action-deeds; The Galioin, men of the very scanty orderings, The Fir Bolg and the Fir Domnann. Two hundred years, whoso relates it, after Nemed, lustrous his deeds of valour, till the Fir Bolg took the tuneful land of Ireland, from the sea-pool of ocean. Their sending, their measuring-out, endures; they divided into five, without religion–without a falling for their slender-sided sept–pleasant Ireland, from Uisnech. Let us give adoration to most righteous Christ Who hath subdued the strongest floods; His is the world with its generation, His is every territory, His is Ireland.

The capture of Conaing’s tower with valour against Conaing the great, son of Faebar: the men of Ireland came to it, three brilliant chieftains with them. Erglan son of Beoan son of Starn, Semeon son of bitter Iardan, before exile went the warrior of the plains, the son of Nemed, Fergus Lethderg.

Three score thousands in brilliant wise over land and over water, that is the tally who went from home, the children of Nemed, to the capture. Torinis, island of the tower, the fortress of Conaing son of Faebar; by Fegus himself, a fighting of valour, Conaing son of Faebar fell. More son of Dela came there, it was for a help to Conaing: Conaing fell previously, More thought it grave tidings. Three score ships over the sea was the tally with which More son of Dela came; there encountered them before they came to land, the children of Nemed with powerful strength. The men of all Ireland in the battle, after the coming of the Fomoraig, the sea-surge drowned them all, except thrice ten men. Erglan, Matach, Iartacht the noble, the three sons of Beoan son of Starn, white his girdle, Bethach, Britan after the battle, Baath the glorious, and Ibath. Bechach, Bethach, Bronal, Pal, Goirthigorn, German, Glasa, Ceran, Gobran, Gothiam pure, Gam, Dam, Ding and Deal. Semeon, Fortecht, bright Gosten, Grimaig, Guillius with cleverness, Taman, Turrue, and Glas, Feb, and Feran curl-haired. Three tens on the tuneful sailing went afterwards from Ireland: in three they made divisions after the capture of Conaing’s Tower in the west. The third of Bethach the victoriuous, tuneful fame, from Toirinis to Boinn: it is he who died in Inis Fail, two years after Britan.

The third of Semeon son of noble Erglan to Belach Conglais with horror; the third of Britan, saith Ua Flaind, from that to Conaing’s Tower. The children of Israel on a journey at that time, out of Egypt; and the children of Gaedel Glas, were a-voyaging to Scythia. O Christ fair, with beauty of appearance, O King, apportioner of the haven of Paradise, Into Thy heaven, famous the place, O King of the workd, mayest thou choose me!

Now as for the Fir Bolg, they brought five chieftains with them, ut dixi supra, to wit, Gann, Genann, Rudraige, Sengann, Slanga: those were the fivce sons of Dela. Their fivce wives next, Anust, Liber, Cnucha, Fuat, Etar: [unde dicitur] Fuat, wife of Slanga, you do not think it crooked, Etar wife to Gann with valour, Anust wife of Sengann of the spears, Cnucha who was wife of pure Genann. Liber wife of Rudraige of the Road, a people sweet, that was not narrow: Rudraige, master of wiles, I suppose, Fuat was his wife.

The Fir Bolg separated into three. With Slanga s. Dela s. Loth his third [landed] in Inber Slaine: his Fifth is from Inber Colptha to Comar Tri nUisce; a thousand men his tally. The second third landed in Inber Dubglaisi with Gann and Sengann: two thousand were their tally, Gann from Comar Tri nUisce to Belach Conglais, Sengann from Belach Conglais to Luimneach – that is, over the two Fifths of Mumu. Genann and Rudraige with a third of the host, they landed in Inber Domnann: [whence they are called Fir Domnann}. Genann it is who was king over the Fifth of Medb and Ailell; Rudraige over the Fifth of Conchobor – other two thousand were his tally. Those are the Fir Bolg, the Fir Domnann, and the Gailioin. As to the Fir Domnann, the creek takes its name from them. The Fir Bolg – they were named from their bags. The Gailioin, from the multitude of their javelins were they named. They made one taking and one princedom, for they were five brethren, the five sons of Dela s. Loth. And in one week they took Ireland, [though the days were different]. On Saturday, the kalends of August, Slanga landed in Inber Slaine. On Tuesday Gann and Sengann landed. On Friday Genann and Rudraige landed: and thus, is it one Taking, though they were differently styled. The Gaileoin, from Slanga were they named. From Gann and Sengann were the Fir Bolg named. The Fir Domnann were named from deepening the earth: they were Genann and Rudraige with their followers. For they are all called Fir Bolg, and thirty-seven years was the length of their Lordship over Ireland. The five sons of Dela were the five kings of the Fir Bolg, i.e., Gann, Genann, Rudraige, Sengann, Slaine.

[Now these men, the Fir Bolg, were the progeny of Dela.] Slanga was the eldest, s. Dela s. Loth s. Oirthet, s. Tribuat s. Gothorb s. Gosten s. Fortech s. Semeon s. Erglan s. Beoan s. Starn s. Nemed s. Agnomain. No king took, who was called “of Ireland,” till the Fir Bolg came. Nine kings of them took Ireland. Slanga, one year – it is he who died of the Fir Bolg in Ireland at the first. Rudraige, two years, till he died in Brug Bratruad. Gann and Genann, four years, till they died of plague in Fremaind. Sengann, five years, till he fell at the hands of Rindail s. Genann s. Dela. Rindail, six years, till he fell at the hands of Fodbgenid s. Sengann s. Dela in Eba Coirpre. Fodbgen, four years, till he fell in Mag Muirthemne at the hands of Eochu s. Rindail s. Genann s. Dela. Eochu son of Erc, ten years. There was no wetting in his time, save only dew: there was no year without harvest. Falsehoods were expelled from Ireland in his time. By him was executed the law of justice in Ireland for the first time. Eochu son of Erc fell at the hands of three sons of Nemed s. Badra: he is the first king of Ireland who received his death-wound in Ireland. [Unde Colum Cille cecinit “Dean moresnis a mic,”etc.]

The Fir Bolg gave them [the Tuatha De Danann] battle upon Mag Tuired; they were a long time fighting that battle. At last it broke against the Fir Bolg, and the slaughter pressed northward, and a hundred thousand of them were slain westward to the strand of Eochaill. There was the king Eochu overtaken, and he fell at the hands of the three sons of Nemed. Yet the Tuatha De Danann suffered great loss in the battle, and they left the king on the field, with his arm cut from him; the leeches were seven years healing him. The Fir Bolg fell in that battle all but a few, and they went out of Ireland in flight from the Tuatha De Danann, into Ara, and Ile, and Rachra and other islands besides. [it was they who led the Fomoraig to the second battle of Mag Tuired]. And they were in [those islands] till the time of the Provincials over Ireland, till the Cruithne drove them out. They came to Cairbre Nia Fer, and he gave them lands; but they were unable to remain with him for the heaviness of the impost which he put upon them. Thereafter they came in flight before Cairbre under the protection of Meldb and Ailill, and these gave them lands. This is the wandering of the sons of Umor. [Oengus son of Umor was king over them in the east], and from them are named those territories, Loch CIme from Cime Four-Heads son of Umor, the Point of Taman in Medraige from Taman son of Umor, the Fort of Oengus in Ara from Oengus, the Stone-heap of Conall in Aidne from Conall, Mag Adair from Adar, Mag Asail from Asal in Mumu also. Menn son of Umor was the poet. They were in fortresses and in islands of the sea around Ireland in that wise, till Cu Chulaind overwhelmed them.

Those are the kings of the Fir Bolg and their deaths; unde poeta cecinit The Fir Bolg were here for a season in the great island of the sons of Mil; the five chiefs which they brought with them from over yonder I know their names. A year had Slanga, this is true, till he died in his fine mound; the first man of the Fir bolg of the peaks who died in the island of Ireland. Two years of Rudraige the Red, till he died in Brug Brat-ruaid, four of Genann and of Gann, till plague slew them in Fremaind. Five years of Sengann–they were reposeful–till Fiachu son of Starn slew him; five others–it was through battle–Fiachu Cendfhindan was king. Fiachu Cendfhindan before all, his name endures for ever; whiteheaded all, without reproach, were the kine of Ireland in his presence. Till he fell at the hands of red Rindail, he got six [years] with his free host; The grandson of Dela fell then in Eba, at the hands of Odbgen. Four to noble Odbgen till the battle of Murthemne of the nobles: Odbgen died without reproach at the hands of the son of Erc, of lofty Eochu. Ten years to Eochu son of Erc, he found not the border-line of weakness: till they slew him on the battlefield, the three sons of Nemed son of Badra. Till Rinnal grew, there was no point at all upon a weapon in Ireland; upon harsh javelins, there was no fair-covering, but their being rushing-sticks. In the time of Fodbgen thereafter there came knots through trees: the woods of Ireland down till then were smooth and very straight. The pleasant Tuatha De Danann brought spears with them in their hands: with them Eochu was slain, by the seed of Nemed of strong judgement. The names of the three excellent sons of Nemed were Cessarb, Luam, and Luachra: it is they who slew the first king with a point, Eochu son of Erc, in Ireland. Thereafter the Tuatha De fought for the Fir Bolg, it was a rought appearance. They took away their goodsand their lordship from the Men.

Fintan cecinit of the division of the Provinces. The five parts of Ireland between sea and land, I entreat the fair candles of every province among them. From Drobais swift and fierce, is the holy first division to the Boyne white and vast south from white Bairche. From the Boyne, tuneful and whitely-glowing with hundreds of harbours To the Meeting with sound of assembled waves of the cold Three Waters. From that same Meeting with nimble. From the Bel of the brave Cu who is called ‘glas.’ From Lumnech of huge ships–broad its surface–To Drobais of armed multitudes, pure, on which a sea laugheth. Knowledgeable prostration, pathways are related, perfection in the matter of correction towards a road into five. The points of those provinces to Uisnech did they lead, Each of them out of its ……… till it was five. The progeny of Semeon were all the Gaileoin and Fir Domnann. Thirty years after Genann and Rudraige, the Tuatha De Danann came into Ireland.

Thereafter the progeny of Bethach s. Iarbonel the Soothsayer s. Nemed were in the northern islands of the world, learning druidry and knowledge and prphecy and magic, till they were expert in the arts of pagan cunning.

Annals of the Four Masters

1928 BCE. The Firbolgs took possession of Ireland at the end of this year. Slainghe, Gann, Genann, Seangann, and Rudhraighe, were their five chieftains. These were the five sons of Deala, son of Loich. The other four and the Firbolgs in general elected Slainge as king over them.

1927 BCE. Slainghe, son of Deala, was king of Ireland for a period of one year; and he died at the end of the year, at Dinn Righ, on the brink of the Bearbha.

1926 BCE. Rudhraighe, son of Deala, assumed the government of Ireland. This is the first year of his reign.

1925 BCE. The second year of the reign of Rudhraighe; and he died at the end of this year.

1924 BCE. This was the first year of the reign of Gann and Geanann over Ireland.

1921 BCE. The fourth year of Gann and Geanann; and they died at the end of this year, with twenty hundred along with them, in Crich Liathain.

1920 BCE This was the first year of the reign of Sengann.

1916 BCE. At the end of the fifth year of the reign of Seangann, he fell by Fiachaidh Cennfinnan, son of Starn.

1915 BCE. The first year of the reign of Fiacha Cennfinnain.

1911 BCE. The fifth year of the reign of Fiacha. And he fell by Rinnal, son of Geanann, this year.

1910 BCE. The first year of the reign of Rinnal, son of Geanann, over Ireland.

1905 BCE. After the completion of the fifth year of his reign by Rinnal, he fell by Foidhbhgen, son of Seangann.

1904 BCE. The first year of the reign of Foidhbhgen.

1901 BCE. At the end of the fourth year of the reign of Foidhbhgen, he fell by Eochaidh, son of Erc.

1900 BCE. This was the first year of the reign of Eochaidh, son of Erc.

Cronicum Scotorum.

Anno Mundi 2390. A.M.2390. In this time the Tuatha De Danann, viz., Dealbaeth, and Bress, the Daghda, Nuadha, and Ogmha, and the rest, overcame the Fir Bolg.

Lebor Gabála Érenn: The Book of Invasions The Tuatha de Dannan So that they were the Tuatha De Danann who came to Ireland. In this wise they came, in dark clouds. They landed on the mountains of Conmaicne Rein in Connachta; and they brought a darkness over the sun for three days and three nights. They demanded battle of kingship of the Fir Bolg. A battle was fought between them, to wit the first battle of Mag Tuired, in which a hundred thousand of the Fir Bolg fell. Thereafter they [the TDD] took the kingship of Ireland. Those are the Tuatha Dea – gods were their men of arts, non-gods their husbandmen. They knew the incantations of druids, and charioteers, and trappers, and cupbearers.

It is the Tuatha De Danann who brought with them the Great Fal, [that is, the Stone of Knowledge], which was in Temair, whence Ireland bears the name of “The Plain of Fal.” He under whom it should utter a cry was King of Ireland; until Cu Chulainn smote it, for it uttered no cry under him nor under his fosterling, Lugaid, son of the three Finds of Emain. And from that out the stone uttered no cry save under Conn of Temair. Then its heart flew out from it [from Temair] to Tailltin, so that is the Heart of Fal which is there. It was no chance which caused it, but Christ’s being born, which is what broke the owers of the idols.

Now Nuadu Airgetlam was king over the Tuatha De Danann for seven years before their coming into Ireland, until his arm was hewn from him in the first battle of Mag Tuired. Eidleo s. Alldai, he was the first man of the Tuatha De Danann who fell in Ireland, by the hand of Nercon ua Semeoin, in the first battle of Mag Tuired. Ernmas, and Echtach, and Etargal, and Fiachra, and Tuirill Piccreo fell in the same battle. Bress s. Elada took the kingship of Ireland post, to the end of seven years, till the arm of Nuadu was healed: a silver arm with activity in every finger and every joint which Dian Cecht put upon him, Credne helping him.

Tailltiu daughter of Mag Mor king of Spain, queen of the Fir Bolg, came after the slaughter was inflicted upon the Fir Bolg in that first battle of Mag Tuired to Coill Cuan: and the wood was cut down by her, so it was a plain under clover-flower before the end of a year. This is that Tailtiu who was wife of Eochu son of Erc king of Ireland till the Tuatha De Danann slew him, ut praediximus: it is he who took her from her father, from Spain; and it is she who slept with Eochu Garb son of Dui Dall of the Tuatha De Danann; and Cian son of Dian Cecht, whose other name was Scal Balb, gave her his son in fosterage, namely Lugh, whose mother was Eithne daughter of Balar. So Tailltiu died in Tailltiu, and her name clave thereto and her grave is from the Seat of Tailltiu north-eastward. Her games were performed every year and her song of lamentation, by Lugh. With gessa and feats of arms were they performed, a fortnight before Lugnasad and a fortnight after: under dicitur Lughnasadh, that is, the celebration (?) or the festival of Lugh.

Unde Oengus post multum tempus dicebat, “the nasad of Lug, or the nasad of Beoan [son] of Mellan.”

To return to the Tuatha De Danann. Nuadu Airgatlam fell in the last battle of Mag Tuired, and Macha daughter of Ernmas, at the hands of Balar the strong-smiter. In that battle, there fell Ogma s. Elada at the hands of Indech son of the De Dmnann, king of the Fomoire. Bruidne and Casmael fell at the hands of Ochtriallach s. Indech. After the death of Nuadu and of those men, Lug took the kingship of Ireland, and his grandfather Balar the Strong-smiter fell at his hands, with a stone from his sling. Lugh was forty years in the kingship of Ireland after the last battle of Mag Tuired, and there were twenty-seven years between the battles.

Then Eochu Ollathair, the great Dagda, son of Elada, was eighty years in the kingship of Ireland. His three sons were Oengus and Aed and Cermat Coem; the three sons of Dian Cecht, Cu and Cethen and Cian.

Dian Cecht had three sons, Cu, Cehten and Cian. Miach was the fourth son though many do not reckon him. His daughter was Etan the Poetess, and Airmed the she-leech was the other daughter: and Coirpre, son of Etan was the poet. Crichinbel and Bruidne and Casmael were the three satirists. Be Chuille and Dianann were the two she-farmers. The three sons of Cermad son of The Dagda were Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht, Mac Griene: Sethor and Tethor and Cethor were their names. Fotla and Banba and Eriu were their three wives. Fea and Nemaind were the two wives of Net, a quo Ailech Neit. Flidais, of whom is the “Cattle of Flidais”; her four daughters were Argoen and Be Chuille and Dinand and Be Theite. The two royal oxen were Fea and Femen, of whom are the Plain of Fea and the Plain of Femen. Those were two faithful oxen. Torc Triath was king of the boars, from whom is Mag Treitherne. Cirba was king of the wethers, from whom is Mag Cirba. Math son of Umor was the druid. Badb and Macha and Anand, of whom are the Paps of Anu in Luachar were the three daughters of Ernmas the she-farmer. Goibniu the smith, Luicne the carpenter, Creidne the wright, Dian Cecht the leech.

Delbaeth after The Dagda, ten years in the kingship of Ireland, till he fell, with his son Ollom, at the hands of Caicher s. Nama, frater of Nechtan. Fiacha s. Delbaeth took the kingship of Ireland after his father, other ten years, till he fell, along with Ai s. Ollom, at the hands of Eogan Inbir. Twenty-nine years had the grandsons of The Dagda in the kingship of Ireland, to wit Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht, and Mac Greiene: they divided Ireland into three parts. To them came the Gaedil to Ireland, so that they fell by the hands of three sons of Mil, avenging Ith, Cuailnge, and Fust, of the three sons of Breogan.

Nuadu Airgetlam s. Echtach s. Etarlam s. Ordam s. Aldui s. Tat s. Tavarn s. Enda s. Baath s. Ebath s. Bethach s. Iarbonel s. Nemed s. Agnomain s. Pamp s. Tat s. Sera s. Sru s. Esru s. Braimend s. Rathacht s. Magoth s. Iafeth s. Noe. Neit s. Indui s. Alldui s. Tat Fiachna s. Delbaeth s. Ogma s. Elada s. Delbaeth s. NetAi s. Ollam s. Delbaeth s. Ogma s. Elada. Lug s. Cian s. Dian Cecht s. Esarg s. Net s. Indui s. Alldui, he is the first who brought chess-play and ball-play and horse-racing and assembling into Ireland, unde quidam cecinit Lug son of Ethliu, a cliff without a wrinkle, with him there first came a lofty assembly: after the coming of Christ, it is no idle proclamation Conchobar the wise and violent died. Caicher and Nechtan, the two sons of Nama s. eochu Garb s. Dui Temen s. Bres s. Delbaeth s. Net. Siugmall s. Corpre Crom s. Eremair s. Delbaeth s. Ogma. Oengus mac Oc and Aed Caem and Cermait Milbel, those are the three sons of the Dagda. Corpre the poet s. Tuar s. Tuirell s. Cait Conaichend s. Orda s. Alldui s. Tat Galia s. Oirbsen s. Elloth s. Elada s. Delbaeth s. Net Orbsen was the name of Manannan at first, and from him is named Loch Orbsen in Connachta. When Manannan was being buried, it is then the lake burst over the land, [through the burial].

The six sons of Delbaeth s. Ogma s. Elada s. Delbaeth s. Net, were Fiachra, Ollam, Indui, Brian, Iucharba, Iuchar. Donann the daughter of the same Delbaeth was mother of the three last, Brian, Iucharba and Iuchar. These were the three gods of Danu, from whom is named the Mountain of the Three gods. And that Delbaeth had the name Tuirell Bicreo. Tuirill s. Cait moreover was the grandfather of Corpre the poet, and Etan d. Dian Cecht was mother of that Tuirill. The three sons of Cermait, moreover, ut diximus; Mac Cuill – Sethor, the hazel his god; Mac Cecht – Tethor, the ploughshare his god; Mac Greine – Cethor, the sun his god. Fotla was wife of Mac Cecht, Banba of Mac Cuill, Eriu of Mac Greine. Those were the three daughters of Fiachna son of Delbaeth. Ernmas daughter of Etarlam s. Nuada Airgetlam was mother of those three women, and mother of Fiachna and Ollom. Ernmas had other three daughters, Badb and Macha and Morrigu, whose name was Anand. Her three sons were Glon and Gaim and Coscar. Boind daughter of Delbaeth s. Elada. Fea and Neman, the two wives of Net s. Indiu, two daughters of Elemar of the Brug. Uillend s. Caicher s. Nuadu Airgetlam.Bodb of the Mound of Femen, s. Eochu Gab s. Dui Temen s. Bres s. Elada s. Delbaeth s. Net. Abean s. Bec-Felmas s. Cu s. Dian Cecht, the poet of Lugh. En s. Bec-En s. Satharn s. Edleo s. Alda s. Tat s. Taburn.

At Tat s. Tabourn the choice of the Tuatha De Danann unite. Of that the historian sang Ireland with pride, with weapons, hosts spread over her ancient plain, westward to the sunset were they plunderers, her chieftains of destruction around Temair.

Thirty years after Genand goblin hosts took the fertile land; a blow to the vanquished People of Bags was the visit of the Tuatha De Danann. It is God who suffered them, though He restrained them–they landed with horror, with lofty deed, in their cloud of mighty combat of spectres, upon a mountain of Conmaicne of Connacht. Without distinction to descerning Ireland, without ships, a ruthless course the truth was not known beneath the sky of stars, whether they were of heaven or of earth.

If it were diabolic demons the black-cloaked agitating expedition, it was sound with ranks, with hosts: if of men, it was the proteny of Bethach. Of men belonging to law (is) the greeborn who has the strong seed: Bethach, a swift warrior-island (?) son of Iarbonel son of Nemed. They cast no assembly or justice about the place of Fal to the sunset: there was fire and fighting at last in Mag Tuired. The Tuatha De, it was the bed of a mighty one, around the People of Bags fought for the kingship: in their battle with abundance of pride, troops of hundreds of thousands died.

The sons of Elada, glory of weapons, a wolf of division against a man of plunder: Bres from the Brug of Banba of wise utterance, Dagda, Delbaeth, and Ogma. Eriu, though it should reach a road-end, Banba, Fotla, and Fea, Neman of ingenious versicles, Danann, mother of the gods. Badb and Macha, greatness of wealth, Morrigu–springs of craftiness, sources of bitter fighting were the three daughters of Ernmas. Goibniu who was not impotent in smelting, Luichtne, the free wright Creidne, Dian Cecht, for going roads of great healing, Mac ind Oc, Lug son of Ethliu. Cridinbel, famous Bruinde, Be Chuille, shapely Danand, Casmael with bardism of perfecdtion, Coirpre son of Etan, and Etan. The grandsons of the Dagda, who had a triple division (?) divided Banba of the bugle-horns; let us tell of the princes of excellence of hospitality, the three sons of Cermat of Cualu.

Though Ireland was multitudes of thousands they divided her land into thirds: great chieftains of deeds of pride, Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht, Mac Greine. He swept them clean from their land, did the Son of God, from the royal plain which I make manifest: for all the valour of their deeds, of their clear division, their seed is not over Ireland.
It is Eochu without enchantment of leapings who fashions the distinction of his good quatrains; but knowledge of the warriors when he relates it, though he enumerates them, he adores them not. Adore ye the name of the King who measured you, who apportions every truth which he (Eochu) narrates: who hath released every storm which we expect, who hath fashioned the pleasant land of Ireland.

Tanaide sang:

The Tuatha De Danann under obscurity, a people without a covenant of religion; whelps of the wood that has not withered, people of the blood of Adam’s flesh. Nobles yonder of the strong people, people of the withered summit, let us relate, in the course in which we are, their periods in their kingdom. A space of seven years oq Nuadu noble–stately over the fair-haired compnay, the rule of the man large-breasted, flaxen-maned, before his coming into Ireland. In Mag Tuired, heavy with doom, where fell a champion of the battle, from the white defender of the world–his arm of princedom was lopped off Seven years of Bres, which was not a white space, through its fair prospect for the song-abbot, in the princedom over the plain, generous in nuts, till the arm of Nuadu was healed. Nuadu after that twenty years, he brought the fairy-folk a-hosting, till Lugh the spear-slaughterous was made king–the many-crafted who cooled not. Forty to Lugh–it was balanced–in the kingship over the Palace of Banba; he reached no celestial bed of innocence; eighty to The Dagda. Ten years to vehement Delbaeth till one wise in course and royal (?) arrived, faultness over the brink of the ocean–ten other to Fiachna. Twenty-nine years, I have proclaimed it, over every peace–land of Ireland, in the kingdom over Banba eduringly great had the grandons of The Dagda skilled in denseng.

Thereafter the sons of Mil came, they arrived to redden them–children of the great herowho burst out of Spain without growing cold. Till the deedful Gaedil wounded them, without a troop, through their cunning, it is not a matter of fable or of folly that small was the weakness of the Tuatha.Fland Mainstrech cecinit

Hearken, ye sages without sorrow, if it be your will that I relate the deaths yonder, with astuteness, of the choise of the Tuatha De Danann.

Edleo son of Alldai yonder, the first man of the Tuatha De Danann who fell in virgin Ireland, by the hand of Nerchon grandson of Semeon. Ernams, high her valour, fell, Fiachra, Echtach, Etargal, Tuirill Picreo of Baile Breg in the first batle of Mag Tuired.

Elloth with battle fell–the father, great and rough, of Manannan–and perfect, fair Donand, at the hands of De Domnand of the Fomoraig.

Cethen of Cu died of horror in Aircheltra; Cian far from his home did Brian, Iucharba dn Iuchar slay. Of a stroke of the pure sun died Cairpre the great, son of Etan: Etan died over the pool of sorrow for white-headed Cairpre.

In Mag Tuired, it was through battle Nuadu Airgetlam fell: and Macha –that was after Samhain–by the hand of Balar the strong-smiter. Ogma fell, without being weak at the hands of Indech son of De Domnann: breasted Casmael the good fell at the hands of Oichtriallach son of Indech.

Now of painful plague died Dian Cecht and Goibnenn the smith: Liughne the wright fell along with them by a strong fiery dart. Creidne the pleasant artificer was drowned on the lake-sea, the sinister pool, fetching treasures of noble gold to Ireland from Spain.

Bress died in Carn ui Neit by the treachery of Lug, with no fullness of falsehood: for him it was a cause of quarrel indeed drinking bog-stuff in the guise of milk De Chuille and faithful Dianann, both the farmeresses died, an evening with druidry, at the last, by gray demons of air. He fell on the strand eastward in the trenches of Rath Ailig, Did Indui the great, son of pleasant Delbaith, at the hands of Gann, a youth bold, white-fisted.

Fea, lasting was his fame, died at the end of a month after his slaying at the same stronghold–we think it fitting–for sorrow for Indui the white-haired.

Boind died at the combat at the wellspring of the son of noble Nechtan: Aine daughter of the Dagda died for the love that she gave to Banba.

Cairpre fell–remember thou! by the hand of Nechtan son of Nama: Nechtan fell by the poison at the hands of Sigmall, grandson of Free Midir.

Abean son of cold Bic-felmais, the bard of Lug with full victory, he fell by the hand of Oengus without reproach in front of Midir of mighty deeds. Midir son if Indui yonder fell by the hand of Elemar: fell Elemar, fit for fight, at the hands of Oengus the perfect. Brian, Iucharba, and Iuchar there, the three gods of the Tuatha De Danann were slain at Mana over the bright sea by the hand of Lug son of Ethliu.

Cermait son of the divine Dagda Lug… (?) wounded him it was a sorrow of grief upon the plain in the reign of Eochu Ollathair.

Cermat Milbel the mighty fell at the hands of harsh Lug son of Ethliu, in jealousy about his wife, great the fashion, concerning whom the druid lied unto him.

By the hand of Mac Cecht without affection the harper fell: moreover, Lug fell over the wave, by the hand of Mac Cuill son of Cermat.

Aed son of The Dagda fell at the hands of Corrchend the fair, of equal valour; without deceit, it was a desire of strictness, after he had gone to his wife iniquitously. Corrcend from Cruach fell –the harsh very swift champion, by the stone which he raised on the strand over the grave of shamefaced Aed. Cridinbel squiting and crooked fell –the chief spell-weaver of the Tuatha De Danann–of the gold which he found in the idle Bann, by the hand of The Dagda, grandson of Delbaeth. As he came from cold Alba he, the son of The Dagda of ruddy form, at the outlet of Boinn, over here, there was Oengus drowned. The only son of Manannan from the bay, the first love of the aged woman, the tender youth fell in the plain at the hands of Idle Bennan, on the plain of Breg.

Net son of Indui and his two wives, Badb and Neman without deceit, were slain in Ailech without blame by Nemtuir the Red, of the Fomoraig.

Fuamnach the white (?) who was wife of Midir, Sigmall and Bri without faults, In Bri Leith, it was full vigour, they were burnt by Manannan.

The son of Allot fell, with valour, the rich treasure, Manannan, in the battle in harsh Cuillend by the hand of Uillend of the red eyebrows. Uillend with pride fell at the hands of Mac Greine with pure victory: the wife of the brown Dagda perished of plague of the slope in Liathdruim.

The Dagda died of a dart of gore in the Brug–it is no falsehood–wherewith the woman Cethlenn gave him mortal hurt, in the great battle of Mag Tuired. Delbaeth and his son fell at the hands of Caicher, the noble son of Nama: Caicher fell at the idle Boinn, at the hands of Fiachna son of Delbaeth. Fiacha and noble Ai fell before sound Eogan of the Creek: Eogan of the cold creek fell before Eochaid the knowing, hard as iron.

Eochaid of knowledge fell thereafter At the hands of Ed and of Labraid: Labraid, Oengus, Aed, fell At the hands of Cermat of form all fair. Eriu and Fotla with pride, Mac Greine and Banba with victory, Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht with purity in the battle of Temair of clear wave. Mac Cecht at the hands of noble Eremon: Mac Cuill, of perfect Eber: Eriu yonder, at the hands of Suirge thereafter: Mac Greine of Amorgen. Fotla at the hands of Etan with pride, Of Caicher, Banba with victory, Whatever the place wherein they sleep. Those are the deaths of the warriors; hear ye. Those are the adventures of the Tuatha De Danann.

Annals of the Four Masters.

1891 BCE. The tenth year of the reign of Eochaidh, son of Erc; and this was the last year of his reign, for the Tuatha De Dananns came to invade Ireland against the Firbolgs; and they gave battle to each other at Magh Tuireadh, in Conmaicne Cuile Toladh, in Connaught, so that the King Eochaidh, son of Erc, was killed, by the three sons of Neimhidh, son of Badhrai, of the Tuatha De Dananns; Ceasarb, Luamh, and Luachra, their names. The Firbolgs were vanquished and slaughtered in this battle. Moreover, the hand of Nuadhat, son of Eochaidh, son of Edarlamh (the king who was over the Tuatha De Dananns), was cut off in the same battle. The aforesaid Eochaidh was the last king of the Firbolgs. Nine of them had assumed kingship, and thirty-seven years was the length of their sway over Ireland.

1890 BCE. The first year of the reign of Breas, son of Ealathan, over Ireland; for the Tuatha De Danann gave him the sovereignty, after gaining the battle of Magh Tuireadh Conga, while the hand of Nuadhat was under cure.

Annals of the Four Masters.

1884 BCE This was the seventh year of Breas over Ireland, when he resigned the kingdom to Nuadhat, after the cure of his hand by Diancecht, assisted by Creidne, the artificer, for they put a silver hand upon him.

1883 BCE. The first year of the reign of Nuadhat Airgeatlamh, after his hand had been welded with a piece of refined silver.

1864 BCE. At the end of the twentieth year of the reign of Nuadhat of the Silver Hand, he fell in the battle of Magh Tuireadh na bhFomorach, by Balor of the mighty blows, one of the Fomorians.

Annals of the Four Masters.

1863 BCE. The first year of the reign of Lugh Lamhfhada Lewy of the Long Hand over Ireland.

1824 BCE. After the fortieth year of the reign of Lugh Lamhfhada over Ireland, he fell by Mac Cuill at Caendruim. It was in the reign of this Lugh that the fair of Tailltean was established, in commemoration and remembrance of his foster mother, Taillte, the daughter of Maghmor, King of Spain, and the wife of Eochaidh, son of Erc, the last king of the Firbolgs.

Daghda

The Age of the World, 3371.

1823 BCE. The first year of the reign of Eochaidh Ollathair, who was named the Daghda, over Ireland.

1744 BCE After the completion of the last year of the eighty years which Eochaidh Ollathar passed in the monarchy of Ireland, he died at Brugh, of the venom of the wound which Cethlenn inflicted upon him in the first battle of Magh Tuireadh.

1743 BCE. This was the first year of the reign of Dealbhaeth, son of Ogma, over Ireland.

1734 BCE. In the tenth year of the reign of Dealbhaeth, he fell by the hand of his own son, Fiacha mac Dealbhaeith.

1733 BCE. The first year of the reign of Fiacha, the son of Dealbhaeth.

1724 BCE. At the end of the tenth year of the reign of Fiacha, son of Dealbhaeth, over Ireland, he fell by Eogon of Inbher.

1723 BCE. The first year of the three last kings of the Tuatha De Dananns, who were in joint sovereignty over Ireland. These were Mac Cuill, Mac Ceacht, and Mac Greine.

Cronicum Scotorum.

On Thursday, the Kalends of May, on the l7th of the Moon, the fleet of the sons of Milidh occupied Erinn at Inbher Sgene, and the wife of Aimergin Gluingil, i.e. Sgene Davilsir, died there, and her grave was made there; hence it was called Inbher Sgene. Erennan’s grave was placed on the other side.

The third day after the occupation of Erinn by the sons of Miledh, they fought the battle of Sliabh Mis against demons and Fomorians, and the sons of Milidh gained it, and they assumed the sovereignty of Erinn very soon afterwards; and so forth.

Anno Mundi 2544. A.M.2544 Nel, son of Fenius, learned in many languages, went to Egypt.

(You have heard from me, O Readers, that I like not to have the labour of writing this section imposed on me, wherefore it is that I beseech of you, for the sake of true friendship, not to reproach me for it (if the reason thereof is understood by you), for it is certain that it is not the Clann Firbisigh who are in fault.)

Milidh, son of Bile, proceeded then from Spain to Scythia, and from Scythia to Egypt, after the slaying of Reflor, son of Neman (as it is found in the Invasions of Erinn); and understand not that it was soon after the death of Nel in Egypt, but many years, indeed, after it, that Milidh departed from Scythia, after the slaying of Reflor, contending for the sovereignty of Scythia. His great fleet consisted of 100 ships, as the vellum relates from which this copy has been drawn; fifteen families in each ship, and soldiers without wives in it besides. They remained three months in the island of Taprobane. Three months more, also, they were on the Red Sea, until they came to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. They learned the arts of that country. They remained eight years with Pharaoh in Egypt where they propagated their various arts and their various actions. Scota, Pharaoh’s daughter, married Milidh, son of Bile. After that, Milidh went with his host on the great sea, (and Scota, Pharaoh’s daughter, along with him), past the island of Taprobane, in which they stayed a month. They rowed afterwards round Scythia to the “Inbher” of the Caspian Sea. They remained three nomada motionless on the Caspian Sea, through the chaunting of mermaids, until Caicher, the druid, rescued them. They voyaged afterwards past the point of Sliabh Rife until they landed in Dacia. They stayed a month there.

Caicher, the druid, said to them, ‘we shall not stay until we reach Erinn.’

They subsequently passed by Gothia, by Germany, to Bregann, until they occupied Spain. It was uninhabited on their arrival. They remained there thirty years, and fought fifty-four battles against Frisians, and Longobards, and Bachru; and they were all gained by Milidh, son of Bile. For the right of Spain these battles were fought; and hence he was called “Milidh of Spain”. And it was in it Milidh’s two sons, Eremon and hErennan, were born. These were the two youngest. The two oldest were Donn and Ebhir; for in the east, in Scythia, Donn was born, and Ebhir in Egypt.

Twelve families died of a plague in one day in Spain, together with their three kings, viz.:—Milidh, son of Bile, Uige, and Oige. Forty-seven families and four soldiers went with the sons of Milidh, and with Scota, Pharaoh’s daughter, on the sea to Erinn. They subsequently proceeded to land in Erinn at Inbher Slaini. They sailed round Erinn thrice, until finally they came to Inbher Sgene. Erenan, the youngest of Milidh’s sons, went up into the mast to see how far they were from the land. He was drowned there, so that his limbs were severed by rocks, and, in dying, his head was placed on his mother’s breast and gave forth a sigh. ‘No wonder’, said his mother, ‘Erenan’s going between two Inbhers, but he reached not the Inbher to which he came; he separated from the Inbher from which he came’. In that day, there came a terrible storm, and the ship in which was Donn, son of Milidh, with fifty men, twelve women, and four soldiers, was cast away, so that they were drowned at the Dumacha in the western sea, called Tech nDuinn.

[I pass to another time, and He Who Is will bless it.]

Annals of the Four Masters.

1694 BCE. The fleet of the sone of Milidh came to Ireland at the end of this year, to take it from the Tuatha De Dananns; and they fought the battle of Sliabh Mis with them on the third day after landing. In this battle fell Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh, wife of Milidh; and the grave of Scota is to be seen between Sliabh Mis and the sea. Therein also fell Fas, the wife of Un, son of Uige, from whom is named Gleann Faisi. After this the sons of Milidh fought a battle at Tailtinn, against the three kinge of the Tuatha De Dananns, Mac Cuill, Mac Ceacht, and Mac Greine. The battle lasted for a long time, until Mac Ceacht fell by Eiremhon, Mac Cuill by Eimhear, and Mac Greine by Amhergin. Their three queens were also slain; Eire by Suirghe, Fodhla by Edan, and Banba by Caicher. The battle was at length gained against the Tuatha De Dananns, and they were slaughtered wherever they were overtaken. There fell from the sons of Milidh, on the other hand, two illustrious chieftains, in following up the rout, namely Fuad at Sliabh Fuaid, and Cuailgne at Sliabh Cuailgne.

1693 BCE. This was the year in which Eremhon and Emher assumed the joint sovereignty of Ireland, and divided Ireland into two parts between them. It was in it, moreover, that these acts following were done by Eremhon and Emher, with their chieftains: Rath Beothaigh, over the Eoir Argat Ros, and Rath Oinn in Crich Cualann, were erected by Eremhon. The causeway of Inbher mor, in the territory of Ui Eineachglais Cualann, was made by Amergin. The erection of Dun Nair, in Sliabh Modhairn, by Gosten; Dun Deilginnsi, in the territory of Cualann, by Sedgha; Dun Sobhairce, in Murbholg Dal Riada, by Sobhairce; and Dun Edair by Suirghe. By Eremhon and his chieftains these were erected. Rath Uamhain, in Leinster, by Emhear; Rath Arda Suird by Etan, son of Uige; Carraig Fethaighe by Un, son of Uige; Carraig Blaraighe by Mantan; Dun Ardinne by Caicher; Rath Righbaird, in Muiresg, by Fulman. By Emher and his chieftains these were erected.

A dispute arose at the end of this year, between Eremhon and Emhear, about the three celebrated hills, Druim Clasaigh, in Crich Maine; Druim Beathaigh, in Maenmhagh; and Druim Finghin, in Munster. In consequence of which a battle was fought between them, on the brink of Bri Damh, at Tochar Eter Da Mhagh; and this is called the battle of Geisill. The battle was gained upon Emhear, and he fell therein. There fell also three distinguished chieftains of the people of Eremhon in the same battle; Goisten, Setgha, and Suirghe, were their names. After this Eremhon assumed the sovereignty.

1692 BCE. The first year of the reign of Eremhon over Ireland; and the second year after the arrival of the sons of Milidh, Eremhon divided Ireland. He gave the province of Ulster to Emhear, son of Ir; Munster to the four sons of EmhearFinn; the province of Connaught to Un and Eadan; and the province of Leinster to Crimhthann Sciathbhel of the Damnonians.

Tea, daughter of Lughaidh, son of Ith, whom Eremhon married in Spain, to the repudiation of Odhbha, was the Tea who requested of Eremhon a choice hill, as her dower, in whatever place she should select it, that she might be interred therein, and that her mound and her gravestone might be thereon raised, and where every prince ever to be born of her race should dwell. The guarantees who undertook to execute this for her were Amhergin Gluingeal and Emhear Finn. The hill she selected was Druim Caein, i.e. Teamhair. It is from her it was called, and in it was she interred.

Odhbha, the mother of Muimhne, Luighne, and Laighne, died, and was interred at Odhbha.

The battle of Cuil Caichir, in which Caicher was slain by Amergin Gluingeal, was fought this year; and his grave was dug in that place, so that from him Cuil Caichir was named.

1691 BCE. The second year of the reign of Eremhon over Ireland.

Amhergin Gluingeal, son of Milidh, fell in the battle of Biletineadh this year by Eremhon.

The eruption of the nine Brosnachs, (i.e. rivers) of Eile; of the nine Righes, (i.e. rivers) of Leinster; and of the three Uinsionns of Hy Oiliolla.

1688 BCE. The fifth year of the reign of Eremon.

Fulman and Mantan fell by the king in the battle of Breogan, in Feimhin; and the eruption of the following lakes took place in the same year: Loch Cimbe, Loch Buadhaigh, Loch Baadh, Loch Ren, Loch Finnmhaighe, Loch Greine, Loch Riach, Loch Da Chaech, in Leinster, and Loch Laegh, in Ulster.

1684 BCE. The ninth year of the reign of Eremon, Un, En, and Edan, fell by him in the battle of Comhraire, in Meath. The eruption of Eithne, in Ui Neill; of the three Socs, in Connaught; and of the Fregabhail, between Dal Araidhe and Dal Riada, this year. These are rivers.

1678 BCE. The fifteenth year of the reign of Eremhon; he died at the end of this period at Rath Beothaigh over the Eoir, in Argat Ross.

1677 BCE. The first year of the joint reign of Muimhne, Luighne, and Laighne, sons of Eremon, over Ireland.

1675 BCE. At the end of these three years Muimhne died at Cruachain. Luighne and Laighne fell in the battle of Ard Ladhron by the sons of Emhear. Er, Orba, Fearon, and Fergen, the four sons of Emer, reigned half a year. This half year and the half year of Nuadhat Neacht make a full year; and to Nuadhat Neacht it is reckoned in the age of the world.

These sons of Emer were slain by Irial Faidh, son of Eremon, in the battle of Cuil Marta, at the end of the half year aforesaid.

1665 BCE. At the end of this, the tenth year of the reign of Irial Faidh, son of Eremon, he died at Magh Muaidhe. It was by this Irial Faidh the following battles were fought: the battle of Cuil Marta; the battle of Ard Inmaoith, in Teathbha, in which fell Stirne, son of Dubh, son of Fomhor; the battle of Tenmaighe, in which fell Eocha Echcheann, king of the Fomorians; the battle of Lochmaighe, in which fell Lughroth, son of Mofemis of the Firbolgs.

It was in the time of the same Irial that the clearing of the plains, the erection of the forts, and the eruption of the rivers following, took place. These are the plains: Magh Sele, in Ui Neill; Magh nEle, in Leinster; Magh Reicheat; Magh Sanais, in Connaught; Magh Techt, in Ui Mac Uais; Magh Faithne, in Airtheara; Magh Dairbhreach, in Fotharta Dairbhreach; Magh Lughna, in Cianachta; Magh Inis, in Uladh; Magh Cuile Feadha, in Fearnmhagh; Magh Comair; Magh Midhe; Magh Cobha; Magh Cuma, in Ui Neill; Magh Fearnmhaighe, in Oirghialla; and Magh Riada. These are the forts: Rath Croich, in Magh Inis; Rath Cuinceadha, in Seimhne; Rath Bacain, in Latharna; Rath Lochaid, at Glascharn; Rath Glaisicuilg, which is called Rath Ciombaoith, at Eamhain, Rath Mothaigh; Rath Buirg, in Sleachtmhagh. The rivers were the Siuir, Feil, Ercre, in Munster; the three Finns; and the three Coimdes.

1664 BCE. This was the first year of the reign of Eithrial, son of Irial Faidh, over Ireland.

1645 BCE. The twentieth year of the reign of Eithrial, son of Irial Faidh, son of Eremon, when he fell by Conmhael, son of Emer, in the battle of Raeire.

It was in the reign of this Eithrial that these plains were cleared: Teanmagh, in Connaught; Magh Lughadh, in Luighne; Magh Bealaigh, in Ui Tuirtre; Magh Geisille, in Ui Failghe; Magh Ochtair, in Leinster; Lochmhagh, in Conaille; Magh Roth, in Ui Eathach.

1644 BCE. This was the first year of the reign of Conmael, son of Emer, over Ireland. He was the first king of Ireland from Munster.

1615 BCE. Conmael, son of Emer, having been thirty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell, in the battle of Aenach Macha, by Tighernmus, son of Follach.

By Conmael had been fought these battles: the battle of Geisill, in which fell Palap, son of Eremon; the battle of Berra; the battle of Sliabh Beatha, in Ui Creamhthainn; the battle of Ucha; the battle of Cnucha; the battle of Sliabh Modhairn, in which fell Semroth, son of Inboith; the battle of Clere; the battle of Carnmor, in which fell Ollach; the battle of Loch Lein, against the Ernai and Martinei, and against Mogh Ruith, son of Mofebis of the Firbolgs; the battle of Ele.

Annals of the Four Masters.

1614 BCE. The first year of the reign of Tighernmas, son of Folloch, over Ireland.

1613 BCE. The second year of the reign of Tighernmas, the eruption of these nine lakes occurred: Loch Uair, in Meath; Loch nIairn; Loch Ce, in Connaught; Loch Saileann; Loch nAilleann, in Connaught; Loch Feabhail; Loch Gabhair; Dubhloch; and Loch Dabhall, in Oirghialla.

1538 BCE. This was the seventeenth year above three score of Tighearnmas, as king over Ireland. It was by him the following battles were gained over the race of Emhear, and others of the Irish, and foreigners besides. These were the battles: the battle of Elle, in which fell Rochorb, son of Gollan; the battle of Lochmagh, in which fell Dagairne, son of Goll, son of Gollan; the battle of Cul Ard, in Magh Inis; the battle of Cuil Fraechan; the battle of Magh Techt; the battle of Commar; the battle of Cul Athguirt, in Seimhne; the battle of Ard Niadh, in Connaught; the battle of Carn Fearadhaigh, in which fell Fearadhach, son of Rochorb, son of Gollan, from whom Carn Fearadhaigh is called; the battle of Cnamh Choill, in Connaught; the battle of Cuil Feadha; the battle of Reabh; the battle of Congnaidhe, in Tuath Eabha; the battle of Cluain Cuas, in Teathbha; the battle of Cluain Muirsge, in Breifne; the two battles of Cuil, in Argat Ross; the battle of Ele; the battle of Berra; seven battles at Loch Lughdhach; two other battles at Argat Ross; three battles against the Firbolgs; the battle of Cuil Fothair, against the Ernai.

It was by Tighearnmas also that gold was first smelted in Ireland, in Foithre Airthir Liffe. It was Uchadan, an artificer of the Feara Cualann, that smelted it. It was by him that goblets and brooches were first covered with gold and silver in Ireland. It was by him that clothes were dyed purple, blue, and green. It was in his reign the three black rivers of Ireland burst forth, Fubhna, Torann, and Callann, their names. At the end of this year he died, with the three fourths of the men of Ireland about him, at the meeting of Magh Slecht, in Breifne, at the worshipping of Crom Cruach, which was the chief idol of adoration in Ireland. This happened on the night of Samhain precisely. It was from the genuflections which the men of Ireland made about Tighearnmas here that the plain was named.

1537 BCE. This was the first year of Ireland without a king, after the death of Tighearnmas.

1531 BCE. This was the seventh year. Ireland was without a king during the period of these seven years.

1530 BCE. This was the first year of Eochaidh Eadghadhach, as king over Ireland. He was called Eochaidh Eadghadhach because it was by him the variety of colour was first put on clothes in Ireland, to distinguish the honour of each by his raiment, from the lowest to the highest. Thus was the distinction made between them: one colour in the clothes of slaves; two in the clothes of soldiers; three in the clothes of goodly heroes, or young lords of territories; six in the clothes of ollavs; seven in the clothes of kings and queens.

1527 BCE. The fourth year of Eochaidh. At the end of the fourth year of his reign, he fell by Cearmna, son of Ebric, in the battle of Teamhair Tara.

1526 BCE. The first year of the joint reign of Sobhairce and Cearmna Finn, the two sons of Ebric, son of Emher, son of Ir, son of Milidh, over Ireland; and they divided it between them into two parts: Sobhairce resided in the north, at Dun Sobhairce; and Cearmna in the south, at Dun Cearmna. These were the first kings of Ireland of the race of Ir.

1487 BCE. After these kings had been forty years in the joint sovereignty of Ireland, Sobhairce was slain by Eochaidh Meann, of the Fomorians; and Cearmna fell by Eochaidh Faebharghlas, son of Conmael.

1486 BCE. The first year of Eochaidh Faebhar Ghlas, son of Conmael, son of Emhear, over Ireland.

1467 BCE. After Eochaidh had been twenty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he was slain by Fiacha Labhrainne, in the battle of Carman Wexford, in revenge of his father.

These were the battles that were fought, and the plains that were cleared, by Eochaidh Faebharghlas: the battle of Luachair Deadhadh; the battle of Fosadh Da Ghort; the battle of Comar Tri nUisge; the battle of Tuaim Drecon, in Ui Briuin Breifne; the battle of Druim Liathain. These are the plains: Magh Smeathrach, in Ui Failghe; Magh nAidhne, Magh Luirg, in Connaught; Magh Leamhna, Magh nInir, Magh Fubhna, and Magh Da Ghabhar, in Oirghialla.

1466 BCE. This was the first year of the reign of Fiacha Labhrainne over Ireland.

1443 BCE. This was the twenty fourth year, the termination of the reign of Fiacha Labhrainne; and he fell by Eochaidh Mumho, of Munster, in the battle of Bealgadan. It was by this Fiacha Labhrainne the following battles were gained: the battle of Gathlach, in which fell Mofebis, son of Eochaidh Faebharghlas; the battle of Fairrge, against the race of Emhear; the battle of Sliabh Feimhin; a battle against the Ernai, a sept of the Firbolgs, on the plain where Loch Erne now is. After the battle was gained from them, the lake flowed over them, so that it was from them the lake is named, that is, “a lake over the Ernai.” It was in the reign of the same Fiacha that the springing of these three rivers first took place, namely, the Fleasc, the Mand, and the Labhrann, from which last the surname Labhrainne clung to him.

1442 BCE. This was the first year of the reign of Eochaidh Mumho, son of Mofebis, over Ireland.

1422 BCE. Twenty-one years was Eochaidh in the sovereignty of Ireland, when he fell by Aengus Olmucadha, son of Fiacha Labhrainne, in the battle of Cliach.

1421 BCE. This was the first year of the reign of Aengus Olmucadha over Ireland.

1404 BCE. After Aengus Olmucadha had been eighteen years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he fell in the battle of Carmann, by Enna Airgtheach. It was Aengus that gained the following battles. The battle of Clere; the battle of Cuirce, the battle of Sliabh Cailge, against the Martini, in the territory of Corca Bhaiscinn; the battle of Ros Fraechan, in Muirisc, in which fell Fraechan, the prophet; the battle of Carn Riceadha; the battle of Cuil Ratha, in South Munster; the battle of Sliabh Cua, against the Ernai; the battle of Ard Achadh, in which fell Smiorgall, son of Smeathra, king of the Fomorians; fifty battles against the Cruithean Tuath and the Firbolgs; twelve battles against the Longbardai; and four battles against the Colaisti.

These are the lakes which burst forth in his time: Loch Aenbheithe, in Ui Cremhthainn; Loch Saileach; Loch Na nGasan, in Magh Luirg, in Connaught; and the eruption of the sea between Eabha and Ros Cette.

It was by Aengus also that these plains were cleared: Magh Glinne Decon, in Cinel Conaill; Magh Mucruimhe, in Connaught; Magh Cuile Cael, in Cinel Boghaine; Magh nOensciath, in Leinster; Aelmhagh, in Calraighe; Mag Arcaill, in Ciarraighe Luachra; and Magh Luachra Deadhaidh.

1403 BCE. This was the first year of Enna Airgtheach, as king over Ireland.

1377 BCE. After Enna Airgtheach had spent twenty-seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he fell by Raitheachtaigh, son of Maen, son of Aengus Olmucadha, in the battle of Raighne.

It was by this Enna Airgtheach that silver shields were made at Airget Ros; so that he gave them to the men of Ireland, together with horses and chariots.

1376 BCE. This was the first year of Roitheachtaigh, son of Maen, over Ireland.

1352 BCE. After Roitheachtaigh had been twenty-five years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he fell by Sedna, son of Airtri, at Cruachain.

1351 BCE. The first year of the reign of Sedna, son of Airtri, son of Eibhric, son of Emher, son of Ir.

1346 BCE. After Sedna had been five years in the sovereignty, he fell by Fiacha Finscothach and Muineamhon, son of Cas Clothach, at Cruachain.

1345 BC. The first year of the reign of Fiacha Finscothach over Ireland.

1327 BCE. After Fiacha Finscothach had been twenty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he fell by Muineamhon, son of Cas. Every plain in Ireland abounded with flowers and shamrocks in the time of Fiacha. These flowers, moreover, were found full of wine, so that the wine was squeezed into bright vessels. Wherefore, the cognomen, Fiacha Fin Scothach, continued to be applied to him.

1326 BCE. This was the first year of the reign of Muinemhon, son of Cas Clothach, over Ireland.

1322 BCE. At the end of the fifth year of Muineamhon, he died of the plague in Magh Aidhne. It was Muineamhon that first caused chains of gold to be worn on the necks of kings and chieftains in Ireland.

1321 BCE. The first year of Faildeargdoid.

1312 BCE. After Faildeargdoid had been ten years in the sovereignty, he fell by Ollamh Fodhla, son of Fiacha Finscothach, in the battle of Teamhair. It was by the King Faildeargdoid that gold rings were first worn upon the hands of chieftains in Ireland.

1311 BCE. The first year of the reign of Ollamh Fodhla, son of Fiacha Finscothach.

1272 BCE. Ollamh Fodhla, after having been forty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, died at his own mur house at Teamhair. He was the first king by whom the Feis Teamhrach was established; and it was by him Mur Ollamhan was erected at Teamhair.

It was he also that appointed a chieftain over every cantred, and a Brughaidh over every townland, who were all to serve the King of Ireland.

Eochaidh was the first name of Ollamh Fodhla; and he was called Ollamh Fodhla because he had been first a learned Ollamh, and afterwards king of Fodhla, i.e. of Ireland.

1271 BCE. This was the first year of the reign of Finnachta, son of Ollamh Fodhla, over Ireland.

1252 BCE. This was the twentieth year of the reign of Finnachta over Ireland. He afterwards died of the plague in Magh Inis, in Uladh.

It was in the reign of Finnachta that snow fell with the taste of wine, which blackened the grass. From this the cognomen, Finnachta, adhered to him. Elim was his name at first.

1251 BCE. The first year of the reign of Slanoll, son of Ollamh Fodhla, over Ireland.

1235 BCE. The seventeenth year of Slanoll in the sovereignty; and he died, at the end of that time, at Teamhair Tara, and it is not known what disease carried him off; he was found dead, but his colour did not change. He was afterwards buried; and after his body had been forty years in the grave, it was taken up by his son, i.e. Oilioll mac Slanuill, and the body had remained without rotting or decomposing during this period. This thing was a great wonder and surprise to the men of Ireland.

1234 BCE. The first year of the reign of Gedhe Ollghothach over Ireland.

1223 BCE.

The twelfth year of Gedhe Ollghothach in the sovereignty of Ireland; and he fell at the end of that time by Fiacha, son of Finnachta.

1222 BCE. The first year of Fiacha Finnailches, son of Finnachta, in the sovereignty of Ireland. Every calf that was brought forth in his reign was white headed.

1203 BCE. After Fiacha Finnailches had been twenty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he fell in the battle of Breagh, by Bearnghal, son of Gedhe Ollghothach.

It was by Fiacha Finnailches that Dun Chuile Sibrinne, i.e. Ceanannus was erected. Wherever his habitation was placed, Ceanannus was its name. It was by this king that the earth was first dug in Ireland, that water might be in wells. It was difficult for the stalk to sustain its corn in his reign.

1202 BCE. The first year of the reign of Bearnghal, son of Gedhe Ollghothach, over Ireland.

1191 BCE. Bearnghal, the son of Gedhe Ollghothach, after having been twelve years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by Oilioll, son of Slanoll, and Sirna, son of Dian.

1190 BCE. This was the first year of the reign of Oilioll, son of Slanoll, over Ireland.

1175 BCE. Oilioll, son of Slanoll, after having been sixteen years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by Sirna, son of Dian.

1174 BCE. This was the first year of the reign of Sirna, son of Dian, son of Deman, in the sovereignty of Ireland. It was this Sirna, son of Dian, that wrested the government of Teamhair Tara from the Ulta, i.e. the race of Ir. It was he, too, that revenged upon them the death of Roitheachtaigh mac Main, whom they had slain at Cruachain; so that Bearnghal, son of Gedhe Ollghothach, and Oilioll, son of Slanoll, fell by him.

1032 BCE. Sirna Saeghlach, son of Dian, after having been a century and a half in the sovereignty of Ireland fell by Roitheachtaigh, son of Roan, at Aillinn. This was the Sirna who gained the battle of Aircealtair over the Ultonians; the two battles of Sliabh Airbhreach; the battle of Ceann Duin, in Assal; the battle of Moin Foichnigh, in Ui Failghe, over the Martini and Ernai; the battle of Luachair; the battle of Claire; the battle of Samhain; the battle of Cnoc Ochair. An attack was made by him on the Fomorians, in the territory of Meath. It was by him, moreover, was fought the battle of Moin Troghaidhe, in Ciannachta, when Lughair, son of Lughaidh, of the race of Emhear, had brought in a force of Fomorians into Ireland, with their king, Ceasarn by name. Sirna drew the men of Ireland to make battle against them to Moin Trogaidhe. As they were fighting the battle a plague was sent upon them, of which Lughair and Ceasarn perished, with their people, and a countless number of the men of Ireland along with them.

It was in the time of Sirna, also, happened the eruption of the Scirtach, in Leinster; of the Doailt, in Crich Rois; of the Nith, in Magh Muirtheimhne; of the Leamhain, in Munster; and of the Slaine, in Ui Creamhthainn.

1031 BCE. This was the first year of the reign of Roitheachtaigh, son of Roan, over Ireland.

1025 BCE. After Roitheachtaigh had been seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, lightning burned him at Dun Sobhairce Dunseverick. It was by this Roitheachtaigh that chariots of four horses were first used in Ireland.

1024 BCE. Elim Oillfinshneachta, son of Roitheachtaigh, after having been one year in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell, at the end of that year, by Giallchaidh, son of Oilioll Ollchain. Snow, with the taste of wine, fell in this year, whence he was called Oillfinshneachta.

1023 BCE. The first year of Giallchaidh, son of Olioll Olchain, son of Sirna, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

1015 BCE. Giallchaidh, after having been nine years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by Art Imleach, in Magh Muaidhe.

1014 BCE. This was the first year of Art Imleach, son of Elim Oillfinshneachta, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

1003 BCE. Art Imleach, after having been twelve years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by Nuadhat Finnfail.

1002 BCE. This was the first year of the reign of Nuadhat Finnfail over Ireland.

The Battle of Moytura or, The First Battle of Magh Turedh

1. ‘Children of powerful Nemed, what is the cause of your assembling? What has brought you here—contest, conflict, or combat?’

‘What has brought us from our homes, wise Fintan, is this: we suffer at the hands of the Fomorians of Ireland by reason of the greatness of the tribute.’

‘Whatever be the tribute, on whomsoever and wheresoever imposed, it is in our power either to bear it or to escape from it.

‘There is among you a party, quarrelsome though few in all the land, that do more to ruin it than the tribute of the Fomorians.

‘Depart if you feel the time is ripe, glorious sons of Nemed; do not suffer wrong, remain not here, but go far hence.’

2. ‘Is that your advice to us, wise Fintan?’ ‘It is,’ said Fintan, ‘and I have yet more counsel for you: you must not go by one route or in one direction, for a fleet cannot be brought together without outbreak of fighting; a large number means quarrelling, strangers provoke challenge, and an armed host conflict. You do not find it easy to live together in any one spot in Ireland, and it would not be any easier for your hosts in seeking new homes.

3. ‘Depart from this land, children of Nemed; leave Ireland, and escape the violence of your enemies.

‘Stay here no longer, pay no more tribute. Your sons or your grandsons will recover the land from which you are now fleeing.

‘You shall travel to the land of the Greeks—’tis no lying tale I tell—and though you set out in thousands, your strength will not be found sufficient in the East.

‘The children of steadfast Beothach shall leave you and go towards the cold North, the children of Semeon to the East though you feel it strange, depart.’

4. So they parted from each other, Fintan and the famous children of Nemed. Beothach, son of Iarbonel, remained, with his ten men and their wives, in Ireland, according to the poet:

Iarbonel’s son, Beothach of the clear-spoken judgments, remained in Ireland. His children went far eastward, to the north-west of Lochlann.

5. Astonishing is the ignorance shown by those who would have it that Tait, son of Tabarn, was sole king over the children of Nemed, for he was yet unborn. He was born in the East, and never came to Ireland.

6. Immense was the fleet, eager the gathering_considering from how few sprang the great company that set out from Ireland, for only thirty men had escaped at the taking of Conaing’s Tower, and of these a third remained with Beothach in Ireland. The remaining twenty must have multiplied greatly, for the number of ships that were now leaving Ireland was ten thousand, one hundred and forty.

Those dear friends, then, separated, and sad and sorrowful was the little remnant that remained in Ireland. . .

7. …the mysteries of wizardry, the knowledge, learning, and prophetic powers, the mastery of arms and skill in cunning feats, the travels and wanderings of the sons of Ibath, for it happened that those tales that had all gone abroad from one place came to be told. A different narrative is necessary for each race. Touching the children of Semeon, son of Starn. A storm had driven them from their course till they came to the dry strands of Thrace and the sandy shores of Greece, and there they settled. Thereupon the inhabitants and the champions of the land visited them, and made a compact of peace and concord with them. Territory was apportioned them, but on the sea-shore, on the distant borders, on cold rough stretches and rugged rocks, on the hill-sides and mountain slopes, on inhospitable heights and in deep ravines, on broken land and ground unfit for cultivation. But the strangers transported a great quantity of soil to the smooth, bare rocks, and made them into smiling clover-covered plains.

8. When the chiefs and powerful men of the land saw the smooth, broad and grassy fields, and the wide expanses of fruitful cultivated land, they would expel the occupants, and give them in exchange wild, rugged regions, hard stony lands infested with poisonous serpents. However, they tamed and cultivated the ground, and made it into good fruitful fields, smooth and broad like all their land that was taken from them.

9. But in the meantime the children of Nemed increased and multiplied till they numbered many thousands. The tribute grew heavier and their labour harder till they, now a powerful company, resolved secretly to make wide curved boats of the well-woven bags they used for carrying soil, and to sail for Ireland.

10. Two hundred years had passed since the taking of Conaing’s Tower till the return of the children of Semeon to Ireland. It was at the same time that the famous warlike children of Israel were leaving Egypt in search of the happy land of promise, while the descendants of Gaidel Glas moved up from the south after the escape of the people of God and the drowning of Pharaoh, and came to cold, rugged Scythia.

11. During the two hundred years after the taking of Conaing’s Tower the children of Semeon multiplied till they numbered many thousands, forming strong bold hosts. On account of the severity of the labour and the heaviness of the bondage imposed on them they determined to flee from persecution, endeavour to escape and make their way to Ireland.

12. They made boats of their sacks, and stole some of the vessels, boats, and galleys of the soldiers of the Greeks. The lords and leaders, heads, chiefs and champions of that fleet were the five sons of Dela, according to the poet:

To noble Ireland there set out the five sons of Dela son of Loth the impetuous, Rudraige, Genann, Gann, Slainge of the spears, and Sengann.

13. They made off at nightfall, and manned their ships in the harbour where they had first landed. Slainge, the elder of the company, who was judge among his brothers, harangued them as follows:

‘Now is the time for exertion, care, and watchfulness; fierce and grey with foam is the sea; each fair fleet sets forth to escape from intolerable wrong; the tyranny of the Greeks is unaccustomed; the plains of salmon-bearing Ireland we must strive to win. ‘Give heed to and observe the wrong and injustice you suffer. You have in us five good men to lead the fleet, each of us a match for a hundred.’

‘That is true,’ his followers replied. ‘Let us make the people of this land pay in full for the servitude and the heavy tribute they imposed on us.’ And so they killed every one of the Greeks worth killing that they got hold of, and wasted the neighbouring land and made a devastating incursion over it and burnt it. They then brought their plunder and spoil to the place where their ships and galleys were and the smooth, black-prowed boats they had made of their sacks and bags, that is, to Traig Tresgad.

14.One thousand one hundred and thirty was the number of ships that put out, according to the poet:

‘One thousand one hundred and thirty ships—that, without falsehood, is the number that accompanied Genann and his people from the East.

Numerous, indeed, were the Fir Boig when they left Greece, a stout company that set out vigorously on their voyage, but not in a fleet built of wood.

On Wednesday, they put out to the West over the wide Tyrrhenian sea, and after a period of a full year and three days they arrived in Spain.’

From there to noble Ireland they made a speedy voyage; all may proclaim it, they took a period of thirteen days.’

15. So they came to Spain. They asked of their seers and druids for information and direction concerning the winds which should next carry them to Ireland. They sailed onwards before a south-west wind till they saw Ireland in the distance. But at that point the wind rose high and strong, and its violence drove huge waves against the sides of the ships; and the fleet separated into three great divisions, the Gaileoin, the Fir Boig and the Fir Domnann. Slainge put to shore at Inber Slainge in the fifth of the Gaileoin; Rudraige landed at Tracht Rudraige in Ulster; and Genann in Inber Domnann. The wind freshened, and the storm drove Gann and Senganu till they put in at Inber Douglas, where Corcamruad and Corcabaisginn meet.

16. There they landed, and this is the first place to which sheep were brought in Ireland, and Sheep’s Height is its flame.

It was on Saturday, the first day of August, that Slainge put into Inber Slainge; Gann and Genann put into Inber Domnann on Friday; and Rudraige and Sengann at Tracht Rudraige on Tuesday. The latter were anxious as to whether the Fir Boig had reached Ireland or not, and sent messengers all over Ireland to gather all of them that had arrived in Ireland to one place, that is, the Stronghold of the Kings in Tara. All of them assembled there. ‘We give thanks to the gods,’ said they, ‘for our return to thee, Ireland. Let the country be divided equitably between us. Bring hither the wise Fintan, and let Ireland be divided according to his decision.’

17. It was then that Fintan made five portions of Ireland. From Inber Colptha to Comar Tri nUisce was given to Slainge, son of Dela, and his thousand men; Gann’s portion was from Comar Tri nUisce to Belach Conglais, Sengann’s from Belach Conglais to Limerick. Gamin and Sengaun, thus, had the two Munsters. Genann was put over Connacht, and Rudraige over Ulster. The poet describes the division thus:

‘On Saturday, an omen of prosperity, Slainge reached lofty Ireland; his bold career began at Inber Slainge.

At dark Inber Douglas the two ships of Sengann and Gann touched the glorious land.

Rudraige and prosperous Genann landed on Friday. These were all of them, and they Were the five kings.

From Inber Colptha to Comar Tri nUisce Fintan made one division; that was the portion of Slainge of the spears. His host was a thousand men.

From Comar Tri nUisce to famous Belach Conglais was the fifth of wound-dealing Gann. He had a following of a thousand men.

To Sengann, methinks, was given from Belach to Limerick. He was at the head of a thousand men when strife threatened.

Genann was undisputed king of Connacht to the Maigue. Heroic Rudraige was king of Ulster; his were two thousand men in the hour of battle.

Rudraige and Sengann of the spears were, it is certain, the chiefs of the Fir Boig. The Gaileon followed glorious Slainge. A good king were he that had a more numerous host. They entered Ireland from the south, as God saw fitting.

18. The wives of these five chiefs were Auaist, Liben, Cnucha, Edar, and Fuat, as the poet says:

‘Fuat was the wife of Slainge as you hold, Edar of the warrior Gamin, Auaist of Sengann of the spears, Cnucha of fair Genann.

‘Liben was the wife of Rudraige the Red—they made a pleasant company on a visit. However, as for Rudraige, the feat-performing king, I have heard that his wife was Fuat.’

19. The Fir Boig then occupied Ireland, and were masters of it for thirty years.

20. As for the Tuatha De Danann, they prospered till their fame went abroad over the lands of the earth. They had a god of wizardry of their own, Eochaid Ollathir, called the Great Dagda, for he was an excellent god. They had bold, hardy chiefs, and men proficient in every art; and they determined to go to Ireland. Then set out those daring chiefs, representing the military prowess of the world, and the skill and learning of Europe. They came from the northern islands to Dobur and Indobur, to S . . . and Genann’s well. There they stayed for four years, and at their coming to Ireland Nuada, son of Echtach, was king over them.

Then those warriors gathered their fleets to one place till they had three hundred ships under way. Thereupon their seers, Cairbre, Aed, and Edan asked the chiefs of the host in which ship they should sail, recommending that of Fiachra. The chiefs approved and went on board. Then they all set sail, and after three years and three days and three nights landed at wide Tracht Mugha in Ulster on Monday of the first week in May.

Now, on the arrival of the Tuatha De Danann in Ireland, a vision was revealed in a dream to Eochaid, son of Erc, high king of Ireland. He pondered over it with much anxiety, being filled with wonder and perplexity. He told his wizard, Cesard, that he had seen, a vision. ‘What was the vision?’ asked Cesard. ‘I saw a great flock of black birds,’ said the king, ‘coming from the depths of the Ocean. They settled over all of us, and fought with the people of Ireland. They brought confusion on us, and destroyed us. One of us, methought, struck the noblest of the birds and cut off one of its wings. And now, Cesard, employ your skill and knowledge, and tell us the meaning of the vision.’ Cesard did so, and by means of ritual and the use of his science the meaning of the king’s vision was revealed to him; and he said:

‘I have tidings for you: warriors are coming across the sea, a thousand heroes covering the ocean; speckled ships will press in upon us; all kinds of death they announce, a people skilled in every art, a magic spell; an evil spirit will come upon you, signs to lead you astray (?); . . . they will be victorious in every stress.’

21. ‘That,’ said Eochaid, ‘is a prophecy of the coming to Ireland of enemies from far distant countries.’

22. As for the Tuatha De Danann, they all arrived in Ireland, and immediately broke and burnt all their ships and boats. Then they proceeded to the Red Hills of Rian in Brefne in the east of Connacht, where they halted and encamped. And at last their hearts and minds were filled with contentment that they had attained to the land of their ancestors.

23. Now it was reported to the Fir Bolg that that company had arrived in Ireland. That was the most handsome and delightful company, the fairest of form, the most distinguished in their equipment and apparel, and their skill in music and playing, the most gifted in mind and temperament that ever came to Ireland. That too was the company that was bravest and inspired most horror and fear and dread, for the Tuatha De excelled all the peoples of the world in their proficiency in every art.

24. ‘It is a great disadvantage to us,’ said the Fir Bolg, ‘that we should have no knowledge or report of where yon host came from, or where they mean to settle. Let Sreng set out to visit them, for he is big and fierce, and bold to spy on hosts and interview strangers, and uncouth and terrifying to behold.’ Thereupon Sreng rose, and took his strong hooked reddish-brown shield, his two thick-shafted javelins, his death-dealing (?) sword, his fine four-cornered helmet and his heavy iron club; and went on his way to the Hill of Rain.

The Tuatha De saw a huge fearsome man approaching them. ‘Here comes a man all alone,’ they said. ‘It is for information he comes. Let us send some one to speak with him.’

Then Bres, son of Elatha, went out from the camp to inspect him and parley with him. He carried with him his shield and his sword, and his two great spears. The two men drew near to each other till they were within speaking distance. Each looked keenly at the other without speaking a word. Each was astonished at the other’s weapons and appearance; Sreng wondered at the great spears he saw, and rested his shield on the ground before him, so that it protected his face. Bres, too, kept silent and held his shield before him. Then they greeted each other, for they spoke the same language—their origin being the same—and explained to each other as follows who they and their ancestors were:

‘My flesh and my tongue were gladdened at your pleasant cheerful language, as you recounted the genealogies from Nemed downwards.

‘By origin our two peoples are as brothers; our race and kin are descended from Semeon

‘This is the proper time to bear it in mind, if we are, in flesh and blood, of the same distinguished race as you.

‘Humble your pride, let your hearts draw nigher, be mindful of your brotherhood, prevent the destruction of your own men.’

‘High is our temper, lordly our pride and fierce against our foes; you shall not abate it.

‘Should our peoples meet, it will be a gathering where many will be crushed; let him who will bring entertainment, ‘tis not he that will amuse them.’

25. ‘Remove, your shield from before your body and face,’ said Bres, ‘that I may be able to give the Tuatha De an account of your appearance.’ ‘I will do so,’ said Sreng, ‘for it was for fear of that sharp spear you carry that I placed my shield between us.’ Then he raised his shield. ‘Strange and venomous,’ said Bres, ‘are those spears, if the weapons of all of you resemble them. Show me your weapons.’ ‘I will,’ said Sreng; and he thereupon unfastened and uncovered his thick-shafted javelins. ‘What do you think of these weapons?’ he said. ‘I see,’ said Bres, ‘huge weapons, broad-pointed, stout and heavy, mighty and keen-edged.

‘Woe to him whom they should smite, woe to him at whom they shall be flung, against whom they shall be cast; they will be instruments of oppression. Death is in their mighty blows, destruction in but one descent of them; wounds are their hard plying; overwhelming is the horror of them.

26. ‘What do you call them?’ said Bres. ‘Battle javelins are these,’ said Sreng. ‘They are good weapons,’ said Bres, ‘bruised bodies they mean, gushing gore, broken bones and shattered shields, sure scars and present plague. Death and eternal blemish they deal, sharp, foe-like, and deadly are your weapons, and there is fury for fratricide in the hearts of the hosts whose weapons they are. Let us make a compact and covenant.’ They did so. Each came nigh to the other, and Bres asked: ‘Where did you spend last night, Sreng?’ ‘At the hallowed heart of Ireland, in the Rath of the kings in Tara, where are the kings and princes of the Fir Bolg, and Eochaid, High-king of Ireland. And you, whence come you?’ ‘From the hill, from the crowded capacious camp yonder on the mountain-slope where are the Tuatha De and Nuada, their king, who came from the north of the world in a cloud of mist and a magic shower to Ireland and the land of the west.’ (However, he did not believe that it was thus they came).’ It was then Sreng said: ‘I have a long journey, and it is time for me to go.’ ‘Go then,’ said Bres, ‘and here is one of the two spears I brought with me. Take it as a specimen of the weapons of the Tuatha De.’ Sreng gave one of his javelins to Bres as a specimen of the weapons of the Fir Bolg. ‘Tell the Fir Bolg,’ said Bres, ‘that they must give my people either battle or half of Ireland.’ ‘On my word,’ said Sreng, ‘I should prefer to give you half of Ireland than to face your weapons.’ They parted in peace after making a compact of friendship with each other.

27. Sreng went on his way to Tara. He was asked for tidings of the people he had gone to parley with; and he told his story. ‘Stout are their soldiers,’ he said, ‘manly and masterful their men, bloody and battle-sure their heroes, very great and strong their shields, very sharp and hard of shaft their spears, and hard and broad their blades. Hard it is to fight with them; ‘tis better to make a fair division of the land, and to give them half of Ireland as they desire.’ ‘We will not grant that, indeed,’ said the Fir Bolg, ‘for if we do, the land will all be theirs.’

28. Bres reached his camp, and was asked for a description of the man he had gone to parley with, and of his weapons. ‘A big, powerful, fierce man,’ he said, ‘with vast, wonderful weapons, truculent and hardy withal, without awe or fear of any man.’ The Tuatha De said to each other: ‘Let us not stay here, but go to the west of Ireland, to some strong place, and there let us face whomsoever comes. So the host travelled westward over plains and inlets till they came to Mag Nia, and to the end of Black Hill, which is called Sliabh Belgadain. On their arrival there they said: ‘This is an excellent place, strong and impregnable. From here let us wage our wars, and make our raids, here let us devise our battles and hostings.’ Their camping there is mentioned by the poet in the lines:

‘From the Hill of Belgadain to the Mountain—lofty is the mountain round which we wage our contests. From its summit, the Tuatha De laid hold of Ireland.’

29. It was then that Badb and Macha and Morrigan went to the Knoll of the Taking of the Hostages, and to the Hill of Summoning of Hosts at Tara, and sent forth magic showers of sorcery and compact clouds of mist and a furious rain of fire, with a downpour of red blood from the air on the warriors’ heads; and they allowed the Fir Bolg neither rest nor stay for three days and nights. ‘A poor thing,’ said the Fir Bolg, ‘is the sorcery of our sorcerers that they cannot protect us from the sorcery of the Tuatha De,’ ‘But we will protect you,’ said Fathach, Gnathach, Ingnathach, and Cesard, the sorcerers of the Fir Bolg; and they stayed the sorcery of the Tuatha De.

30. Thereupon the Fir Bolg gathered, and their armies and hosts came to one place of meeting. There met the provincial kings of Ireland. First came Sreng and Semne and Sithbrugh the three sons of Sengann, with the people of the provinces of Curói.’ There came too Esca, Econn, and Cirb with the hosts of Conchobar’s province; the four Sons of Gann with the hosts of the province of Eochaid son of Luchta; the four sons of Slainge with the army of the province of the Gaileoin; and Eochaid, the High-king, with the hosts of Connacht. The Fir Bolg, numbering eleven battalions, then marched to the entrance of Mag Nia. The Tuatha De, with seven battalions, took up their position at the western end of the plain. It was then that Nuada proposed to the Tuatha De to send envoys to the Fir Boig: ‘They must surrender the half of Ireland, and we shall divide the land between us.’ ‘Who are to be our envoys?’ the people asked. ‘Our poets,’ said the king, meaning Cairbre, Ai, and Edan.

31. So they set out and came to the tent of Eochaid, the High-king. After they had been presented with gifts, they were asked the reason of their coming. ‘This is why we are come,’ they said, ‘to request the dividing of the land between us, an equitable halving of Ireland.’ ‘Do the nobles of the Fir BoIg hear that?’ said Eochaid. ‘We do,’ they replied, ‘but we shall not grant their request till doomsday.’ ‘Then,’ said the poets, ‘when do you mean to give battle?’ ‘Some delay is called for,’ said the Fir Bolg nobles, ‘for we shall have to prepare our spears, to mend our mail, to shape our helmets, to sharpen our swords, and to make suitable attire,’ There were brought to them men to arrange those things. ‘Provide,’ said they, ‘shields for a tenth, swords for a fifth, and spears for a third part. You must each furnish what we require on either side.’ ‘We,’ said the envoys of the Tuatha De to the Fir Bolg, ‘shall have to make your spears, and you must make our javelins.’ The Tuatha De were then given hospitality till that was done. (However, though it is said here that the Fir BoIg had no spears, such had been made for Rindal, grandfather of their present king.) So they arranged an armistice till the weapons arrived, till their equipment was ready, and they were prepared for battle.

32. Their druids went back to the Tuatha De and told their story from beginning to end, how the Fir Bolg would not share the land with them, and refused them favour or friendship. The news filled the Tuatha De with consternation.

33. Thereupon Ruad with twenty-seven of the sons of courageous Mil sped westwards to the end of Mag Nia to offer a hurling contest to the Tuatha De. An equal number came out to meet them. The match began. They dealt many a blow on legs and arms, till their bones were broken and bruised, and fell outstretched on the turf, and the match ended. The Cairn of the Match is the name of the cairn where they met, and Glen Came Aillem the place where they are buried.

34. Ruad turned eastward, and told his tale to Eochaid. The king was glad of the killing of the Tuatha De’s young soldiers, and said to Fathach, ‘Go to the west, and ask of the nobles of the Tuatha De how the battle is to be fought to-morrow —whether it is to be for one day or for several.’ The poet went and put the question to the nobles of the Tuatha De, that is, Nuada, the Dagda and Bres. ‘What we propose,’ they said, ‘is to fight them with equal numbers on both sides.’ Fathach went back, and reported to the Fir Bolg the choice of the Tuatha De. The Fir Bolg were depressed, for they disliked the choice of the Tuatha De. They decided to send for Fintan to see if he could give them some counsel. Fintan came to them.

The Fir Bolg had entrenched a great fort. (It was called the Fort of the Packs, from the packs of dogs that preyed on the bodies of the dead after the battle, or the Fort of the Blood Pools, from the pools of gore that surrounded the wounded when the people came to see them.’) They made a Well of Healing to heal their warriors from their wounds. This was filled with herbs. Another entrenched fort was made by the Tuatha De. (It was called the Fort of the Onsets, from the onsets directed out of the battle.) They dug a Well of Healing to heal their wounds.

When these works had been finished, Cirb asked: ‘Whence come ye, and whither go ye? The care of to-morrow’s battle be yours. I will lead the attack with Mogarn and his son Ruad, Laige and his father Senach,’ ‘We will meet them with four battalions,’ was the reply.

35. Six weeks of the summer, half the quarter, had gone on the appointed day of battle. The hosts rose on that day with the first glimmer of sunlight. The painted, perfectly wrought shields were hoisted on the backs of brave warriors, the tough, seasoned spears and battle-javelins were grasped in the right hands of heroes, together with the bright swords that made the duels dazzle with light as the shining sunbeams shimmered on the swords’ graven groves. Thus the firm, close-packed companies, moved by the compelling passion of their courageous commanders, advanced towards Mag Nia to give battle to the Tuatha De. It was then that the Fir Bolg poet, Fathach, went forward in front of them to describe their fury and spread the report of it. He had raised up and planted firmly in the midst of the plain a pillar of stone, against which he rested. This was the first pillar set up in the plain, and Fathach’s Pillar was its name thenceforth. Then Fathach in utter anguish wept floods of fervent, melancholy tears, and said:

‘With what pomp they advance! On Mag Nia they marshal with dauntless might. ‘Tis the Tuatha De that advance, and the Fir Bolg of the decorated blades.

‘The Red Badb will thank them for the battle-combats I look on. Many will be their gashed bodies in the east after their visit to Mag Tured.

‘…will be the host after parting with the warriors I speak of. Many a head shall be severed with vigour and with pomp.’

36. The Tuatha formed a compact, well-armed host, marshalled by fighting warriors and provided with deadly weapons and stout shields. Every one of them pressed on his neighbour with the edge of his shield, the shaft of his spear, or the hilt of his sword, so closely that they wounded each other. The Dagda began the attack on the enemy by cutting his way through them to the west, clearing a path for a hundred and fifty. At the same time Cirb made an onslaught on the Tuatha De, and devastated their ranks, clearing a path for a hundred and fifty through them. The battle continued in a series of combats and duels, till in the space of one day great numbers were destroyed. A duel took place between Aidleo of the Tuatha De and Nertchu of the Fir Bolg. The glued seams of their shields were torn, their swords wrenched from their hilts, and the rivets of their spears loosened. Aidleo fell at the hands of Nertchu.

37. By the close of the day the Tuatha De were defeated and returned to their camp. The Fir Bolg did not pursue them across the battlefield, but returned in good spirits to their own camp. They each brought with them into the presence of their king a stone and a head, and made a great cairn of them. The Tuatha De set up a stone pillar called the Pillar of Aidleo, after the first of them to be killed. Their physicians then assembled. The Fir Bolg too had their physicians brought to them. They brought healing herbs with them, and crushed and scattered them on the surface of the water in the well, so that the precious healing waters became thick and green. Their wounded were put into the well, and immediately came out whole.

38. Next morning Eochaid, the High-king, went to the well all alone to wash his hands. As he was doing so, he saw above him three handsome, haughty armed men. They challenged him to combat. ‘Give me time,’ said the king, ‘to go to fetch my weapons.’ ‘We will allow not a moment’s delay for that; the combat must be now.’ While the king was in this difficulty, a young active man appeared between him and his enemies, and turning to the latter, said: ‘You shall have combat from me in place of the king.’ They raised their hands simultaneously, and fought till all four fell together. The Fir Bolg came up after the struggle was over. They saw the dead men, and the king told them how they had come upon him, and how the solitary champion had fought with them in his stead. The Fir Bolg brought each man a stone to the well for him, and built a great cairn over him. The Champion’s Cairn is the name of the cairn, and the hill is called the Hill of the Three. The strangers were Oll, Forus, and Fir, three physicians, brothers of Diancecht, and they had come to spy upon the physicians of the Fir Bolg, when they came upon Eochaid alone washing his face.

39. The battalions of the Tuatha De were straightway drawn up in the plain to the east; and the Fir Bolg came into the plain against them from the west. The chiefs who went out in front of the Tuatha De on that day were Ogma, Midir, Bodb Derg, Diancecht, and Aengaba of Norway. The women, Badb, Macha, Morrigan and Danann offered to accompany them. Against them came of the Fir Bolg, Mella, Ese, Ferb, and Faebur, all sons of Slainge. Strong, mighty blows were dealt by the battalions on either side, and the bosses of shields were broken as they vigorously parried the blows, while the men-at-arms showed their fury, and the warriors their courage. Their spears were twisted by the continual smiting; in the hand-to-hand combats the swords broke on splintered bones; the fearsome battle-cries of the veterans were drowned in the multitude of shouts.

Briskly the young men turned about for the number of the exploits around them on every side. The warriors blenched at the clashing of swords, at the height of the heaving, and the fury of the fall. Well-timed was the warding there, and gallant the guarding, and rapid the rending blows. Nemed, Badrai’s son, approached the flank of the Fir Bolg. Then men closed round him, and in the conflict Eochaid’s son, Slainge the Fair, made towards him. The two warriors attacked each other. There was straining of spears and shivering of swords and shattering of shields and battering of bodies. However, Nemed fell at the hands of Slainge; they dug his grave and erected a pillar for him, and the Stone of Nemed is its name to this day. Four sons of Slainge, son of Dela, urged the fight against the Tuatha De. On the side of the Tuatha De the four sons of Cencal battled with them. They harassed each other till the sons of Cencal fell before the sons of Slainge. The latter were then set on by the five sons of Lodan the Swift, and the five sons of Lodan fell at their hands. Aengaba of Norway began to mow down the enemy and confuse their ranks. Ruad heard this, and rushed into the fray. The three sons of Dolad met him, and he wreaked his anger on them and they fell before him. From another quarter of the battle the three sons of Telle met him, and were slain by him in the same way. Lamh Redolam and Cosar Conaire were killed by Slainge the Fair by the side of the lake. Of those seventeen the gravestones were planted by the side of the lake, for they had been driven back as far as the lake.

40. Ruad and Aengaba of Norway met; they raised their shields against each other, and kept wounding each other till Aengaba had twenty-four wounds inflicted on him by Ruad. In the end Ruad cut off his head,’ and after that went on fighting till nightfall.

41. Ogma, son of Ethliu, made an attack on the host, and his track was marked by pools of crimson blood. From the east side Cirb entered the fray and made an onslaught on the hosts, and three hundred of the Tuatha Dc fell before him.

42. When night fell the Fir Bolg were driven across the battlefield. However, they brought each a head and a stone to Eochaid their king. ‘Is it you that have been beaten today?’ said the king. ‘Yes,’ said Cirb; ‘but that will not profit them.’

43. Next day it was the turn of Sreng, Semne, and Sithbrug, along with Cirb, to lead the Fir Bolg. They rose early in the morning. A flashing penthouse of shields and a thick forest of javelins they made over them, and the battle-props then moved forward. The Tuatha De saw the Fir Bolg approaching them in that fashion across the plain from the east. ‘With how much pomp,’ they said, ‘do those battle-props enter the plain and draw towards us.’ And it was then that the plain got its name of Mag Tured, the Plain of Props.

44. The Tuatha De asked who should lead them on that day. ‘I will,’ said the Dagda, ‘for in me you have an excellent god;’ and, thereupon, he went forth with his sons and brothers. The Fir Bolg had firmly stationed their props and columns, and marshalled their battalions on the level of Mag Nia (which, henceforth, was called Mag Tured, the Plain of Props). Each side then sprang at the other. Sreng, son of Sengann, began to dislodge the hosts of the enemy. The Dagda set to breaking the battalions and harrying the hosts and dislodging divisions and forcing them from their positions. Cirb, son of Buan, entered the fray from the east and slaughtered brave men and spirited soldiers. The Dagda heard Cirb’s onset, and Cirb heard the Dagda’s battering blows. They sprang each at the other. Furious was the fight as the good swords fenced, heroic the heroes as they steadied the infantry, and answered the onslaughts. At last Cirb fell before the Dagda’s battering blows.

Sreng, Sengann’s son, was pressing back the hosts from their places when he came on three sons of Cairbre Cas of the Tuatha De, and the three sons of Ordan. Cairbre’s sons with their three columns fell before the sons of Ordan, as Sreng drove in the hosts. The enemy fell before him on every side, and the fury of the combat grew behind hint

45. After the fall of Cirb the Fir Bolg were driven into their camp. The Tuatha De did not pursue them across the battlefield, but they took with them a head and a stone pillar apiece including the head of Cirb, which was buried in the Cairn of Cirb’s Head.

46. The Fir Bolg were neither happy nor cheerful that night, and as for the Tuatha De, they were sad and dispirited. But during the same night Fintan came with his sons to join the Fir Bolg, and this made them all glad, for valiant were both he and they.

47. In this cheerful mood the morning found them. The signals of their chiefs roused them on the spacious slopes of their camping-ground, and they began to hearten each other to meet danger and peril. Eochaid, the High-king, with his son, Slainge the Fair, and the soldiers and chiefs of Connaught, came forth to join them. Sengann’s three sons with the hosts of Curoi’s province, took their place at one side of the line. The four sons of Gann with the warriors of Eochaid’s province marched to the centre of the same army. Buan’s sons Esca and Egconn ranged themselves with the men of Conchobar’s province on the other wing. The four sons of Slainge with the host of the Gaileoin brought up the rear of the army. Round Eochaid, the High-king, they made a fold of valour of battle-scarred, blood-becrimsoned braves, and juggling jousters, and the world’s trustiest troops. The thirteen sons of Fintan, men proven in courageous endurance of conflict, were brought to where the king was. A flaming mass was the battle on that day, full of changing colours, many feats and gory hands, of sword-play and single combats, of spears and cruel swords and javelins; fierce it was and pitiless and terrible, hard-packed and close-knit, furious and far-flung, ebbing and flowing with many adventures. The Fir Bolg, in the order told, marched boldly and victoriously straight westwards to the end of Mag Tured till they came to the firm pillars and props of valour between themselves and the Tuatha De. The passionate Tuatha De made an impetuous, furious charge in close-knit companies with their venomous weapons; and they formed one mighty gory phalanx under the shelter of red-rimmed, emblazoned, plated, strong shields. The warriors began the conflict. The flanks and the wings of the van were filled with grey-haired veterans swift to wound; aged men were stationed to assist and attend on the movements of those veterans; and next to those steady, venomous fighters were placed young men under arms. The champions and serving men were posted in the rear of the youths. Their seers and wise men stationed themselves on pillars and points of vantage, plying their sorcery, while the poets took count of the feats and wrote down tales of them. As for Nuada, he was in the centre of the fight. Round him gathered his princes and supporting warriors, with the twelve sons of Gabran from Scythia, his body-guard. They were Tolc, Trenfer, Trenmiled, Garb, Glacedh, Gruasailt Duirdri, Fonnam, Foirisem, Teidm, Tinnargain and Tescad. He would have no joy of life on whom they made a gory wound. (‘Twas they that killed the sons of Fintan, and the sons of Fintan killed them.) Thus, they delivered their assault after fastening their bodies to rough-edged stones with clasps of iron; and made their way to the place appointed for the battle. At that moment Fathach, the poet of the Fir Bolg, came to his own pillar, and as he surveyed the armies to the east and west, said:

‘Swiftly advance the hosts marshalling on Mag Nia their resistless might; ‘tis the Tuatha De that advance and the Fir Bolg of the speckled swords.

‘Methinks the Fir Boig will lose some of their brothers there—many will be the bodies and heads and gashed flanks on the plain.

‘But though they fall on every side (?), fierce and keen will be their onset; though they fall, they will make others to fall, and heroes will be laid low by their impetuous valour.

‘Thou hast subdued (?) the Fir Bolg; they will fall there by the side of their shields and their blades; I will not trust to the strength of any one so long as I shall be in stormy Ireland.

I am Fathach, the poet; strongly has sorrow vanquished me, and now, that the Fir Bolg are gone, I shall surrender to the swift advance of disaster.’

48. The furies and monsters and hags of doom cried aloud so that their voices were heard in the rocks ‘and waterfalls and in the hollows of the earth. It was like the fearful agonising cry on the last dreadful day when the human race will part from all in this world. In the van of the Tuatha De advanced the Dagda, Ogma, Alla, Bres, and Delbaeth, the five sons of Elatha, together with Bres, grandson of Net, the Fomorian, Aengus, Aed, Cermad the Fair, Midir, Bodb Derg, Sigmall Abartach, Nuada the High-king, Brian, Iuchar and Iucharba, the three sons of Turenn Bigrenn, Cu, Cian and Cethenn, the three sons of Cainte, Goibnenn the Smith, Lucraidh the Joiner, Credne the Craftsman, Diancecht the Physician, Aengaba of Norway, the three queens, Ere, Fotla and Banba, and the three sorceresses, Badb, Macha and Morigan, with Bechuille and Danann their two foster-mothers. They fixed their pillars in the ground to prevent any one fleeing till the stones should flee. They lunged at each other with their keen sharp spears, till the stout shafts were twisted through the quivering of the victims on their points. The edges of the swords turned on the lime-covered shields. The curved blades were tempered in boiling pools of blood in the thighs of warriors. Loud was the singing of the lances as they cleft the shields, loud the noise and din of the fighters as they battered bodies and broke bones in the rear. Boiling streams of blood took the sight from the grey eyes of resolute warriors. It was then that Bres made an onset on the Fir Bolg army, and killed one hundred and fifty of them. He struck nine blows on the shield of Eochaid the High-king, and Eochaid, in his turn, dealt him nine wounds. Sengann’s son, Sreng, turned his face to the army of the Tuatha De, and slew one hundred and fifty of them. He struck nine blows on the shield of the High-king Nuada, and Nuada dealt him nine wounds.

Each dealt dire blows of doom, making great gory wounds on the flesh of the other, till under their grooved blades shields and spears, heads and helmets broke like the brittle branches hacked with hatchets wielded by the stout arms of woodsmen. Heroes swayed to this side and that, each circling the other as they sought opportunity for a blow. The battle champions rose again over the rims of their emblazoned shields. Their courage grew, and the valiant virulent men became steadfast as an arch. Their hands shot up with their swords, and they fenced swiftly about the heads of warriors, hacking their helmets. For a moment, they thrust back the ranks of the enemy from their places, and at the sight of them the hosts wavered like the water flung far over its sides by a kettle through excess of boiling, or the flood that, like a water-fall, an army splashes up over a river’s banks, making it passable for their troops behind them. So, a suitable space was cleared for the chiefs; the heroes yielded them their places, and agile combatants their stations; warriors were dislodged by them, and the serving-men fled for horror of them. To them was left the battle. Heavily the earth was trodden under their feet till the hard turf grew soft beneath them. Each of them inflicted thirty wounds on the other. Sreng dealt a blow with his sword at Nuada, and, cutting away the rim of his shield, severed his right arm at the shoulder; and the king’s arm with a third of his shield fell to the ground. It was then that the High-king called aloud for help, and Aengaba of Norway, hearing him, entered the fray to protect him. Fierce and furious was the attack Aengaba and Sreng made on each other. Each inflicted on his opponent an equal number of wounds, but they were not comparable as an exchange, for the broad blade of Sreng’s lance and his stout spear-shaft dealt deeper, deadlier sounds. As soon as the Dagda heard the music of the swords in the battle-stress, he hastened to the place of conflict with deliberate bounds, like the rush of a great waterfall. Sreng declined a contest with the two warriors; and though Aengaba of Norway did not fall there, it was from the violence of that conflict that he afterwards died. The Dagda came and stood over Nuada, and, after the Tuatha De had taken counsel, he brought fifty soldiers, with their physicians. They carried Nuada from the field. His hand was raised in the king’s stead on the fold of valour, a fold of stones surrounding the king,’ and on it the blood of Nuada’s hand trickled.

49. The Tuatha De maintained the conflict keenly and stoutly, after their king was gone. Bres made his way into the ranks of the Fir Bolg to avenge his king, and came to the spot where Eochaid was urging the battle, and fortifying his fighters and exhorting his heroes and encouraging his captains and arranging his combats. Each of them then made for his opponent, and wounds were inflicted where they were undefended. Before the fierceness of their fury and the weight of their blows, soldiers were thrown into confusion. At last Bres was slain by Eochaid; and the Dagda, Ogma, Alla and Delbaeth attacked the latter to avenge their brother. Eochaid was urging the fight, collecting and encouraging his captains, making close and compact the ranks of the soldiery, holding his fighting men firm and steadfast. The four brothers, in their search for Eochaid, drove the hosts before them to the place where they heard him urging the fight. Mella, Ese, Ferb and Faebur, sons of Slainge, met them and each struck at the other’s shield. Their swords clashed and the conflict grew, and the edges of the curved blades cut gory wounds. The four sons of Slainge fell before the other four; and the Gravestones of Slainge’s sons is the name of the place where they were buried. The four sons of Gann then entered the fray. Against them advanced Goibnenn the Smith, Lucraid the Joiner, Dian Cecht and Aengaba of Norway. Horrible was the noise made by the deadly weapons in the champions’ hands. Those combatants maintained the fight till the four sons of Gann were slain; and the Mound of the Sons of Gann is the name of the place where they were buried.

50. Bedg, Redg and Rinne, the three sons of Ordan, set on the Tuatha De, and the ranks shook before their onset. The three sons of Cainte met them, but they wearied of the fray; and the Mound of the Wizards is the place where they were buried.

51. Brian, Iuchar and Iucharba, the three sons of Turenn Bigrenn, set on the Fir Bolg host. They were opposed by two sons of Buan, and Cairbre son of Den. The sons of Buan were overcome by the sons of Turenn Bigrenn, and the Gravestones of Buan are the gravestones that cover them, and Cairbre’s tomb is beside the gravestones.

52. Eochaid and his son, Slainge the Fair, now joined in the fray, and destroyed innumerable companies of the Tuatha De. ‘Our best men,’ said Eochaid, ‘have been destroyed, our people slaughtered, and it befits us to acquit us valorously.’ So they made their way across the battlefield once again, and mowed down men and slaughtered soldiers and hacked hosts, and confused the ranks with their onsets. After this long-continued effort Eochaid was overcome by great weariness and excess of thirst. ‘Bring Sreng to me,’ he said. That was done. ‘You and Slainge the Fair,’ said Eochaid, ‘must maintain the fight till I go in search of a drink, and to bathe my face, for I cannot endure this consuming thirst.’ ‘It shall be maintained right well,’ said Slainge, ‘though we are but few to wage it in your absence.’ Eochaid then went out of the battle with a guard of one hundred of his soldiers. The Tuatha Dc followed them, and shouted at them.

53. But Slainge the Fair advanced to meet the host, and offered them battle, and prevented them from following the High-king. He was attacked by powerful Lugaid, son of Nuada, and the two fought a cruel, fierce, strenuous fight, in which there were wounds and bruises and gory gashing. As soon as the rest saw that Slainge was prevailing they gave their support to Lugaid. Lugaid and Slainge fell together; and Lugaid’s Grave is the place where Lugaid was buried, and Slainge’s Mound the mound where they buried Slainge.

54. When the Tuatha De wizards saw how the king of Ireland was suffering from a burning thirst, they hid from him all the streams and rivers of Ireland till he came to the strand of Eothail. Three sons of Nemed, son of Badrai, followed him, with a hundred and fifty men. They fought on the strand, and a number fell on either side. Eochaid and the sons of Nemed met in combat. Venomous in battle were the sons of Nemed, and tried in fighting against odds was Eochaid. They fought till their bodies were torn and their chests cut open with the mighty onslaughts. Irresistible was the king’s onset as he ceaselessly cut down his opponents, till he and the three sons of Nemed fell. Eochaid’s Cairn is the cairn where Eochaid was buried (it is also called the Cairn of Eothail), and the Gravestones of the Sons of Nemed are at the western end of the strand.

55. As for Sreng, son of Sengann, he continued fighting for a day and a night after his fellows, till in the end neither side was capable of attacking the other. Their swift blows had grown feeble through all the slaughter and their spirits had fallen through all their ills, and their courage faint through the vastness of their disasters; and so, they parted. The Tuatha De retired to the fastness of Cenn Slebe and to the sloping Glen of Blood, and to the Mound of Tears. There the Dagda said:

‘Soldiers slain without measure, many a wound on heroes; cruel swords have torn your bodies. The Fir Bolg have overcome you (?) . . . about their lands.’

56. ‘What have been your losses in this last battle?’ said Nuada to the Dagda. The Dagda told him in these words:

‘I will tell, noble Nuada, the tales of the dread battle, and, after that, its calamities and disasters I will tell, O son of Echtach.

‘In it fell our nobles before the violence of the Fir Bolg; so great are our losses that few know of them.

‘Bres, son of Elatha, a warrior like a tower, attacked the ranks of the Fir Bolg, a glorious fight, and killed one hundred and fifty of them.

‘He dealt nine blows—savage was the deed—on the broad shield of Eochaid, and Eochaid dealt Bres nine blows.

‘Huge Sreng came and slew three hundred of our host. He dealt nine blows on your shield, Nuada,

‘You, Nuada, coolly dealt Sreng nine mighty blows, but Sreng cut off your right arm, impetuous hero, at the shoulder.

‘You raised a loud cry for help, and he of Norway came up. Sreng and Aengaba fought with a will a well-contested fight of clashing weapons.

‘As Aengaba cried for help, I came up speedily; when I arrived, still unweary, Sreng refused a contest with both of us.

‘Mella, Ese, Ferb and blood-red Faebur fell before us in the same battle.

‘The four sons of Gann fell at the hands of Goibnenn the Smith, of Aengaba of the exploits, of Lucraidh and of Diancecht.

‘Bedg and Rinde and Redg, the three Sons of Ordan of the crafts, were slain surely by the fair sons of Cainte.

‘Eochaid and his son, Slainge the Fair, slew in the battle a great number of the heroes of the Tuatha De.

‘In the battle thirst overcame king Eochaid, and he got not the draught he sought till he came to the Strand of Eothail.

‘The three sons of Nemid overtook him on the silent strand, and there they fought till they all fell together.

‘Lugaid, Nuada’s son, methinks, was slain by Slainge the Fair; and Slainge, though so fierce before, was killed in fighting with the Tuatha De.

‘Brian, Iucharba and Iuchar, the three sons of Turenu Bigrenn, slew Esca and Econn and Airbe.

‘After that ‘twas Sreng that ruled the fight—and many were those that changed colour—for three days, but neither he nor we turned in the struggle.

‘Weary were we now on either side, and we resolved to separate. Each man’s combats, as I heard, so shall I exactly tell of.’

57. Sad and weary, wounded and full of heavy reproaches were the Fir Bolg that night. Each one buried his kinsfolk and relatives, his friends and familiars and foster-brothers; and then were raised mounds over the brave men, and gravestones over the warriors, and tombs over the soldiers, and hills over the heroes. After that Sreng, Semne and Sithbrug, the sons of Sengann, called a meeting for council and deliberation to which three hundred assembled. They considered what it was their interest to do, whether they should leave Ireland, or offer regular battle, or undertake to share the land with the Tuatha De. They decided to offer the Tuatha Dc battle, and Sreng said:

‘Resistance is destruction for men; we resolutely gave battle; there was clashing of hard swords; the strong plying of spears on the sides of noble warriors, and the breaking of buckler on shield; full of trouble are. the plains of Ireland; disaster we found about its woods, the loss of many good men.’

58. They took up their strong, hooked shields, their venomous spears and their sharp swords with blue blades. Thus equipped, they made a keen, murderous charge, a wild fiery company, with their spears close-pressed in the onset, cutting their way in a flaming fire of fury to meet any hardship and any tribulation. It was then that Sreng challenged Nuada to single combat, as they had fought in the previous battle. Nuada faced him bravely and boldly as if he had been whole, and said: ‘If single combat on fair terms be what you seek, fasten your right hand, as I have lost mine; only so can our combat be fair.’ ‘If you have lost your hand, that lays me under no obligations,’ said Sreng, ‘for our first combat was on fair terms. We ourselves so took up the quarrel.’ The Tuatha De took counsel, and their decision was to offer Sreng his choice of the provinces of Ireland, while a compact of peace, goodwill, and friendship should be made between the two peoples. And so they make peace, and Sreng chooses the province of Connacht. The Fir Bolg gathered round him from every side, and stubbornly and triumphantly’ took possession of the province against the Tuatha De. The Tuatha De made Bres their king, and he was High-king for seven years. He died after taking a drink while hunting in Sliab Gam, and Nuada, his missing hand having been replaced, became king of Ireland. And that is the story of the battle of Mag Tured Cunga.

This was written in the Plain of Eithne, the Goblin’s daughter, by Cormac O’Cuirnin for his companion Sean O’Glaimhmn. Painful to us is his deserting us when he goes from us on a journey.

The Second Battle of Mag Tuired

This tale below is the battle of Mag Tuired and the birth of Bres, son of Elatha and his reign.

1. The Tuatha De Danann were in the northern islands of the world, studying occult lore and sorcery, druidic arts and witchcraft and magical skill, until they surpassed the sages of the pagan arts.

2. They studied occult lore and secret knowledge and diabolic arts in four cities: Falias, Gorias, Murias, and Findias.

3. From Falias was brought the Stone of Fal which was located in Tara. It used to cry out beneath every king that would take Ireland.

4. From Gorias was brought the spear which Lug had. No battle was ever sustained against it, or against the man who held it in his hand.

5. From Findias was brought the sword of Nuadu. No one ever escaped from it once it was drawn from its deadly sheath, and no one could resist it.

6. From Murias was brought the Dagda’s cauldron. No company ever went away from it unsatisfied.

7. There were four wizards in those four cities. Morfesa was in Falias; Esras was in Gorias; Uiscias was in Findias; Semias was in Murias. Those are the four poets from whom the Tuatha De learned occult lore and secret knowledge.

8. The Tuatha De then made an alliance with the Fomoire, and Balor the grandson of Net gave his daughter Ethne to Cian the son of Dian Cecht. And she bore the glorious child, Lug.

9. The Tuatha De came with a great fleet to Ireland to take it by force from the Fir Bolg. Upon reaching the territory of Corcu Belgatan (which is Conmaicne Mara today), they at once burned their boats so that they would not think of fleeing to them. The smoke and the mist which came from the ships filled the land and the air which was near them. For that reason, it has been thought that they arrived in clouds of mist.

10. The battle of Mag Tuired was fought between them and the Fir Bolg. The Fir Bolg were defeated, and 100,000 of them were killed including the king, Eochaid mac Eire.

11. Nuadu’s hand was cut off in that battle–Sreng mac Sengainn struck it from him. So with Credne the brazier helping him, Dian Cecht the physician put on him a silver hand that moved as well as any other hand.

12. Now the Tuatha De Danann lost many men in the battle, including Edleo mac Allai, and Ernmas, and Fiacha, and Tuirill Bicreo.

13. Then those of the Fir Bolg who escaped from the battle fled to the Fomoire, and they settled in Arran and in Islay and in Man and in Rathlin.

14. There was contention regarding the sovereignty of the men of Ireland between the Tuatha De and their wives, since Nuadu was not eligible for kingship after his hand had been cut off. They said that it would be appropriate for them to give the kingship to Bres the son of Elatha, to their own adopted son, and that giving him the kingship would knit the Fomorians’ alliance with them, since his father Elatha mac Delbaith was king of the Fomoire.

15. Now the conception of Bres came about in this way.

16. One day one of their women, Eriu the daughter of Delbaeth, was looking at the sea and the land from the house of Maeth Sceni; and she saw the sea as perfectly calm as if it were a level board. After that, while she was there, she saw something: a vessel of silver appeared to her on the sea. Its size seemed great to her, but its shape did not appear clearly to her; and the current of the sea carried it to the land.

Then she saw that it was a man of fairest appearance. He had golden-yellow hair down to his shoulders, and a cloak with bands of gold thread around it. His shirt had embroidery of gold thread. On his breast was a brooch of gold with the lustre of a precious stone in it. Two shining silver spears and in them two smooth riveted shafts of bronze. Five circlets of gold around his neck. A gold-hilted sword with inlayings of silver and studs of gold.

17. The man said to her, “Shall I have an hour of lovemaking with you?”

“I certainly have not made a tryst with you,” she said.

“Come without the trysting!” said he.

18. Then they stretched themselves out together. The woman wept when the man got up again.

“Why are you crying?” he asked.

“I have two things that I should lament,” said the woman, “separating from you, however we have met. The young men of the Tuatha De Danann have been entreating me in vain-and you possess me as you do.”

19. “Your anxiety about those two things will be removed,” he said. He drew his gold ring from his middle finger and put it into her hand, and told her that she should not part with it, either by sale or by gift, except to someone whose finger it would fit.

20. “Another matter troubles me,” said the woman, “that I do not know who has come to me.”

21. “You will not remain ignorant of that,” he said. “Elatha mac Delbaith, king of the Fomoire, has come to you. You will bear a son as a result of our meeting, and let no name be given to him but Eochu Bres (that is, Eochu the Beautiful), because every beautiful thing that is seen in Ireland–both plain and fortress, ale and candle, woman and man and horse–will be judged in relation to that boy, so that people will then say of it, ‘It is a Bres.'”

22. Then the man went back again, and the woman returned to her home, and the famous conception was given to her.

23. Then she gave birth to the boy, and the name Eochu Bres was given to him as Elatha had said. A week after the woman’s lying-in was completed, the boy had two weeks’ growth; and he maintained that increase for seven years, until he had reached the growth of fourteen years.

24. As a result of that contention which took place among the Tuatha De, the sovereignty of Ireland was given to that youth; and he gave seven guarantors from the warriors of Ireland (his maternal kinsmen) for his restitution of the sovereignty if his own misdeeds should give cause. Then his mother gave him land, and he had a fortress built on the land, Dun mBrese. And it was the Dagda who built that fortress.

25. But after Bres had assumed the sovereignty, three Fomorian kings (Indech mac De Domnann, Elatha mac Delbaith, and Tethra) imposed their tribute upon Ireland-and there was not a smoke from a house in Ireland which was not under their tribute. In addition, the warriors of Ireland were reduced to serving him: Ogma beneath a bundle of firewood and the Dagda as a rampart-builder, and he constructed the earthwork around Bres’s fort.

26. Now the Dagda was unhappy at the work, and in the house, he used to meet an idle blind man named Cridenbel, whose mouth grew out of his chest. Cridenbel considered his own meal small and the Dagda’s large, so he said, “Dagda, for the sake of your honor let the three best bits of your serving be given to me!” and the Dagda used to give them to him every night. But the satirist’s bits were large: each bit was the size of a good pig. Furthermore, those three bits were a third of the Dagda’s serving. The Dagda’s appearance was the worse for that.

27. Then one day the Dagda was in the trench and he saw the Mac Oc corning toward him.

“Greetings to you, Dagda!” said the Mac Oc.

“And to you,” said the Dagda.

“What makes you look so bad?” he asked.

“I have good cause,” he said. “Every night Cridenbel the satirist demands from me the three best bits of my serving.”

28. “I have advice for you,” said the Mac Oc. He puts his hand into his purse, and takes from it three coins of gold, and gives them to him.

29. “Put,” he said, “these three gold coins into the three bits for Cridenbel in the evening. Then these will be the best on your dish, and the gold will stick in his belly so that he will die of it; and Bres’s judgement afterwards will not be right. Men will say to the king, ‘The Dagda has killed Cridenbel with a deadly herb which he gave him.’ Then the king will order you to be killed, and you will say to him, ‘What you say, king of the warriors of the Feni, is not a prince’s truth. For he kept importuning me since I began my work, saying to me, “Give me the three best bits of your serving, Dagda. My housekeeping is bad tonight.” Indeed, I would have died from that, had not the three gold coins which I found today helped me. I put them into my serving. Then I gave it to Cridenbel, because the gold was the best thing that was before me. So, the gold is now in Cridenbel, and he died of it.'”

“It is clear,” said the king. “Let the satirist’s stomach be cut out to see whether the gold will be found in it. If it is not found, you will die. If it is found, however, you will live.”

30. Then they cut out the satirist’s stomach to find the three gold coins in his belly, and the Dagda was saved.

31. Then the Dagda went to his work the next morning, and the Mac Oc came to him and said, “Soon you will finish your work, but do not seek payment until the cattle of Ireland are brought to you. Choose from among them the dark, black-maned, trained, spirited heifer.

32. Then the Dagda brought his work to an end, and Bres asked him what he would take as wages for his labour. The Dagda answered, “I require that you gather the cattle of Ireland in one place.” The king did that as he asked, and he chose the heifer from among them as the Mac Oc had told him. That seemed foolish to Bres. He had thought that he would have chosen something more.

33. Now Nuadu was being treated, and Dian Cecht put a silver hand on him which had the movement of any other hand. But his son Miach did not like that. He went to the hand and said, “Joint to joint of it, and sinew to sinew”; and he healed it in nine days and nights. The first three days he carried it against his side, and it became covered with skin. The second three days he carried it against his chest. The third three days he would cast white wisps of black bulrushes after they had been blackened in a fire.

34. Dian Cecht did not like that cure. He hurled a sword at the crown of his son’s head and cut his skin to the flesh. The young man healed it by means of his skill. He struck him again and cut his flesh until he reached the bone. The young man healed it by the same means. He struck the third blow and reached the membrane of his brain. The young man healed this too by the same means. Then he struck the fourth blow and cut out the brain, so that Miach died; and Dian Cecht said that no physician could heal him of that blow.

35. After that, Miach was buried by Dian Cecht, and three hundred and sixty-five herbs grew through the grave, corresponding to the number of his joints and sinews. Then Airmed spread her cloak and uprooted those herbs according to their properties. Dian Cecht came to her and mixed the herbs, so that no one knows their proper healing qualities unless the Holy Spirit taught them afterwards. And Dian Cecht said, “Though Miach no longer lives, Airmed shall remain.”

36. At that time, Bres held the sovereignty as it had been granted to him. There was great murmuring against him among his maternal kinsmen the Tuatha De, for their knives were not greased by him. However frequently they might come, their breaths did not smell of ale; and they did not see their poets nor their bards nor their satirists nor their harpers nor their pipers nor their horn-blowers nor their jugglers nor their fools entertaining them in the household. They did not go to contests of those pre-eminent in the arts, nor did they see their warriors proving their skill at arms before the king, except for one man, Ogma the son of Lain.

37. This was the duty which he had, to bring firewood to the fortress. He would bring a bundle every day from the islands of Clew Bay. The sea would carry off two-thirds of his bundle because he was weak for lack of food. He used to bring back only one third, and he supplied the host from day to day.

38. But neither service nor payment from the tribes continued; and the treasures of the tribe were not being given by the act of the whole tribe.

39. On one occasion the poet came to the house of Bres seeking hospitality (that is, Coirpre son of Etain, the poet of the Tuatha De). he entered a narrow, black, dark little house; and there was neither fire nor furniture nor bedding in it. Three small cakes were brought to him on a little dish–and they were dry. The next day he arose, and he was not thankful. As he went across the yard he said,

“Without food quickly on a dish,

Without cow’s milk on which a calf grows,

Without a man’s habitation after darkness remains,

Without paying a company of storytellers–let that be Bres’s condition.”

“Bres’s prosperity no longer exists,” he said, and that was true. There was only blight on him from that hour; and that is the first satire that was made in Ireland.

40. Now after that the Tuatha De went together to talk with their adopted son Bres mac Elathan, and they asked him for their sureties. He gave them restoration of the kingship, and they did not regard him as properly qualified to rule from that time on. He asked to remain for seven years. “You will have that,” the same assembly agreed, “provided that the safeguarding of every payment that has been assigned to you–including house and land, gold and silver, cattle and food –is supported by the same securities, and that we have freedom of tribute and payment until then.”

“You will have what you ask,” Bres said.

41. This is why they were asked for the delay: that he might gather the warriors of the sid, the Fomoire, to take possession of the Tuatha by force provided he might gain an overwhelming advantage. He was unwilling to be driven from his kingship.

42. Then he went to his mother and asked her where his family was. “I am certain about that,” she said, and went onto the hill from which she had seen the silver vessel in the sea. She then went onto the shore. His mother gave him the ring which had been left with her, and he put it around his middle finger, and it fitted him. She had not given it up for anyone, either by sale or gift. Until that day, there was none of them whom it would fit.

43. Then they went forward until they reached the land of the Fomoire. They came to a great plain with many assemblies upon it, and they reached the finest of these assemblies. Inside, people sought information from them. They answered that they were of the men of Ireland. Then they were asked whether they had dogs, for at that time it was the custom, when a group of men visited another assembly, to challenge them to a friendly contest. “We have dogs,” said Bres. Then the dogs raced, and those of the Tuatha De were faster than those of the Fomoire. Then they were asked whether they had horses to race. They answered, “We have,” and they were faster than the horses of the Fomoire.

44. Then they were asked whether they had anyone who was good at sword-play, and no one was found among them except Bres. But when he lifted the hand with the sword, his father recognized the ring on his finger and asked who the warrior was. His mother answered on his behalf and told the king that Bres was his son. She related to him the whole story as we have recounted it.

45. His father was sad about him, and asked, “What force brought you out of the land you ruled?”

Bres answered, “Nothing brought me except my own injustice and arrogance. I deprived them of their valuables and possessions and their own food. Neither tribute nor payment was ever taken from them until now.”

46. “That is bad,” said his father. “Better their prosperity than their kingship. Better their requests than their curses. Why then have you come?” asked his father.

47. “I have come to ask you for warriors,” he said. “I intend to take that land by force.”

48. “You ought not to gain it by injustice if you do not gain it by justice,” he said.

49. “I have a question then: what advice do you have for me?” said Bres.

50. After that he sent him to the champion Balor, grandson of Net, the king of the Hebrides, and to Indech mac De Domnann, the king of the Fomoire; and these gathered all the forces from Lochlainn westwards to Ireland, to impose their tribute and their rule upon them by force, and they made a single bridge of ships from the Hebrides to Ireland.

51. No host ever came to Ireland which was more terrifying or dreadful than that host of the Fomoire. There was rivalry between the men from Scythia of Lochlainn and the men out of the Hebrides concerning that expedition.

52. As for the Tuatha De, however, that is discussed here.

53. After Bres, Nuadu was once more in the kingship over the Tuatha De; and at that time, he held a great feast for the Tuatha De in Tara. Now there was a certain warrior whose name was Samildanach on his way to Tara. At that time, there were doorkeepers at Tara named Gamal mac Figail and Camall mac Riagail. While the latter was on duty, he saw the strange company coming toward him. A handsome, well-built young warrior with a king’s diadem was at the front of the band.

54. They told the doorkeeper to announce their arrival in Tara. The doorkeeper asked, “Who is there?”

55. “Lug Lormansclech is here, the son of Cian son of Dian Cecht and of Ethne daughter of Balor. He is the foster son of Tailtiu, the daughter of Magmor, the king of Spain, and of Eochaid Garb mac Duach.”

56. The doorkeeper then asked of Samildanach, “What art do you practice? For no one without an art enters Tara.”

57. “Question me,” he said. “I am a builder.”

The doorkeeper answered, “We do not need you. We have a builder already, Luchta mac Luachada.”

58. He said, “Question me, doorkeeper: I am a smith.”

The doorkeeper answered him, “We have a smith already, Colum Cualeinech of the three new techniques.”

59. He said, “Question me: I am a champion.”

The doorkeeper answered, “We do not need you. We have a champion already, Ogma mac Ethlend.”

60. He said again, “Question me.” “I am a harper,” he said.

“We do not need you. We have a harper already, Abcan mac Bicelmois, whom the men of the three gods chose in the sid-mounds.”

61. He said, “Question me: I am a warrior.”

The doorkeeper answered, “We do not need you. We have a warrior already, Bresal Etarlam mac Echdach Baethlaim.”

62. Then he said, “Question me, doorkeeper. I am a poet and a historian.”

“We do not need you. We already have a poet and historian, En mac Ethamain.”

63. He said, “Question me. I am a sorcerer.”

“We do not need you. We have sorcerers already. Our druids and our people of power are numerous.”

64. He said, “Question me. I am a physician.”

“We do not need you. We have Dian Cecht as a physician.”

65. “Question me,” he said. “I am a cupbearer.”

“We do not need you. We have cupbearers already: Delt and Drucht and Daithe, Tae and Talom and Trog, Gle and Glan and Glesse.”

66. He said, “Question me: I am a good brazier.”

“We do not need you. We have a brazier already, Credne Cerd.”

67. He said, “Ask the king whether he has one man who possesses all these arts: if he has I will not be able to enter Tara.”

68. Then the doorkeeper went into the royal hall and told everything to the king. “A warrior has come before the court,” he said, “named Samildanach; and all the arts which help your people, he practices them all, so that he is the man of each and every art.”

69. Then he said that they should bring him the fidchell-boards of Tara, and he won all the stakes, so that he made the cro of Lug. (But if fidchell was invented at the time of the Trojan war, it had not reached Ireland yet, for the battle of Mag Tuired and the destruction of Troy occurred at the same time.)

70. Then that was related to Nuadu. “Let him into the court,” said Nuadu, “for a man like that has never before come into this fortress.”

71. Then the doorkeeper let him past, and he went into the fortress, and he sat in the seat of the sage, because he was a sage in every art.

72. Then Ogma threw the flagstone, which required fourscore yoke of oxen to move it, through the side of the hall so that it lay outside against Tara. That was to challenge Lug, who tossed the stone back so that it lay in the centre of the royal hall; and he threw the piece which it had carried away back into the side of the royal hall so that it was whole again.

73. “Let a harp be played for us,” said the hosts. Then the warrior played sleep music for the hosts and for the king on the first night, putting them to sleep from that hour to the same time the next day. He played sorrowful music so that they were crying and lamenting. He played joyful music so that they were merry and rejoicing.

74. Then Nuadu, when he had seen the warrior’s many powers, considered whether he could release them from the bondage they suffered at the hands of the Fomoire. So they held a council concerning the warrior, and the decision which Nuadu reached was to exchange seats with the warrior. So Samildanach went to the king’s seat, and the king arose before him until thirteen days had passed.

75. The next day he and the two brothers, Dagda and Ogma, conversed together on Grellach Dollaid; and his two kinsmen Goibniu and Dian Cecht were summoned to them.

76. They spent a full year in that secret conference, so that Grellach Dollaid is called the Amrun of the Men of the Goddess.

77. Then the druids of Ireland were summoned to them, together with their physicians and their charioteers and their smiths and their wealthy landowners and their lawyers. They conversed together secretly.

78. Then he asked the sorcerer, whose name was Mathgen, what power he wielded. He answered that he would shake the mountains of Ireland beneath the Fomoire so that their summits would fall to the ground. And it would seem to them that the twelve chief mountains of the land of Ireland would be fighting on behalf of the Tuatha De Danann: Slieve League, and Denda Ulad, and the Mourne Mountains, and Bri Erigi and Slieve Bloom and Slieve Snaght, Slemish and Blaisliab and Nephin Mountain and Sliab Maccu Belgodon and the Curlieu hills and Croagh Patrick.

79. Then he asked the cupbearer what power he wielded. He answered that he would bring the twelve chief lochs of Ireland into the presence of the Fomoire and they would not find water in them, however thirsty they were. These are the lochs: Lough Derg, Lough Luimnig, Lough Corrib, Lough Ree, Lough Mask, Strangford Lough, Belfast Lough, Lough Neagh, Lough Foyle, Lough Gara, Loughrea, Marloch. They would proceed to the twelve chief rivers of Ireland–the Bush, the Boyne, the Bann, the Blackwater, the Lee, the Shannon, the Moy, the Sligo, the Erne, the Finn, the Liffey, the Suir–and they would all be hidden from the Fomoire so they would not find a drop in them. But drink will be provided for the men of Ireland even if they remain in battle for seven years.

80. Then Figol mac Mamois, their druid, said, “Three showers of fire will be rained upon the faces of the Fomorian host, and I will take out of them two-thirds of their courage and their skill at arms and their strength, and I will bind their urine in their own bodies and in the bodies of their horses. Every breath that the men of Ireland will exhale will increase their courage and skill at arms and strength. Even if they remain in battle for seven years, they will not be weary at all.

81. The Dagda said, “The power which you boast, I will wield it all myself.”

“You are the Dagda [‘the Good God’]!” said everyone, and “Dagda” stuck to him from that time on.

82. Then they disbanded the council to meet that day three years later.

83. Then after the preparation for the battle had been settled, Lug and the Dagda and Ogma went to the three gods of Danu, and they gave Lug equipment for the battle; and for seven years they had been preparing for them and making their weapons.

Then she said to him, “Undertake a battle of overthrowing.” The Morrigan said to Lug,

“Awake. . . .”

Then Figol mac Mamois, the druid, was prophesying the battle and strengthening the Tuatha De, saying,

“Battle will be waged.”

84. The Dagda had a house in Glen Edin in the north, and he had arranged to meet a woman in Glen Edin a year from that day, near the All Hallows of the battle. The Unshin of Connacht roars to the south of it.

He saw the woman at the Unshin in Corann, washing, with one of her feet at Allod Echae (that is, Aghanagh) south of the water and the other at Lisconny north of the water. There were nine loosened tresses on her head. The Dagda spoke with her, and they united. “The Bed of the Couple” was the name of that place from that time on. (The woman mentioned here is the Morrigan.)

85. Then she told the Dagda that the Fomoire would land at Mag Ceidne, and that he should summon the aes dana of Ireland to meet her at the Ford of the Unshin, and she would go into Scetne to destroy Indech mac De Domnann, the king of the Fomoire, and would take from him the blood of his heart and the kidneys of his valor. Later she gave two handfuls of that blood to the hosts that were waiting at the Ford of the Unshin. Its name became “The Ford of Destruction” because of that destruction of the king.

86. So the aes dana did that, and they chanted spells against the Fomorian hosts.

87. This was a week before All Hallows, and they all dispersed until all the men of Ireland came together the day before All Hallows. Their number was six times thirty hundred, that is, each third consisted of twice thirty hundred.

88. Then Lug sent the Dagda to spy on the Fomoire and to delay them until the men of Ireland came to the battle.

89. Then the Dagda went to the Fomorian camp and asked them for a truce of battle. This was granted to him as he asked. The Fomoire made porridge for him to mock him, because his love of porridge was great. They filled for him the king’s cauldron, which was five fists deep, and poured four score gallons of new milk and the same quantity of meal and fat into it. They put goats and sheep and swine into it, and boiled them all together with the porridge. Then they poured it into a hole in the ground, and Indech said to him that he would be killed unless he consumed it all; he should eat his fill so that he might not satirize the Fomoire.

90. Then the Dagda took his ladle, and it was big enough for a man and a woman to lie in the middle of it. These are the bits that were in it: halves of salted swine and a quarter of lard.

91. Then the Dagda said, “This is good food if its broth is equal to its taste.” But when he would put the full ladle into his mouth he said, “‘Its poor bits do not spoil it,’ says the wise old man.”

92. Then at the end he scraped his bent finger over the bottom of the hole among mould and gravel. He fell asleep then after eating his porridge. His belly was as big as a house cauldron, and the Fomoire laughed at it.

93. Then he went away from them to Traigh Eabha. It was not easy for the warrior to move along on account of the size of his belly. His appearance was unsightly: he had a cape to the hollow of his elbows, and a gray-brown tunic around him as far as the swelling of his rump. He trailed behind him a wheeled fork which was the work of eight men to move, and its track was enough for the boundary ditch of a province. It is called “The Track of the Dagda’s Club” for that reason. His long penis was uncovered. He had on two shoes of horsehide with the hair outside.

As he went along he saw a girl in front of him, a good-looking young woman with an excellent figure, her hair in beautiful tresses. The Dagda desired her, but he was impotent on account of his belly. The girl began to mock him, then she began wrestling with him. She hurled him so that he sank to the hollow of his rump in the ground. He looked at her angrily and asked, “What business did you have, girl, heaving me out of my right way?”

“This business: to get you to carry me on your back to my father’s house.”

“Who is your father?” he asked.

“I am the daughter of Indech, son of De Domnann,” she said.

She fell upon him again and beat him hard, so that the furrow around him filled with the excrement from his belly; and she satirized him three times so that he would carry her upon his back.

He said that it was a guess for him to carry anyone who would not call him by his name.

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Fer Benn,” he said.

“That name is too much!” she said. “Get up, carry me on your back, Fer Benn.”

“That is indeed not my name,” he said.

“What is?” she asked.

“Fer Benn Mach,” he answered.

“Get up, carry me on your back, Fer Benn Mach,” she said.

“That is not my name,” he said.

“What is?” she asked. Then he told her the whole thing. She replied immediately and said, “Get up, carry me on your back, Fer Benn Bruach Brogaill Broumide Cerbad Caic Rolaig Builc Labair Cerrce Di Brig Oldathair Boith Athgen mBethai Brightere Tri Carboid Roth Rimaire Riog Scotbe Obthe Olaithbe. . . . Get up, carry me away from here!”

“Do not mock me any more, girl,” he said.

“It will certainly be hard,” she said.

Then he moved out of the hole, after letting go the contents of his belly, and the girl had waited for that for a long time. He got up then, and took the girl on his back; and he put three stones in his belt. Each stone fell from it in turn-and it has been said that they were his testicles which fell from it. The girl jumped on him and struck him across the rump, and her curly pubic hair was revealed. Then the Dagda gained a mistress, and they made love. The mark remains at Beltraw Strand where they came together.

Then the girl said to him, “You will not go to the battle by any means.”

“Certainly. I will go,” said the Dagda.

“You will not go,” said the woman, “because I will be a stone at the mouth of every ford you will cross.”

“That will be true,” said the Dagda, “but you will not keep me from it. I will tread heavily on every stone, and the trace of my heel will remain on every stone forever.”

“That will be true, but they will be turned over so that you may not see them. You will not go past me until I summon the sons of Tethra from the sid-mounds, because I will be a giant oak in every ford and in every pass, you will cross.”

“I will indeed go past,” said the Dagda, “and the mark of my axe will remain in every oak forever.” (And people have remarked upon the mark of the Dagda’s axe.)

Then, however she said, “Allow the Fomoire to enter the land, because the men of Ireland have all come together in one place.” She said that she would hinder the Fomoire, and she would sing spells against them, and she would practice the deadly art of the wand against them–and she alone would take on a ninth part of the host.

94. The Fomoire advanced until their tenths were in Scetne. The men of Ireland were in Mag Aurfolaig. At this point these two hosts were threatening battle.

“Do the men of Ireland undertake to give battle to us?” said Bres mac Elathan to Indech mac De Domnann.

“I will give the same,” said Indech, “so that their bones will be small if they do not pay their tribute.”

95. In order to protect him, the men of Ireland had agreed to keep Lug from the battle. His nine foster fathers came to guard him: Tollusdam and Echdam and Eru, Rechtaid Finn and Fosad and Feidlimid, Ibar and Scibar and Minn. They feared an early death for the warrior because of the great number of his arts. For that reason, they did not let him go to the battle.

96. Then the men of rank among the Tuatha De were assembled around Lug. He asked his smith, Goibniu, what power he wielded for them.

97. “Not hard to say,” he said. “Even if the men of Ireland continue the battle for seven years, for every spear that separates from its shaft or sword that will break in battle, I will provide a new weapon in its place. No spearpoint which my hand forges will make a missing cast. No skin which it pierces will taste life afterward. Dolb, the Fomorian smith, cannot do that. I am now concerned with my preparation for the battle of Mag Tuired.”

98. “And you, Dian Cecht,” said Lug, “what power do you wield?”

99. “Not hard to say,” he said. “Any man who will be wounded there, unless his head is cut off, or the membrane of his brain or his spinal cord is severed, I will make him perfectly whole in the battle on the next day.”

100. “And you, Credne,” Lug said to his brazier, “what is your power in the battle?”

101. “Not hard to answer,” said Credne. “I will supply them all with rivets for their spears and hilts for their swords and bosses and rims for their shields.”

102. “And you, Luchta,” Lug said to his carpenter, “what power would you attain in the battle?”

103. “Not hard to answer,” said Luchta. “I will supply them all with whatever shields and spearshafts they need.”

104. “And you, Ogma,” said Lug to his champion, “what is your power in the battle?”

105. “Not hard to say,” he said. “Being a match for the king and holding my own against twenty-seven of his friends, while winning a third of the battle for the men of Ireland.”

106. “And you, Morrigan,” said Lug, “what power?”

107. “Not hard to say,” she said. “I have stood fast; I shall pursue what was watched; I will be able to kill; I will be able to destroy those who might be subdued.”

108. “And you, sorcerers,” said Lug, “what power?”

109. “Not hard to say,” said the sorcerers. “Their white soles will be visible after they have been overthrown by our craft, so that they can easily be killed; and we will take two-thirds of their strength from them, and prevent them from urinating.”

110. “And you, cupbearers,” said Lug, “what power?”

111. “Not hard to say,” said the cupbearers. “We will bring a great thirst upon them, and they will not find drink to quench it.”

112. “And you, druids,” said Lug, “what power?”

113. “Not hard to say,” said the druids. “We will bring showers of fire upon the faces of the Fomoire so that they cannot look up, and the warriors contending with them can use their force to kill them.”

114. “And you, Coirpre mac Etaine,” said Lug to his poet, “what can you do in the battle?”

115. “Not hard to say,” said Coirpre. “I will make a glam dicenn against them, and I will satirize them and shame them so that through the spell of my art they will offer no resistance to warriors.”

116. “And you, Be Chuille and Dianann,” said Lug to his two witches, “what can you do in the battle?”

117. “Not hard to say,” they said. “We will enchant the trees and the stones and the sods of the earth so that they will be a host under arms against them; and they will scatter in flight terrified and trembling.”

118. “And you, Dagda,” said Lug, “what power can you wield against the Fomorian host in the battle?”

119. “Not hard to say,” said the Dagda. “I will fight for the men of Ireland with mutual smiting and destruction and wizardry. Their bones under my club will soon be as many as hailstones under the feet of herds of horses, where the double enemy meets on the battlefield of Mag Tuired.”

120. Then in this way Lug addressed each of them in turn concerning their arts, strengthening them and addressing them in such a way that every man had the courage of a king or great lord.

121. Now every day the battle was drawn up between the race of the Fomoire and the Tuatha De Danann, but there were no kings or princes waging it, only fierce and arrogant men.

122. One thing which became evident to the Fomoire in the battle seemed remarkable to them. Their weapons, their spears and their swords, were blunted; and those of their men who were killed did not come back the next day. That was not the case with the Tuatha De Danann: although their weapons were blunted one day, they were restored the next because Goibniu the smith was in the smithy making swords and spears and javelins. He would make those weapons with three strokes. Then Luchta the carpenter would make the spearshafts in three chippings, and the third chipping was a finish and would set them in the socket of the spear. After the spearheads were in the side of the forge he would throw the sockets with the shafts, and it was not necessary to set them again. Then Credne the brazier would make the rivets with three strokes, and he would throw the sockets of the spears at them, and it was not necessary to drill holes for them; and they stayed together this way.

123. Now this is what used to kindle the warriors who were wounded there so that they were more fiery the next day: Dian Cecht, his two sons Octriuil and Miach, and his daughter Airmed were chanting spells over the well named Slaine. They would cast their mortally-wounded men into it as they were struck down; and they were alive when they came out. Their mortally-wounded were healed through the power of the incantation made by the four physicians who were around the well.

124. Now that was damaging to the Fomoire, and they picked a man to reconnoitre the battle and the practices of the Tuatha De–Ruadan, the son of Bres and of Brig, the daughter of the Dagda-because he was a son and a grandson of the Tuatha De. Then he described to the Fomoire the work of the smith and the carpenter and the brazier and the four physicians who were around the well. They sent him back to kill one of the aes dana, Goibniu. He requested a spearpoint from him, its rivets from the brazier, and its shaft from the carpenter; and everything was given to him as he asked. Now there was a woman there grinding weapons, Cron the mother of Fianlach; and she ground Ruadan’s spear. So the spear was given to Ruadan by his maternal kin, and for that reason a weaver’s beam is still called “the spear of the maternal kin” in Ireland.

125. But after the spear had been given to him, Ruadan turned and wounded Goibniu. He pulled out the spear and hurled it at Ruadan so that it went through him; and he died in his father’s presence in the Fomorian assembly. Brig came and keened for her son. At first, she shrieked, in the end she wept. Then for the first time weeping and shrieking were heard in Ireland. (Now she is the Brig who invented a whistle for signalling at night.)

126. Then Goibniu went into the well and he became whole. The Fomoire had a warrior named Ochtriallach, the son of the Fomorian king Indech mac De Domnann. He suggested that every single man they had should bring a stone from the stones of the river Drowes to cast into the well Slaine in Achad Abla to the west of Mag Tuired, to the east of Lough Arrow. They went, and every man put a stone into the well. For that reason, the cairn is called Ochtriallach’s Cairn. But another name for that well is Loch Luibe, because Dian Cecht put into it every herb that grew in Ireland.

127. Now when the time came for the great battle, the Fomoire marched out of their encampment and formed themselves into strong indestructible battalions. There was not a chief nor a skilled warrior among them without armor against his skin, a helmet on his head, a broad spear in his right hand, a heavy sharp sword on his belt, a strong shield on his shoulder. To attack the Fomorian host that day was “striking a head against a cliff,” was “a hand in a serpent’s nest,” was “a face brought close to fire.”

128. These were the kings and leaders who were encouraging the Fomorian host: Balor son of Dot son of Net, Bres mac Elathan, Tuire Tortbuillech mac Lobois, Goll and Irgoll, Loscennlomm mac Lommgluinigh, Indech mac De Domnann, king of the Fomoire, Ochtriallach mac Indich, Omna and Bagna, Elatha mac Delbaith.

129. On the other side, the Tuatha De Danann arose and left his nine companions guarding Lug, and went to join the battle. But when the battle ensued, Lug escaped from the guard set over him, as a chariot-fighter, and it was he who was in front of the battalion of the Tuatha De. Then a keen and cruel battle was fought between the race of the Fomoire and the men of Ireland.

Lug was urging the men of Ireland to fight the battle fiercely so they should not be in bondage any longer, because it was better for them to find death while protecting their fatherland than to be in bondage and under tribute as they had been. Then Lug chanted the spell which follows, going around the men of Ireland on one foot and with one eye closed. . . .

130. The hosts gave a great shout as they went into battle. Then they came together, and each of them began to strike the other.

131. Many beautiful men fell there in the stall of death. Great was the slaughter and the grave-lying which took place there. Pride and shame were there side by side. There was anger and indignation. Abundant was the stream of blood over the white skin of young warriors mangled by the hands of bold men while rushing into danger for shame. Harsh was the noise made by the multitude of warriors and champions protecting their swords and shields and bodies while others were striking them with spears and swords. Harsh too the tumult all over the battlefield-the shouting of the warriors and the clashing of bright shields, the swish of swords and ivory-hilted blades, the clatter and rattling of the quivers, the hum and whirr of spears and javelins, the crashing strokes of weapons.

132. As they hacked at each other their fingertips and their feet almost met; and because of the slipperiness of the blood under the warriors’ feet, they kept failing down, and their heads were cut off them as they sat. A gory, wound-inflicting, sharp, bloody battle was upheaved, and spearshafts were reddened in the hands of foes.

133. Then Nuadu Silverhand and Macha the daughter of Ernmas fell at the hands of Balor grandson of Net. Casmael fell at the hands of Ochtriallach son of Indech. Lug and Balor of the piercing eye met in the battle. The latter had a destructive eye which was never opened except on a battlefield. Four men would raise the lid of the eye by a polished ring in its lid. The host which looked at that eye, even if they were many thousands in number, would offer no resistance to warriors. It had that poisonous power for this reason: once his father’s druids were brewing magic. He came and looked over the window, and the fumes of the concoction affected the eye and the venomous power of the brew settled in it. Then he and Lug met. . . .

134. “Lift up my eyelid, lad,” said Balor, “so I may see the talkative fellow who is conversing with me.”

135. The lid was raised from Balor’s eye. Then Lug cast a sling stone at him which carried the eye through his head, and it was his own host that looked at it. He fell on top of the Fomorian host so that twenty-seven of them died under his side; and the crown of his head struck against the breast of Indech mac De Domnann so that a gush of blood spouted over his lips.

136. “Let Loch Lethglas [“Halfgreen”], my poet, be summoned to me,” said Indech. (He was half green from the ground to the crown of his head.) He came to him. “Find out for me,” said Indech, “who hurled this cast at me.” . . . Then Loch Lethglas said,

“Declare, who is the man? . . .”

Then Lug said these words in answer to him,

“A man cast

Who does not fear you.

137. Then the Morrigan the daughter of Ernmas came, and she was strengthening the Tuatha De to fight the battle resolutely and fiercely. She then chanted the following poem:

“Kings arise to the battle! . . .”

138. Immediately afterwards the battle broke, and the Fomoire were driven to the sea. The champion Ogma son of Elatha and Indech mac De Domnann fell together in single combat.

139. Loch Lethglas asked Lug for quarter. “Grant my three requests,” said Lug.

140. “You will have them,” said Loch. “I will remove the need to guard against the Fomoire from Ireland forever; and whatever judgement your tongue will deliver in any difficult case, it will resolve the matter until the end of fife.”

141. So Loch was spared. Then he chanted “The Decree of Fastening” to the Gaels. . . .

142. Then Loch said that he would give names to Lug’s nine chariots because he had been spared. So, Lug said that he should name them. Loch answered and said, “Luachta, Anagat, Achad, Feochair, Fer, Golla, Fosad, Craeb, Carpat.”

143. “A question then: what are the names of the charioteers who were in them?”

“Medol, Medon, Moth, Mothach, Foimtinne, Tenda, Tres, Morb.”

144. “What are the names of the goads which were in their hands?”

“Fes, Res, Roches, Anagar, Each, Canna, Riadha, Buaid.”

145. “What are the names of the horses?”

“Can, Doriadha, Romuir, Laisad, Fer Forsaid, Sroban, Airchedal, Ruagar, Ilann, Allriadha, Rocedal.”

146. “A question: what is the number of the slain?” Lug said to Loch.

“I do not know the number of peasants and rabble. As to the number of Fomorian lords and nobles and champions and over-kings, I do know: 3 + 3 x 20 + 50 x 100 men + 20 x 100 + 3 x 50 + 9 x 5 + 4 x 20 x 1000 + 8 + 8 x 20 + 7 + 4 x 20 + 6 + 4 x 20 + 5 + 8 x 20 + 2 + 40, including the grandson of Net with 90 men. That is the number of the slain of the Fomorian over-kings and high nobles who fell in the battle.

147. “But regarding the number of peasants and common people and rabble and people of every art who came in company with the great host–for every warrior and every high noble and every overking of the Fomoire came to the battle with his personal followers, so that all fell there, both their free men and their unfree servants–I count only a few of the over-kings’ servants. This then is the number of those I counted as I watched: 7 + 7 x 20 x 20 x 100 x 100 + 90 including Sab Uanchennach son of Coirpre Colc, the son of a servant of Indech mac De Domnann (that is, the son of a servant of the Fomorian king).

148. “As for the men who fought in pairs and the spearmen, warriors who did not reach the heart of the battle who also fell there-until the stars of heaven can be counted, and the sands of the sea, and flakes of snow, and dew on a lawn, and hailstones, and grass beneath the feet of horses, and the horses of the son of Lir in a sea storm–they will not be counted at all.”

149. Immediately afterward they found an opportunity to kill Bres mac Elathan. He said, “It is better to spare me than to kill me.”

150. “What then will follow from that?” said Lug.

“The cows of Ireland will always be in milk,” said Bres, “if I am spared.”

“I will tell that to our wise men,” said Lug.

151. So Lug went to Maeltne Morbrethach and said to him, “Shall Bres be spared for giving constant milk to the cows of Ireland?”

152. “He shall not be spared,” said Maeltne. “He has no power over their age or their calving, even if he controls their milk as long as they are alive.”

153. Lug said to Bres, “That does not save you; you have no power over their age or their calving, even if you control their milk.”

154. Bres said, “Maeltne has given bitter alarms!”

155. “Is there anything else which will save you, Bres?” said Lug.

“There is indeed. Tell your lawyer they will reap a harvest every quarter in return for sparing me.”

156. Lug said to Maeltne, “Shall Bres be spared for giving the men of Ireland a harvest of grain every quarter?”

157. “This has suited us,” said Maeltne. “Spring for plowing and sowing, and the beginning of summer for maturing the strength of the grain, and the beginning of autumn for the full ripeness of the grain, and for reaping it. Winter for consuming it.”

158. “That does not save you,” said Lug to Bres.

“Maeltne has given bitter alarms,” said he.

159. “Less rescues you,” said Lug.

“What?” asked Bres.

160. “How shall the men of Ireland plow? How shall they sow? How shall they reap? If you make known these things, you will be saved.”

“Say to them, on Tuesday their plowing; on Tuesday, their sowing seed in the field; on Tuesday their reaping.”

161. So through that device Bres was released.

162. Now in that battle Ogma the champion found Orna, the sword of Tethra, king of the Fomoire. Ogma unsheathed the sword and cleaned it. Then the sword told what had been done by it, because it was the habit of swords at that time to recount the deeds that had been done by them whenever they were unsheathed. And for that reason, swords are entitled to the tribute of cleaning after they have been unsheathed. Moreover, spells have been kept in swords from that time on. Now the reason why demons used to speak from weapons then is that weapons used to be worshipped by men and were among the sureties of that time. Loch Lethglas chanted the following poem about that sword. . . .

163. Then Lug and the Dagda and Ogma went after the Fomoire, because they had taken the Dagda’s harper, Uaithne. Eventually they reached the banqueting hall where Bres mac Elathan and Elatha mac Delbaith were. There was the harp on the wall. That is the harp in which the Dagda had bound the melodies so that they did not make a sound until he summoned them, saying,

“Come Daur Da Blao,

Come Coir Cetharchair,

Come summer, come winter,

Mouths of harps and bags and pipes!”

(Now that harp had two names, Daur Da Blao and Coir Cetharchair.)

164. Then the harp came away from the wall, and it killed nine men and came to the Dagda; and he played for them the three things by which a harper is known: sleep music, joyful music, and sorrowful music. He played sorrowful music for them so that their tearful women wept. He played joyful music for them so that their women and boys laughed. He played sleep music for them so that the hosts slept. So, the three of them escaped from them unharmed–although they wanted to kill them.

165. The Dagda brought with him the cattle taken by the Fomoire through the lowing of the heifer which had been given him for his work; because when she called her calf, all the cattle of Ireland which the Fomoire had taken as their tribute began to graze.

166. Then after the battle was won and the slaughter had been cleaned away, the Morrigan, the daughter of Ernmas, proceeded to announce the battle and the great victory which had occurred there to the royal heights of Ireland and to its sid-hosts, to its chief waters and to its rivermouths. And that is the reason Badb still relates great deeds. “Have you any news?” everyone asked her then.

“Peace up to heaven.

Heaven down to earth.

Earth beneath heaven,

Strength in each,

A cup very full,

Full of honey;

Mead in abundance.

Summer in winter. . . .

Peace up to heaven . . .”

167. She also prophesied the end of the world, foretelling every evil that would occur then, and every disease and every vengeance; and she chanted the following poem:

“I shall not see a world

Which will be dear to me:

Summer without blossoms,

Cattle will be without milk,

Women without modesty,

Men without valor.

Conquests without a king . . .

Woods without mast.

Sea without produce. . . .

False judgements of old men.

False precedents of lawyers,

Every man a betrayer.

Every son a reaver.

The son will go to the bed of his father,

The father will go to the bed of his son.

Each his brother’s brother-in-law.

He will not seek any woman outside his house. . . .

An evil time,

Son will deceive his father,

Daughter will deceive . . .”

The Wooing of Etain

Here Begins the Wooing of Etain

There was a famous king of Ireland of the race of the Tuatha De, Eochaid Ollathair his name. He was also named the Dagda [i.e. good god], for it was he that used to work wonders for them and control the weather and the crops. Wherefore men said he was called the Dagda. Elcmar of the Brug had a wife whose name was Eithne and another name for her was Boand. The Dagda desired her in carnal union. The woman would have yielded to the Dagda had it not been for fear of Elcmar, so great was his power. Thereupon the Dagda sent Elcmar away on a journey to Bres son of Elatha in Mag nInis, and the Dagda worked great spells upon Elcmar as he set out, that he might not returns betimes (that is, early) and he dispelled the darkness of night for him, and he kept hunger and thirst from him. He sent him on long errands, so that nine months went by as one day, for he had said that he would return home again between day and night. Meanwhile the Dagda went in upon Elcmar’s wife, and she bore him a son, even Aengus, and the woman was whole of her sickness when Elcmar returned, and he perceived not her offense, that is, that she had lain with the Dagda.

2. The Dagda meanwhile brought his son to Midir’s house in Bri Leith in Tethba, to be fostered. There Aengus was reared for the space of nine years. Midir had a great playing-field in Bri Leith. Thrice fifty lads of the young nobles of Ireland were there and thrice fifty maidens of the land of Ireland. Aengus was the leader of them all, because of Midir’s great love for him, and the beauty of his form and the nobility of his race. He was also called in Mac Oc (the Young Son), for his mother said: “Young is the son who was begotten at the break of day and born betwixt it and evening.”

3. Now Aengus quarreled with Triath son of Febal (or Gobor) of the Fir Bolg, who was one of the two leaders in the game, and a fosterling of Midir. It was no matter of pride with Aengus that Triath should speak to him, and he said: “It irks me that the son of a serf should hold speech with me,” for Aengus had believed until then that Midir was his father, and the kingship of Bri Leith his heritage, and he knew not of his kinship with the Dagda.

4. Triath made answer and said: “I take it no less ill that a hireling whose mother and father are unknown should hold speech with me.” Thereupon Aengus went to Midir weeping and sorrowful at having been put to shame by Triath. “What is this?” said Midir. “Triath has defamed me and cast in my face that I have neither mother nor father.” “Tis false,” said Midir. “Who is my mother, from whence is my father” “No hard matter. Thy father is Eochaid Ollathair,” said Midir, “and Eithne, wife of Elcmar of the Brug, is thy mother. It is I that have reared thee unknown to Elcmar, lest it should cause him pain that thou wast begotten in his despite.” “Come thou with me,” said Aengus, “that my father may acknowledge me, and that I may no longer be kept hidden away under the insults of the Fir Bolg.”

5. Then Midir set out with his fosterling to have speech with Eochaid, and they came to Uisnech of Meath in the center of Ireland, for ’tis there that was Eochaid’s house, Ireland stretching equally far from on every side, south and north, to east and west. “Before them in the assembly they found Eochaid. Midir called the king aside to have speech with the lad. “What does he desire, this youth who has not come until now?” “His desire is to be acknowledged by his father, and for land to be given to him,” said Midir, “for it is not meet that thy son should be landless while thou art king of Ireland.” “He is welcome,” said the Eochaid, “he is my son. But the land I wish him to have is not yet vacant.” “What land is that?” said Midir. “The Brug, to the north of the Boyne,” said Eochaid. “Who is there?” said Midir. “Elcmar,” said Eochaid, “is the man who is there I have no wish to annoy him further.”

6. “Pray, what counsel dost thou give this lad?” said Midir. “I have this for him,” said Eochaid. “On the day of Samain let him go into the Brug, and let him go armed. That is a day of peace and amity among the men of Ireland, on which none is at enmity with his fellow. And Elcmar will be in Cnoc Side in Borga unarmed save for a fork of white hazel in his hand, his cloak folded around him and a gold brooch in his cloak, and three fifties playing before him in the playing-field; and let Aengus go to him and threaten to kill him. But it is meet that he slay him not, provided he promise him his will. And let this be the will of Aengus, that he be king for a day and a night in the Brug; and see that thou not yield the land to Elcmar till he submit himself to my decision; and when he comes let Aengus plea be that the land has fallen to him, and that he in fee simple for sparing Elcmar and not slaying him, and that what he had asked for is kingship of day and night, and” said he, “it is in days and nights that the world is spent.”

7. Then Midir sets out for his land, and his foster-son along with him, and on the Samain following, Aengus having armed himself came into the Brug and made a feint at Elcmar, so that he promised him in return for his life kingship of day and night in his land. The Mac Oc straightway abode there that day and night as king of the land, Elcmar’s household being subject to him. On the morrow Elcmar came to claim his land from the Mac Oc, and therewith threatened him mightily. The Mac Oc said that he would not yield up his land until he should put it to the decision of the Dagda in the presence of the men of Ireland.

8. Then they appeal to the Dagda, who adjudged each man’s contract in accordance with his undertaking. “So, then this land accordingly belongs henceforth to this youth,” said Elcmar. “It is fitting,” said the Dagda. “Thou were taken unawares on a day of peace and amity. Thou gavest thy land for mercy shown thee, for thy life was dearer to thee than thy land, yet thou shalt have land from me that will be no less profitable to thee than the Brug.” “Where is that?” said Elcmar. “Cleitech,” said the Dagda, “with the three lands that are round about it, thy youths playing before thee every day in the Brug, and thou shalt enjoy the fruits of the Boyne from this land.” “It is well,” said Elcmar; “so shall it be accomplished.” And he made a flitting to Cleitech, and built a stronghold there, and Mac Oc abode in the Brug in his land.

9. Then Mider came on that day year to the Brug on a visit to his fosterling, and he found the Mac Oc on the mound of Sid in Broga on the day of Samain, with two companies of youth at play before him in the Brug, and Elcmar on the mound of Cleitech to the south, watching them. A quarrel broke out among the youths in the Brug. “Do not stir,” said Midir to the Mac Oc, “because of Elcmar, lest he come down to the plain. I will go myself to make peace between them.” Thereupon Midir went, and it was not easy for him to part them. A split of holly was thrown at Midir as he was intervening, and it knocked one of his eyes out. Midir came to the Mac Oc with his eye in his hand and said to him: “Would that I had not come on a visit to thee, to be put to shame, for with this blemish I cannot behold the land I have come to, and the land I have left, I cannot return to it now.

10. “It shall in no wise be so,” said the Mac Oc. “I shall go to Dian Cecht that he may come and heal thee, and thine own land shall be thine and this land shall be thine, and thine eye shall be whole again without shame or blemish because of it.” The Mac Oc went to Dian Cecht. […] that thou mayest go with me,” said he, “to save my foster-father who has been hurt in the Burgh on the day of the Samain.” Dian Cecht came and healed Midir, so that he was whole again. “Good is my journeying now,” said Midir, “since I am healed.” “It shall surely be so,” said the Mac Oc. “Do thou abide here for a year that thou mayest see my host and my folk, my household and my land.”

11. I will not stay,” said Midir, “unless I have a reward therefore.” “What reward?” said the Mac Oc. “Easy to say. A chariot worth seven cumals,”3 said Midir, “and a mantle befitting me, and the fairest maiden in Ireland.” “I have,” said the Mac Oc, “the chariot, and the mantle befitting thee.” “There is moreover,” said Midir, “the maiden that surpasses all the maidens in Ireland in form.” “Where is she?” said the Mac Oc. “She is in Ulster,” said Midir, “Ailill”s daughter Etain Echraide daughter of the king of the north-eastern part of Ireland. She is the dearest and gentlest and loveliest in Ireland.”

12. The Mac Oc went to seek her until he came to Ailill’s house in Mag nInis. He was made welcome, and he abode three nights there. He told his mission and announced his name and race. He said that it was in quest of Etain that he had come. “I will not give her to thee,” said Ailill, “for I can in no way profit by thee, because of the nobility of thy family, and the greatness of thy power and that of thy father. If thou put any shame on my daughter, no redress whatsoever can be had of thee.” “It shall not be so,” said the Mac Oc. “I will buy her from thee straightway.” “Thou shall have that,” said Ailill. “State thy demand,” said the Mac Oc. “No hard matter,” said Ailill. “Thou shalt clear for me twelve plains in my land that are under waste and wood, so that they may be at all times for grazing cattle and for habitation to me, for games, assemblies, gatherings, and strongholds.”

13. “It shall be done,” said the Mac Oc. He returns home and bewailed to the Dagda the strait he was in. The latter caused twelve plains to be cleared in a single night in Ailill’s land. These are the names of the plains: Mag Macha, Mag Lemna, Mag nItha, Mag Tochair, Mag nDula, Mag Techt, Mag Li, Mag Line, Mag Murthemne. Now when that work had been accomplished by the Mac Oc he went to Ailill to demand Etain. “Thou shalt not obtain her,” said Ailill, “until thou draw out of this land to the sea twelve great rivers that are in wells and bogs and moors, so that they may bring produce from the sea to peoples and kindreds, and drain the earth and the land.”

14. He came again to the Dagda to bewail the strait he was in. Thereupon the latter caused twelve great waters to course towards the sea in a single night. They had not been seen there until then. These are the names of the waters: Find and Modornn and Slena and Nas and Amnas and Oichen and Or and Banda and Samair and Loche. Now when these works were accomplished the Mac Oc came to have speech with Ailill in order to claim Etain. “Thou shall not get her till thou purchase her, for after thou hast taken her, I shall have no profit of the maiden beyond what I shall obtain forthwith.” “What dost thou require of me now?” said the Mac Oc. “I require,” said Ailill, “the maiden’s weight in gold and silver, for that is my portion of their price; all that thou hath done up to now, the profit of it goes to her folk and her kindred.” “It shall be done,” said the Mac Oc. She was placed on the floor of Ailill’s house, and her weight of gold and silver was given for her. That wealth was left with Ailill, and the Mac Oc brought Etain home with him.

15. Midir made that company welcome. That night Etain sleeps with Midir, and on the morrow a mantle befitting him and a chariot were given to him, and he was pleased with his foster- son. After that he abode a full year in the Brug with Aengus. On that day year Midir went to his own land, to Bri Leith, and he brought Etain with him. On that day, he went from him the Mac Oc said to Midir, “Give heed to the woman thou takest with thee, because of the dreadful cunning woman that awaits thee, with all the knowledge and skill and craft that belongs to her race,” said Aengus, “also she has my word and my safeguard before the Tuatha De Danann,” that is, Fuamnach wife of Midir, of the progeny of Beothach son of Iardanel. She was wise and prudent and skilled in the knowledge and magic power of the Tuatha De Danann, for the druid Bresal had reared her until she was betrothed to Midir.

16. She made her husband welcome, that is Midir, and the woman spoke much of… to them. “Come, O Midir,” said Fuamnach, “that I may show thee my house and thy meed of land… Midir went round his land with Fuamnach, and she showed his seizin to him and… to Etain. And after that the brought Etain again to Fuamnach. Fuamnach went before them into the sleeping chamber where she slept, and she said to Etain: “The seat of a good woman hast thou came into.” When Etain sat down in the chair in the middle of the house, Fuamnach struck her with a rod of scarlet quicken tree, and she turned into a pool of water in the middle of the house; and Fuamach comes to her foster-father Bresal, and Midir left the house to the water into which Etain had turned. After that Midir was without a wife.

17. The heat of the fire and the air and the seething of the ground aided the water so that the pool that was in the middle of the house turned into a worm, and after that the worm became a purple fly. It was as big as a man’s head, the comeliest in the land. Sweeter than pipes and harps and horns was the sound of her voice and the hum of her wings. Her eyes would shine like precious stones in the dark. The fragrance and the bloom of her would turn away hunger and thirst from any one around whom she would go. The spray of the drops she shed from her wings would cure all sickness and disease and plague in any one round whom she go. She used to attend Midir and go round about his land with him, as he went. To listen to her and gaze upon her would nourish hosts in gatherings and assemblies in camps. Midir knew that it was Etain that was in that shape, and so long as that fly was attended upon him, he never took to himself a wife, and the sight of her would nourish him. He would fall asleep with her humming, and whenever any one approached who did not love him, she would awaken him.

18. After a time Fuamnach came on a visit to Midir, and along with her as sureties came the three gods of Dana, namely Lug and the Dagda, and Ogma. Midir reproached Fuamnach exceedingly and said to her that she should not go from him were it not for the power of the sureties that had brought her. Fuamnach said that she did not repent of the deed she had done, for that she would rather do good for herself than to another, and that in whatsoever part of Ireland she might be she would do naught but harm to Etain so long as she lived, and in whatsoever shape she might be. She brought powerful incantations and… spells from Bresal Etarlam the wizard to banish and warn off Etain from Midir, for she knew that the purple fly that was delighting Midir was Etain herself, for wherever he saw the scarlet fly, Midir loved no other woman, and he found no pleasure in music or in drinking or eating when he did not see her and hear the music of her and her voice. Fuamnach stirred up a wind of assault and magic so that Etain was wafted from Bri Leith, and for seven years she could not find a summit or a tree or a hill or a height in Ireland on which she could settle, but only rocks of the sea and the ocean waves, and (she was) floating through the air until seven years from that day when she lighted on the fringe on the breast of the Mac Oc as he was on the mound of the Brug.

19. There it was that the Mac Oc said “Welcome, Etain,”wanderer careworn, thou that hast encountered great dangers through the cunning of Fuamnach. Not yet have you found, your side secure in alliance with Mider. As for me, he has found me capable of actions with hosts, the slaughter of a multitude, the clearing of wildernesses, the world’s aboundance for Ailill’s daughter. An idle task, for your wretched ruin has followed.”

20. The Mac Oc made the girl welcome, that is, the purple fly, and gathered her in his bosom in the fleece of his cloak. He brought her to his house and his sun-bower with its bright windows for passing out and in, and purple raiment was put on her; and wherever he went that sun-bower was carried by the Mac Oc, and there he used to sleep every night by her side, comforting her, until her gladness and colour came to her again. And that sun-bower was filled with fragrant and wondrous herbs, and she throve on the fragrance and bloom of those goodly precious herbs.

21. Fuamnach was told of the love and honour that was bestowed by the Mac Oc on Etain. Said Fuamnach to Midir, “Let thy fosterling be summoned that I may make peace between you both, while I myself go in guest of Etain.” A messenger comes to the Mac Oc from Midir, and he went to speak to him. Meanwhile Fuamnach came by a circuitous way until she was in the Brug, and she sent the same blast on Etain, which carried her out of her sun-bower on the very flight she had been on before for the space of seven years throughout Ireland. The blast of wind drove her along in misery and weakness until she alit on the rooftree of a house in Ulster where folk were drinking, and she fell into the golden beaker that was before the wife of Etar, the champion from Inber Cichmaine, in the province of Conchobar, so that she swallowed her with the liquid that was in the beaker, and in this wise she was conceived in her womb and became afterwards her daughter. She was called Etain daughter of Etar. Now it was a thousand and twelve years from the first begetting of Etain by Ailill until her last begetting by Etar.

22. After that Etain was brought up at Inber Cichmaine by Etar, and fifty daughters of chieftains along with her, and he it was that fed and clothed them to be in attendance on Etain always. day it befell that all the maidens were bathing in the estuary when they saw from the water a horseman entering the plain towards them. He was mounted on a broad brown steed, curvetting and prancing, with curly mane and curly tail. Around him a green mantle in folds, and a red-embroidered tunic, and in his mantle a golden brooch which reached to his shoulder on either side. A silvern shield with rim of gold slung over his back, and a silver strap to it and boss of gold theron. In his hand a five pronged spear in bands of gold round about it from haft to socket. Bright yellow hair he had reaching to his forehead. A fillet of gold against his forehead so that his hair would not fall over his face. He halted a while on the bank gazing at the maiden, and all the maidens loved him. Thereupon he uttered this lay:

23. This is Etain here to-day
at Sid Ban Find west of Ailbe,
among little boys is she
on the brink of Inber Cichmaine.

She it is who healed the King’s eye
from the well of Loch Da Lig:
she it is that was swallowed in a drink
from a beaker by Etar’s wife.

Because of her the King shall chase
the birds from Tethba,
and drown his two steeds
in the pool of Loch Da Airbrech.

Full many a war shall be
on Eochaid of Meath because of thee:
there shall be destruction of elfmounds,
and battle against many thousands.

‘Tis she that was sung of (?) in the land;
’tis she that strives to win the King;
’tis she… Be Find,
She is our Etain afterwards.

The warrior departed from them after that and they knew not whence he had come or whither he had gone.

24. When the Mac Oc came to confer with Midir, he did not find Fuamnach there, and he (Midir) said to him: “The woman has played us false, and if she be told that Etain is in Ireland and she will go to do her ill.” “Methinks ’tis likely so,” said the Mac Oc. “Etain has been at my house in the Brug since a little while in the shape in which she was wafted from thee, and perhaps it is she that the woman is making for.”

25. The Mac Oc returns home and finds the crystal sun-bower without Etain in it. The Mac Oc turns upon Fuamnach’s traces and came up on her at Aenech Bodbgna at the house of Bresal Eterlam. The Mac Oc attacked her and shore off her head, and he brought that head with him until he was on the brink of the Brug.

26. Howbeit, this is the version elsewhere, that they were both slain by Manannan, namely
Fuamnach and Midir, in Bri Leith, whereof was said:

Fuamnach the foolish one was Midir’s wife,
Sigmall, a hill with ancient trees,
in Bri Leith ’twas a faultless arrangement,
they were burned by Manannan.

II. The Wooing of Etain

Eochaid Airem took the kingship of Ireland. The five Fifth of Ireland submitted to him, that is a king of each Fifth. These were their kings at that time: Conchobar son of Nesa and Mess Gegra and Tigernach Tetbannach and Cu Rui and Ailill son of Mata Murisc. Eochaid’s strongholds were Dun Fremainn in Meath and Dun Fremainn in Tethba. Fremainn in Tethba was the one most dear to him of the strongholds of Ireland.

2. Eochaid, the year after he became king, commanded the men of Ireland to hold the Festival of Tara, in order to assess their tributes and taxes for five years. The men of Ireland made the same reply to Eochaid, that they would not convene the Festival of Tara for a king that had no queen; for Eochaid had no queen when he took the kingship. Thereupon Eochaid dispatched envoys to every Fifth throughout Ireland so to seek out for him the fairest (woman or) maiden in Ireland. For he said that none should be his wife save a woman that none of the men of Ireland had known before him. There was found for him at Inber Cichmaine, Etain daughter of Etar, and Eochaid wedded her then, for she was his match in beauty and form and lineage, in splendour and youth and fame.

3. The three sons of Find son of Findlug, the queen’s sons, were Eochaid Feidlech and Eochaid Airem and Ailill Anguba. Ailill Anguba came to love Etain at the Festival of Tara, after she had lain with Eochaid, for it was his wont to gaze at her continually, and such gazing is a token of love. His heart reproached Ailill for the deed that he had wrought, but it availed him in no wise. Desire was stronger than character. Ailill fell into a decline lest his honour should be strained, nor had he spoken of it to the woman herself.

4. When he expected death, Fachtna, Eochaid’s physician, was brought to see him. the physician said to him, “One of the two pains thou has that kill man and no physician can heal, the pain of love and the pain of jealousy.” Ailill did not confess to him, for he was ashamed. Then Ailill was left in Fremainn Tethba dying, and Eochaid went out on a circuit of Ireland. And Etain was left with Ailill that his last rites might be paid by her–that is, his grave dug, his lamentation made, his cattle slain.

5. Every day Etain used to come to the house wherein Ailill lay sick to speak with him, and thus his sickness was alleviated, and as long as Etain remained there he would be gazing at her. Etain observed this, and pondered the matter. One day as they were together in her house, Etain asked him what was the cause of his sickness. “It is from love of thee,” said Ailill. “Pity that thou has been so long without telling it,” said she. Had we but known thou shouldst have meen healed a while ago.” “Even this day I shall be whole again if thou be willing.” “I am willing indeed,” said she.

6. Every day then she would come to bathe his head and to carve his meat and to pour water on his hands. After thrice nine days Ailill was healed. He said to Etain: and when shall I have from thee what is still lacking to cure me?” “Thou shalt have it to-morrow,” said she; “but not in the prince’s dwelling shall he be put to shame. Come to me to-morrow on the hill above the court.”

7. Ailill watched through the night. But at the hour of his tryst he fell asleep, and did not wake until the third hour on the morrow. Etain went to meet him, and saw a man awaiting her like unto Ailill in appearance, and he lamented his weakness due to his ailment. The speech that Ailill would have wished is that is what he spoke. At the hour of tierce Ailill awoke. He began to be sorrowful for a long while when Etain came into the house “Why are thou sad?” said she. “That I should have sent thee to a tryst with me and was not there to meet thee. For sleep fell upon me, and I am only now arisen It is manifest that I have not yet attained my cure.” “That matters not,” said Etain, “one day follows another.” He watched that night with a huge fire in front of him and water by his side for bathing his eyes.

8. At the hour of her tryst Etain come to meet him and saw the same man like unto Ailill. Etain returned home. Ailill fell to weeping. Three times Etain came and Ailill did not keep his tryst. She found ever the same man. “Tis not with thee that I have trysted,” said she. “Who art thou that hast come to meet me? The man with whom I have made a tryst, ’tis not for sin or hurt that the tryst has been made with him, but that one fit to be king of Ireland might be saved from the sickness that has fallen upon him.” “Twere more fitting for thee to come to me, for thou wast Etain Echraide, daughter of Ailill, tis I that was thy husband. I have paid thy huge brideprice in great plains and rivers of Ireland, and had left in place of thee thy weight of gold and silver.” “Tell me,” said she, “what is thy name?” “No hard matter, Midir of Bri Leith,” said he. “Tell me,” said she, “What was it that parted us?” “No hard matter, the sorcery of Fuamnach and the spells of Bresal Etarlam.” Midir said to Etain, “Wilt thou go with me.” “Nay,” said she, “I will not barter the king of Ireland for a man whose kindred or race I know not.” “It was I, “said Midir, “that put love for thee into Ailill’s mind, so that his flesh and blood fell away from him. And it was I that took from him all carnal desire, so that thine honour might not suffer therein. But come to my land with me if Eochaid bids thee.” “Willingly,” said Etain.

9. Then she comes to her house. “We are well met,” said Ailill. “Now am I healed, and yet thine honour had not suffered.” “It is well thus,” said Etain. After that Eochaid returned from his circuit, and rejoiced that his brother was still alive, and Etain received thanks for what she had done until he had come again.

III. The Wooing of Etain

Another time on a lovely summer day Eochaid Airem king of Tara arose and climbed the terrace of Tara to gaze over Mag Berg. It was radiant with bloom of every hue. As Eochaid looked round him he saw a strange warrior on the terrace before him. A purple tunic about him, and golden yellow hair on him to the edge of his shoulders. A shining blue eye in his head. A five-pointed spear in one hand, a white-bossed shield in the other, with golden gems thereon. Eochaid was silent, for he was unaware of his being in Tara the night before, and the courts had not been opened at that hour.

2. Thereupon he came up to Eochaid. Then Eochaid said, “Welcome to the warrior whom we do not know.” “Tis for that we have come,” said the Warrior. “We know thee not,” said Eochaid. “I know thee, however,” replied the warrior. “What is thy name?” said Eochaid. “Not famous,” said he, “Midir of Bri Leith.” “What has brought thee?” said Eochaid. “To play chess1 with thee,” said he. “Of a truth, I am good at chess,” said Eochaid. “Let us make trial of it,” said Midir. “The queen is asleep,” said Eochaid, “and it is in her house that the chess-board is.” “I have here,” said Midir, “a chess-board that is not inferior.” That was true: a silver board and golden men, and each corner there lit up by precious stone, and a bag for the men of plaited links of bronze.

3. Thereupon Midir arranges the board. “Do thou play,” said Midir. “I will not play save for a stake,” said Eochaid. “What shall the wager be?” said Midir. “It is all one to me,” said Eochaid. “Thou shalt have from me,” said Midir, “if thou win my stake, fifty dark grey steeds with dappled blood-red heads, pointed-ears, broad-chested, with distended nostrils, slender limbs, mighty, keen …, huge, swift, steady easily yoked, with their fifty enamelled reins. They shall be here at the hour of tierce to-morrow.” Eochaid said the same to him. Thereupon they play. Midir’s stake is taken. He goes off taking his chess-board with him. When Eochaid arose on the morrow he came on the terrace of Tara as sunrise, and he saw his opponent also by coming towards him along the terrace. He knew not whither he had gone or wence he had come, and he saw the fifty dark grey steeds with their enammelled reins. “This is honourable,” said Eochaid. “What is promised is due,” said Midir.

4. “Shall we play at chess?” said Midir. “Willingly,” said Eochaid, “so it be for a stake.” “Thou shalt have from me,” said Midir, “fifty young boars, curly-motted, grey-bellied, blue- backed, with horses hooves to them, together with a vat of blackthorn into which they all will fit. Further, fifty gold-hilted swords, and again fifty red-eared cows with white red-eared calves with a bronze spancel on each calf. Further, fifty grey wethers with red heads, three-headed, three-horned. Further, fifty ivory-hilted swords. Further, fifty speckled cloaks, but each fifty of them on its own day.”

5. Eochaid’s fosterfather questioned him, and asked him whence he had brought his great wealth. He said to him, “That is indeed fit to relate.” “Verily Indeed. Thou must take heed of him; it is a man of magic power that has come to thee, my son, lay heavy burdens on him.” After that his opponent came to him, and Eochaid laid upon him the famous great tasks, namely to clear Meath of stone, to put rushes over Tethba, a causeway over Moin Lamraige, and a wood over Breifne. Concerning which the poet uttered the followings staves:

These are the four things
that Eochaid Airem imposed
on many a manly-visaged throng
with many a shield and spear:

A causeway over Moin Lamraige,
a wood over Breifne, without difficulty,
a clearing of stone from the hillocks of great Meath,
and rushes over Tethba.

6. These then are the pledges and the hardships that were imposed. “Thou layest too much upon me,” said Midir. “I do not indeed,” said Eochaid. “Then do thou grant me a request and a boon. As far as thou holdest sway let no man or woman be out of doors until sunrise to-morrow.” “It shall be done,” said Eochaid. No one had ever trodden that bog before.

7. Then Eochaid commanded his steward to watch the effort they put forth in making the causeway. The steward went into the bog. It seemed to him as though all the men in the world from sunrise to sunset had come to the bog. They all made one mound of their clothes, and Midir went up to that mound. Into the bottom of the causeway they kept putting a forest with its trunks and roots, Midir standing and urging on the host on every side. One would think that below him all the men of the world were raising a tumult.

8. After that, clay and gravel and stones were place upon the bog. Now until that night the men of Ireland used to put the strain on the foreheads of oxen, (but) it was seen that the folk of the elfmounds were putting it on their shoulders. Eochaid did the same, hence he is called Eochaid Airem [i.e. ploughman], for he was the first of the men of Ireland to put a yoke upon the necks of oxen. And these were the words that were on the lips of the host as they were making the causeway: “Put in hand, throw in hand, excellent oxen, in the hours after sundown; overhard is the exaction; none knoweth whose is the gain, whose the loss, from the causeway over Moin Lamraige.”

There had been no better causeway in the world, had not a watch been set on them. Defects were left in them. There after the steward came to Eochaid and brings tidings of the vast work he had witnessed, and he said there was not on the ridge of the world a magic power that surpassed it.

9. While they were speaking they saw Midir coming towards them, his loins girt and an evil look on him. Eochaid was afraid, but bade him welcome. “Tis for that we have come,” said Midir. “It is fierce and unreasonable of thee to lay such hardship and infliction upon me. I would have wrought something else to please thee, but my mind is inflamed against thee.” “Thou shalt not get wrath in return for thy rage: thy mind shall be set at ease,” said Eochaid. “It shall be accepted then,” said Midir; “Shall we play at chess?” said Midir. “What shall the stake be?” said Eochaid. The stake that either of us shall wish,” said Midir. That day Eochaid’s stake was taken. “Thou has taken my stake,” said Eochaid. “Had I wished I could have taken it before now,” said Midir. “What wouldst thou from me?” said Eochaid. “My arms around Etain and a kiss from her,” said Midir. Eochaid was silent. “Come a month from to-day and that shall be given thee.”

10. The year before Midir came to play chess with Eochaid he was wooing Etain, but he could not win her, the name by which Midir called her was Be Find [Fair Lady], and he spake to her:

O Be Find, wilt thou come with me
to the wondrous land wherein harmony is,
hair is like the crown of the primrose there.
and the body smooth and white as snow.

There, is neither mine or thine,
white are teeth there, dark the brows.
A delight of the eye the number of our hosts,
every cheek there is of the hue of the foxglove.

A gilllyflower is each one’s neck,
a delight of the eye are blackbirds’ eggs.
Though fair the prospect of Mag Fail,
’tis desolate after frequenting Mag Mar.

Though choice you deem the ale of Inis Fail,
more intoxicating is the ale of Tir Mar.
A wondrous land is the land I tell of;
youth departs not there before old.

Warm sweet streams flow through the land,
the choice of mead and wine.
Stately folk without blemish,
conception without sin, without lust.

We see everyone on every side,
and no one sees us.
It is the darkness of Adam’s transgression
that hath prevented us from being counted.

O woman, if thou come to my proud folk,
a crown of gold shall be upon thy head
honey, wine, ale, fresh milk, and drink,
thou shalt have with me there, O Be Find.

“I will go with thee” said Etain, “if thou obtain me from my husband, if thou obtain me not, I will not go.”

11. After that Midir came to Eochaid, and he yielded his stake at once in order that he might have a ground of quarrel with Eochaid. Therefore it was that he fulfilled the onerous conditions, and it was for that reason he stipulated the unnamed pledge, so that it afterwards it was named.10 When Midir and his people were carrying out the terms of the night, i.e. the causeway over Moin Lamraige, and the clearing away the stones from Meath and putting rushes over Tethba, and the wood over Breifne, these are the words people were saying, according to the Book of Druim Snechta:

12. [Cuirthe i iland toche i iland airderg damrudh trom an coidben cluinitar fir ferdi buidne balethruim crandchuir forderg saire fedhar sechuib slimprib snithib sciathu lama indrochad cloena fo bith oenmna duib in digail duib an tromdam tairthrim flatho fer ban fomnis in fer mbraine cerpai fomnis diadh dergage fer arfeidh solaid fri ais estild fer bron fort ier techta in delmnad o luachair for di Teithbi dictlochad Midi indracht coich les coich aimles.]

13. Midir made a tryst of a month from that day. But Eochaid mustered the flower of the warriors of Ireland to Tara, and the best of the war-bands of Ireland, each encircling the other around Tara, in the midst, without and within, and the king and queen in the middle of the house, and the courts locked, for they knew that a man of great magic power would come. Etain was serving the lords on that night, for the serving of drink was a special gift of hers.

14. Thereafter as they were speaking they saw Midir coming towards them in the midst of the royal house. He was fair at all times, but on that night, he was fairer. The hosts were astonished. Then silence fell upon them, and the king bade him welcome. “‘Tis that we have come for,” said Midir; “what has been pledged to me,” said he, “let it be given to me. What is promised is due. What was promised, I have given thee.” “I have not thought further of that until now,” said Eochaid. “Etain herself promised me that she would come away from tee,” said Midir. Thereupon Etain blushes. “Do not blush, O Etain,” said Midir. “It is not unwomanly for thee. I have been a year,” said he, “seeking thee with gifts and treasures the most beautiful in Ireland, nor did I take thee until I had Eochaid’s leave. It is not through any… though I should win thee?” “I have told thee,” said she, “that I will not go to thee until Eochaid sell me. As for me, thou mayst take me if Eochaid sell me.”

15. “I will not sell thee indeed,” said Eochaid, “but let him put his arms round thee in the middle of the house as thou art.” “It shall be done,” said Midir. He takes his weapons in his left hand, and the woman he took under his right arm, and bore her away though the skylight of the house. The hosts rose up in shame around the king. They beheld two swans in flight round Tara.

And the way they went was to Sid ar Femuin, and Ecohaid went with flower of men of Ireland around him to Sid ar Femuin, that is Sid Ban Find. And this was the counsel of the men of Ireland, to dig up every elfmound in Ireland until his wife came there out to him.

16. They dug up Sid Ban Find, and a certain person comes forth and told them that the woman was not there. “The king of the elfmounds of Ireland, he is the man who came to you. He is in his royal stronghold with the young woman. Set out thither until ye come to it.” They go northwards. They began to dig up the elfmound. They were a year and three months at it. What they would dig up one day would be restored on the morrow. Two white ravens went forth from the mound to them, and there came two hounds, Schleth and Samair. They went south again to Sid Ban Find. They began to dig the elfmound. One comes forth to them and said to them, “What hast thou against us, O Eochaid?” said he. “We have not taken thy wife. No injury had been done thee. Beware of saying aught that may be harmful to a king.” “I will not go hence,” said Eochaid, “till ye tell me how I may atain my wife.” “Take blind welps with thee, and blind cats, and leave them. That is the work thou must do every day.” They turn away, and that is done by them. And in this manner they set about it.

17. As they were razing Sid Bri Leith they beheld Midir coming towards them. “What has thou against me,” said Midir. “Thou dost me wrong. Thou hast put great tribulations upon me. Thou didst sell thy wife to me. Injure me no more,” said he. “She shall not be with thee,” said Eochaid. “She shall not,” said Midir. “Get thee home, Thy wife shall reach thee at the third hour to-morrow…,” said Midir. “Injure me not again if thou are contented with me this time.” “I accept,” said Eochaid. Midir bound his covenants and departs from them. As they were there at the third hour on the morrow, they saw fifty women all of like form and raiment as Etain. Silence fell on the hosts. There was a grey slut before them. They say to Eochaid, “Choose thy wife now, or bid one of the women to abide with thee. It is meet that we set out for home.”

18. “What will ye do,” said Eochaid to the men of Ireland, “because of the doubt that has come upon you?” “We have no resolve as to what we shall do,” said the men of Ireland. “I have,” said Eochaid. “My wife is the best at serving drink in Ireland. I shall recognize her by her serving.” Twenty-five were placed at the side of the house and twenty-five at this, and still he did not find Etain. It came at last to two women. One of them poured out first. Said Eochaid, “This is Etain, and it is not herself.” Then they all took counsel. “Truly it is Etain, but it is not her serving.” The rest of the women departed. That deed which he did was a great satisfaction to the men of Ireland, and the high feat the oxen had done, and the rescue of the woman from the men of the elfmounds.

19. One fine day Eochaid arose, and he and his queen were conversing in the middle of the court, they saw Midir coming towards them. “Well, Eochaid,” said Midir. “Well,” said Eochaid. “Thou has not played me fair with the hardships thou has inflicted on me, considering the backing thou hadst and all that… to demand from me. There was naught that thou didst not suspect me of.” “I did not sell thee my wife,” said Eochaid. “Answer, dost thou consider thy conscience in regard to me?” said Midir. “Until thou proffer another pledge, I will not consider it,” said Eochaid. “Answer, is thy mind at ease?” said Midir. “It is,” said Eochaid. “So also is mine,” said Midir. “Thy wife was pregnant when she was taken from thee, and she bore a daughter, and it is she who is with thee. Thy wife, moreover, is with me and it had befallen thee to let her go a second time.” Thereupon he departs.

20. After that Eochaid did not dare to dig again an elfmound of Midir’s, for there was a bond against him. It grieved Eochaid that his wife had eloped, and that his own daughter had lain with him. And she was with child by him and bore him a daughter. “O ye gods,” said Eochaid, “I and my daughter’s daughter shall never look on one another,” Two of his household go to throw her into a pit among beasts. They visit the house of Findlam the herdsman of Tara in Slaib Fuait, in the midst of a wilderness. There was no one in the house. They ate the food with in. Then they threw the girl to the bitch and her welps that was in the kennel in the house. They go away again. The herdsman and his wife return home and saw within the fair infant in the kennel. They were amazed at that. They take her out of the kennel. They brought her up without knowing whence she had come, and she waxed strong, moreover, being the daughter of a king and queen. She surpassed all women at embroidery. Her eyes saw nothing that her hands could not embroider. In that wise then she was reared by Findlam and his wife, until one day Etarscel’s people saw her and told the king, and she was taken away forcibly by Etarscel, and was with him after that as his wife. So she is the mother of Conaire son of Etarscel.

21. And after that Eochaid Airem was in Fremain of Tethba, after he had lost Etain, and his mind was troubled. Sigmall Cael, grandson of Midir, that is, the son of Midir’s daughter, Oicnis was her name, came and burned Eochaid’s Dun Fremainn, and Eochaid fell by him and his head was brought by Sigmall to Sid Nennta in revenge for the honour of his grandfather, even Midir.

This is not so, however, for Sigmall and Fuamnach the wife of Midir had fallen at the hands of Manannan in Bri Leith long before that in the reign of the Tuatha De Danann: whereof the poet said:

R. Fumnach the foolish one, was Midir’s wife,
Sigmall, a hill with ancient trees
in Bri Leith, twas a faultless arrangement,
they were burned by Manannan.

22. It is this wise however that the death of Eochaid Airem came about, as the learned in ancient lore say:

Eochaid was in Fremainn of Tethba, as we have said, and it is there was his mansion and his ancestral domain towards the end. Hense there arose hard tribute of service beyond telling on the people of the district and the land, because the sustenance of the king usually fell on them, wherefore Tethba is called the seventh part of Ireland, for the seventh part of the tribute and the maintenance of the king fell on them. The Fir Chul of the Luigne of Tara were in Tara at this time, and on them that the tribute was laid. Normael was king of the Fir Chul then and he was the steward in Fremainn. His mother’s son was Sigmall of Brestine son of Midir king of Bentraige. A plot was then hatched by them, and what they resolved on was the slaying of Eochaid.

23. Then they both set out, the Bentraige under Sigmall and the Fir Chul under Mormael, and they took Dun Fremainn, Eochaid’s stronghold, and burned it, and slew him there. After that they went to Connacht with their spoils, and bore Eochaid’s head along with them to Sid Nennta iar nUsicu (west of the water), so that commemorate that deed the historian uttered the following:

Eochaid Airem, noble, fair and graceful,
eminent high-king of Ireland,
extended his bold hard tribute,
it spread through Banda of of the brown cloaks.

The folk of Tethba of the stubborn fights
got the tribute of the king of Ireland.
The lawgiving king who…them, put
the seventh (part) on them alone.

Heavy sorrow of the host came
because of the monstrous unjust law,
anger was kindled among because of it,
until Eochaid Airem was slain.

The folk of Tethba, mighty of yore,
slew Eochaid of Fremaind
‘Twas not strength with cause on their part,
because of the monstrous unjust law.

Mormael was the name of the king at first
by whom the great deed was done,
Fir Chul the name of the men of Tethba in the east
when Dun Fremainn was overpowered.

Though ’tis said that Sigmal of the spears
slew Eochaid Airem,
he died himself prior to Eochaid of Fremaind
in the succession of leaders.

Sigmall of the battling spears died
by the smooth bright face of Manannan;
a vast long time in the east, without weakness,
before Eochaid met his death.

The two Sigmalls of Sid Nennta,
intrepid their feet, mighty their prowess,
Sigmall son of Coirpre of the battles,
Sigmall who was at Eochaid’s death.

Sigmall son of Brestine of lasting [memory],
king of Bentraige with great triumph,
and great Mormael from the plain,
by them Eochaid perished.

The Battle of Cnucha

Cause of the Battle of Cnucha

When Cathar Mor son of Fedlimid Fir Urglais son of Cormac Gelta-gaith was in the kingship of Tara, and Conn the Hundred-Fighter in Kells, in the rigdonna’s land, Cathar had a celebrated druid, Nuada son of Achi son of Dathi son of Brocan son of Fintan, of Tuath Dathi in Breg. The druid was soliciting land in Leinster from Cathar; for he knew that it was in Leinster his inheritance would be. Cathar gave him his choice of land. The land the druid chose was Almu in Leinster. She that was wife to Nuada was Almu, daughter of Becan.

A stronghold was built by the druid then in Almu, and alamu (lime) was rubbed to its wall, until it was all white; and perhaps it was from that the name “Almu” was applied to it; of which was said:

All-white is the stronghold of battle renown
As if it had received the lime of Ireland;
From the alamu which he gave to his house,
Hence it is that “Almu” is applied to Almu.

Nuada’s wife, Almu, begged that her name might be given to the hill; and her request was granted, and it was in it she was to be buried, hence it was said:

Almu—beautiful was the woman!—

Wife of Nuada the great, son of Achi;
She entreated—the division was just—
That her name should be on the perfect hill.

Nuada had a distinguished son, named Tadg. Rairiu, daughter of Donn-Duma, was his wife. A celebrated druid also was Tadg. Death came to Nuada; and he left his stronghold, as it was, to his son; and it is Tadg that was druid to Cathar in the place of his father.
Rairiu bore a daughter to Tadg; her name was Muirne of the fair neck. This maiden grew up in great beauty, so that the Sons of the kings and mighty lords of Ireland were wont to be courting her.

Cumall, son of Trenmor, king-warrior of Ireland, was then in the service of Conn, and he, like every other youth, was demanding the maiden. Nuada gave him a refusal, for he knew that it was on account of Cumall he would have to leave Almu. The same woman was mother to Cumall and to Conn’s father, to wit, Fedlimid Rechtaide.
Cumall, however, came and took Muirne by force, since she had not been given to him. Tadg went to Conn, told him what Cumall bad done, and he began to incite Conn and to reproach him.

Conn dispatched messengers to Cumall, and ordered him to leave Ireland, or to restore Muirne to Tadg. Cumall said he would not give her up; everything else he would give but not the woman. Conn sent his soldiers, and Urgriu son of Lugaid Corr king of the Luagni, and Daire the Red son of Eochaid, and his son Aed (who was afterwards called Goll) to attack Cumall. Cumall assembled his army against them; and the battle of Cnucha was fought between them, and Cumall was slain along with many of his people.
Cumall fell by Goll son of Morna. Luchet wounded Goll in his eye, so that he destroyed it. And hence it is that the name Goll (the One-eyed) attached to him; whereof was said:

Aed was the name of Daire’s son,

Until Luchet of fame wounded him;

Since the heavy lance wounded him,

Therefore, he has been called Goll.

Goll killed Luchet. it is because of this battle, moreover, that a hereditary feud existed between the sons of Morna and Finn mac Cumaill. Daire had two names, to wit, Morna and Daire.

Muirne went, after that, to Conn; for her father, Tadg the druid, rejected her and would not let her come to him, because she was pregnant; he ordered his people to burn her. Nevertheless, he dared not compass her destruction against the will of Conn, who, when the girl asked him how she should act, said, “Go to Fiacal son of Conchenn, to Tara Mairci, and let thy delivery be effected there.” This was because a sister to Cumall was Fiacal’s wife, Dodball the druidess. Connla, Conn’s servant, went with her, to escort her, until she came to Fiacal’s house, to Tara Mairci. Muirne was welcomed by Fiacal and his wife and bore a son, to whom the name Demne was given.

Demne stayed at Tara Mairci until he was able to raid all who were his enemies. He then declared war or offered single combat against Tadg, unless the full eric (fine) for his father be given to him. Tadg said that he would give him judgment therein, which was that Almu, as it was, should be ceded to him for ever, and Tadg was to leave it. So it was done. Tadg abandoned Almu to Demne, afterwards called Finn, and came to Tuath Dathi, to his own hereditary land; and he abode in Cnoc Rein, which is called Tadg’s Tulach to this day. So that hence was said this:

Finn demands from Tadg of the towers,

For killing Cumall the great,

Battle, without respite, without delay

Or that he should obtain single combat.

Because Tadg was not able to sustain battle

Against the high prince,

He abandoned to him-it was for him enough

Almu altogether, as it stood.

Finn went afterwards to Almu, and abode in it. And it is it that was his principal residence whilst he lived. Finn and Goll concluded peace after that; and the eric of his father was given by the Clan Morna to Finn. And they lived peacefully, until a quarrel occurred between them in Tara Luachra, regarding the Slanga-pig, when Banb Simm son of Maelenaig was slain; of which was said:

Afterwards they made peace-

Finn and Goll of mighty deeds

Until Banb Sinna was slain

Regarding the pig, in Tara Luaehra.

Finn mac Cumhaill

Boyhood Deeds of Finn mac Cumhaill
Laud 610

There befell a meeting of valor and a contest of battle about the chieftaincy of the Fian (national militia) and about the high-stewardship of Ireland between Cumall son of Trenmor, and Tirgriu son of Lugaid Corr of the Luagni. Cumall was of the Corco Oche of Cuil Contuinn, for to these the Ui Tairrsig, Cumall’s tribe, belonged. Torba, daughter of Eochaman of the Erne, was the wife of Cumall, until he married Muirne of the fair neck.

Then the battle of Cnucha was fought between them, between Cumall and Urgriu. Daire the Red, son of Eochaid the Fair son of Cairbre the Valorous son of Muiredach, and his son Aed fought the battle along with Urgriu. Another name for that Daire was Morna Wry-neck. Luchet and Aed, son of Morna, met in the battle. Lucbet wounded Aed, and destroyed one of his eyes, whence the name of Goll, the One-eyed, stuck to him from that time forth. Luchet fell by Goll. The man who kept Cumall’s treasure-bag wounded Gumall in the battle. Cumall fell in the battle by Goll mac Morna, who carried off his spoils and his bead, whence there was a hereditary feud between Finn mac Cumaill and the sons of Morna.

Hence sang the shanachie:

Goll, son of Daire the Red, with fame,

Son of Eochaid the Fair, of valor excellent,

Son of Cairbre the Valorous with valor,

Son of Muiredach from Finnmag.

Goll slew Luchet of the hundreds

In the battle of Cnucha, it is no falsehood:

Luchet the Fair of prowess bright

Fell by the son of Morna.

By him fell great Cumall

In the battle of Cnucha of the hosts.

It is for the chieftaincy of Erin’s fian

That they waged the stout battle.

The children of Morna were in the battle

And the Luagni of Tara,

Since to them belonged the leadership of the men of Ireland

By the side of every valorous king.

Victorious Cumall had a son,

Finn, bloody, of weapons hard:

Finn and Goll, great their fame,

Mightily they waged war.

Afterwards they made peace,

Finn and Goll of the hundred deeds,

Until Banb Sinna fell

About the pig at Tara Luachra.

Aed was the name of the son of Daire

Until Luchet with glory wounded him:

Since the fierce lance had wounded him,

Therefore was he called Goll.

Cumall left his wife Muirne pregnant. And she brought forth a son, to whom the name of Demne was given. Fiacal mac Con-chinn, and Bodball the druidess, and the Gray one of Luachar came to Muirne, and carried away the boy, for his mother durst not let him be with her. Muirne afterwards slept with Gleor Red-hand, king of the Lamraige, whence the saying, “Finn, son of Gleor.” Bodball, however, and the Gray one, and the boy with them, went into the forest of Sliab Bladma. There the boy was secretly reared. That was indeed necessary, for many a sturdy stalwart youth, and many a venomous hostile warrior and angry fierce champion of the warriors of the Luagni and of the sons of Morna were lying in wait for that boy, and for Tulcha the son of Cumall. In that manner then those two women-warriors reared him for a long time.

Then, at the end of six years, his mother came to visit her son, for she had been told that he was in that place, and besides, she was afraid of the eons of Morna for him. However, she passed from one wilderness to another, until she reached the forest of Sliab Bladma. She found the hunting-booth and the boy asleep in it. And then she lifted the boy to her bosom, and pressed him to her, and she pregnant at the time. It was then she made the quatrains, fondling her son:

Sleep in peaceful slumber, etc.

Thereupon the woman bade farewell to the women-warriors, and told them to take charge of the boy till he should be fit to be a fighter. And so the boy grew up till he was able to hunt.

On a certain day the boy went out alone, and saw ducks upon a lake. He sent a shot among them, which cut off the feathers and wings of one, so that a trance fell upon her; and then he seized her and took her with him to the hunting-booth. And that was Finn’s first chase.

Later he went with certain cairds (men of art) to flee from the Sons of Morna, and was with them about Crotta. These were their names: Futh and Ruth and Regna of Mag Fea, and Temle and Olpe and Rogein. There scurvy came upon him, and there from he became scald-headed, whence he used to be called Demne the Bald. At that time, there was a robber in Leinster, Fiacal, the son of Codna. Then in Feeguile Fiacal came upon the cairds, and killed them all save Demne alone. Mter that he was with Fiacal, the son of Codna, in his house in Sescenn Uairbeoil. The two women-warriors came southwards to the house of Fiacal, the son of Codna, in search of Demne, and be was given to them. And then they took him with them from the south to Sliab Bladma.

One day he went out alone until he reached Mag Life, and a certain stronghold there; and he saw the youths playing hurly upon the green of the stronghold. He went to contend in running or in hurling with them. He came again the next day, and they put one-fourth of their number against him. Again, they came with one-third of their number against him. However, at last they all went against him, and he won his game from them all.

“What is thy name?” they said.

“Demne,” said he.

The youths told that to the chief of the stronghold. “Then kill him, if you know how to do it-if you are able to do it,” said he.

“We should not be able to do anything to him,” said they.

“Did he tell you his name?” asked he.

“He said,” said they, “that his name was Demne.”

“What does he look like?” said he.

“A shapely fair (finn) youth,” said they.

“Then Demne shall be named Finn, ‘the Fair’,” said he. Whence the youths used to call him Finn.

He came to them on the next day, and went to them at their game. All together they threw their hurlies at him. He turned among them, and threw seven of them to the ground. He went from them into the forest of Sliab Bladma.

Then, at the end of a week, he came back to the stronghold. The youths were swimming in a lake that was close by. The youths challenged him to come and try to drown them. Thereupon he jumped into the lake to them, and drowned nine of them. After that he went to Sliab Bladma.

“Who drowned the youths?” everybody asked.

“Finn,” said they.

So that henceforth the name Finn stuck to him.

Once he went forth across Shah Bladma, and the two women-warriors together with him, when a fleet herd of wild deer was seen by them on the ridge of the mountain. “Alas!” said the two old women, “that we cannot get hold of one of those!”

“I can,” said Finn, and he dashed upon them, laying hold of two bucks among them, and brought them with him to their hunting-booth. After that he would hunt for them constantly.

“Go from us now, lad,” said the women-warriors to him, “for the sons of Morna are watching to kill thee.”

Alone he went from them until he reached Loch Lone, above Luachar, and there he took military service with the king of Bantry. At that place, he did not make himself known. However, there was not at that time a hunter his equal. Thus, said the king to him:

“If Cumall had left a son,” said he, “one would think thou wast he. However, we have not heard of his leaving a son, except Tulcha son of Cumall, and he is in military service with the king of Scotland.”

Later he bade farewell to the king, and went from them to Carbrige, which at this day is called Kerry, where he took military service with the king of that land. Then, on a certain day, the king came to play chess. He was prompted by Finn, and won seven games one after another.

“Who art thou?” said the king.

“The son of a peasant of the Luagni of Tara,” said he.

“No,” said the king; “thou art the son whom Muirne bore to Cumall; stay here no longer, lest thou be slain while under my protection.”

Then he went forth to Cullen of the Ui Cuanacb, to the house of Lochan, a chief smith, who had a very beautiful daughter, Cruithne by name. She fell in love with the youth.

“I shall give thee my daughter, though I know not who thou art.” Thereupon the girl slept with the youth.

“Make spears for me,” said the youth to the smith. So Loeban made two spears for him. He then bade farewell to Lochan, and went away.

“My boy,” said Lochan, “do not go upon the road on which is the sow called the Beo.” She it was that devastated the midlands of Munster. But what happened to the youth was to go upon the very road on which the sow was. Then the sow charged him; but be thrust his spear at her, so that it went through her, and left her without life. Then he took the head of the sow with him to the smith as a bridal gift for his daughter. Hence is Sliab Muck (Pig Mountain) in Munster.

After that the youth went onwards into Connacht to seek Crimall, the son of Treninor. As he was on his way, he heard the wail of a woman. He went towards it, and saw a woman; and now it was tears of blood, and now a gush of blood, so that her mouth was red. “Thou art red-mouthed, woman!” said he.

“Good cause have I,” said she, “for my only son has been slain by a tall, very terrible warrior who came in my way.”

“What was thy son’s name?” said he.

“Glonda was his name,” said she. Hence is the Ford of Glonda and the Causeway of Glonda on Moinxnoy, and from that redness of mouth the Ford of the Red Mouth has been so called ever since. Then Finn went in pursuit of the warrior, and they fought a combat, and Finn slew the warrior. This is how he was: he had the treasure-bag with him, the treasures of Cumall. He who had fallen there was the Gray one of Luachar, who had dealt the first wound to Cumall in the battle of Cnucha.

Thereupon Finn went into Connacht, and found Crimall as an old man in a desert wood there, and a number of the old flan together with him; and it is they who did the hunting for him. Then he showed him the bag and told him his story from beginning to end; how he had slain the man of the treasures. Finn bade farewell to Crimall, and went to learn poetry from Finneces, who was on the Boyne. He durst not remain in Ireland else, until he took to poetry, for fear of the sons of Urgriu, and of the sons of Morna.

Seven years Finneces had been on the Boyne, watching the salmon of Fec’s Pool; for it had been prophesied of him that he would eat the salmon of Fee, after which nothing would remain unknown to him. The salmon was found, and Demne was then ordered to cook it; and the poet told him not to eat anything of the salmon. The youth brought him the salmon after cooking it. “Hast thou eaten any of the salmon, my lad?” said the poet.

“No,” said the youth, “but I burned my thumb, and put it into my mouth afterwards.”

“What is thy name, my lad?” said he.

“Demne,” said the youth. “Finn is thy name, my lad,” said he; “and to thee was the salmon given to be eaten, and indeed thou art the Finn.” Thereupon the youth ate the salmon. It is that which gave the knowledge to Finn, so that, whenever he put his thumb into his mouth and sang through, teinm laida, then whatever he had been ignorant of would be revealed to him.

He learnt the three things that constitute a poet: teinm laida, imbas forosna, and dichetul dichennaib. It is then Finn made this lay to prove his poetry:

May-day, season surpassing! Splendid is color then. Blackbirds sing a full lay, if there be a slender shaft of day.
The dust-colored cuckoo calls aloud: Welcome, splendid summer! The bitterness of bad weather is past, the boughs of the wood are a thicket.
Summer cuts the river down, the swift herd of horses seeks the pool, the long hair of the heather is outspread, the soft white bog-down grows.
Panic startles the heart of the deer, the smooth sea runs apace-season when ocean sinks asleep-blossom covers the world.
Bees with puny strength carry a goodly burden, the harvest of blossoms; up the mountain-side kine take with them mud, the ant makes a rich meal.
The harp of the forest sounds music, the sail gathers-perfect peace. Color has settled on every height, haze on the lake of full waters.
The corncrake, a strenuous bard, discourses; the lofty virgin waterfall sings a welcome to the warm pool; the talk of the rushes is come.
Light swallows dart aloft, loud melody reaches round the hill, the soft rich mast buds, the stuttering quagmire rehearses.
The peat-bog is as the raven’s coat, the loud cuckoo bids welcome, the speckled fish leaps, strong is the bound of the swift warrior.
Man flourishes, the maiden buds in her fair strong pride; perfect each forest from top to ground, perfect each great stately plain.
Delightful is the season’s splendor, rough winter has gone, white is every fruitful wood, a joyous peace in summer.
A flock of birds settles in the midst of meadows; the green field rustles, wherein is a brawling white stream.
A wild longing is on you to race horses, the ranked host is ranged around:
A bright shaft has been shot into the land, so that the water-flag is gold beneath it.
A timorous tiny persistent little fellow sings at the top of his voice, the lark sings clear tidings: surpassing May-day of delicate colors!

However, Finn went to Cethern, the son of Fintan, further to learn poetry with him. At that time there was a very beautiful maiden in Bri Ele, that is to say, in the fairy knoll of Bri Ele, and the name of that maiden was Ele. The men of Ireland were at feud about that maiden. One man after another went to woo her. Every year on Samain the wooing used to take place; for the fairy-mounds of Ireland were always open about Samain; for on Samain nothing could ever be hidden in the fairy-mounds. To each man that went to woo her this used to happen: one of his people was slain. This was done to mark the occasion, nor was it ever found out who did it.

Like everybody else, the poet Cethern went to woo the maiden. However, Finn did not like the poet’s going on that errand. As they went to the wooing they formed themselves into three bands. There were nine in each band. As they went towards the fairy-mound, a man of their people was slain between them; and it was not known who had slain him. Oircbel the poet was the name of the man that was slain there. Hence is Fert Oircbeil, the Grave of Oircbel, in Clonfad. Thereupon they separated, and Finn went from them… However, Finn thought it a grievance and a great disgrace.

He went until he came to the house of the champion Fiacal mac Conchinn, at Shah Mairge. It is there his dwelling was at that time. To him, then, Finn made his complaint, and told him how the man had been slain among them in the fairy-mound. Fiacal told him to go and sit down by the two Paps of Anti, behind Luachar. So he went and sat down between the two strongholds which are between the two Paps of Anu.

Now, when Finn was there between them, on Samain night, be saw the two fairy-mounds opened around him, even the two strongholds, their ramparts having vanished before them. And be saw a great fire in either of the two strongholds; and he heard a voice from one of them, which said: “Is your sweet-root good?”

“Good, indeed!” said a voice in the other fairy-mound.

“Question: shall anything be taken from us to you?”

“If that be given to us, something will be given to you in return.” While Finn was there he saw a man coming out of the fairy-mound. A kneading-trough was in his hand with a pig upon it, and a cooked calf, and a bunch of wild garlic upon it. The time was Samain. The man came past Finn to reach the other fairy-mound. Finn made a cast with the spear of Fiacal mac Conchinn. He hurled it southward from him towards Sliab Mairge. Then said Finn: “If the spear should reach any one of us, may he escape alive from it! I think this a revenge for my comrade.”

That passed, till forthwith he heard a lament, and a great wail, saying:

On the Barrow, by a sharp-pointed spear,
Aed, Fidga’s son, has fallen:
By the spear of Fiacal,
Finn has slain him.

Then Fiacal came to Finn, and was at the two Paps of Anu. Fiacal asked him whom he had slain. “I know not,” said Finn, “whether any good has come from the cast which I have thrown.”

“‘Tis likely, indeed,” said Fiacal, “that some one has been slain. It seems to me if thou dost not do it to-night, thou wilt not do it to the end of another year.” However, Finn said that he had sent a cast, and that it seemed likely to him that it had reached some one. And he heard a great wailing in the fairy-mound, saying:

Venom is this spear,
And venomous he whose it is,
Venomous whoever threw it,
Venom for him whom it laid low.

Outside the fairy-mound of Cruachan Bri Ele Finn seized a woman in pledge for his spear. The woman promised to send out the spear if he released her. Finn let the woman from him into the knoll. Then, as she went into the knoll the woman said:

Venom the spear,
And venom the hand that threw it
If it is not cast out of the knoll,
A murrain will seize the land.

Thereupon the spear was thrown out, and Finn took it with him to where Fiacal was.

“Well,” said Fiacal, “keep the spear with which thou hast done the famous deed.” Then Fiaeal said the occasion was for tunate, since the man had been slain who had killed Finn’s comrade.

“He whom thou hast slain here,” said he, “‘tis he who used to kill every man that came to woo the maiden, because it is he who loved the maiden.”

Thereupon Finn and Fiacal went onward. Now, Thacal had a tryst with the fian at Inber Colptha. Then he said to Finn that they should go home . . . since their business was finished. Said Finn: “Let me go with thee,” said he.

“I do not wish thee to go with me,” says Fiacal, “lest thy strength should fail thee.”

“I shall find out,” said Finn.

Then they went forth. Twelve balls of lead were round the neck of Fiacal to restrain his vigor, such was his swiftness. He would throw one ball after another from him, and Finn took them with him, and yet Thacal’s running was no swifter than Finn’s.

They reached Inber Colptha. Then Finn brought all the twelve balls of lead to him, and he was pleased. That night they slept there. They made Finn keep watèh that night, and he was told to wake the warrior if he heard any cry of outrage. Now, one hour of the night, as Finn was watching, he heard a cry from the north, and did not wake the warrior. He went alone in the direction of the cry to Sliab Slanga. While Finn was there, among the men of Ulster, at the hour of midnight, he overtook three women before him, at a green mound, with cloaks of fairy-women.

As they were wailing on that mound, they would all put their hands on the mound. Then the women fled into the fairy-mound before Finn. Finn caught one of the women as she was going into the fairy-mound of Slanga, and snatched her brooch out of her cloak. The woman went after him, and besought Finn to give her back the brooch of her cloak, and said it was not fit for her to go into the fairy-mound with a blemish, and she promised a reward for her release…

The manuscript is incomplete.

The Ynglinga Saga

The Ynglinga Saga.

Heimskringla or The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway

The Story of the Yngling Family from Odin to Halfdan the Black

OF THE SITUATION OF COUNTRIES.

It is said that the earth’s circle which the human race inhabits is torn across into many bights, so that great seas run into the land from the out-ocean. Thus, it is known that a great sea goes in at Narvesund and up to the land of Jerusalem. From the same sea, a long sea-bight stretches towards the north-east, and is called the Black Sea, and divides the three parts of the earth; of which the eastern part is called Asia, and the western is called by some Europa, by some Enea. Northward of the Black Sea lies Swithiod the Great, or the Cold. The Great Swithiod is reckoned by some as not less than the Great Serkland; others compare it to the Great Blueland. The northern part of Swithiod lies uninhabited on account of frost and cold, as likewise the southern parts of Blueland are waste from the burning of the sun. In Swithiod are many great domains, and many races of men, and many kinds of languages. There are giants, and there are dwarfs, and there are also blue men, and there are any kinds of stranger creatures. There are huge wild beasts, and dreadful dragons. On the south side of the mountains which lie outside of all inhabited lands runs a river through Swithiod, which is properly called by the name of Tanais, but was formerly called Tanaquisl, or Vanaquisl, and which falls into the Black Sea. The country of the people on the Vanaquisl was called Vanaland, or Vanaheim; and the river separates the three parts of the world, of which the eastern most part is called Asia, and the western most Europe.

OF THE PEOPLE OF ASIA.

The country east of the Tanaquisl in Asia was called Asaland, or Asaheim, and the chief city in that land was called Asgaard. In that city was a chief called Odin, and it was a great place for sacrifice. It was the custom there that twelve temple priests should both direct the sacrifices, and also judge the people. They were called Diar, or Drotner, and all the people served and obeyed them. Odin was a great and very far-travelled warrior, who conquered many kingdoms, and so successful was he that in every battle the victory was on his side. It was the belief of his people that victory belonged to him in every battle. It was his custom when he sent his men into battle, or on any expedition, that he first laid his hand upon their heads, and called down a blessing upon them; and then they believed their undertaking would be successful. His people also were accustomed, whenever they fell into danger by land or sea, to call upon his name; and they thought that always they got comfort and aid by it, for where he was they thought help was near. Often, he went away so far that he passed many seasons on his journeys.

OF ODIN’S BROTHERS.

Odin had two brothers, the one called Ve, the other Vilje, and they governed the kingdom when he was absent. It happened once when Odin had gone to a great distance, and had been so long away that the people Of Asia doubted if he would ever return home, that his two brothers took it upon themselves to divide his estate; but both of them took his wife Frigg to themselves. Odin soon after returned home, and took his wife back.

OF ODIN’S WAR WITH THE PEOPLE OF VANALAND.

Odin went out with a great army against the Vanaland people; but they were well prepared, and defended their land; so that victory was changeable, and they ravaged the lands of each other, and did great damage. They tired of this at last, and on both sides appointed a meeting for establishing peace, made a truce, and exchanged hostages. The Vanaland people sent their best men, Njord the Rich, and his son Frey. The people of Asaland sent a man called Hone, whom they thought well suited to be a chief, as he was a stout and very handsome man; and with him they sent a man of great understanding called Mime. On the other side, the Vanaland people sent the wisest man in their community, who was called Kvase. Now, when Hone came to Vanaheim he was immediately made a chief, and Mime came to him with good counsel on all occasions. But when Hone stood in the Things or other meetings, if Mime was not near him, and any difficult matter was laid before him, he always answered in one way — “Now let others give their advice”; so that the Vanaland people got a suspicion that the Asaland people had deceived them in the exchange of men. They took Mime, therefore, and beheaded him, and sent his head to the Asaland people. Odin took the head, smeared it with herbs so that it should not rot, and sang incantations over it. Thereby he gave it the power that it spoke to him, and discovered to him many secrets. Odin placed Njord and Frey as priests of the sacrifices, and they became Diar of the Asaland people. Njord’s daughter Freya was priestess of the sacrifices, and first taught the Asaland people the magic art, as it was in use and fashion among the Vanaland people. While Njord was with the Vanaland people he had taken his own sister in marriage, for that was allowed by their law; and their children were Frey and Freya. But among the Asaland people it was forbidden to intermarry with such near relations.

ODIN DIVIDES HIS KINGDOM: ALSO, CONCERNING GEFION.

There goes a great mountain barrier from north-east to south- west, which divides the Greater Swithiod from other kingdoms. South of this mountain ridge it is not far to Turkland, where Odin had great possessions. In those times the Roman chiefs went wide around in the world, subduing to themselves all people; and on this account many chiefs fled from their domains. But Odin having foreknowledge, and magic-sight, knew that his posterity would come to settle and dwell in the northern half of the world. He therefore set his brothers Ve and Vilje over Asgaard; and he himself, with all the gods and a great many other people, wandered out, first westward to Gardarike, and then south to Saxland. He had many sons; and after having subdued an extensive kingdom in Saxland, he set his sons to rule the country. He himself went northwards to the sea, and took up his abode in an island which is called Odins in Fyen. Then he sent Gefion across the sound to the north to discover new countries; and she came to King Gylve, who gave her a ploughgate of land. Then she went to Jotunheim, and bore four sons to a giant, and transformed them into a yoke of oxen. She yoked them to a plough, and broke out the land into the ocean right opposite to Odins. This land was called Sealand, and there she afterwards settled and dwelt. Skjold, a son of Odin, married her, and they dwelt at Leidre. Where the ploughed land was, is a lake or sea called Laage. In the Swedish land the fjords of Laage correspond to the nesses in Sealand. Brage the Old sings thus of it: —

“Gefion from Gylve drove away,

To add new land to Denmark’s sway —

Blythe Gefion ploughing in the smoke

That steamed up from her oxen-yoke:

Four heads, eight forehead stars had they,

Bright gleaming, as she ploughed away;

Dragging new lands from the deep main

To join them to the sweet isle’s plain.

Now when Odin heard that things were in a prosperous condition in the land to the east beside Gylve; he went thither, and Gylve made a peace with him, for Gylve thought he had no strength to oppose the people of Asaland. Odin and Gylve had many tricks and enchantments against each other; but the Asaland people had always the superiority. Odin took up his residence at the Maelare lake, at the place now called Old Sigtun. There he erected a large temple, where there were sacrifices according to the customs of the Asaland people. He appropriated to himself the whole of that district, and called it Sigtun. To the temple priests he gave also domains. Njord dwelt in Noatun, Frey in Upsal, Heimdal in the Himinbergs, Thor in Thrudvang, Balder in Breidablik; to all of them he gave good estates.

OF ODIN’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

When Odin of Asaland came to the north, and the Diar with him, they introduced and taught to others the arts which the people long afterwards have practised. Odin was the cleverest of all, and from him all the others learned their arts and accomplishments; and he knew them first, and knew many more than other people. But now, to tell why he is held in such high respect, we must mention various causes that contributed to it. When sitting among his friends his countenance was so beautiful and dignified, that the spirits of all were exhilarated by it, but when he was in war he appeared dreadful to his foes. This arose from his being able to change his skin and form in any way he liked. Another cause was, that he conversed so cleverly and smoothly, that all who heard believed him. He spoke everything in rhyme, such as now composed, which we call scald-craft. He and his temple priests were called song-smiths, for from them came that art of song into the northern countries. Odin could make his enemies in battle blind, or deaf, or terror-struck, and their weapons so blunt that they could no more but than a willow wand; on the other hand, his men rushed forwards without armour, were as mad as dogs or wolves, bit their shields, and were strong as bears or wild bulls, and killed people at a blow, but neither fire nor iron told upon themselves. These were called Berserker.

OF ODIN’S FEATS.

Odin could transform his shape: his body would lie as if dead, or asleep; but then he would be in shape of a fish, or worm, or bird, or beast, and be off in a twinkling to distant lands upon his own or other people’s business. With words alone he could quench fire, still the ocean in tempest, and turn the wind to any quarter he pleased. Odin had a ship which was called Skidbladnir, in which he sailed over wide seas, and which he could roll up like a cloth. Odin carried with him Mime’s head, which told him all the news of other countries. Sometimes even he called the dead out of the earth, or set himself beside the burial-mounds; whence he was called the ghost-sovereign, and lord of the mounds. He had two ravens, to whom he had taught the speech of man; and they flew far and wide through the land, and brought him the news. In all such things, he was pre-eminently wise. He taught all these arts in Runes, and songs which are called incantations, and therefore the Asaland people are called incantation-smiths. Odin understood also the art in which the greatest power is lodged, and which he himself practised; namely, what is called magic. By means of this he could know beforehand the predestined fate of men, or their not yet completed lot; and also bring on the death, ill-luck, or bad health of people, and take the strength or wit from one person and give it to another. But after such witchcraft followed such weakness and anxiety, that it was not thought respectable for men to practise it; and therefore, the priestesses were brought up in this art. Odin knew finely where all missing cattle were concealed under the earth, and understood the songs by which the earth, the hills, the stones, and mounds were opened to him; and he bound those who dwell in them by the power of his word, and went in and took what he pleased. From these arts he became very celebrated. His enemies dreaded him; his friends put their trust in him, and relied on his power and on himself. He taught the most of his arts to his priests of the sacrifices, and they came nearest to himself in all wisdom and witch-knowledge. Many others, however, occupied themselves much with it; and from that time witchcraft spread far and wide, and continued long. People sacrificed to Odin and the twelve chiefs from Asaland, and called them their gods, and believed in them long after. From Odin’s name came the name Audun, which people gave to his sons; and from Thor’s name comes Thore, also Thorarinn; and also, it is sometimes compounded with other names, as Steenthor, or Havthor, or even altered in other ways.

ODIN’S LAWGIVING.

Odin established the same law in his land that had been in force in Asaland. Thus, he established by law that all dead men should be burned, and their belongings laid with them upon the pile, and the ashes be cast into the sea or buried in the earth. Thus, said he, everyone will come to Valhalla with the riches he had with him upon the pile; and he would also enjoy whatever he himself had buried in the earth. For men of consequence a mound should be raised to their memory, and for all other warriors who had been distinguished for manhood a standing stone; which custom remained long after Odin’s time. On winter-day, there should be blood-sacrifice for a good year, and in the middle of winter for a good crop; and the third sacrifice should be on summer-day, for victory in battle. Over all Swithiod the people paid Odin a scatt or tax — so much on each head; but he had to defend the country from enemy or disturbance, and pay the expense of the sacrifice feasts for a good year.

OF NJORD’S MARRIAGE.

Njord took a wife called Skade; but she would not live with him and married afterwards Odin, and had many sons by him, of whom one was called Saeming; and about him Eyvind Skaldaspiller sings thus: —

“To Asa’s son Queen Skade bore

Saeming, who dyed his shield in gore, —

The giant-queen of rock and snow,

Who loves to dwell on earth below.

The iron pine-tree’s daughter, she

Sprung from the rocks that rib the sea,

To Odin bore full many a son,

Heroes of many a battle won.”

To Saeming Earl Hakon the Great reckoned back his pedigree. This Swithiod they called Mannheim, but the Great Swithiod they called Godheim; and of Godheim great wonders and novelties were related.

OF ODIN’S DEATH.

Odin died in his bed in Swithiod; and when he was near his death he made himself be marked with the point of a spear, and said he was going to Godheim, and would give a welcome there to all his friends, and all brave warriors should be dedicated to him; and the Swedes believed that he was gone to the ancient Asgaard, and would live there eternally. Then began the belief in Odin, and the calling upon him. The Swedes believed that he often showed to them before any great battle. To some he gave victory; others he invited to himself; and they reckoned both of these to be fortunate. Odin was burnt, and at his pile there was great splendour. It was their faith that the higher the smoke arose in the air, the higher he would be raised whose pile it was; and the richer he would be, the more property that was consumed with him.

OF NJORD.

Njord of Noatun was then the sole sovereign of the Swedes; and he continued the sacrifices, and was called the drot or sovereign by the Swedes, and he received scatt and gifts from them. In his days were peace and plenty, and such good years, in all respects, that the Swedes believed Njord ruled over the growth of seasons and the prosperity of the people. In his time all the diar or gods died, and blood-sacrifices were made for them. Njord died on a bed of sickness, and before he died made himself be marked for Odin with the spear-point. The Swedes burned him, and all wept over his grave-mound.

FREY’S DEATH.

Frey took the kingdom after Njord, and was called drot by the Swedes, and they paid taxes to him. He was, like his father, fortunate in friends and in good seasons. Frey built a great temple at Upsal, made it his chief seat, and gave it all his taxes, his land, and goods. Then began the Upsal domains, which have remained ever since. Then began in his days the Frode- peace; and then there were good seasons, in all the land, which the Swedes ascribed to Frey, so that he was more worshipped than the other gods, as the people became much richer in his days by reason of the peace and good seasons. His wife was called Gerd, daughter of Gymis, and their son was called Fjolne. Frey was called by another name, Yngve; and this name Yngve was considered long after in his race as a name of honour, so that his descendants have since been called Ynglinger. Frey fell into a sickness; and as his illness took the upper hand, his men took the plan of letting few approach him. In the meantime, they raised a great mound, in which they placed a door with three holes in it. Now when Frey died they bore him secretly into the mound, but told the Swedes he was alive; and they kept watch over him for three years. They brought all the taxes into the mound, and through the one hole they put in the gold, through the other the silver, and through the third the copper money that was paid. Peace and good seasons continued.

OF FREYA AND HER DAUGHTERS.

Freya alone remained of the gods, and she became on this account so celebrated that all women of distinction were called by her name, whence they now have the title Frue; so that every woman is called frue, or mistress over her property, and the wife is called the house-frue. Freya continued the blood-sacrifices. Freya had also many other names. Her husband was called Oder, and her daughters Hnoss and Gerseme. They were so very beautiful, that afterwards the most precious jewels were called by their names.

When it became known to the Swedes that Frey was dead, and yet peace and good seasons continued, they believed that it must be so as long as Frey remained in Sweden; and therefore they would not burn his remains, but called him the god of this world, and afterwards offered continually blood-sacrifices to him, principally for peace and good seasons.

Vikings? On the Volga

Ahmad Ibn Fadlan wrote in the 10th century, but I enclose his description of Vikings? on the Volga because it seems to be the earliest description there is. (Ed)

Ahmad ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah. (translated by James E. Montgomery)

I saw the Rūsiyyah when they had arrived on their trading expedition and had disembarked at the River Ātil. I have never seen more perfect physiques than theirs—they are like palm trees are fair and reddish, and do not wear the qurṭaq or the caftan. The man wears a cloak with which he covers one half of his body, leaving one of his arms uncovered. Every one of them carries an axe, a sword and a dagger and is never without all of that which we have mentioned. Their swords are of the Frankish variety, with broad, ridged blades. Each man, from the tip of his toes to his neck, is covered in dark-green lines, pictures and such like. Each woman has, on her breast, a small disc, tied around her neck, made of either iron, silver, copper or gold, in relation to her husband’s financial and social worth. Each disc has a ring to which a dagger is attached, also lying on her breast. Around their necks, they wear bands of gold and silver. Whenever a man’s wealth reaches ten thousand dirhams, he has a band made for his wife; if it reaches twenty thousand dirhams, he has two bands made for her—for every ten thousand more, he gives another band to his wife. Sometimes one woman may wear many bands around her neck. The jewellery which they prize the most is the dark-green ceramic beads which they have aboard their boats and which they value very highly: they purchase beads for a dirham a piece and string them together as necklaces for their wives.

They are the filthiest of all Allāh’s creatures: they do not clean themselves after excreting or urinating or wash themselves when in a state of ritual impurity (i.e., after coitus) and do not even wash their hands after food. Indeed, they are like asses that roam in the fields.

They arrive from their territory (min baladi-him) and moor their boats by the Ātil (a large river), building on its banks large wooden houses. They gather in the one house in their tens and twenties, sometimes more, sometimes less. Each of them has a couch on which he sits. They are accompanied by beautiful slave girls for trading. One man will have intercourse with his slave-girl while his companion looks on. Sometimes a group of them comes together to do this, each in front of the other. Sometimes indeed the merchant will come in to buy a slave-girl from one of them and he will chance upon him having intercourse with her, but the Rūs will not leave her alone until he has satisfied his urge. They cannot, of course, avoid washing their faces and their heads each day, which they do with the filthiest and most polluted water imaginable. I shall explain. Every day the slave-girl arrives in the morning with a large basin containing water, which she hands to her owner. He washes his hands and his face and his hair in the water, then he dips his comb in the water and brushes his hair, blows his nose and spits in the basin. There is no filthy impurity which he will not do in this water. When he no longer requires it, the slave-girl takes the basin to the man beside him and he goes through the same routine as his friend. She continues to carry it from one man to the next until she has gone around everyone in the house, with each of them blowing his nose and spitting, washing his face and hair in the basin.

The moment their boats reach this dock every one of them disembarks, carrying bread, meat, onions, milk and alcohol (nabīdh), and goes to a tall piece of wood set up in the ground. This piece of wood has a face like the face of a man and is surrounded by small figurines behind which are long pieces of wood set up in the ground. When he reaches the large figure, he prostrates himself before it and says, “Lord, I have come from a distant land, bringing so many slave-girls priced at such and such per head and so many sables priced at such and such per pelt.” He continues until he has mentioned all of the merchandise he has brought with him, then says, “And I have brought this offering,” leaving what he has brought with him in front of the piece of wood, saying, “I wish you to provide me with a merchant who has many dīnārs and dirhams and who will buy from me whatever I want to sell without haggling over the price I fix.” Then he departs. If he has difficulty in selling his goods and he has to remain too many days, he returns with a second and third offering. If his wishes prove to be impossible he brings an offering to every single one of those figurines and seeks its intercession, saying, “These are the wives, daughters and sons of our Lord.” He goes up to each figurine in turn and questions it, begging its intercession and grovelling before it. Sometimes business is good and he makes a quick sell, at which point he will say, “My Lord has satisfied my request, so I am required to recompense him.” He procures a number of sheep or cows and slaughters them, donating a portion of the meat to charity and taking the rest and casting it before the large piece of wood and the small ones around it. He ties the heads of the cows or the sheep to that piece of wood set up in the ground. At night, the dogs come and eat it all, but the man who has done all this will say, “My Lord is pleased with me and has eaten my offering.”

When one of them falls ill, they erect a tent away from them and cast him into it, giving him some bread and water. They do not come near him or speak to him, indeed they have no contact with him for the duration of his illness, especially if he is socially inferior or is a slave. If he recovers and gets back to his feet, he rejoins them. If he dies, they bury him, though if he was a slave they leave him there as food for the dogs and the birds.

If they catch a thief or a bandit, they bring him to a large tree and tie a strong rope around his neck. They tie it to the tree and leave him hanging there until the rope breaks, rotted away by exposure to the rain and the wind.

I was told that when their chieftains die, the least they do is to cremate them. I was very keen to verify this, when I learned of the death of one of their great men. They placed him in his grave (qabr) and erected a canopy over it for ten days, until they had finished making and sewing his funeral garments.

In the case of a poor man they build a small boat, place him inside and burn it. In the case of a rich man, they gather together his possessions and divide them into three, one third for his family, one third to use for his funeral garments, and one third with which they purchase alcohol which they drink on the day when his slave-girl kills herself and is cremated together with her master. (They are addicted to alcohol, which they drink night and day. Sometimes one of them dies with the cup still in his hand.)

When their chieftain dies, his family ask his slave-girls and slave-boys, “Who among you will die with him?” and some of them reply, “I shall.” Having said this, it becomes incumbent upon the person and it is impossible ever to turn back. Should that person try to, he is not permitted to do so. It is usually slave-girls who make this offer.

When that man whom I mentioned earlier died, they said to his slave-girls, “Who will die with him?” and one of them said, “I shall.” So they placed two slave-girls in charge of her to take care of her and accompany her wherever she went, even to the point of occasionally washing her feet with their own hands. They set about attending to the dead man, preparing his clothes for him and setting right all he needed. Every day the slave-girl would drink alcohol and would sing merrily and cheerfully.

On the day when he and the slave-girl were to be burned I arrived at the river where his ship was. To my surprise, I discovered that it had been beached and that four planks of birch (khadank) and other types of wood had been erected for it. Around them wood had been placed in such a way as to resemble scaffolding (anābīr). Then the ship was hauled and placed on top of this wood. They advanced, going to and fro <around the boat> uttering words which I did not understand, while he was still in his grave and had not been exhumed.

Then they produced a couch and placed it on the ship, covering it with quilts made of Byzantine silk brocade and cushions made of Byzantine silk brocade. Then a crone arrived whom they called the “Angel of Death” and she spread on the couch the coverings we have mentioned. She is responsible for having his garments sewn up and putting him in order and it is she who kills the slave-girls. I myself saw her: a gloomy, corpulent woman, neither young nor old.

When they came to his grave, they removed the soil from the wood and then removed the wood, exhuming him still dressed in the izār in which he had died. I could see that he had turned black because of the coldness of the ground. They had also placed alcohol, fruit and a pandora (ṭunbūr) beside him in the grave, all of which they took out. Surprisingly, he had not begun to stink and only his colour had deteriorated. They clothed him in trousers, leggings (rān), boots, a qurṭaq, and a silk caftan with golden buttons, and placed a silk qalansuwwah fringed with sable on his head. They carried him inside the pavilion on the ship and laid him to rest on the quilt, propping him with cushions. Then they brought alcohol, fruit and herbs (rayḥān) and placed them beside him. Next, they brought bread, meat and onions, which they cast in front of him, a dog, which they cut in two and which they threw onto the ship, and all of his weaponry, which they placed beside him. They then brought two mounts, made them gallop until they began to sweat, cut them up into pieces and threw the flesh onto the ship. They next fetched two cows, which they also cut up into pieces and threw on board, and a cock and a hen, which they slaughtered and cast onto it.

Meanwhile, the slave-girl who wished to be killed was coming and going, entering one pavilion after another. The owner of the pavilion would have intercourse with her and say to her, “Tell your master that I have done this purely out of love for you.”

At the time of the evening prayer on Friday they brought the slave-girl to a thing that they had constructed, like a door-frame. She placed her feet on the hands of the men and was raised above that door-frame. She said something and they brought her down. Then they lifted her up a second time and she did what she had done the first time. They brought her down and then lifted her up a third time and she did what she had done on the first two occasions. They next handed her a hen. She cut off its head and threw it away. They took the hen and threw it on board the ship.

I quizzed the interpreter about her actions and he said, “The first time they lifted her, she said, ‘Behold, I see my father and my mother.’ The second time she said, ‘Behold, I see all of my dead kindred, seated.’ The third time she said, ‘Behold, I see my master, seated in. is beautiful and verdant. He is accompanied by his men and his male-slaves. He summons me, so bring me to him.’” So they brought her to the ship and she removed two bracelets that she was wearing, handing them to the woman called the “Angel of Death,” the one who was to kill her. She also removed two anklets that she was wearing, handing them to the two slave-girls who had waited upon her: they were the daughters of the crone known as the “Angel of Death.” Then they lifted her onto the ship but did not bring her into the pavilion. The men came with their shields and sticks and handed her a cup of alcohol over which she chanted and then drank. The interpreter said to me, “Thereby she bids her female companions farewell.” She was handed another cup, which she took and chanted for a long time, while the crone urged her to drink it and to enter the pavilion in which her master lay. I saw that she was befuddled and wanted to enter the pavilion but she had only put her head into the pavilion while her body remained outside itThe crone grabbed hold of her head and dragged her into the pavilion, entering it at the same time. The men began to bang their shields with the sticks so that her screams could not be heard and so terrify the other slave-girls, who would not, then, seek to die with their masters.

Six men entered the pavilion and all had intercourse with the slave-girl. They laid her down beside her master and two of them took hold of her feet, two her hands. The crone called the “Angel of Death” placed a rope around her neck in such a way that the ends crossed one another (mukhālafan) and handed it to two <of the men> to pull on it. She advanced with a broad-bladed dagger and began to thrust it in and out between her ribs, now here, now there, while the two men throttled her with the rope until she died.

Then the deceased’s next of kin approached and took hold of a piece of wood and set fire to it. He walked backwards, with the back of his neck to the ship, his face to the people, with the lighted piece of wood in one hand and the other hand on his anus, being completely naked. He ignited the wood that had been set up under the ship after they had placed the slave-girl whom they had killed beside her master. Then the people came forward with sticks and firewood. Each one carried a stick the end of which he had set fire to and which he threw on top of the wood. The wood caught fire, and then the ship, the pavilion, the man, the slave-girl and all it contained. A dreadful wind arose and the flames leapt higher and blazed fiercely.

One of the Rūsiyyah stood beside me and I heard him speaking to my interpreter. I quizzed him about what he had said, and he replied, “He said, ‘You Arabs are a foolish lot!’” So, I said, “Why is that?” and he replied, “Because you purposely take those who are dearest to you and whom you hold in highest esteem and throw them under the earth, where they are eaten by the earth, by vermin and by worms, whereas we burn them in the fire there and then, so that they enter Paradise immediately.” Then he laughed loud and long. I quizzed him about that <i.e., the entry into > and he said, “Because of the love which my Lord feels for him. He has sent the wind to take him away within an hour.” Actually, it took scarcely an hour for the ship, the firewood, the slave-girl and her master to be burnt to a fine ash.

They built something like a round hillock over the ship, which they had pulled out of the water, and placed in the middle of it a large piece of birch (khadank) on which they wrote the name of the man and the name of the King of the Rūs. Then they left.

He (Ibn Fadlān) said: One of the customs of the King of the Rūs is that in his palace he keeps company with four hundred of his bravest and most trusted companions; they die when he dies and they offer their lives to protect him. Each of them has a slave-girl who waits on him, washes his head and prepares his food and drink, and another with whom he has coitus. These four hundred <men> sit below his throne, which is huge and is studded with precious stones. On his throne, there sit forty slave-girls who belong to his bed. Sometimes he has coitus with one of them in the presence of those companions whom we have mentioned. He does not come down from his throne. When he wants to satisfy an urge, he satisfies it in a salver. When he wants to ride, they bring his beast up to the throne, whence he mounts it, and when he wants to dismount, he brings his beast <up to the throne> so that he can dismount there. He has a vicegerent who leads the army, fights against the enemy and stands in for him among his subjects.

963 BCE The Fourth Age.

Annals of the Four Masters

963 BCE. Nuadhat Finnfail, after having been forty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by Breas, son of Art Imleach.

962 BCE. This was the first year of the reign of Breas, son of Art Imleach, over Ireland.

954 BCE. Breas, after having been nine years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by Eochaidh Apthach, at Carn Conluain.

953 BCE. Eochaidh Apthach was one year in the sovereignty of Ireland, and he fell, at the end of that year, by Finn, son of Bratha.

952 BCE. This was the first year of the reign of Finn, son of Bratha, over Ireland.

931 BCE. Finn, son of Bratha, after having been twenty-two years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by Sedna, son of Breas, in Munster.

930 BCE. The first year of the reign of Sedna Innarraigh, son of Breas, son of Art Imleach, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

904 BCE. Sedna Innarraigh, after having been twenty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by Simon Breac.

903 BCE. This was the first year of Simon Breac, son of Aedhan Glas, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

905 BCE. Simon Breac, the son of Aedhan Glas, after having been six full years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by Duach Finn.

904 BCE. This was the first year of Duach Finn, son of Sedna Innarraigh, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

895 BCE. Duach Finn, son of Sedna Innaraigh, after having been ten years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell in the battle of Magh, by Muireadhach Bolgrach.

894 BCE. Muireadhach Bolgrach spent a month and a year in the sovereignty of Ireland, and he fell, at the end of that time, by Enda Dearg, son of Duach.

893 BCE. This was the first year of Enda Dearg son of Duach Find in the sovereignty of Ireland.

875 BCE. Enda Dearg, son of Duach, after having been twelve years in the sovereignty of Ireland, died of a plague at Sliabh Mis, with a great number about him.

874 BCE. This was the first year of Lughaidh Iardonn, son of Enda Dearg, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

873 BCE. The ninth year of Lughaidh Iardonn in the sovereignty of Ireland, when he fell, by Sirlamh, at Rath Clochair.

872 BCE. This was the first year of Sirlamh, son of Finn, son of Bratha, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

857 BCE. Sirlamh, after having been sixteen years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by Eochaidh Uairches.

856 BCE. The first year of Eochaidh Uaircheas in the sovereignty of Ireland.

845 BCE. Eochaidh Uaircheas, after having been twelve years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by the sons of Congall: i.e. Eochaidh and Conaing.

844 BCE. The first year of the two sons of Congal Cosgarach (son of Duach Teamrach), son of Muireadhach Bolgrach, namely, Eochaidh Fiadhmuine and Conaing Begeaglach, over Ireland; the south of Ireland belonging to Eochaidh, and the north to Conaing.

840 BCE. After Eochaidh Fiadhmuine and Conaing Begeaglach had been five years in the joint sovereignty of Ireland, Eochaidh fell by Lughaidh Laimhdhearg, son of Eochaidh Uaircheas, and the sovereignty was wrested from Conaing.

839 BCE. The first year of Lughaidh Laimhdhearg, son of Eochaidh Uaircheas, in the sovereignty of Irelan

833 BCE. The seventh of Lughaidh in the sovereignty of Ireland, when he fell by Conaing, son of Congal.

832 BCE. This was the first year of Conaing Begeaglach, son of Congal, a second time in the sovereignty of Ireland.

813 BCE. After Conaing Begeaglach had been twenty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he fell by Art, son of Lughaidh. He was called Conaing Begeaglach, because he was never seized with fear of any one while he lived.

812 BCE. This was the first year of Art, son of Lughaidh, son of Eochaidh Uaircheas, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

807 BCE. Art, son of Lughaidh, after having been six years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by Fiacha Tolgrach and his son, Duach Ladhrach.

806 BCE. The first year of Fiacha Tolgrach in the sovereignty of Ireland.

797 BCE. Fiacha Tolgrach, son of Muireadhach, after having been ten years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by Oilioll, son of Art, in Boirinn.

796 BCE. This was the first year of Oilioll Finn, son of Art, son of Lughaidh Laimhdhearg, over Ireland.

786 BCE. Oilioll Finn, son of Art, son of Lughaidh Laimhdhearg, after having been eleven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by Airgeatmhar and Duach Ladhghair, in the battle of Odhbha.

785 BCE. This was the first year of Eochaidh, son of Oilioll Finn, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

772 BCE. Eochaidh, son of Oilioll Finn, after having been seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by Airgeatmhar and by Duach Ladhgair, at Aine.

771 BCE. This was the first year of Airgeatmhar, son of Sirlamh, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

749 BCE. The thirtieth year of Airgeatmhar in the sovereignty of Ireland, when he fell by Duach Ladhgrach and Lughaidh Laighdhe, son of Eochaidh.

748 BCE. The first year of Duach Ladhgrach, son of Fiacha Tolgrach, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

739 BCE. The tenth year of Duach Ladhgrach in the sovereignty of Ireland, when he fell by Lughaidh Laighdhe.

738 BCE. This was the first year of Lughaidh Laighdhe in the sovereignty of Ireland.

732 BCE. Lughaidh Laighdhe, after having been seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by Aedh Ruadh, son of Bodharn, son of Airgeatmhar.

731 BCE. The first year of Aedh Ruadh, son of Badharn, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

725 BCE. Aedh Ruadh, son of Badharn, after having been seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, left the sovereignty to Dithorba, son of Deman, after having spent the first period himself, for there were injunctions upon him to resign it to Dithorba at the end of seven years; and on Dithorba, also, to resign it to Cimbaeth at the end of seven years more; and so in succession to the end of their reigns lives. The reason that they made this agreement respecting the sovereignty was, because they were the sons of three brothers.

724 BCE. The first year of Dithorba, son of Deman, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

718 BCE. Dithorba, son of Deman, after having been seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, resigned the kingdom to Cimbaeth, son of Fintan, for his was the turn after Dithorba.

717 BCE. This was the first year of Cimbaeth, son of Fintan, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

711 BCE. Cimbaeth, son of Fintan, after having been seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, resigned the kingdom to Aedh Ruadh, son of Badharn.

704 BCE. Aedh Ruadh, son of Badharn, after having been, for the second time, seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, resigned the kingdom to Dithorba again.

703 BCE. The first year of Dithorba, son of Deman, the second time that he assumed the sovereignty of Ireland.

697 BCE. Dithorba, after having been on that second occasion seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, gave his turn to Cimbaeth, son of Fintan.

696 BCE. The first year of Cimbaeth, the second time that he assumed the monarchy of Ireland.

690 BCE. Cimbaeth, after having been for the second time in the sovereignty of Ireland, resigned the kingdom to Aedh Ruadh, son of Badharn.

689. BCE This was the first year of Aedh Ruadh, son of Badharn, in the sovereignty of Ireland, the third time that he assumed the government.

683. BCE. Aedh Ruadh, son of Badharn, after he had been (the third time that he assumed the government) seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was drowned in Eas Ruaidh, and buried in the mound over the margin of the cataract; so that from him Sith Aedha and Eas Aedha are called.

682. BCE. The third year of Dithorba, the third time that he took the sovereignty of Ireland.

676. BCE. After Dithorba had been in the sovereignty of Ireland (the third time), he resigned the kingdom to Cimbaeth.

675. BCE. This was the first year of Cimbaeth in the sovereignty of Ireland the third time that he took the sovereignty.

669 BCE. After Cimbaeth had been seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland for the third time, Macha, daughter of Aedh Ruadh, son of Badharn, said that her father’s turn to the sovereignty was her’s. Dithorba and Cimbaeth said that they would not give the sovereignty to a woman. A battle was fought between them; Macha defeated them, and expelled Dithorba, with his sons, into Connaught, so that he was slain in Corann. She afterwards took to her Cimbaeth as husband, and gave him the sovereignty. She afterwards proceeded alone into Connaught, and brought the sons of Dithorba with her in fetters to Ulster, by virtue of her strength, and placed them in great servitude, until they should erect the fort of Eamhain, that it might always be the chief city of Uladh Ulster.

668 BCE. The first year of Cimbaeth in the sovereignty of Ireland, after Macha had taken him to her as husband.

662 BCE. Cimbaeth, son of Fintan, having been seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, after he had been taken to her as husband by Macha, died at Eamhain Macha. This Cimbaeth was the first king of Eamhain.

661 BCE. The first year of Macha in the sovereignty of Ireland, after the death of Cimbaeth, son of Fintan.

655 BCE. Macha Mongruadh, daughter of Aedh Ruadh, son of Badharn, after she had been seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was slain by Reachtaidh Righdhearg, son of Lughaidh. It was Macha that commanded the sons of Dithorba (after bringing them into servitude) to erect the fort of Eamhain, that it might be the chief city of Ulster for ever, as we have said before; and it was Cimbaeth and Macha that fostered Ugaine Mor.

654 BCE. The first year of Reachtaidh Righdhearg, son of Lughaidh, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

635 BCE. Reachtaidh Righdhearg, son of Lughaidh, after having been twenty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by Ugaine Mor, in revenge of his foster mother, i.e. Macha Mongruadh.

634 BCE. This was the first year of Ugaine Mor, son of Eochaidh Buadhach, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

595 BCE. At the end of this year Ugaine Mor, after he had been full forty years king of Ireland, and of the whole of the west of Europe, as far as Muir Toirrian, was slain by Badhbhchadh, at Tealach An Chosgair, in Magh Muireadha, in Bregia. This Ugaine was he who exacted oaths, by all the elements visible and invisible, from the men of Ireland in general, that they would never contend for the sovereignty of Ireland with his children or his race.

Badhbhchadh, son of Eochaidh Buadhach, was for a day and a half after Ugaine in the sovereignty of Ireland, when Laeghaire Lorc, son of Ugaine, slew him, in revenge of his father.

The Destruction of Dind Rig.

The Destruction of Dind Ríg

Whence is the Destruction of Dind Ríg? Easy (to say). Cobthach the Meagre of Bregia, the son of Ugaine the Great, was king of Bregia, but Loegaire Lorc, son of Ugaine, was king of Erin. He, too, was a son of Ugaine the Great. Cobthach was envious towards Loegaire concerning the kingship of Erin, and wasting and grief assailed him, so that his blood and his flesh wasted away. Wherefore he was surnamed the Meagre of Bregia, and Loegaire’s murder was brought about.

So Loegaire was called to Cobthach that he might leave him his blessing before he died. Now when Loegaire went in to his brother the leg of a hen’s chick is broken on the floor of the house. ‘Unlucky was thine illness’, says Loegaire. ‘This is fitting’, says Cobthach: ‘all has departed, both blood and bone, both life and wealth. Thou hast done me damage, my lad, in breaking the hen’s leg. Bring it hither that I may put a bandage round it.’

‘Woe is me’, says Loegaire, ‘the man has decay and destruction: he is delivered into neglect.’ ‘Come, tomorrow’, says Cobthach, ‘that my tomb be raised by thee, and that my pillar-stone be planted, my assembly of mourning be held, and my burial-paean be performed; for I shall die swiftly.’ ‘Well’, says Loegaire, ‘it shall be done.’

‘Well, then’, saith Cobthach to his queens and his steward, ‘say ye that I am dead, but let none other know it, and let me be put into my chariot with a razor-knife in my (right) hand. My brother will come to me vehemently, to bewail me, and will throw himself upon me. Mayhap he will get somewhat from me.’

This was true. The chariot is brought out. His brother came to bewail him. He comes and flings himself down upon Cobthach, who plunges the knife into Loegaire at the small of his back, so that its point appeared at the top of his heart, and thus Loegaire died, and was buried in Druim Loegairi.

Loegaire left a son, even Ailill of Ane. He assumed the kingship of Leinster. The first parricide did not seem enough to Cobthach, so he gave silver to some one who administered a deadly drink to Ailill, and thereof he died.

After that, Cobthach took the realm of Leinster. Now Ailill of Ane had left a son, even Móen Ollam. Now he was dumb until be became a big man. One day, then, in the playground, as he was hurling, a hockey-stick chanced over his shin. ‘This has befallen me!’ says he. ‘Moen labraid’, (“speaks”) say the lads. From that time Labraid was his name.

The men of Erin are summoned by Cobthach to partake of the Feast of Tara. Labraid went, like everyone, to partake of it. Now when they were most gloriously consuming the banquet, the eulogists were on the floor, lauding the king and the queens, the princes and the nobles.

‘Well then’, says Cobthach, ‘know ye who is the most hospitable (man) in Erin?’ ‘We know’, says Craiphtine (the Harper), ‘it is Labraid Loingsech, son of Ailill. I went to him in spring, and he killed his only ox for me.’ Says Ferchertne the Poet: ‘Labraid is the most hospitable man we know. I went to him in winter, and he killed his only cow for me, and he possessed nothing but her.’

‘Go ye with him then!’ says Cobthach, ‘since he is more hospitable than I.’ ‘He will not be the worse of this’, says Craiphtine, ‘and thou wilt not be the better.’ ‘Out of Erin with you then’, says Cobthach, ‘so long as thou art alive!’ ‘Unless we find our place (of refuge) in it’, says the lad.

They are then rejected. ‘Whither shall we go?’ says the lad. ‘Westwards’, answered Ferchertne.

So forth they fare to the king of the Men of Morca, the Men of Morca that dwelt about Luachair Dedad in the west. Scoríath is he that was their king.

‘What has brought you?’ asked Scoríath. ‘Our rejection by the king of Erin.’ ‘Ye are welcome’, says Scoríath. ‘Your going or your staying will be the same (to us) so long as I am alive. Ye shall have good comradeship’, says the king.

Scoríath had a daughter, whose name was Moríath. They were guarding her carefully, for no husband fit for her had been found at once. Her mother was keeping her. The mother’s two eyes never slept (at the same time), for one of the two was watching her daughter. Howbeit the damsel loved Labraid. There was a plan between her and him. Scoríath held a great feast for the Men of Morca. This is the plan they made — after the drinking, Craiphtine should play the slumber-strain, so that her mother should fall asleep and Labraid should reach the chamber. Now that came to pass. Craiphtine hid not his harp that night, so that the queen fell asleep, and the (loving) couple came together.

Not long afterwards the queen awoke. ‘Rise, O Scoríath!’ says he. ‘Ill is the sleep in which thou art. Thy daughter has a woman’s breath. Hearken to her sigh after her lover has gone from her.’

Then Scoríath rose up. ‘Find out who has done this’, quoth he, ‘that he may be put to the sword at once!’ No one knew who had done it. ‘The wizards and the poets shall lose their heads unless they find out who has done it.’ ‘It will be a disgrace to thee’, says Ferchertne, ‘to kill thine own household.’ ‘Then thou thyself shalt lose thy head unless thou tellest.’ ‘Tell’, quoth Labraid: ‘tis enough that I only should be ruined.’

Then said Ferchertne: ‘The lute hid no music from Craiphtine’s harp till he cast a deathsleep on the hosts, so that harmony was spread between Moen and marriageable Moríath of Morca. More to her than any price was Labraid.’ ‘Labraid’ says he, ‘forgathered with her after ye had been lulled by Craiphtine’s harp.’ In this he betrayed his companions.

‘Well then’, says Scoríath, ‘until tonight we have not chosen a husband for our daughter, because of our love for her. (But) if we had been choosing one, ’tis he whom we have found here. Let drinking take place within’ says the king,

‘and let his wife be put at Labraid’s hand. And I will never part from him till he be king of Leinster.’

Then Labraid’s wife came to him and sleeps with him.

And thereafter they deliver a hosting of the Munstermen till they reached Dind Ríg (for) the first destruction. And they were unable to destroy it until the warriors outside made a deceptive plan, namely, that Craiphtine should go on the rampart of the fortress to play the slumber-strain to the host within, so that it might be overturned, and that the host outside should put their faces to the ground and their fingers in their ears that they might not hear the playing.

So that was done there, and the men inside fell asleep, and the fortress was captured, and the garrison was slaughtered, and the fortress was sacked.

Now Moríath was on the hosting. She did not deem it honourable to put her fingers into her ears at her own music, so that she lay asleep for three days, no one daring to move her. Whence said Flann Mac Lónain: ‘As great Moríath slept before the host of Morca — more than any tale — when Dind Ríg was sacked — course without a fight — when the hole-headed lute played a melody.’

Thereafter Labraid took the realm of Leinster, and he and Cobthach were at peace, and his seat was at Dind Ríg.

Once upon a time, however, when he had taken it, and Cobthach had the full kingship, he induced this Cobthach to do his will and meet his desire. So, a house was built by him to receive Cobthach. Passing strong was the house: it was made of iron, both wall and floor and doors. A full year were the Leinstermen abuilding it, and father would hide it from son, and mother from daughter, husband from wife, and wife from husband, so that no one heard from another what they were going about, and for whom they were gathering their gear and their fittings. To this refers (the proverb): ‘not more numerous are Leinstermen than (their) secrets.’ Where the house was built was in Dind Ríg.

Then Cobthach was invited to the ale and the feast, and with him went thirty kings of the kings of Erin. Howbeit Cobthach was unable to enter the house until Labraid’s mother and his jester went in. This is what the jester chose (as his reward for doing so): the benediction of the Leinstermen, and the freedom of his children forever. Out of goodness to her son the woman went. On that night Labraid himself was managing household matters.

On the morrow, he went to play against the lads in the meadow. His fosterer saw him. He plies a one-stemmed thorn on Labraid’s back and head. ‘Apparently’, saith he, ‘the murder thou hast (to do) is a murder by a boy! Ill for thee, my lad, to invite the king of Erin with thirty kings, and not to be in their presence, meeting their desire.’

Then Labraid dons (his mantle) and goes to them into the house. ‘Ye have fire, and ale and food (brought) into the house.’ ‘Tis meet’, says Cobthach. Nine men had Labraid on the floor of the house. They drag the chain that was out of the door behind them, and cast it on the pillar-stone in front of the house; and the thrice fifty forge-bellows they had around it, with four warriors at each bellows, were blown till the house became hot for the host.

‘Thy mother is there, O Labraid!’, say the warriors. ‘Nay, my darling son’, says she. ‘Secure thine honour through me, for I shall die at all events.’

So then Cobthach Coel is there destroyed, with seven hundred followers and thirty kings around him, on the eve of great Christmas precisely. Hence is said: Three hundred years — victorious reckoning — before Christ’s birth, a holy conception, it was not fraternal, it was evil — (Loegaire) Lorc was slain by Cobthach Coel. Cobthach Coel with thirty kings, Labraid … slew him (Lugaid). Loegaire’s grandson from the main, in Dind Ríg the host was slain.

And ’tis of this that Ferchertne the poet said: ‘Dind Ríg, which had been Tuaim Tenbath,’ etc. i. e. Máin Ollam he was at first, Labraid Moen afterwards, but Labraid the Exile, since he went into exile, when he gained a realm as far as the Ictian Sea, and brought the many foreigners with him (to Ireland), to wit, two thousand and two hundred foreigners with broad lances in their hands, from which the Laigin (Leinstermen) are so called.

This is the Destruction of Dind Ríg.

594 BCE The Fifth Age. Herodutus. Celts Invade Italy

THE FIFTH AGE

Annals of the Four Masters

594 BCE. This was the first year of Laeghaire Lorc, son of Ugaine Mor, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

593 BCE. Laeghaire Lorc, son of Ugaine, after having been two years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was killed by Cobhthach Cael Breagh, at Carman (Wexford).

592 BCE. This was the first year of Cobhthach Cael Breagh in the monarchy of Ireland.

543 BCE. Cobhthach Cael Breagh, son of Ugaine, after having been fifty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by Labhraidh Loingseach, i.e. Maen, son of Oilioll Aine, with thirty kings about him, at Dinn Righ, on the brink of the Bearbha.

542 BCE. The first year of the reign of Labhraidh Loingseach in the sovereignty of Ireland.

524 BCE. Labhraidh Loingseach, i. e. Maen, son of Oilioll Aine, son of Laeghaire Lorc, son of Ugaine Mor, after having been nineteen years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was slain by Melghe Molbhthach, son of Cobhthach Cael Breagh.

523 BCE. This was the first year of Melghe Molbhthach, the Praiseworthy son of Cobhthach Cael Breagh, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

507 BCE. Melghe Molbhthach, son of Cobhthach Cael Breagh, after having been seventeen years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell in the battle of Claire, by Modhcorb. When his grave was digging, Loch Melghe burst forth over the land in Cairbre, so that it was named from him.

506 BCE. The first year of Modhcorb, son of Cobhthach Caemh, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

500 BCE. Modhcorb, son of Cobhthach Caemh the Comely, after having been seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was slain by Aengus Ollamh.

499 BCE. The first year of Aenghus Ollamh, son of Labhraidh, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

482 BCE. The eighteenth year of Aenghus Ollamh, son of Oilioll, son of Labhraidh; and he was slain by Irereo, son of Melghe, at the end of that time.

481 BCE. The first year of Irereo, son of Melghe Molbhthach, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

478 BCE. Irereo, son of Melghe, after having been seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was slain by Fearcorb, son of Modhcorb.

477 BCE. The first year of Fearcorb, son of Modhcorb, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

464 BCE. After Fearcorb had been eleven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he was slain by Connla Caemh, son of Irereo.

463 BCE. The first year of Connla Caemh in the sovereignty of Ireland.

About 450 BCE.

Herodutus

Here let me dismiss Etearchus the Ammonian, and his story, only adding that (according to the Cyrenaeans) he declared that the Nasamonians got safe back to their country, and that the men whose city they had reached were a nation of sorcerers. With respect to the river which ran by their town, Etearchus conjectured it to be the Nile; and reason favours that view. For the Nile certainly flows out of Libya, dividing it down the middle, and as I conceive, judging the unknown from the known, rises at the same distance from its mouth as the Ister. This latter river has its source in the country of the Celts near the city Pyrene, and runs through the middle of Europe, dividing it into two portions. The Celts live beyond the pillars of Hercules, and border on the Cynesians, who dwell at the extreme west of Europe. Thus, the Ister flows through the whole of Europe before it finally empties itself into the Euxine at Istria, one of the colonies of the Milesians.

Now these are the farthest regions of the world in Asia and Libya. Of the extreme tracts of Europe towards the west I cannot speak with any certainty; for I do not allow that there is any river, to which the barbarians give the name of Eridanus, emptying itself into the northern sea, whence (as the tale goes) amber is procured; nor do I know of any islands called the Cassiterides (Tin Islands), whence the tin comes which we use. For in the first place the name Eridanus is manifestly not a barbarian word at all, but a Greek name, invented by some poet or other; and secondly, though I have taken vast pains, I have never been able to get an assurance from an eye-witness that there is any sea on the further side of Europe. Nevertheless, tin and amber do certainly come to us from the ends of the earth.

The northern parts of Europe are very much richer in gold than any other region: but how it is procured I have no certain knowledge. The story runs that the one-eyed Arimaspi purloin it from the griffins; but here too I am incredulous, and cannot persuade myself that there is a race of men born with one eye, who in all else resemble the rest of mankind. Nevertheless, it seems to be true that the extreme regions of the earth, which surround and shut up within themselves all other countries, produce the things which are the rarest, and which men reckon the most beautiful.

Now the Scythians blind all their slaves, to use them in preparing their milk. The plan they follow is to thrust tubes made of bone, not unlike our musical pipes, up the vulva of the mare, and then to blow into the tubes with their mouths, some milking while the others blow. They say that they do this because when the veins of the animal are full of air, the udder is forced down. The milk thus obtained is poured into deep wooden casks, about which the blind slaves are placed, and then the milk is stirred round. That which rises to the top is drawn off, and considered the best part; the under portion is of less account. Such is the reason why the Scythians blind all those whom they take in war; it arises from their not being tillers of the ground, but a pastoral race. According to the account which the Scythians themselves give, they are the youngest of all nations. Their tradition is as follows. A certain Targitaus was the first man who ever lived in their country, which before his time was a desert without inhabitants. He was a child- I do not believe the tale, but it is told nevertheless- of Jove and a daughter of the Borysthenes. Targitaus, thus descended, begat three sons, Leipoxais, Arpoxais, and Colaxais, who was the youngest born of the three. While they still ruled the land, there fell from the sky four implements, all of gold- a plough, a yoke, a battle-axe, and a drinking-cup. The eldest of the brothers perceived them first, and approached to pick them up; when lo! as he came near, the gold took fire, and blazed. He therefore went his way, and the second coming forward made the attempt, but the same thing happened again. The gold rejected both the eldest and the second brother. Last of all the youngest brother approached, and immediately the flames were extinguished; so, he picked up the gold, and carried it to his home. Then the two elder agreed together, and made the whole kingdom over to the youngest born.

From Leipoxais sprang the Scythians of the race called Auchatae; from Arpoxais, the middle brother, those known as the Catiari and Traspians; from Colaxais, the youngest, the Royal Scythians, or Paralatae. All together they are named Scoloti, after one of their kings: the Greeks, however, call them Scythians.

Such is the account which the Scythians give of their origin. They add that from the time of Targitaus, their first king, to the invasion of their country by Darius, is a period of one thousand years, neither less nor more. The Royal Scythians guard the sacred gold with most especial care, and year by year offer great sacrifices in its honour. At this feast, if the man who has the custody of the gold should fall asleep in the open air, he is sure (the Scythians say) not to outlive the year. His pay therefore is as much land as he can ride round on horseback in a day. As the extent of Scythia is very great, Colaxais gave each of his three sons a separate kingdom, one of which was of ampler size than the other two: in this the gold was preserved. Above, to the northward of the farthest dwellers in Scythia, the country is said to be concealed from sight and made impassable by reason of the feathers which are shed abroad abundantly. The earth and air are alike full of them, and this it is which prevents the eye from obtaining any view of the region.

Such is the account which the Scythians give of themselves, and of the country which lies above them. The Greeks who dwell about the Pontus tell a different story. According to Hercules, when he was carrying off the cows of Geryon, arrived in the region which is now inhabited by the Scyths, but which was then a desert. Geryon lived outside the Pontus, in an island called by the Greeks Erytheia, near Gades, which is beyond the Pillars of Hercules upon the Ocean. Now some say that the Ocean begins in the east, and runs the whole way around the world; but they give no proof that this is really so. Hercules came from thence into the region now called Scythia, and, being overtaken by storm and frost, drew his lion’s skin about him, and fell fast asleep. While he slept, his mares, which he had loosed from his chariot to graze, by some wonderful chance disappeared.

On waking, he went in quest of them, and, after wandering over the whole country, came at last to the district called “the Woodland,” where he found in a cave a strange being, between a maiden and a serpent, whose form from the waist upwards was like that of a woman, while all below was like a snake. He looked at her wonderingly; but nevertheless inquired, whether she had chanced to see his strayed mares anywhere. She answered him, “Yes, and they were now in her keeping; but never would she consent to give them back, unless he took her for his mistress.” So, Hercules, to get his mares back, agreed; but afterwards she put him off and delayed restoring the mares, since she wished to keep him with her as long as possible. He, on the other hand, was only anxious to secure them and to get away. At last, when she gave them up, she said to him, “When thy mares strayed hither, it was I who saved them for thee: now thou hast paid their salvage; for lo! I bear in my womb three sons of thine. Tell me therefore when thy sons grow up, what must I do with them? Wouldst thou wish that I should settle them here in this land, whereof I am mistress, or shall I send them to thee?” Thus questioned, they say, Hercules answered, “When the lads have grown to manhood, do thus, and assuredly thou wilt not err. Watch them, and when thou seest one of them bend this bow as I now bend it, and gird himself with this girdle thus, choose him to remain in the land. Those who fail in the trial, send away. Thus, wilt thou at once please thyself and obey me.”

Hereupon he strung one of his bows- up to that time he had carried two- and showed her how to fasten the belt. Then he gave both bow and belt into her hands. Now the belt had a golden goblet attached to its clasp. So, after he had given them to her, he went his way; and the woman, when her children grew to manhood, first gave them severally their names. One she called Agathyrsus, one Gelonus, and the other, who was the youngest, Scythes. Then she remembered the instructions she had received from Hercules, and, in obedience to his orders, she put her sons to the test. Two of them, Agathyrsus and Gelonus, proving unequal to the task enjoined, their mother sent them out of the land; Scythes, the youngest, succeeded, and so he was allowed to remain. From Scythes, the son of Hercules, were descended the after kings of Scythia; and from the circumstance of the goblet which hung from the belt, the Scythians to this day wear goblets at their girdles. This was the only thing which the mother of Scythes did for him. Such is the tale told by the Greeks who dwell around the Pontus.

There is also another different story, now to be related, in which I am more inclined to put faith than in any other. It is that the wandering Scythians once dwelt in Asia, and there warred with the Massagetae, but with ill success; they therefore quitted their homes, crossed the Araxes, and entered the land of Cimmeria. For the land which is now inhabited by the Scyths was formerly the country of the Cimmerians. On their coming, the natives, who heard how numerous the invading army was, held a council. At this meeting opinion was divided, and both parties stiffly maintained their own view; but the counsel of the Royal tribe was the braver. For the others urged that the best thing to be done was to leave the country, and avoid a contest with so vast a host; but the Royal tribe advised remaining and fighting for the soil to the last. As neither party chose to give way, the one determined to retire without a blow and yield their lands to the invaders; but the other, remembering the good things which they had enjoyed in their homes, and picturing to themselves the evils which they had to expect if they gave them up, resolved not to flee, but rather to die and at least be buried in their fatherland. Having thus decided, they drew apart in two bodies, the one as numerous as the other, and fought together. All of the Royal tribe were slain, and the people buried them near the river Tyras, where their grave is still to be seen. Then the rest of the Cimmerians departed, and the Scythians, on their coming, took possession of a deserted land.

Scythia still retains traces of the Cimmerians; there are Cimmerian castles, and a Cimmerian ferry, also a tract called Cimmeria, and a Cimmerian Bosphorus. It appears likewise that the Cimmerians, when they fled into Asia to escape the Scyths, made a settlement in the peninsula where the Greek city of Sinope was afterwards built. The Scyths, it is plain, pursued them, and missing their road, poured into Media. For the Cimmerians kept the line which led along the sea-shore, but the Scyths in their pursuit held the Caucasus upon their right, thus proceeding inland, and falling upon Media. This account is one which is common both to Greeks and barbarians.

Aristeas also, son of Caystrobius, a native of Proconnesus, says in the course of his poem that wrapt in Bacchic fury he went as far as the Issedones. Above them dwelt the Arimaspi, men with one eye; still further, the gold-guarding griffins; and beyond these, the Hyperboreans, who extended to the sea. Except the Hyperboreans, all these nations, beginning with the Arimaspi, were continually encroaching upon their neighbours. Hence it came to pass that the Arimaspi drove the Issedonians from their country, while the Issedonians dispossessed the Scyths; and the Scyths, pressing upon the Cimmerians, who dwelt on the shores of the Southern Sea, forced them to leave their land. Thus, even Aristeas does not agree in his account of this region with the Scythians.

With regard to the regions which lie above the country whereof this portion of my history treats, there is no one who possesses any exact knowledge. Not a single person can I find who professes to be acquainted with them by actual observation. Even Aristeas, the traveller of whom I lately spoke, does not claim- and he is writing poetry- to have reached any farther than the Issedonians. What he relates concerning the regions beyond is, he confesses, mere hearsay, being the account which the Issedonians gave him of those countries. However, I shall proceed to mention all that I have learnt of these parts by the most exact inquiries which I have been able to make concerning them.

Above the mart of the Borysthenites, which is situated in the very centre of the whole sea-coast of Scythia, the first people who inhabit the land are the Callipedae, a Greco-Scythic race. Next to them, as you go inland, dwell the people called the Alazonians. These two nations in other respects resemble the Scythians in their usages, but sow and eat corn, also onions, garlic, lentils, and millet. Beyond the Alazonians reside Scythian cultivators, who grow corn, not for their own use, but for sale. Still higher up are the Neuri. Northwards of the Neuri the continent, as far as it is known to us, is uninhabited. These are the nations along the course of the river Hypanis, west of the Borysthenes.

Across the Borysthenes, the first country after you leave the coast is Hylaea (the Woodland). Above this dwell the Scythian Husbandmen, whom the Greeks living near the Hypanis call Borysthenites, while they call themselves Olbiopolites. These Husbandmen extend eastward a distance of three days’ journey to a river bearing the name of Panticapes, while northward the country is theirs for eleven days’ sail up the course of the Borysthenes. Further inland there is a vast tract which is uninhabited. Above this desolate region dwell the Cannibals, who are a people apart, much unlike the Scythians. Above them the country becomes an utter desert; not a single tribe, so far as we know, inhabits it.

Crossing the Panticapes, and proceeding eastward of the Husbandmen, we come upon the wandering Scythians, who neither plough nor sow. Their country, and the whole of this region, except Hylaea, is quite bare of trees. They extend towards the east a distance of fourteen’ days journey, occupying a tract which reaches to the river Gerrhus. On the opposite side of the Gerrhus is the Royal district, as it is called: here dwells the largest and bravest of the Scythian tribes, which looks upon all the other tribes in the light of slaves. Its country reaches on the south to Taurica, on the east to the trench dug by the sons of the blind slaves, the mart upon the Palus Maeotis, called Cremni (the Cliffs), and in part to the river Tanais. North of the country of the Royal Scythians are the Melanchaeni (Black-Robes), a people of quite a different race from the Scythians. Beyond them lie marshes and a region without inhabitants, so far as our knowledge reaches.

When one crosses the Tanais, one is no longer in Scythia; the first region on crossing is that of the Sauromatae, who, beginning at the upper end of the Palus Maeotis, stretch northward a distance of fifteen days’ journey, inhabiting a country which is entirely bare of trees, whether wild or cultivated. Above them, possessing the second region, dwell the Budini, whose territory is thickly wooded with trees of every kind.

Beyond the Budini, as one goes northward, first there is a desert, seven days’ journey across; after which, if one inclines somewhat to the east, the Thyssagetae are reached, a numerous nation quite distinct from any other, and living by the chase. Adjoining them, and within the limits of the same region, are the people who bear the name of Iyrcae; they also support themselves by hunting, which they practise in the following manner. The hunter climbs a tree, the whole country abounding in wood, and there sets himself in ambush; he has a dog at hand, and a horse, trained to lie down upon its belly, and thus make itself low; the hunter keeps watch, and when he sees his game, lets fly an arrow; then mounting his horse, he gives the beast chase, his dog following hard all the while. Beyond these people, a little to the east, dwells a distinct tribe of Scyths, who revolted once from the Royal Scythians, and migrated into these parts.

As far as their country, the tract of land whereof I have been speaking is all a smooth plain, and the soil deep; beyond you enter on a region which is rugged and stony. Passing over a great extent of this rough country, you come to a people dwelling at the foot of lofty mountains, who are said to be all- both men and women- bald from their birth, to have flat noses, and very long chins. These people speak a language of their own. The dress which they wear is the same as the Scythian. They live on the fruit of a certain tree, the name of which is Ponticum; in size, it is about equal to our fig-tree, and it bears a fruit like a bean, with a stone inside. When the fruit is ripe, they strain it through cloths; the juice which runs off is black and thick, and is called by the natives “aschy.” They lap this up with their tongues, and also mix it with milk for a drink; while they make the lees, which are solid, into cakes, and eat them instead of meat; for they have but few sheep in their country, in which there is no good pasturage. Each of them dwells under a tree, and they cover the tree in winter with a cloth of thick white felt, but take off the covering in the summer-time. No one harms these people, for they are looked upon as sacred- they do not even possess any warlike weapons. When their neighbours fall out, they make up the quarrel; and when one flies to them for refuge, he is safe from all hurt. They are called the Argippaeans.

Up to this point the territory of which we are speaking is very completely explored, and all the nations between the coast and the bald-headed men are well known to us. For some of the Scythians are accustomed to penetrate as far, of whom inquiry may easily be made, and Greeks also go there from the mart on the Borysthenes, and from the other marts along the Euxine. The Scythians who make this journey communicate with the inhabitants by means of seven interpreters and seven languages.

Thus far, therefore, the land is known; but beyond the bald-headed men lies a region of which no one can give any exact account. Lofty and precipitous mountains, which are never crossed, bar further progress. The bald men say, but it does not seem to me credible, that the people who live in these mountains have feet like goats; and that after passing them you find another race of men, who sleep during one half of the year. This latter statement appears to me quite unworthy of credit. The region east of the bald-headed men is well known to be inhabited by the Issedonians, but the tract that lies to the north of these two nations is entirely unknown, except by the accounts which they give of it.

The Issedonians are said to have the following customs. When a man’s father dies, all the near relatives bring sheep to the house; which are sacrificed, and their flesh cut in pieces, while at the same time the dead body undergoes the like treatment. The two sorts of flesh are afterwards mixed together, and the whole is served up at a banquet. The head of the dead man is treated differently: it is stripped bare, cleansed, and set in gold. It then becomes an ornament on which they pride themselves, and is brought out year by year at the great festival which sons keep in honour of their fathers’ death, just as the Greeks keep their Genesia. In other respects, the Issedonians are reputed to be observers of justice: and it is to be remarked that their women have equal authority with the men. Thus, our knowledge extends as far as this nation.

The regions beyond are known only from the accounts of the Issedonians, by whom the stories are told of the one-eyed race of men and the gold-guarding griffins. These stories are received by the Scythians from the Issedonians, and by them passed on to us Greeks: whence it arises that we give the one-eyed race the Scythian name of Arimaspi, “arima” being the Scythic word for “one,” and “spu” for “the eye.”

The whole district whereof we have here discoursed has winters of exceeding rigour. During eight months the frost is so intense that water poured upon the ground does not form mud, but if a fire be lighted on it mud is produced. The sea freezes, and the Cimmerian Bosphorus is frozen over. At that season the Scythians who dwell inside the trench make warlike expeditions upon the ice, and even drive their waggons across to the country of the Sindians. Such is the intensity of the cold during eight months out of the twelve; and even in the remaining four the climate is still cool. The character of the winter likewise is unlike that of the same season in any other country; for at that time, when the rains ought to fall in Scythia, there is scarcely any rain worth mentioning, while in summer it never gives over raining; and thunder, which elsewhere is frequent then, in Scythia is unknown in that part of the year, coming only in summer, when it is very heavy. Thunder in the winter-time is there accounted a prodigy; as also are earthquakes, whether they happen in winter or summer. Horses bear the winter well, cold as it is, but mules and asses are quite unable to bear it; whereas in other countries mules and asses are found to endure the cold, while horses, if they stand still, are frost-bitten. To me it seems that the cold may likewise be the cause which prevents the oxen in Scythia from having horns. There is a line of Homer’s in the Odyssey which gives a support to my opinion:-

Libya too, where horns bud quick on the foreheads of lambkins. He means to say what is quite true, that in warm countries the horns come early. So too in countries where the cold is severe animals either have no horns, or grow them with difficulty- the cold being the cause in this instance.

Here I must express my wonder- additions being what my work always from the very first affected- that in Elis, where the cold is not remarkable, and there is nothing else to account for it, mules are never produced. The Eleans say it is in consequence of a curse; and their habit is, when the breeding-time comes, to take their mares into one of the adjoining countries, and there keep them till they are in foal, when they bring them back again into Elis.

With respect to the feathers which are said by the Scythians to fill the air, and to prevent persons from penetrating into the remoter parts of the continent, even having any view of those regions, my opinion is that in the countries above Scythia it always snows- less, of course, in the summer than in the wintertime. Now snow when it falls looks like feathers, as everyone is aware who has seen it come down close to him. These northern regions, therefore, are uninhabitable by reason of the severity of the winter; and the Scythians, with their neighbours, call the snow-flakes feathers because, I think, of the likeness which they bear to them. I have now related what is said of the most distant parts of this continent whereof any account is given.

Of the Hyperboreans nothing is said either by the Scythians or by any of the other dwellers in these regions, unless it be the Issedonians. But in my opinion, even the Issedonians are silent concerning them; otherwise the Scythians would have repeated their statements, as they do those concerning the one-eyed men. Hesiod, however, mentions them, and Homer also in the Epigoni, if that be really a work of his.

But the persons who have by far the most to say on this subject are the Delians. They declare that certain offerings, packed in wheaten straw, were brought from the country of the Hyperboreans into Scythia, and that the Scythians received them and passed them on to their neighbours upon the west, who continued to pass them on until at last they reached the Adriatic. From hence they were sent southward, and when they came to Greece, were received first of all by the Dodonaeans. Thence they descended to the Maliac Gulf, from which they were carried across into Euboea, where the people handed them on from city to city, till they came at length to Carystus. The Carystians took them over to Tenos, without stopping at Andros; and the Tenians brought them finally to Delos. Such, according to their own account, was the road by which the offerings reached the Delians. Two damsels, they say, named Hyperoche and Laodice, brought the first offerings from the Hyperboreans; and with them the Hyperboreans sent five men to keep them from all harm by the way; these are the persons whom the Delians call “Perpherees,” and to whom great honours are paid at Delos. Afterwards the Hyperboreans, when they found that their messengers did not return, thinking it would be a grievous thing always to be liable to lose the envoys they should send, adopted the following plan:- they wrapped their offerings in the wheaten straw, and bearing them to their borders, charged their neighbours to send them forward from one nation to another, which was done accordingly, and in this way the offerings reached Delos. I myself know of a practice like this, which obtains with the women of Thrace and Paeonia. They in their sacrifices to the queenly Diana bring wheaten straw always with their offerings. Of my own knowledge, I can testify that this is so.

The damsels sent by the Hyperboreans died in Delos; and in their honour, all the Delian girls and youths are wont to cut off their hair. The girls, before their marriage-day, cut off a curl, and twining it round a distaff, lay it upon the grave of the strangers. This grave is on the left as one enters the precinct of Diana, and has an olive-tree growing on it. The youths wind some of their hair round a kind of grass, and, like the girls, place it upon the tomb. Such are the honours paid to these damsels by the Delians.

They add that, once before, there came to Delos by the same road as Hyperoche and Laodice, two other virgins from the Hyperboreans, whose names were Arge and Opis. Hyperoche and Laodice came to bring to Ilithyia the offering which they had laid upon themselves, in acknowledgment of their quick labours; but Arge and Opis came at the same time as the gods of Delos,’ and are honoured by the Delians in a different way. For the Delian women make collections in these maidens’ names, and invoke them in the hymn which Olen, a Lycian, composed for them; and the rest of the islanders, and even the Ionians, have been taught by the Delians to do the like. This Olen, who came from Lycia, made the other old hymns also which are sung in Delos. The Delians add that the ashes from the thigh-bones burnt upon the altar are scattered over the tomb of Opis and Arge. Their tomb lies behind the temple of Diana, facing the east, near the banqueting-hall of the Ceians. Thus much then, and no more, concerning the Hyperboreans.

As for the tale of Abaris, who is said to have been a Hyperborean, and to have gone with his arrow all round the world without once eating, I shall pass it by in silence. Thus much, however, is clear: if there are Hyperboreans, there must also be Hypernotians. For my part, I cannot but laugh when I see numbers of persons drawing maps of the world without having any reason to guide them; making, as they do, the ocean-stream to run all round the earth, and the earth itself to be an exact circle, as if described by a pair of compasses, with Europe and Asia just of the same size. The truth in this matter I will now proceed to explain in a very few words, making it clear what the real size of each region is, and what shape should be given them.

From the country of the Agathyrsi comes down another river, the Maris, which empties itself into the same; and from the heights of Haemus descend with a northern course three mighty streams, the Atlas, the Auras, and the Tibisis, and pour their waters into it. Thrace gives it three tributaries, the Athrys, the Noes, and the Artanes, which all pass through the country of the Crobyzian Thracians. Another tributary is furnished by Paeonia, namely, the Scius; this river, rising near Mount Rhodope, forces its way through the chain of Haemus, and so reaches the Ister. From Illyria comes another stream, the Angrus, which has a course from south to north, and after watering the Triballian plain, falls into the Brongus, which falls into the Ister. So the Ister is augmented by these two streams, both considerable. Besides all these, the Ister receives also the waters of the Carpis and the Alpis, two rivers running in a northerly direction from the country above the Umbrians. For the Ister flows through the whole extent of Europe, rising in the country of the Celts (the most westerly of all the nations of Europe, excepting the Cynetians), and thence running across the continent till it reaches Scythia, whereof it washes the flanks.

AVIENIUS (wrote sometime in the 4th century AD, but copies information from much earlier sources).

Bemeath the height of the promontory there opens out for the inhabitants of the Sinus Oestrymnicus, in which apear the Oestrymnides islands, widely spaced and rich in the metal of tin and lead. Great is the strength of this race, proud their spirit, skilful their art, constant the care of all of them for business, and in their woven boats they ply the rough sea far and wide and the abyss of Ocean, full of monsters. For these men know not to build their barks of pine and maple and do not shape their skiffs in fir, as the custom is, but for a marvel, they fit out their boats with hides joined together and often traverse the wide sea on skins. But from here it is two days journey by ship to the sacred island (sacram insulam), and the ancients called it. This spreads its broad fields among the waves and far and wide the race of the Hierni inhabit it. Near it again lies the island of Albiones (insula Albionum). The Tartessians were wont to trade as far as the bounds of the Oestrymnides, and the colonists of Carthage and the people dwelling near the pillars of Hecules went to these seas. And Hamilco the Carthaginian says that they can scarcely be crossed in four months, as he says he had proved by voyaging there himself: such lack of breeze is there to drive on the boat, so sluggish is the water of the sticky sea. He adds this too, that there is much weed in the turbulent waters and often it holds back the ship like a thicket. He says nevertheless that the mantle of the sea is not deep and the land is covered by but a little water. He says that ever here and there the sea beasts come to meet you and monsters swim between the slow and gently moving boats. If anyone dare from the Oestrmnic isles (ab insulis Oestrymnicis) to urge his craft into those waters where the air freezes beneath the turning of the Bear, he comes to the land of the Ligures void of inhabitants. For the fields have been made empty by the hand of the Caltae and by many battles.

West of Tartessos in Southern Spain there swells the mountain Cassius and it is from this that the Greek tongue first called tin cassiteros.

Annals of the Four Masters.

444 BCE. Connla Caemh, after having been twenty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, died at Teamhair Tara.

443 BCE. The first year of Oilioll Caisfhiaclach, son of Connla Caemh, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

419 BCE. After Oilioll Caisfhiaclach, son of Connla Caemh, son of Irereo, had been twenty five years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he was slain by Adamair, son of Fearcorb.

418 BCE. The first year of Adamair, son of Fearcorb, over Ireland.

414 BCE. The fifth year of Adamair, son of Fearcorb, in the sovereignty of Ireland, when he was slain by Eochaidh Ailtleathan.

413. BCE The first year of Eochaidh Ailtleathan in the sovereignty of Ireland.

Plutarch.

The Celtic Women

Before the Celts crossed over the Alps and settled in that part of Italy which is now their home, persistent factional discord broke out among them which went on and on to the point of civil war. The women, however, put themselves between the armed forces, and, taking up the controversies, arbitrated and decided them with such irreproachable fairness that a wondrous friendship of all towards all was brought about between both States and families. As the result of this they continued to consult with the women in regard to war and peace, and to decide through them any disputed matters in their relations with their allies. At all events, in their treaty with Hannibal they wrote the provision that, if the Celts complained against the Carthaginians, the governors and generals of the Carthaginians in Spain should be the judges; and if the Carthaginians complained against the Celts, the judges should be the Celtic women.

400 BCE? Diodorus Siculus.

At the time that Dionysius was besieging Rhegium, the Celts who had their homes in the regions beyond the Alps streamed through the passes in great strength and seized the territory that lay between the Apennine mountains and the Alps, expelling the Tyrrhenians who dwelt there. These, according to some, were colonists from the twelve cities of Tyrrhenia; but others state that before the Trojan War Pelasgians fled from Thessaly to escape the flood of Deucalion’s time and settled in this region. Now it happened, when the Celts divided up the territory by tribes, that those known as the Sennones received the area which lay farthest from the mountains and along the sea. But since this region was scorching hot, they were distressed and eager to move; hence they armed their younger men and sent them out to seek a territory where they might settle. Now they invaded Tyrrhenia, and being in number some thirty thousand they sacked the territory of the Clusini.

At this very time, the Roman people sent ambassadors into Tyrrhenia to spy out the army of the Celts. The ambassadors arrived at Clusium, and when they saw that a battle had been joined, with more valour than wisdom they joined the men of Clusium against their besiegers, and one of the ambassadors was successful in killing a rather important commander. When the Celts learned of this, they dispatched ambassadors to Rome to demand the person of the envoy who had thus commenced an unjust war. The senate at first sought to persuade the envoys of the Celts to accept money in satisfaction of the injury, but when they would not consider this, it voted to surrender the accused. But the father of the man to be surrendered, who was also one of the military tribunes with consular power, appealed the judgement to the people, and since he was a man of influence among the masses, he persuaded them to void the decision of the senate. Now in the times previous to this the people had followed the senate in all matters; with this occasion, they first began to rescind decisions of that body.

The ambassadors of the Celts returned to their camp and reported the reply of the Romans. At this they were greatly angered and, adding an army from their fellow tribesmen, they marched swiftly upon Rome itself, numbering more than seventy thousand men. The military tribunes of the Romans, exercising their special power, when they heard of the advance of the Celts, armed all the men of military age. They then marched out in full force and, crossing the Tiber, led their troops for eighty stades along the river; and at news of the approach of the Galatians they drew up the army for battle. Their best troops, to the number of twenty-four thousand, they set in a line from the river as far as the hills and on the highest hills they stationed the weakest. The Celts deployed their troops in a long line and, whether by fortune or design, stationed their choicest troops on the hills. The trumpets on both sides sounded the charge at the same time and the armies joined in battle with great clamour. The élite troops of the Celts, who were opposed to the weakest soldiers of the Romans, easily drove them from the hills. Consequently, as these fled in masses to the Romans on the plain, the ranks were thrown into confusion and fled in dismay before the attack of the Celts. Since the bulk of the Romans fled along the river and impeded one another by reason of their disorder, the Celts were not behind-hand in slaying again and again those who were last in line. Hence the entire plain was strewn with dead. Of the men who fled to the river the bravest attempted to swim across with their arms, prizing their armour as highly as their lives; but since the stream ran strong, some of them were borne down to their death by the weight of the arms, and some, after being carried along for some distance, finally and after great effort got off safe. But since the enemy pressed them hard and was making a great slaughter along the river, most of the survivors threw away their arms and swam across the Tiber.

The Celts, though they had slain great numbers on the bank of the river, nevertheless did not desist from the zest for glory but showered javelins upon the swimmers; and since many missiles were hurled and men were massed in the river, those who threw did not miss their mark. So, it was that some died at once from mortal blows, and others, who were wounded only, were carried off unconscious because of loss of blood and the swift current. When such disaster befell, the greater part of the Romans who escaped occupied the city of Veii, which had lately been razed by them, fortified the place as well as they could, and received the survivors of the rout. A few of those who had swum the river fled without their arms to Rome and reported that the whole army had perished. When word of such misfortunes as we have described was brought to those who had been left behind in the city, everyone fell into despair; for they saw no possibility of resistance, now that all their youth had perished, and to flee with their children and wives was fraught with the greatest danger since the enemy were close at hand. Now many private citizens fled with their households to neighbouring cities, but the city magistrates, encouraging the populace, issued orders for them to bring speedily to the Capitoline grain and every other necessity. When this had been done, both the acropolis and the Capitoline were stored not only with supplies of food but with silver and gold and the costliest raiment, since the precious possessions had been gathered from over the whole city into one place. They gathered such valuables as they could and fortified the place we have mentioned during a respite of three days. For the Celts spent the first day cutting off, according to their custom, the heads of the dead. And for two days they lay encamped before the city, for when they saw the walls deserted and yet heard the noise made by those who were transferring their most useful possessions to the acropolis, they suspected that the Romans were planning a trap for them. But on the fourth day, after they had learned the true state of affairs, they broke down the gates and pillaged the city except for a few dwellings on the Palatine. After this they delivered daily assaults on strong positions, without, however, inflicting any serious hurt upon their opponents and with the loss of many of their own troops. Nevertheless, they did not relax their ardour, expecting that, even if they did not conquer by force, they would wear down the enemy in the course of time, when the necessities of life had entirely given out.

While the Romans were in such throes, the neighbouring Tyrrhenians advanced and made a raid with a strong army on the territory of the Romans, capturing many prisoners and not a small amount of booty. But the Romans who had fled to Veii, falling unexpectedly upon the Tyrrhenians, put them to flight, took back the booty, and captured their camp. Having got possession of arms in abundance, they distributed them among the unarmed, and they also gathered men from the countryside and armed them, since they intended to relieve the siege of the soldiers who had taken refuge on the Capitoline. While they were at a loss how they might reveal their plans to the besieged, since the Celts had surrounded them with strong forces, a certain Cominius Pontius undertook to get the cheerful news to the men on the Capitoline. Starting out alone and swimming the river by night, he got unseen to a cliff of the Capitoline that was hard to climb and, hauling himself up it with difficulty, told the soldiers on the Capitoline about the troops that had been collected in Veii and how they were watching for an opportunity and would attack the Celts. Then, descending by the way he had mounted and swimming the Tiber, he returned to Veii. The Celts, when they observed the tracks of one who had recently climbed up, made plans to ascend at night by the same cliff. Consequently, about the middle of the night, while the guards were neglectful of their watch because of the strength of the place, some Celts started an ascent of the cliff. They escaped detection by the guards, but the sacred geese of Hera, which were kept there, noticed the climbers and set up a cackling. The guards rushed to the place and the Celts deterred did not dare proceed farther. A certain Marcus Mallius, a man held in high esteem, rushing to the defence of the place, cut off the hand of the climber with his sword and, striking him on the breast with his shield, rolled him from the cliff. In like manner, the second climber met his death, whereupon the rest all quickly turned in flight. But since the cliff was precipitous they were all hurled headlong and perished. As a result of this, when the Romans sent ambassadors to negotiate a peace, they were persuaded, upon receipt of one thousand pounds of gold, to leave the city and to withdraw from Roman territory.

The Romans, now that their houses had been razed to the ground and the majority of their citizens slain, gave permission to anyone who wished to build a home in any place he chose, and supplied him at state expense with roof-tiles; and up to the present time these are known as “public tiles.” Since every man naturally built his home where it suited his fancy, the result was that the streets of the city were narrow and crooked; consequently, when the population increased in later days, it was impossible to straighten the streets. Some also say that the Roman matrons, because they contributed their gold ornaments to the common safety, received from the people as a reward the right to ride through the city in chariots.

While the Romans were in a weakened condition because of the misfortune we have described, the Volscians went to war against them. Accordingly, the Roman military tribunes enrolled soldiers, took the field with their army, and pitched camp on the Campus Martius, as it is called, two hundred stades distant from Rome. Since the Volscians lay over against them with a larger force and were assaulting the camp, the citizens in Rome, fearing for the safety of those in the encampment, appointed Marcus Furius dictator. These armed all the men of military age and marched out during the night. At day-break they caught the Volscians as they were assaulting the camp, and appearing on their rear easily put them to flight. When the troops in the camp then sallied forth, the Volscians were caught in the middle and cut down almost to a man. Thus, a people that passed for powerful in former days was by this disaster reduced to the weakest among the neighbouring tribes.

After the battle the dictator, on hearing that Bola was being besieged by the Aeculani, who are now called the Aequicoli, led forth his troops and slew most of the besieging army. From here he marched to the territory of Sutrium, a Roman colony, which the Tyrrhenians had forcibly occupied. Falling unexpectedly upon the Tyrrhenians, he slew many of them and recovered the city for the people of Sutrium.

The Gauls on their way from Rome laid siege to the city of Veascium which was an ally of the Romans. The dictator attacked them, slew the larger number of them, and got possession of all their baggage, included in which was the gold which they had received for Rome and practically all the booty which they had gathered in the seizure of the city. Despite the accomplishment of such great deeds, envy on the part of the tribunes prevented his celebrating a triumph. There are some, however, who state that he celebrated a triumph for his victory over the Tuscans in a chariot drawn by four white horses, for which the people two years later fined him a large sum of money. But we shall recur to this in the appropriate period of time. Those Celts who had passed into Iapygia turned back through the territory of the Romans; but soon thereafter the Cerii made a crafty attack on them by night and cut all of them to pieces in the Trausian Plain.

The historian Callisthenes began his history with the peace of this year between the Greeks and Artaxerxes, the King of the Persians. His account embraced a period of thirty years in ten Books and he closed the last Book of his history with the seizure of the Temple of Delphi by Philomelus the Phocian. But for our part, since we have arrived at the peace between the Greeks and Artaxerxes, and at the threat to Rome offered by the Gauls, we shall make this the end of this Book, as we proposed at the beginning.

400 BCE. Cassius Dio.

The cause of the Gallic expedition was this. The people of Clusium had suffered injuries in the war at the hands of the Gauls and had turned for refuge to the Romans, having considerable hope that they could obtain some help at least in that quarter, from the fact that they had not taken sides with the Veientes, though of the same race. When the Romans failed to vote them aid, but sent envoys to the Gauls and were negotiating a peace for them, they set little store by this (for it was offered them in return for a portion of the land), and attacked the barbarians in battle right after the conference, taking the Roman envoys along with them. The Gauls, vexed at seeing these on the opposite side, at first sent an embassy in their turn to Rome, preferring charges against the envoys. And when no punishment was visited upon the latter, but they were all, on the contrary, appointed consular tribunes, the barbarians were filled with wrath, being naturally quick to anger, and since they held Clusium in contempt, they set out against Rome.

The Romans after going out to meet the invasion of the Gauls had no time even to recover breath, but went immediately from their march into battle, just as they were, and lost. Panic-stricken by the unexpectedness of the invaders’ expedition, by their numbers, by the huge size of their bodies, and by the strange and terrifying sound of their voices, they forgot their training in military science and hence lost the use of their valour. For skill contributes very largely to bravery, since when present it strengthens the power of men’s resolutions and when wanting destroys the same more thoroughly by far than if they had never possessed it at all. Many persons, to be sure, without experience often carry things through by the impetuosity of their spirit, but those who fail of the discipline which they have learned lose also their strength of purpose. This caused the defeat of the Romans.

The Romans who were on the Capitol under siege had no hope of safety, unless through the aid of Heaven. For so scrupulously did they observe the mandates of religion, although in every extremity of evil, that when one of the sacred rites needed to be performed by the pontifices in another part of the city, Kaeso Fabius, who was then exercising the office of priest, descended for the purpose from the Capitol after arraying himself as was his wont, and passing through the enemy, performed the customary ceremony and returned the same day. marvel at the barbarians, on the one hand, because, either on account of the gods or his bravery, they spared him; yet still more do I marvel at the man himself, for two reasons: first, that he dared to descend alone among the enemy, and again, that when he might have withdrawn to some place of safety, he refused, and instead voluntarily returned up to the Capitol again into manifest danger. For he understood that they hesitated to abandon the spot which was the only part of their country they still held, but saw at the same time that no matter how much they desired to escape it was impossible to do by reason of the multitude of the besiegers.

This same man [Camillus], when urged to let the leadership be entrusted to him, would not allow it, because he was an exile and could not take the position according to time-honoured usage. He showed himself so law-abiding and scrupulous a man that in so great a danger of his native land he made duty a matter of earnest thought and was unwilling to hand down to posterity the example of an illegal act.

Annals of the Four Masters.

397 BCE. After Eochaidh Ailtleathan, son of Oilioll Caisfhiaclach, had been seventeen years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he was slain by Fearghus Fortamhail.

396 BCE. The first year of Fearghus Fortamhail, son of Breasal Breac, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

386 BCE. Fearghus Fortamhail, son of Breasal Breac, after having been eleven years in the monarchy of Ireland, was slain by Aenghus Tuirmheach in the battle of Teamhair Tara.

385 BCE. The first year of the reign of Aenghus Tuirmheach Teamhrach in the sovereignty of Ireland.

326 BCE. Aengus Tuirmheach Teamhrach, after having been sixty years in the monarchy of Ireland, died at Teamhair. He was called Aenghus Tuirmheach because the nobility of the race of Eireamhon are traced to him.

325 BCE. The first year of Conall Collamhrach, son of Ederscel, as king over Ireland.

321 BCE. Conall Collamhrach, son of Ederscel Teamhrah, son of Eochaidh Ailtleathan, after having been five years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was slain by Nia Sedhamain.

320 BCE. The first year of Nia Sedhamain, son of Adhamair, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

314 BCE. Nia Sedhamain, son of Adhamair, after having been seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was slain by Enna Aighneach. It was in the time of the King Nia Sedhamain that the cows and the does were alike milked.

313 BCE. The first year of Enna Aighneach over Ireland.

294 BCE. Enna Aighneach, son of Aenghus Tuirmeach Teamhrach, after having heen twenty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was slain by Crimhthann Cosgrach, in the battle of Ard Crimhthainn.

293 BCE. The first year of Crimhthann Cosgrach, son of Feidhlimidh, son of Fearghus Fortamhail, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

290 BCE. Crimhthann Cosgrach, after having been four years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was slain by Rudhraighe, son of Sithrighe.

289 BCE. The first year of Rudhraighe, son of Sithrighe, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

220 BCE. Rudhraighe, son of Sithrighe, son of Dubh, son of Fomhor, son of Airgeatmar, after having been seventy years in the sovereignty of Ireland, died at Airgeat Gleann. It was by this Rudghraighe that these battles were won throughout Ireland: the battle of Cuirce; the battle of Luachair; seven battles in Cliu; the battle of Gleannamhnach; the battle of Sliabh Mis; the battle of Boirinn; the battle of Ren; the battle of Ai; the battle of Cuil Silinne; the two battles of Fortrasc.

219 BCE. The first year of Innatmar, son of Nia Sedhamain, in sovereignty over Ireland.

211 BCE. Innatmar, son of Nia Sedhamain, after having been nine years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was slain by Breasal Boidhiobadh, son of Rudraighe.

210 BCE. The first year of Breasal Boidhiobhadh in the sovereignty of Ireland.

200 BCE. Breasal Boidhiobhadh, son of Rudhraighe, after having been eleven years king over Ireland, was slain by Lughaidh Luaighne.

There was a great mortality of kine in Ireland in Breasal’s reign.

199 BCE. The first year of the reign of Lughaidh Luaighne, son of Innatmar, in the monarchy of Ireland.

185 BCE. The fifteenth year of Lughaidh Luaighne, son of Innatmar, in the sovereignty of Ireland, when he fell by Congal Claroineach, son of Rudhraighe.

184 BCE. The first year of Congal Claroineach in the sovereignty of Ireland.

170 BCE. Congal Claroineach, son of Rudhraighe, after having been fifteen years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was slain by Duach Dallta Deadhadh.

169 BCE. The first year of Duach Dallta Deadhadh, son of Cairbre Lueg, in the monarchy of Ireland.

160 BC. Duach Dallta Deadhadh, son of Cairbre Lusg, after having been ten years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was slain by Fachtna Fathach.

159 BCE. The first year of Fachtna Fathach in the sovereignty of Ireland.

200-118 BCE. Polybius.

Histories book III chapter 57

About the same time, as I stated above, Publius Scipio, leaving his forces with his brother Gnaeus with orders to conduct operations in Spain and vigorously combat Hasdrubal, arrived by sea at Pisa with a small following. Marching through Etruria and taking over from the Praetors the frontier legions which were engaged with the Boii, he reached the plain of the Po, and encamping there, waited for the enemy, being anxious to give him battle.

Now that I have brought my narrative and the war the two generals into Italy, desire, before entering upon the struggle, to say a few words on what I think proper to my method in this work. Some readers will perhaps ask themselves why, since most of what I have said relates to Africa and Spain, I have not said a word more about the mouth of the Mediterranean at the Pillars of Hercules, or about the Outer Sea and its peculiarities, or about the British Isles and the method of obtaining tin, and the gold and silver mines in Spain itself, all matters concerning which authors dispute with each other at great length. I have omitted these subjects not because I think they are foreign to my history, but in the first place because I did not wish to be constantly interrupting the narrative and distracting readers from the actual subject, and next because I decided not to make scattered and casual allusions to such matters, but assigning the proper place and time to their special treatment to give as true an account of all as is in my power. No one then need be surprised when in the course of my history I reach such localities, if I avoid for the reason here stated any description of them. But if there be any who insist on such descriptions of each place that may be mentioned, they are perhaps unaware that they are much in the case of gourmands at a supper party who taste everything on the table and neither truly enjoy any dish at the moment nor digest any enough to derive beneficial nourishment from it in the future. So those who act in the same way about reading do not properly attain either present entertainment or future benefit.

That no part of history requires more circumspection and more correction by the light of truth than this is evident from many considerations and chiefly from the following. While nearly all authors or at least the greater number have attempted to describe the peculiarities and the situation of the countries at the extremities of the known world, most of them are mistaken on many points. We must therefore by no means pass over the subject, but we must say a word to them, and that not casually and by scattered allusions, but giving due attention to it, and in what we say we must not find fault with or rebuke them, but rather be grateful to them and correct them when wrong, knowing as we do that they too, had they the privilege of living at the present day, would correct and modify many of their own statements. In old times, indeed, we find very few Greeks who attempted to inquire into the outlying parts of the world, owing to the practical impossibility of doing so; for the sea had so many perils that it is difficult to enumerate them, and the land ever so many more. Again, even if anyone by his own choice or by the force of circumstances reached the extremity of the world, that did not mean that he was able to accomplish his purpose. For it was a difficult matter to see many things at all closely with one’s own eyes, owing to some of the countries being utterly barbarous and others quite desolate, and it was still more difficult to get information about the things one did see, owing to the difference of the language. Then, even if anyone did see for himself and observe the facts, it was even still more difficult for him to be moderate in his statements, to scorn all talk of marvels and, preferring truth for its own sake, to tell us nothing beyond it.

As, therefore, it was almost impossible in old times to give a true account of the regions I speak of, we should not find fault with the writers for their omissions or mistakes, but should praise and admire them, considering the times they lived in, for having ascertained something on the subject and advanced our knowledge. But in our own times since, owing to Alexander’s empire in Asia and that of the Romans in other parts of the world, nearly all regions have become approachable by sea or land, since our men of action in Greece are relieved from the ambitions of a military or political career and have therefore ample means for inquiry and study, we ought to be able to arrive at a better knowledge and something more like the truth about lands which were formerly little known. This is what I myself will attempt to do when I find a suitable place in this work for introducing the subject, and I shall then ask those who are curious about such things to give their undivided attention to me, in view of the fact that I underwent the perils of journeys through Africa, Spain, and Gaul, and of voyages on the seas that lie on the farther side of these countries, mostly for this very purpose of correcting the errors of former writers and making those parts of the world also known to the Greeks.

But now returning to the point at which I digressed from my narrative I shall attempt to describe the battles between the Romans and Carthaginians in Italy.

Annals of the Four Masters.

144 BCE. Fachtna Fathach, son of Rossa, son of Rudhraighe, after having been sixteen years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was slain by Eochaidh Feidhleach.

143 BCE. The first year of Eochaidh Feidhleach in the sovereignty over Ireland.

132 BCE. Eochaidh Feidhleach, son of Finn, son of Finnlogha, after having been twelve years in the sovereignty of Ireland, died at Teamhair Tara.

131 BCE. The first year of Eochaidh Aireamh (brother of Eochaidh Feidhleach) in the sovereignty of Ireland.

117 BCE. Eochaidh Aireamh, after having been fifteen years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was burned by Sighmall, at Freamhainn.

116 BCE. The first year of Ederscel, son of Oilioll, as king over Ireland.

112 BCE. Ederscel, son of Eoghan, son of Oilioll, after having been five years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was slain by Nuadha Neacht, at Aillinn.

111 BCE. Nuadha Neacht, son of Sedna Sithbhaic, after having spent half a year in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell in the battle of Cliach, in Ui Drona, by Conaire Mor. The half year of the joint reign of Clann Eimhir Finn, being added to this half year of Nuadha Neacht, completes ninety and five thousand years of the age of the world.

110 BCE. The first year of Conaire Mor, son of Ederscel, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

102BCE. St Jerome.

From letter CXXIII to Ageruchia in 409AD
I will merely relate one which took place in your own country and which will shew you that chastity is held in high honour even among wild and barbarous and cruel peoples. Once the Teutons who came from the remote shores of the German Ocean overran all parts of Gaul, and it was only when they had cut to pieces several Roman armies that Marius at last defeated them in an encounter at Aquæ Sextiæ.

By the conditions of the surrender three hundred of their married women were to be handed over to the Romans. When the Teuton matrons heard of this stipulation they first begged the consul that they might be set apart to minister in the temples of Ceres and Venus;

The priestesses in these temples seem to have been vowed to chastity.
and then when they failed to obtain their request and were removed by the lictors, they slew their little children and next morning were all found dead in each other’s arms having strangled themselves in the night

106 – 43 BCE Cicero

106-43 BC. Cicero.

FROM THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS,

But if all the parts of the universe are so constituted that nothing could be better for use or beauty, let us consider whether this is the effect of chance, or whether, in such a state they could possibly cohere, but by the direction of wisdom and divine providence. Nature, therefore, cannot be void of reason, if art can bring nothing to perfection without it, and if the works of nature exceed those of art. How is it consistent with common-sense that when you view an image or a picture, you imagine it is wrought by art; when you behold afar off a ship under sail, you judge it is steered by reason and art; when you see a dial or water-clock, you believe the hours are shown by art, and not by chance; and yet that you should imagine that the universe, which contains all arts and the artificers, can be void of reason and understanding?

But if that sphere which was lately made by our friend Posidonius, the regular revolutions of which show the course of the sun, moon, and five wandering stars, as it is every day and night performed, were carried into Scythia or Britain, who, in those barbarous countries, would doubt that the sphere had been made so perfect by the exertion of reason?

XXXV. Yet these people doubt whether the universe, from whence all things arise and are made, is not the effect of chance, or some necessity, rather than the work of reason and a divine mind. According to them, Archimedes shows more knowledge in representing the motions of the celestial globe than nature does in causing them, though the copy is so infinitely beneath the original. The shepherd in Attius, who had never seen a ship, when he perceived from a mountain afar off the divine vessel of the Argonauts, surprised and frighted at this new object, expressed himself in this manner:

What can be more regular than the flux and reflux of the Euripus at Chalcis, the Sicilian sea, and the violence of the ocean in those parts where the rapid tide does Europe from the Libyan coast divide?

The same appears on the Spanish and British coasts. Must we conclude that some Deity appoints and directs these ebbings and flowings to certain fixed times? Consider, I pray, if everything which is regular in its motion is deemed divine, whether it will not follow that tertian and quartan agues must likewise be so, as their returns have the greatest regularity. These effects are to be explained by reason; but, because you are unable to assign any, you have recourse to a Deity as your last refuge.

TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) CUMAE (APRIL)

[Sidenote: B.C. 54, AET. 52]

In all my letters to Caesar or Balbus there is a sort of statutory appendix containing a recommendation of you, and not one of the ordinary kind, but accompanied by some signal mark of my warm feeling towards you. See only that you get rid of that feeble regret of yours for the city and city ways, and carry out with persistence and courage what you had in your mind when you set out. We, your friends, shall pardon your going away for that purpose as much as “The wealthy noble dames who held the Corinthian peak” pardoned Medea, whom, with hands whitened to the utmost with chalk, she persuaded not to think ill of her for being absent from her fatherland: for “Many have served themselves abroad and served the state as well; Many have spent their lives at home to be but counted fools.” In which latter category you would have certainly been, had I not forced you abroad. But I will write more another time. You who learnt to look out for others, look out, while in Britain, that you are not yourself taken in by the charioteers; and, since I have begun quoting the Medea_, remember this line: “The sage who cannot serve himself is vainly wise I ween.”

Take care of your health

CXXXVI (F VII, 7) TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (ON HIS WAY TO GAUL)

CUMAE (APRIL OR MAY) [Sidenote: B.C. 54, AET. 52]

For my part, I never cease recommending you, but I am eager to know from you how far my recommendation is of service. My chief hope is in Balbus, to whom I write about you with the greatest earnestness and frequency. It often excites my wonder that I don’t hear from you as often as from my brother Quintus. In Britan I am told there is no gold or silver. If that turns out to be the case, I advise you to capture a war-chariot and hasten back to us at the earliest opportunity. But if–letting Britain alone–we can still obtain what we want, take care to get on intimate terms with Caesar. In that respect, my brother will be of much use to you, so will Balbus, but most of all, believe me, your own modesty and industry. You have an imperator of the most liberal character, your age is exactly the best one for employment, and your recommendation at any rate is quite unique, so that all you have to fear is not doing yourself full justice.

TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) ROME (JUNE) [Sidenote: B.C. 54, AET. 52]

Caesar has written me a very courteous letter saying that he has not yet seen as much of you as he could wish, owing to his press of business, but that he certainly will do so. I have answered his letter and told him how much obliged I shall be if he bestows on you as much attention, kindness, and liberality as he can. But I gathered from your letters that you are in somewhat too great a hurry: and at the same time, I wondered why you despised the profits of a military tribuneship, especially as you are exempted from the labour of military duty. I shall express my discontent to Vacerra and Manilius: for I dare not say a word to Cornelius, who is responsible for your unwise conduct, since you profess to have learnt legal wisdom from him. Rather press on your opportunity and the means put into your hands, than which none better will ever be found. As to what you say of the jurist Precianus, I never cease recommending you to him; for he writes me word that you owe him thanks. Be sure to let me know to what that refers. I am waiting for a letter from you dated “Britain.“

TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS (IN GAUL) ROME (3 JUNE) [Sidenote: B.C. 54, AET. 52]

On the 2nd of June, the day of my return to Rome, I received your letter dated Placentia: then next day another dated Blandeno, along with a letter from Caesar filled full of courteous, earnest, and pleasant expressions. These expressions are indeed valuable, or rather most valuable, as tending very powerfully to secure our reputation and exalted position in that state. But believe me–for you know my heart–that what I value most in all this I already possess, that is, first of all, your active contribution to our common position; and secondly, all that warm affection of Caesar for me, which I prefer to all the honours which he desires me to expect at his hands. His letter too, despatched at the same time as your own–which begins by saying what pleasure your arrival and the renewed memory of our old affection had given him, and goes on to say that he will take care that, in the midst of my sorrow and regret at losing you, I shall have reason to be glad that you are with him of all people–gave me extraordinary delight. Wherefore you, of course, are acting in a truly brotherly spirit when you exhort me, though, by heaven, I am now indeed forward enough to do so, to concentrate all my attentions upon him alone. Yes, I will do so, indeed, with a burning zeal: and perhaps I shall manage to accomplish what is frequently the fortune of travellers when they make great haste, who, if they have got up later than they intended, have, by increasing their speed, arrived at their destination sooner than if they had waked up before daylight. Thus I, since I have long overslept myself in cultivating that great man, though you, by heaven, often tried to wake me up, will make up for my slowness with horses and (as you say he likes my poem) a poet’s chariots. Only let me have Britain to paint in colours supplied by yourself, but with my own brush. But what am I saying? What prospect of leisure have I, especially as I remain at Rome in accordance with his request? But I will see. For perhaps, as usual, my love for you will overcome all difficulties. For my having sent Trebatius to him he even thanks me in very witty and polite terms, remarking that there was no one in the whole number of his staff who knew how to draw up a recognizance. I have asked him for a tribuneship for M. Curtius—since Domitius (the consul) would have thought that he was being laughed at, if my petition had been addressed to him, for his daily assertion is that he hasn’t the appointment of so much as a military tribune: he even jested in the senate at his colleague Appius as having gone to visit Caesar, that he might get from him at least one tribuneship. But my request was for next year, for that was what Curtius wished. Whatever line you think I ought to take in politics and in treating my opponents, be sure I shall take, and shall be “gentler than any ear-lap.” Affairs at Rome stand thus; there is some hope of the elections taking place, but it is an uncertain one. There is some latent idea of a dictatorship, but neither is that confirmed. There is profound calm in the forum, but it is rather the calm of decrepitude than content. The opinions I express in the senate are of a kind to win the assent of others rather than my own: “Such the effects of miserable war.”

TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS OR ON HIS JOURNEY TO ASIA) ROME (? 24 JUNE) [Sidenote: B.C. 54, AET. 52]

The bare fact of my letter being by the hand of an amanuensis will be a sign of the amount of my engagements. I have no fault to find with you as to the number of your letters, but most of them told me nothing except where you were, or at most shewed by the fact that they came from you that no harm had happened to you. Of this class of letters there were two which gave me very great pleasure, dated by you from Buthrotum almost at the same time: for I was anxious to know that you had a favourable crossing. But this constant supply of your letters did not give me so much pleasure by the richness of their contents as by their frequency. The one which your guest, M. Paccius, delivered to me was important and full of matter. I will therefore answer it. And this is the first thing I have to say: I have shewn Paccius, both by word and deed, what weight a recommendation from you has: accordingly, he is among my intimate friends, though unknown to me before. Now for the rest. Varro, of whom you write, shall be got in somewhere, if I can but find a place for him. But you know the style of my Dialogues: just as in those “On the Orator,” which you praise to the skies, a mention of anyone by the interlocutors was impossible, unless he had been known to or heard of by them, so in the “Dialogue on the Republic,” which I have begun, I have put the discussion in the mouths of Africanus, Philus, Laelius, and Manilius. I have added two young men, Q. Tubero and P. Rutilius, and the two sons-in-law of Laelius, Scaevola and Fannius. So, I am thinking how (since I employ introductions to each book, as Aristotle does in what he calls his “Exoterics”) to contrive some pretext for naming your friend in a natural way, as I understand is your wish. May I only be enabled to carry out my attempt! For, as you cannot but observe, I have undertaken a subject wide, difficult, and requiring the utmost leisure–the very thing that, above all others, I lack. In those books which you commend you complain of the absence of Scaevola among the speakers. Well, I did not withdraw him without a set purpose, but I did exactly what that god of our idolatry, Plato, did in his Republic. When Socrates had come to the Piraeus on a visit to Cephalus, a wealthy and cheerful old man, during all the introductory conversation the old man takes part in the discussion; then, after having himself made a speech very much to the point, he says that he wants to go away to attend on the religious rites, and does not return again. I believe Plato hardly thought that it would be quite natural, if he kept a man of that age any longer in a conversation so protracted. I thought that I was bound to be still more careful in the case of Scaevola, who was at the age and with the broken health as you remember he then was, and who had enjoyed such high offices, that it was scarcely in accordance with etiquette for him to be staying several days in the Tusculan villa of Crassus. Besides, the conversation in the first book was not unconnected with Scaevola’s special pursuits: the other books, as you know, contain a technical discussion. In such I was unwilling that that facetious veteran, as you know he was, should take part.

As to Pilia’s business, which you mention, I will see to it. For the matter is quite clear, as you say, from the information supplied by Aurelianus, and in managing it I shall have also an opportunity of glorifying myself in my Tullia’s eyes. I am supporting Vestorius: for I know that it gratifies you, and I am careful that he would understand that to be the case. But do you know the sort of man he is? Though he has two such good-natured people to deal with, nothing can exceed his impracticability. Now as to what you ask about Gaius Cato. You know that he was acquitted under the lex Iunia Licinia: I have to tell you that he will be acquitted under the lex Fufia, and not so much to the satisfaction of his defenders as of his accusers. However, he has become reconciled to myself and Milo. Drusus has had notice of prosecution by Lucretius. The 3rd of July is the day fixed for challenging his jurors. About Procilius there are sinister rumours–but you know what the courts are. Hirrus is on good terms with Domitius. The senatorial decree which the present consuls have carried about the provinces–“whoever henceforth, etc.”–does not seem to me likely to have any effect.

As to your question about Messalla, I don’t know what to say: I have never seen candidates so closely matched. Messalla’s means of support you know. Scaurus has had notice of prosecution from Triarius. If you ask me, no great feeling of sympathy for him has been roused. Still, his aedileship is remembered with some gratitude, and he has a certain hold on the country voters from the memory of his father. The two remaining plebeian candidates have compensating advantages which make them about equal: Domitius Calvinus is strong in friends, and is farther supported by his very popular exhibition of gladiators; Memmius finds favour with Caesar’s veterans and relies on Pompey’s client towns in Gaul. If this does not avail him, people think that some tribune will be found to push off the elections till Caesar comes back, especially since Cato has been acquitted.

I have answered your letter brought by Paccius: now for the rest. From my brother’s letter, I gather surprising indications of Caesar’s affection for me, and they have been confirmed by a very cordial letter from Caesar himself. The result of the British war is a source of anxiety. For it is ascertained that the approaches to the island are protected by astonishing masses of cliff. Moreover, it is now known that there isn’t a pennyweight of silver in that island, nor any hope of booty except from slaves, among whom I don’t suppose you can expect any instructed in literature or music.

Paullus has almost brought his basilica in the forum to the roof, using the same columns as were in the ancient building: the part for which he gave out a contract he is building on the most magnificent scale. Need I say more? Nothing could be more gratifying or more to his glory than such a monument. Accordingly, the friends of Caesar–I mean myself and Oppius, though you burst with anger–have thought nothing of 60,000 sestertia (about L480,000) for that monument, which you used to speak of in such high terms, in order to enlarge the forum and extend it right up to the Hall of Liberty. The claims of private owners could not be satisfied for less. We will make it a most glorious affair. For in the Campus Martius we are about to erect voting places for the comitia tributa, of marble and covered, and to surround them with a lofty colonnade a mile in circumference: at the same time the Villa Publica will also be connected with these erections. You will say: “What good will this monument do me?” But why should I trouble myself about that? I have told you all the news at Rome: for I don’t suppose you want to know about the lustrum, of which there is now no hope, or about the trials which are being held under the (Cincian) law.

Now allow yourself to be scolded, if you deserve it. For you say in the letter from Buthrotum, delivered to me by C. Decimus, that you think you will have to go to Asia. There did not, by Hercules, seem to me to be anything that made it matter in the least whether you did the business by agents or in person; or anything to make you go so often and so far from your friends. But I could have wished that I had urged this on you before you had taken any step. For I certainly should have had some influence on you. As things are, I will suppress the rest of my scolding. May it only have some effect in hastening your return! The reason of my not writing oftener to you is the uncertainty I am in as to where you are or are going to be. However, I thought I ought to give this letter to a chance messenger, because he seemed to be likely to see you. Since you think you really will go to Asia, pray tell me by what time we may expect you back, and what you have done about Eutychides.

TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS) ROME, 27 JULY [Sidenote: B.C. 54, AET. 52]

I am glad about Eutychides, who, using your old raenomen and your new nomen, will be called Titus Caecilius, just as Dionysius, from a combination of your names and mine, is Marcus Pomponius. I am, by Hercules, exceedingly gratified that Eutychides has had cause to know your kindness to me, and that the sympathy he shewed me in the time of my sorrow was neither unnoticed at the time nor afterwards forgotten by me. I suppose you were obliged to undertake your journey to Asia. For you never would have been willing, without the most urgent cause, to be so far from so many persons and things which you love so much, and which give you so much delight. But the speed of your return will shew your kindness and love for your friends. Yet I fear lest the rhetorician Clodius, by his charms, and Pituanius, that excellent scholar, as he is said to be, and now, indeed, so wholly devoted to Greek letters, may detain you. But if you would shew the feelings of a man, come back to us at the time you promised. You will, after all, be able to enjoy their society at Rome, when they get there safe. You say you desire something in the way of a letter from me: I have written, and, indeed, on many subjects–everything detailed like a journal–but, as I conjecture from your not having, as it seems, remained long in Epirus, I suppose it has not reached you. Moreover, my letters to you are generally of such a kind, that I don’t like to put them in anyone’s hands, unless I can feel certain that he will deliver them to you.

Now for affairs at Rome. On the 4th of July Sufenas and Cato were acquitted, Procilius condemned. From which we have learnt that our treble-distilled Areopagites care not a rush for bribery, elections, interregnum, lese majeste, or, in fact, for the state generally; but that they would rather that a father of a family were not murdered on his own hearth-stone–and even that preference not very decided. There were twenty-two votes for acquittal, twenty-nine for condemnation! Publius, no doubt by an eloquent peroration in his speech for the prosecution, had quickened the feelings of the jurors! Herbalus was in the case, and behaved as usual. I said never a word. For my little girl, who is unwell, was afraid of offending Publius’s feelings. After this was over the people of Reate conducted me to their Tempe, to plead their cause against the people of Interamna before the consul and ten commissioners, because the Veline Lake, which had been drained by Manius Curius by cutting away the mountain, flowed into the Nar, by which means the famous Rosia has been reclaimed from the swamp, though still fairly moist. I lived with Axius, who took me also to visit Seven Waters. I returned to Rome on the 9th of July for the sake of Fonteius. I entered the theatre. At first I was greeted with loud and general applause–but don’t take any notice of that, I was a fool to mention it–then I turned my attention to Antiphon. He had been manumitted before being brought on to the stage. Not to keep you in suspense, he bore away the palm. But there never was anything so dwarfish, so destitute of voice, so—- But keep this to yourself. However, in the Andromache he was just taller than Astyanax: among the rest he had not one of his own height. You next ask about Arbuscula: she had a great success. The games were splendid and much liked. The wild-beast hunt was put off to a future occasion. Next follow me into the _campus_. Bribery is raging: “and I a sign to you will tell.” The rate of interest from being four percent, on the 15th of July has gone up to eight percent. You will say, “Well, I don’t mind that.” What a man! What a citizen! Memmius is supported by all Caesar’s influence. The consuls have formed a coalition between him and Domitius (Calvinus) on terms which I dare not commit to paper. Pompey rages, remonstrates, backs Scaurus, but whether only ostensibly or from the heart people don’t feel sure. No one takes the lead: money reduces all to the same level. Messalla’s chance is at a low ebb: not because he is wanting in spirit or friends, but becaus this coalition of the consuls, as well as Pompey’s opposition, stands in his way. I think the result will be a postponement of the elections. The tribunician candidates have taken an oath to conduct their canvass according to the direction of Cato. They have deposited with him 500 sestertia apiece, on condition that whoever Cato condemns should forfeit it, and that it should be paid over to his competitors. I write this the day before the elections are to take place. But on the 28th of July, if they have taken place, and if the letter-carrier has not started, I will write you an account of the whole comitia: and, if they are conducted without corruption, Cato by himself will have been more efficacious than all laws and jurors put together. I have undertaken to defend Messius, who has been recalled from his legation: for Appius had named him legatus to Caesar. Servilius ordered his attendance in an edict. His jurors are to be from the tribes Pomptina, Velina, and Maecia. It is a sharp fight: however, it is going fairly well. After that I have to prepare myself for Drusus, then for Scaurus. Very high-sounding title-slips are being prepared for my speeches! Perhaps even the consuls-designate will be added to the list of my clients: and if Scaurus is not one of them, he will find himself in serious difficulties in this trial. Judging from my brother Quintus’s letter, I suspect that by this time he is in Britain. I await news of him with anxiety. We have certainly gained one advantage—many unmistakable indications enable us to feel sure that we are in the highest degree liked and valued by Caesar. Please give my compliments to Dionysius, and beg and exhort him to come as soon as possible, that he may continue the instruction of my son and of myself as well.

TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) ROME (SEPTEMBER) Sidenote: B.C. 54, AET. 52]

From what I gather from your letter I have thanked my brother Quintus, and can besides at last heartily commend you, because you at length seem to have come to some fixed resolution. For I was much put out by your letters in the first months of your absence, because at times you seemed to me–pardon the expression–to be light-minded in your longing for the city and city life, at others timid in undertaking military work, and often even a little inclined to presumption–a thing as unlike your usual self as can be. For, as though you had brought a bill of exchange, and not a letter of recommendation to your commander-in-chief, you were all in a hurry to get your money and return home; and it never occurred to you that those who went to Alexandria with real bills of exchange have as yet not been able to get a farthing. If I looked only to my own interests, I should wish, above all things, to have you with me: for I used to find not only pleasure of no ordinary kind in your society, but also much advantage from your advice and active assistance. But since from your earliest manhood you had devoted yourself to my friendship and protection, I thought it my duty not only to see that you came to no harm, but to advance your fortunes and secure your promotion. Accordingly, as long as I thought I should be going abroad to a province, I am sure you remember the voluntary offers I made you. After that plan had been changed, perceiving that I was being treated by Caesar with the highest consideration, and was regarded by him with unusual affection, and knowing as I did his incredible liberality and unsurpassed loyalty to his word, I recommended you to him in the weightiest and most earnest words at my command. And he accepted this recommendation in a gratifying manner, and repeatedly indicated to me in writing, and shewed you by word and deed, that he had been powerfully affected by my recommendation. Having got such a man as your patron, if you believe me to have any insight, or to be your well-wisher, do not let him go; and if by chance something at times has annoyed you, when from being busy or in difficulties he has seemed to you somewhat slow to serve you, hold on and wait for the end, which I guarantee will be gratifying and honourable to you. I need not exhort you at any greater length: I only give you this warning, that you will never find a better opportunity, if you let this slip, either of securing the friendship of a most illustrious and liberal man, or of enjoying a wealthier province or a more suitable time of life. “Quintus Cornelius concurred,” as you say in your law books. I am glad you didn’t go to Britain, because you have been saved some hard work, and I the necessity of listening to your stories about that expedition. Pray write to me at full length as to where you are going to winter, and what your hopes and present position are.

TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS (IN BRITAIN) ROME (SEPTEMBER) [Sidenote: B.C. 54, AET. 52]

When you receive a letter from me by the hand of an amanuensis, you may be sure that I have not even a little leisure; when by my own–a little. For let me tell you that in regard to causes and trials in court, I have never been closer tied, and that, too, at the most unhealthy season of the year, and in the most oppressively hot weather. But these things, since you so direct me, I must put up with, and must not seem to have come short of the ideas and expectations which you and Caesar entertain of me, especially since, even if it were somewhat difficult not to do that, I am yet likely from this labour to reap great popularity and prestige. Accordingly, as you wish me to do, I take great pains not to hurt anyone’s feelings, and to secure being liked even by those very men who are vexed at my close friendship with Caesar, while by those who are impartial, or even inclined to this side, I may be warmly courted and loved. When some very violent debates took place in the senate on the subject of bribery for several days, because the candidates for the consulship had gone to such lengths as to be past all bearing, I was not in the house. I have made up my mind not to attempt any cure of the political situation without powerful protection. The day I write this Drusus has been acquitted on a charge of collusion by the tribuni aerarii, in the grand total by four votes, for the majority of senators and equites were for condemnation. On the same day, I am to defend Vatinius. That is an easy matter. The comitia have been put off to September. Scaurus’s trial will take place immediately, and I shall not fail to appear for him. I don’t like your “Sophoclean Banqueters” at all, though I see that you played your part with a good grace. I come now to a subject which, perhaps, ought to have been my first. How glad I was to get your letter from Britain! I was afraid of the ocean, afraid of the coast of the island. The other parts of the enterprise I do not underrate; but yet they inspire more hope than fear, and it is the suspense rather than any positive alarm that renders me uneasy. You, however, I can see, have a splendid subject for description, topography, natural features of things and places, manners, races, battles, your commander himself–what themes for your pen! I will gladly, as you request, assist you in the points you mention, and will send you the verses you ask for, that is, “An owl to Athens.” But, look you! I think you are keeping me in the dark. Tell me, my dear brother, what Caesar thinks of my verses. For he wrote before to tell me he had read my first book. Of the first part, he said that he had never read anything better even in Greek: the rest, up to a particular passage, somewhat “careless”–that is his word. Tell me the truth–is it the subject-matter or the “style” that he does not like? You needn’t be afraid: I shall not admire myself one whit the less. On this subject speak like a lover of truth, and with your usual brotherly frankness.

TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS (IN BRITAIN) ARPINUM AND ROME, 28 SEPTEMBER [Sidenote: B.C. 54, AET. 52]

After extraordinarily hot weather–I never remember greater heat–I have refreshed myself at Arpinum, and enjoyed the extreme loveliness of the river during the days of the games, having left my tribesmen under the charge of Philotimus. I was at Arcanum on the 10th of September. There I found Mescidius and Philoxenus, and saw the water, for which they were making a course not far from your villa, running quite nicely, especially considering the extreme drought, and they said that they were going to collect it in much greater abundance. Everything is right with Herus. In your Manilian property I came across Diphilus outdoing himself in dilatoriness. Still, he had nothing left to construct, except baths, and a promenade, and an aviary. I liked that villa very much, because its paved colonnade gives it an air of very great dignity. I never appreciated this till now that the colonnade itself has been all laid open, and the columns have been polished. It all depends–and this I will look to–upon the stuccoing being prettily done. The pavements seemed to be being well laid. Certain of the ceilings I did not like, and ordered them to be changed. As to the place in which they say that you write word that a small entrance hall is to be built–namely, in the colonnade–I liked it better as it is. For I did not think there was space sufficient for an entrance hall; nor is it usual to have one, except in those buildings which have a larger court; nor could it have bedrooms and apartments of that kind attached to it. As it is, from the very beauty of its arched roof, it will serve as an admirable summer room. However, if you think differently, write back word as soon as possible. In the bath, I have moved the hot chamber to the other corner of the dressing-room, because it was so placed that its steam pipe was immediately under the bedrooms. A fair-sized bedroom and a lofty winter one I admired very much, for they were both spacious and well-situated–on the side of the promenade nearest to the bath. Diphilus had placed the columns out of the perpendicular, and not opposite each other. These, of course, he shall take down; he will learn some day to use the plumb-line and measure. On the whole, I hope Diphilus’s work will be completed in a few months: for Caesius, who was with me at the time, keeps a very sharp look-out upon him.

Thence I started straight along the via Vitularia to your Fufidianum, the estate which we bought for you a few weeks ago at Arpinum for 100,000 sesterces (about L800). I never saw a shadier spot in summer–water springs in many parts of it, and abundant into the bargain. In short, Caesius thought that you would easily irrigate fifty iugera of the meadow land. For my part, I can assure you of this, which is more in my line, that you will have a villa marvellously pleasant, with the addition of a fish-pond, spouting fountains, a palaestra, and a shrubbery. I am told that you wish to keep this Bovillae estate. You will determine as you think good. Calvus said that, even if the control of the water were taken from you, and the right of drawing it off were established by the vendor, and thus an easement was imposed on that property, we could yet maintain the price in case we wished to sell. He said that he had agreed with you to do the work at three sesterces a foot, and that he had stepped it, and made it three miles. It seemed to me more. But I will guarantee that the money could nowhere be better laid out. I had sent for Cillo from Venafrum, but on that very day four of his fellow servants and apprentices had been crushed by the falling in of a tunnel at Venafrum. On the 13th of September, I was at Laterium. I examined the road, which appeared to me to be so good as to seem almost like a high road, except a hundred and fifty paces–for I measured it myself from the little bridge at the temple of Furina, in the direction of Satricum. There they had put down dust, not gravel (this shall be changed), and that part of the road is a very steep incline. But I understood that it could not be taken in any other direction, particularly as you did not wish it to go through the property of Locusta or Varro. The latter alone had made the road very well where it skirted his own property. Locusta hadn’t touched it; but I will call on him at Rome, and think I shall be able to stir him up, and at the same time I shall ask M. Taurus, who is now at Rome, and whom I am told promised to allow you to do so, about making a watercourse through his property. I much approved of your steward Nicephorius, and I asked him what orders you had given about that small building at Laterium, about which you spoke to me. He told me in answer that he had himself contracted to do the work for sixteen sestertia, but that you had afterwards made many additions to the work, but nothing to the price, and that he had therefore given it up. I quite approve, by Hercules, of your making the additions you had determined upon; although the villa as it stands seems to have the air of a philosopher, meant to rebuke the extravagance of other villas. Yet, after all, that addition will be pleasing. I praised your landscape gardener: he has so covered everything with ivy, both the foundation-wall of the villa and the spaces between the columns of the walk, that, upon my word, those Greek statues seemed to be engaged in fancy gardening, and to be showing off the ivy. Finally, nothing can be cooler, or more mossy, than the dressing-room of the bath. That is about all I have to say about country matters. The gardener, indeed, as well as Philotimus and Cincius are pressing on the ornamentation of your town house; but I also often look in upon it myself, as I can do without difficulty. Wherefore don’t be at all anxious about that.

As to your always asking me about your son, of course I “excuse you”; but I must ask you to “excuse” me also, for I don’t allow that you love him more than I do. And oh, that he had been with me these last few days at Arpinum, as he had himself set his heart on being, and as I had no less done! As to Pomponia, please write and say that, when I go out of town anywhere, she is to come with me and bring the boy. I’ll do wonders with him, if I get him to myself when I am at leisure: for at Rome there is no time to breathe. You know I formerly promised to do so for nothing. What do you expect with such a reward as you promise me? I now come to your letters which I received in several packets when I was at Arpinum. For I received three from you in one day, and, indeed, as it seemed, despatched by you at the same time–one of considerable length, in which your first point was that my letter to you was dated earlier than that to Caesar. Oppius at times cannot help this: the reason is that, having settled to send letter-carriers, and having received a letter from me, he is hindered by something turning up, and obliged to despatch them later than he had intended; and I don’t take the trouble to have the day altered on a letter which I have once handed to him. You write about Caesar’s extreme affection for us. This affection you must on your part keep warm, and I for mine will endeavour to increase it by every means in my power. About Pompey, I am carefully acting, and shall continue to act, as you advise. That my permission to you to stay longer is a welcome one, though I grieve at your absence and miss you exceedingly, I am yet partly glad. What you can be thinking of in sending for such people as Hippodamus and some others, I do not understand. There is not one of those fellows that won’t expect a present from you equal to a suburban estate. However, there is no reason for your classing my friend Trebatius with them. I sent him to Caesar, and Caesar has done all I expected. If he has not done quite what he expected himself, I am not bound to make it up to him, and I in like manner free and absolve you from all claims on his part. Your remark, that you are a greater favourite with Caesar every day, is a source of undying satisfaction to me. As to Balbus, who, as you say, promotes that state of things, he is the apple of my eye. I am indeed glad that you and my friend Trebonius like each other. As to what you say about the military tribuneship, I, indeed, asked for it definitely for Curtius, and Caesar wrote back definitely to say that there was one at Curtius’s service, and chided me for my modesty in making the request. If I have asked one for anyone else–as I told Oppius to write and tell Caesar—I shall not be at all annoyed by a refusal, since those who pester me for letters are annoyed at a refusal from me. I like Curtius, as I have told him, not only because you asked me to do so, but from the character you gave of him; for from your letter I have gathered the zeal he showed for my restoration. As for the British expedition, I conclude from your letter that we have no occasion either for fear or exultation. As to public affairs, about which you wish Tiro to write to you, I have written to you hitherto somewhat more carelessly than usual, because I knew that all events, small or great, were reported to Caesar. I have now answered your longest letter.

Now hear what I have to say to your small one. The first point is about Clodius’s letter to Caesar. In that matter, I approve of Caesar’s policy, in not having given way to your request so far as to write a single word to that Fury. The next thing is about the speech of Calventius “Marius.” I am surprised at your saying that you think I ought to answer it, particularly as, while no one is likely to read that speech, unless I write an answer to it, every schoolboy learns mine against him as an exercise. My books, all of which you are expecting, I have begun, but I cannot finish them for some days yet. The speeches for Scaurus and Plancius which you clamour for I have finished. The poem to Caesar, which I had begun, I have cut short. I will write what you ask me for, since your poetic springs are running dry, as soon as I have time.

Now for the third letter. It is very pleasant and welcome news to hear from you that Balbus is soon coming to Rome, and so well accompanied! and will stay with me continuously till the 15th of May. As to your exhorting me in the same letter, as in many previous ones, to ambition and labour, I shall, of course, do as you say: but when am I to enjoy any real life?

Your fourth letter reached me on the 13th of September, dated on the 10th of August from Britain. In it there was nothing new except about your Erigona, and if I get that from Oppius I will write and tell you what I think of it. I have no doubt I shall like it. Oh yes! I had almost forgotten to remark as to the man who, you say in your letter, had written to Caesar about the applause given to Milo–I am not unwilling that Caesar should think that it was as warm as possible. And in point of fact it was so, and yet that applause, which is given to him, seems in a certain sense to be given to me.

I have also received a very old letter, but which was late in coming into my hands, in which you remind me about the temple of Tellus and the colonnade of Catulus. Both of these matters are being actively carried out. At the temple of Tellus I have even got your statue placed. So, again, as to your reminder about a suburban villa and gardens, I was never very keen for one, and now my town house has all the charm of such a pleasure-ground. On my arrival in Rome on the 18th of September I found the roof on your house finished: the part over the sitting-rooms, which you did not wish to have many gables, now slopes gracefully towards the roof of the lower colonnade. Our boy, in my absence, did not cease working with his rhetoric master. You have no reason for being anxious about his education, for you know his ability, and I see his application. Everything else I take it upon myself to guarantee, with full consciousness that I am bound to make it good.

As yet there are three parties prosecuting Gabinius: first, L. Lentulus, son of the flamen, who has entered a prosecution for lese majeste; secondly, Tib. Nero, with good names at the back of his indictment; thirdly, C. Memmius the tribune in conjunction with L. Capito. He came to the walls of the city on the 19th of September, undignified and neglected to the last degree. But in the present state of the law courts I do not venture to be confident of anything. As Cato is unwell, he has not yet been formally indicted for extortion. Pompey is trying hard to persuade me to be reconciled to him, but as yet he has not succeeded at all, nor, if I retain a shred of liberty, will he succeed. I am very anxious for a letter from you. You say that you have been told that I was a party to the coalition of the consular candidates–it is a lie. The compacts made in that coalition, afterwards made public by Memmius, were of such a nature that no loyal man ought to have been a party to them; nor at the same time was it possible for me to be a party to a coalition from which Messalla was excluded, who is thoroughly satisfied with my conduct in every particular, as also, I think, is Memmius. To Domitius himself I have rendered many services, which he desired and asked of me. I have put Scaurus under a heavy obligation by my defence of him. It is as yet very uncertain both when the elections will be and who will be consuls.

Just as I was folding up this epistle letter-carriers arrived from you and Caesar (20th September) after a journey of twenty days. How anxious I was! How painfully I was affected by Caesar’s most kind letter! But the kinder it was, the more sorrow did his loss occasion me. But to turn to your letter. To begin with, I reiterate my approval of your staying on, especially as, according to your account, you have consulted Caesar on the subject. I wonder that Oppius has anything to do with Publius, for I advised against it. Farther on in your letter you say that I am going to be made legatus to Pompey on the 13th of September: I have heard nothing about it, and I wrote to Caesar to tell him that neither Vibullius nor Oppius had delivered his message to Pompey about my remaining at home. Why, I know not. However, it was I who restrained Oppius from doing so, because it was Vibullius who should take the leading part in that matter: for with him Caesar had communicated personally, with Oppius only by letter. I indeed can have no “second thoughts” in matters connected with Caesar. He comes next after you and our children in my regard, and not much after. I think I act in this with deliberate judgment, for I have by this time good cause for it, yet warm personal feeling no doubt does influence me also.

Just as I had written these last words–which are by my own hand—your boy came in to dine with me, as Pomponia was dining out. He gave me your letter to read, which he had received shortly before–a truly Aristophanic mixture of jest and earnest, with which I was greatly charmed. He gave me also your second letter, in which you bid him cling to my side as a mentor. How delighted he was with those letters! And so was I. Nothing could be more attractive than that boy, nothing more affectionate to me! This, to explain its being in another handwriting, I dictated to Tiro while at dinner.

Your letter gratified Annalis very much, as shewing that you took an active interest in his concerns, and yet assisted him with exceedingly candid advice. Publius Servilius the elder, from a letter which he said he had received from Caesar, declares himself highly obliged to you for having spoken with the greatest kindness and earnestness of his devotion to Caesar. After my return to Rome from Arpinum I was told that Hippodamus had started to join you. I cannot say that I was surprised at his having acted so discourteously as to start to join you without a letter from me: I only say this, that I was annoyed. For I had long resolved, from an expression in your letter, that if I had anything I wished conveyed to you with more than usual care, I should give it to him: for, in truth, into a letter like this, which I send you in an ordinary way, I usually put nothing that, if it fell into certain hands, might be a source of annoyance. I reserve myself for Minucius and Salvius and Labeo. Labeo will either be starting late or will stay here altogether. Hippodamus did not even ask me whether he could do anything for me. T. Penarius sends me a kind letter about you: says that he is exceedingly charmed with your literary pursuits, conversation, and above all by your dinners. He was always a favourite of mine, and I see a good deal of his brother. Wherefore continue, as you have begun, to admit the young man to your intimacy.

From the fact of this letter having been in hand during many days, owing to the delay of the letter-carriers, I have jotted down in it many various things at odd times, as, for instance, the following. Titus Anicius has mentioned to me more than once that he would not hesitate to buy a suburban property for you, if he found one. In these remarks of his I find two things surprising: first, that when you write to him about buying a suburban property, you not only don’t write to me to that effect, but write even in a contrary sense; and, secondly, that in writing to him you totally forget his letters which you shewed me at Tusculum, and as totally the rule of Epicharmus, “Notice how he has treated another”: in fact, that you have quite forgotten, as I think, the lesson conveyed by the expression of his face, his conversation, and his spirit. But this is your concern. As to a suburban property, be sure to let me know your wishes, and at the same time take care that that fellow doesn’t get you into trouble. What else have I to say? Anything? Yes, there is this: Gabinius entered the city by night on the 27th of September, and to-day, at two o’clock, when he ought to have appeared on his trial for lese majeste, in accordance with the edict of C. Alfius, he was all but crushed to the earth by a great and unanimous demonstration of the popular hatred. Nothing could exceed his humiliating position. However, Piso comes next to him. So, I think of introducing a marvellous episode into my second book—Apollo declaring in the council of the gods what sort of return that of the two commanders was to be, one of whom had lost, and the other sold his army. From Britain, I have a letter of Caesar’s dated the 1st of September, which reached me on the 27th, satisfactory enough as far as the British expedition is concerned, in which, to prevent my wondering at not getting one from you, he tells me that you were not with him when he reached the coast. To that letter I made no reply, not even a formal congratulation, on account of his mourning. Many, many wishes, dear brother, for your health.

TO ATTICUS (IN ASIA) ROME, OCTOBER [Sidenote: B.C. 54, AET. 52]

… As it is, to tell you my opinion of affairs, we must put up with it. You ask me how I have behaved. With firmness and dignity. “What about Pompey,” you will say, “how did he take it?” With great consideration, and with the conviction that he must have some regard for my position, until a satisfactory atonement had been made to me. “How, then,” you will say, “was the acquittal secured?” It was a case of mere dummies, and incredible incompetence on the part of the accusers–that is to say, of L. Lentulus, son of Lucius, who, according to the universal murmur, acted collusively. In the next place, Pompey was extraordinarily urgent; and the jurors were a mean set of fellows. Yet, in spite of everything, there were thirty-two votes for conviction, thirty-eight for acquittal. There are the other prosecutions hanging over his head: he is by no means entirely free yet. You will say, “Well, then, how do you bear it?” With the best air possible, by heaven! and I really do plume myself on my behaviour. We have lost, my dear Pomponius, not only all the healthy sap and blood of our old constitution, but even its colour and outward show. There is no Republic to give a moment’s pleasure or a feeling of security. “And is that, then,” you will say, “a satisfaction to you?” Precisely that. For I recall what a fair course the state had for a short time, while I was at the helm, and what a return has been made me! It does not give me a pang that one man absorbs all power. The men to burst with envy are those who were indignant at my having had some power. There are many things which console me, without my departing an inch from my regular position; and I am returning to the life best suited to my natural disposition—to letters and the studies that I love. My labour in pleading I console by my delight in oratory. I find delight in my town house and my country residences. I do not recall the height from which I have fallen, but the humble position from which I have risen. As long as I have my brother and you with me, let those fellows be hanged, drawn, and quartered for all I care: I can play the philosopher with you. That part of my soul, in which in old times irritability had its home, has grown completely callous. I find no pleasure in anything that is not private and domestic. You will find me in a state of magnificent repose, to which nothing contributes more than the prospect of your return. For there is no one in the wide world whose feelings are so much in sympathy with my own. But now let me tell you the rest. Matters are drifting on to an interregnum; and there is a dictatorship in the air, in fact a good deal of talk about it, which did Gabinius also some service with timid jurors. All the candidates for the consulship are charged with bribery. You may add to them Gabinius, on whom L. Sulla had served notice, feeling certain that he was in a hopeless position–Torquatus having, without success, demanded to have the prosecution. But they will all be acquitted, and henceforth no one will be condemned for anything except homicide. This last charge is warmly pressed, and accordingly informers are busy. M. Fulvius Nobilior has been convicted. Many others have had the wit to abstain from even putting in an appearance. Is there any more news? Yes! After Gabinius’s acquittal another panel of jurors, in a fit of irritation, an hour later condemned Antiochus Gabinius, some fellow from the studio of Sopolis, a freedman and orderly officer of Gabinius, under the lex Papia. Consequently, he at once remarked, “So the Republic will not acquit me under the law of treason as it did you!”

Pomptinus wants to celebrate a triumph on the 2nd of November. He is openly opposed by the praetors Cato and Servilius and the tribune Q. Mucius. For they say that no law for his _imperium_ was ever carried: and this one too was carried, by heaven, in a stupid way. But Pomptinus will have the consul Appius on his side. Cato, however, declares that he shall never triumph so long as he is alive. I think this affair, like many of the same sort, will come to nothing. Appius thinks of going to Cilicia without a law, and at his own expense. I received a letter on the 24th of October from my brother and from Caesar, dated from the nearest coasts of Britain on the 26th of September. Britain done with … hostages taken … no booty … a tribute, however, imposed; they were on the point of bringing back the army. Q. Pilius has just set out to join Caesar. If you have any love for me or your family, or any truth in you, or even if you have any taste left, and any idea of enjoying all your blessings, it is really time for you to be on your way home, and, in fact, almost here. I vow I cannot get on without you. And what wonder that I can’t get on without you, when I miss Dionysius so much? The latter, in fact, as soon as the day comes, both I and my young Cicero will demand of you. The last letter I had from you was dated Ephesus, 9th of August.

TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) ROME (NOVEMBER) [Sidenote: B.C. 54, AET. 52]

In the “Trojan Horse,” just at the end, you remember the words, “Too late they learn wisdom.” You, however, old man, were wise in time. Those first snappy letters of yours were foolish enough, and then! I don’t at all blame you for not being over-curious in regard to Britain. For the present, however, you seem to be in winter quarters somewhat short of warm clothing, and therefore not caring to stir out: “Not here and there, but everywhere, Be wise and ware: No sharper steel can warrior bear.” If I had been by way of dining out, I would not have failed your friend Cn. Octavius; to whom, however, I did remark upon his repeated invitations, “Pray, who are you?” But, by Hercules, joking apart, he is a pretty fellow: I could have wished you had taken him with you! Let me know for certain what you are doing and whether you intend coming to Italy at all this winter. Balbus has assured me that you will be rich. Whether he speaks after the simple Roman fashion, meaning that you will be well supplied with money, or according to the Stoic dictum, that “all are rich who can enjoy the sky and the earth,” I shall know hereafter. Those who come from your part accuse you of pride, because they say you won’t answer men who put questions to you. However, there is one thing that will please you: they all agree in saying that there is no better lawyer than you at Samarobriva!

TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) ROME (NOVEMBER) [Sidenote: B.C. 54, AET. 52]

I have read your letter which informs me that our Caesar considers you a great lawyer. You must be glad to have found a country where you have the credit of knowing something. But if you had gone to Britain also, I feel sure that there would not have been in all that great island anyone more learned in the law than you. However, you won’t mind my laughing, for you invited me to do so, I am becoming positively a little jealous of you! That you should have been actually sent for by a man whom other people, not because of his pride, but of his many engagements, cannot venture to approach!

But in that letter, you told me nothing about your success, which, by heaven, is of no less concern to me than my own. I am very much afraid you may be frozen in your winter quarters: and therefore, I think you ought to use a good stove. Mucius and Manilius “concur” in this opinion, especially on the ground of your being short of military cloaks. However, I am told that you are having a sufficiently warm time of it where you are–news which made me much alarmed for you. However, in military matters you are much more cautious than at the bar, seeing that you wouldn’t take a swim in the ocean, fond of swimming as you are, and wouldn’t take a look at the British charioteers, though in old time I could never cheat you even out of a blind-folded gladiator. But enough of joking. You know how earnestly I have written to Caesar about you; I know how often. Yet, in truth, I have lately ceased doing so, lest I should appear to distrust the kindness of a man who has been most liberal and affectionate to me. However, in the very last letter I wrote I thought he ought to be reminded. I did so. Please tell me what effect it had, and at the same time tell me about your position in general and all your plans. For I am anxious to know what you are doing, what you are expecting, how long your separation from us you think is to last. I would wish you to believe that the one consolation, enabling me to bear your absence, is the knowledge that it is for your advantage. But if that is not so, nothing can be more foolish than both the one and the other of us: me for not inducing you to come back to Rome–you for not flying thither. By heavens, our conversation, whether serious or jesting, will be worth more not only than the enemy, but even than our “brothers” the Haedui. Wherefore let me know about everything as soon as possible:

TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) ROME (JANUARY OR FEBRUARY) [Sidenote: B.C. 53, AET. 53]

If you had not left Rome before, you certainly would have left it now. For who wants a lawyer when there are so many interregna? I shall advise all defendants in civil suits to ask each interrex for two adjournments for obtaining legal assistance. Do you think that I have taken a pretty good hint from you as to civil procedure? But come! How are you? What is happening? For I notice in your letter a tendency to be even jocose. These are better signs than the signa in my Tusculan villa. But I want to know what it means. You say, indeed, that you are consulted by Caesar, but I should have preferred his consulting for you. If that is taking place, or you think it likely to take place, by all means persevere in your military service and stay on: I shall console myself for my loss of you by the hope that it will be your gain: but if, on the other hand, things are not paying with you, come back to us. For either something will turn up sooner or later here, or, if not, one conversation between you and me, by heaven, will be worth more than all the Samobrivae in the world. Finally, if you return speedily, there will be no talk about it; but if you stay away much longer without getting anything, I am in terror not only of Laberius, but of our comrade Valerius also. For it would make a capital character for a farce, a British lawyer! I am not laughing though you may laugh, but, as usual, when writing to you, I jest on the most serious subject. Joking apart, I advise you in the most friendly spirit, that if you hold a position for yourself worthy of my introduction, you should put up with the loss of my society and farther your own career and wealth: but if things are stagnant with you there, come back to us. In spite of everything you will get all you want, by your own good qualities certainly, but also by my extreme affection for you.

TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) ROME (? MARCH) [Sidenote: B.C. 53, AET. 53]

Chrysippus Vettius, a freedman of the architect Cyrus, made me think that you had not quite forgotten me; for he has brought me a greeting in your words. You have grown a mighty fine gentleman, that you can’t take the trouble of writing a letter to me–a man, I might almost say, of your own family! But if you have forgotten how to write, all the fewer clients will lose their causes by having you as their advocate! If you have forgotten me, I will take the trouble of paying you a visit where you are, before I have quite faded out of your mind. If it is a terror of the summer camp that is disheartening you, think of some excuse to get off, as you did in the case of Britain. I was glad to hear one thing from that same Chrysippus, that you were on friendly terms with Caesar. But, by Hercules, I should have preferred, as I might fairly have expected, to be informed of your fortunes as frequently as possible from your own letters. And this would certainly have been the case, if you had been more forward to learn the laws of friendship than of suits in court. But this is all jest in your own vein, and to some degree in mine also. I love you very dearly, and I both wish to be loved by you and feel certain that I am.

The Era of Caesar

THE AGE OF CAESAR

King Alfred.

Book VI Chap XII

In the year of Rome 677, the Romans gave Julius Caesar the command of seven legions to carry on the war for five winters in Gaul, and after he had conquered these nataions, he went into the island of Brittonie, where fighting with the Bryttas, he was defeated in that part of the country which is called Centland. Soon after this he had a second engagement with the Brytas, in Centland, who were put to flight. Their third battle was near the river that men call the Temese (near those fords which are called Welingaford); after which, noot only all the inhabitants of Cyrnceastre submitted, but the whole island.

Nennius.

The Romans, having obtained the dominion of the world, sent legates or deputies to the Britons to demand of them hostages and tribute, which they received from all other countries and islands; but they, fierce, disdainful, and haughty, treated the legation with contempt. Then Julius Caesar, the first who had acquired absolute power at Rome, highly incensed against the Britons, sailed with sixty vessels to the mouth of the Thames, where they suffered shipwreck whilst he fought against Dolobellus, (the proconsul of the British king, who was called Belinus, and who was the son of Minocannus who governed all the islands of the Tyrrhene Sea), and thus Julius Caesar returned home without victory, having had his soldiers slain, and his ships shattered.

But after three years he again appeared with a large army, and three hundred ships, at the mouth of the Thames, where he renewed hostilities. In this attempt, many of his soldiers and horses were killed; for the same consul had placed iron pikes in the shallow part of the river, and this having been effected with so much skill and secrecy as to escape the notice of the Roman soldiers, did them considerable injury; thus, Caesar was once more compelled to return without peace or victory. The Romans were, therefore, a third time sent against the Britons; and under the command of Julius, defeated them near a place called Trinovantum (London), forty-seven years before the birth of Christ, and five thousand two hundred and twelve years from the creation.

Julius was the first exercising supreme power over the Romans who invaded Britain: in honour of him the Romans decreed the fifth month to be called after his name. He was assassinated in the Curia, in the ides of March, and Octavius Augustus succeeded to the empire of the world. He was the only emperor who received tribute from the Britons, according to the following verse of Virgil: “Purpurea intexti tollunt aulaea Britanni.”

Bede.

CHAP. II.

How Caius Julius Caesar was the first Roman Britain.

Now Britain had never been visited by the Romans, and was entirely unknown to them before the time of Caius Julius Caesar, who, in the year 693 after the foundation of Rome, but the sixtieth year before the Incarnation of our Lord, was consul with Lucius Bibulus. While he was making war upon the Germans and the Gauls, who were divided only by the river Rhine, he came into the province of the Morini, whence is the nearest and shortest passage into Britain. Here, having provided about eighty ships of burden and fast-sailing vessels, he sailed over into Britain; where, being first roughly handled in a battle, and then caught in a storm, he lost a considerable part of his fleet, no small number of foot-soldiers, and almost all his cavalry. Returning into Gaul, he put his legions into winter-quarters, and gave orders for building six hundred sail of both sorts. With these he again crossed over early in spring into Britain, but, whilst he was marching with the army against the enemy, the ships, riding at anchor, were caught in a storm and either dashed one against another, or driven upon the sands and wrecked. Forty of them were lost, the rest were, with much difficulty, repaired. Caesar’s cavalry was, at the first encounter, defeated by the Britons, and there Labienus, the tribune, was slain. In the second engagement, with great hazard to his men, he defeated the Britons and put them to flight. Thence he proceeded to the river Thames, where a great multitude of the enemy had posted themselves on the farther side of the river, under the command of Cassobellaunus, and fenced the bank of the river and almost all the ford under water with sharp stakes: the remains of these are to be seen to this day, apparently about the thickness of a man’s thigh, cased with lead, and fixed immovably in the bottom of the river. This being perceived and avoided by the Romans, the barbarians, not able to stand the charge of the legions, hid themselves in the woods, whence they grievously harassed the Romans with repeated sallies. In the meantime, the strong state of the Trinovantes, with their commander Androgius, surrendered to Caesar, giving him forty hostages. Many other cities, following their example, made a treaty with the Romans. Guided by them, Caesar at length, after severe fighting, took the town of Cassobellaunus, situated between two marshes, fortified by sheltering woods, and plentifully furnished with all necessaries. After this, Caesar returned from Britain into Gaul, but he had no sooner put his legions into winter quarters, then he was suddenly beset and distracted with wars and sudden risings on every side.

Liber Britannicus.

But after many ages the Romans took the sovereignty of the world, and they sent an ambassador to the island of Britain, to demand hostages and pledges, such as they had taken from every other country. The ambassadors, however, went away displeased without hostages; and the king, viz., Julius Caesar, was enraged with the Britons, and came with sixty ships to the mouth of the river Tames. Now Bellinus was king of the island of Britain at that time. And Dolabellus, pro-consul of the King of Britain, went to meet Julius Caesar, and the soldiers of the king were cut down; in the meantime, tempestuous weather and storm broke his ships, and the king was driven back without victory to his country. He came again, however, at the end of three years, with three hundred ships, to the same bay; but Dolobellus put spikes of iron in the fording place of the river, in preparation for the battle, so that the Roman soldiers fell by this invisible stratagem, i. e., by the seeds of batt1e.

Notwithstanding, a rally was made by Julius, and battle was given in the land which is called Tinnandrum, so that he broke that battle before him, and took the sovereignty of the island, forty-seven years before the birth of Christ, ab initio mundi 5035.

Now Julius, the first king of the Romans, who took the island of Britain, was killed in his own senate; and it was in his honour that the Romans gave the month of July its name, at the end of seven and forty years after the birth of Christ.

Plutarch,

Plutarch’s Lives.

LIFE OF POMPEIUS.

Pompeius being appointed to look after the management and the supply of corn, sent his deputies and friends to many places, and he himself sailed to Sicily and Sardinia and Libya and collected grain. When he was about to set sail, there was a violent wind on the sea, and the masters of the ships were unwilling to put out, but Pompeius embarking first and bidding them raise the anchor, cried, “It is necessary to sail; there is no necessity to live.” By such boldness and zeal, and the help of good fortune, Pompeius filled the markets with grain and the sea with ships, so that the superfluity of what he got together sufficed even for those who were without, and there was as from a spring an abundant overflowing for all.

LI. During this time the Celtic wars raised Caesar to great distinction; and though he was considered to be a very long way from Rome, and to be occupied with Belgae and Suevi and Britanni, he contrived, by his skilful management, without being perceived, in the midst of the popular assemblies, and in the most important matters, to frustrate the political measures of Pompeius. For Caesar’s military force was like a body that invested him, and he was training it to toil, and making it invincible and formidable, not to oppose the barbarians, but he was disciplining his men in these contests just as if it were merely hunting wild beasts and pursuing them with dogs; and in the meantime he was sending to Rome gold and silver, and the rest of the spoil and wealth which he got in abundance from so many enemies, and by tempting people there with gifts, and assisting aediles in their expenses, and generals and consuls and their wives, he was gaining over many of them; so that when he had crossed the Alps and was wintering in Luca, there was a great crowd of men and women who vied with one another in their eagerness to visit him, besides two hundred of the Senatorian class, among whom were Pompeius and Crassus; and one hundred and twenty fasces of proconsuls and praetors were seen at Caesar’s doors.

Plutarch.

LIFE OF CAESAR

In Britannia on one occasion the natives had attacked the foremost centurions who had got into a marshy spot full of water, upon which, in the presence of Caesar who was viewing the contest, a soldier rushed into the midst of the enemy, and after performing many conspicuous acts of valour, rescued the centurions from the barbarians, who took to flight. The soldier, with difficulty attempting to cross after all the rest, plunged into the muddy stream, and with great trouble and the loss of his shield, sometimes swimming, sometimes walking, he got safe over. While those who were about Caesar were admiring his conduct, and coming to receive him with congratulations and shouts, the soldier, with the greatest marks of dejection and tears in his eyes, fell down at Caesar’s feet and begged pardon for the loss of his shield.

His expedition against the Britanni was notorious for its daring: for he was the first who entered the western Ocean with an armament and sailed through the Atlantic sea, leading an army to war; and by attempting to occupy an island of incredible magnitude, which furnished matter for much dispute to numerous writers, who affirmed that the name and the accounts about it were pure inventions, for it never had existed and did not then exist, he extended the Roman supremacy beyond the inhabited world. After twice crossing over to the island from the opposite coast of Gaul, and worsting the enemy in many battles rather than advantaging his own men, for there was nothing worth taking from men who lived so wretched a life and were so poor, he brought the war to a close not such as he wished, but taking hostages from the king and imposing a tribute, he retired from the island.

Suetonius Tranquillus.

Life of Julius Caesar

XXV. During nine years in which he held the government of the province,his achievements were as follows: he reduced all Gaul, bounded by the Pyrenean forest, the Alps, mount Gebenna, and the two rivers, the Rhine and the Rhone, and being about three thousand two hundred miles encompass, into the form of a province, excepting only the nations in alliance with the republic, and such as had merited his favour; imposing upon this new acquisition an annual tribute of forty millions of sesterces. He was the first of the Romans who, crossing the Rhine by a bridge, attacked the Germanic tribes inhabiting the country beyond that river, whom he defeated in several engagements. He also invaded the Britons, a people formerly unknown, and having vanquished them, exacted from them contributions and hostages. Amidst such a series of successes, he experienced thrice only any signal disaster; once in Britain, when his fleet was nearly wrecked in a storm; in Gaul, at Gergovia, where one of his legions was put to the rout; and in the territory of the Germans, his lieutenants Titurius and Aurunculeius were cut off by an ambuscade.

XLVII. They likewise report that he invaded Britain in hopes of finding pearls, the size of which he would compare together, and as certain the weight by poising them in his hand; that he would purchase, at any cost, gems, carved works, statues, and pictures, executed by the eminent masters of antiquity; and that he would give for young and handy slaves a price so extravagant, that he forbade its being entered in the diary of his expenses.

LVIII. In his expeditions, it is difficult to say whether his caution or his daring was most conspicuous. He never marched his army by roads which were exposed to ambuscades, without having previously examined the nature of the ground by his scouts. Nor did he cross over to Britain, before he had carefully examined, in person, the navigation, the harbours, and the most convenient point of landing in the island. When intelligence was brought to him of the siege of his camp in Germany, he made his way to his troops, through the enemy’s stations, in a Gaulish dress. He crossed the sea from Brundisium and Dyrrachium, in the winter, through the midst of the enemy’s fleets; and the troops, under orders to join him, being slow in their movements, notwithstanding repeated messages to hurry them, but to no purpose, he at last went privately, and alone, aboard a small vessel in the night time, with his head muffled up; nor did he make himself known, or suffer the master to put about, although the wind blew strong against them, until they were ready to sink.

Velleius Paterculus.

Meanwhile, in Gaul, Gaius Caesar was carrying on his gigantic task, which could scarcely be covered in many volumes. Not content with his many fortunate victories, and with slaying or taking as prisoners countless thousands of the enemy, he even crossed into Britain, as though seeking to add another world to our empire and to that which he had himself won. Gnaeus Pompeius and Marcus Crassus, who had once been consuls together, now entered upon their second consulship, which office they not only won by unfair means, but also administered without popular approval. In a law which Pompey proposed in the assembly of the people, Caesar’s tenure of office in his provinces was continued for another five years, and Syria was decreed to Crassus, who was now planning to make war upon Parthia. Although Crassus was, in his general character, entirely upright and free from base desires, in his lust for money and his ambition for glory he knew no limits, and accepted no bounds. On his departure for Asia the tribunes of the people made ineffectual efforts to detain him by the announcement of baleful omens. If the curses which they called down upon him had affected Crassus alone, the loss of the commander would not have been without advantage to the state, had but the army been saved. He had crossed the Euphrates and was now marching toward Seleucia when he was surrounded by King Orodes with his innumerable bands of cavalry and perished together with the greater part of his army. Remnants of the legions were saved by Gaius Cassius — (he was later the perpetrator of a most atrocious crime, but was at that time quaestor) — who not only retained Syria in its allegiance to the Roman people, but succeeded, by a fortunate issue of events, in defeating and putting to rout the Parthians when they crossed its borders.

During this period, including the years which immediately followed and those of which mention has already been made, more than four hundred thousand of the enemy were slain by Gaius Caesar and a greater number were taken prisoners. Many times had he fought in pitched battles, many times on the march, many times as besieger or besieged. Twice he penetrated into Britain, and in all his nine campaigns there was scarcely one which was not fully deserving of a triumph. His feats about Alesia were of a kind that a mere man would scarcely venture to undertake, and scarcely anyone but a god could carry through.

Eutropius.

In the six hundred and ninety-third year from the founding of the city, Caius Julius Caesar, who was afterwards emperor, was made consul with Lucius Bibulus; and Gaul and Illyricum, with ten legions, were decreed to him. He first subdued the Helvetii, who are now called Sequani; and afterwards, by conquering in most formidable wars, proceeded as far as the British ocean. In about nine years he subdued all that part of Gaul which lies between the Alps, the river Rhone, the Rhine, and the Ocean, and extends in circumference nearly three thousand two hundred miles. He next made war upon the Britons, to whom not even the name of the Romans was known before his time; and having subdued them, and received hostages, sentenced them to pay a tribute. On Gaul, under the name of tribute, he imposed the yearly sum of forty thousand sestertia; and invading the Germans on the other side of the Rhine, defeated them in several most sanguinary engagements. Among so many successes, he met with three defeats, once in person among the Arverni, and twice in Germany during his absence; for two of his lieutenant-generals, Titurius and Aurunculeius, were cut off by ambuscades.

At no period was the Roman state more flourishing; for, to say nothing of the civil wars, in which he (Octavianus Augustus) was unconquered, he added to the Roman empire Egypt, Cantabria, Dalmatia, often before conquered but only then entirely subdued, Pannonia, Aquitania, Illyricum, Rhaetia, the Vindelici and Salassi on the Alps, and all the maritime cities of Pontus, among which the two most noble were Bosporus and Panticapaeon. He also conquered the Dacians in battle; put to the sword numerous forces of the Germans; and drove them beyond the river Elbe, which is in the country of the barbarians far beyond the Rhine. This war however he carried on by the agency of his step-son Drusus, as he had conducted the Pannonian war by that of his other step-son Tiberius, in which he transplanted forty thousand prisoners from Germany, and settled them in Gaul on the bank of the Rhine. He recovered Armenia from the Parthians; the Persians gave him hostages, which they had given to no one before; and also restored the Roman standards, which they had taken from Crassus when he was defeated.

Cassius Dio.

Such was the end of these wars. After this, when the winter had passed in which Cornelius Spinther and Metellus Nepos began their consulship, a third war burst upon them. The Belgae, dwelling near the Rhine with many mingled tribes and extending to the ocean opposite Britain, had been during the previous epoch at peace with the Romans so far as concerned a part of their nation, while the rest paid no heed to them: but now, noting Caesar’s prosperity and fearing that he might advance against them, they made a change of front and by common agreement (except on the part of the Remi) took counsel against the Romans and conspired, making Galba their head.

Caesar learned this from the Remi and was on his guard against them: subsequently he encamped at the river Axona, collected his soldiers all together and exercised them. He did not venture to come into close quarters with the enemy, though they were overrunning Roman territory, until they felt contempt for him, thinking him afraid, and undertook to destroy the bridge and put a stop to the conveyance of grain, which the allies brought across it. He was made aware beforehand by deserters that this was to be done, and by night sent against the foe the light-armed troops and the cavalry. So they, unexpectedly assaulting the barbarians, killed many of them, so that the following night they all withdrew thence to their own land, especially since the Aeduans were reported to have invaded it. Caesar perceived what was going on, but through ignorance of the country did not dare to pursue them immediately. At daybreak, however, he took the cavalry, bade the infantry follow behind, and came up with the fugitives. They proceeded to give battle, for he was thought to have come with his cavalry alone, and he delayed them until the infantry arrived. In this way, he surrounded them with his whole force, cut down the majority, and made terms with the survivors. Later he brought into allegiance some of the peoples without fighting and some by war.

The Rhine issues from the Celtic Alps, a little outside of Rhaetia, and proceeding westward, with Gaul and its inhabitants on the left, it bounds the Celts on the right, and finally empties into the ocean. This has always, even till now, been considered the boundary, from which they came to the difference in names, since very anciently both the peoples dwelling on each side of the river were called Celts.

Caesar, then, first of Romans crossed the Rhine at this time, and later in the consulship of Pompey and Crassus he traversed the channel of Britain. This country is distant from the Belgic mainland, opposite the Morini, three hundred and fifty stades at the shortest computation, and extends alongside the rest of Gaul and nearly all of Spain, reaching out into the sea. To the very first of the Greeks and Romans it was not even known; to their descendants it was a matter of dispute whether it was a continent or an island. And its history was written from both points of view by many who knew nothing about it, because they had not seen with their own eyes nor heard from the natives with their own ears, but indulged in guesses according as each had leisure or fondness for talk. As time went on, first under Agricola as propraetor and now under Severus as emperor, it has been clearly proven to be an island.

To this land then, Caesar, since he had won over the Morini and the rest of Gaul was quiet, desired to cross. He made the voyage with infantry by the most desirable course, but did not select the best landing-place. For the Britons, having ascertained in advance that he as sailing against them, had secured all the landings on the main coast. Accordingly, he sailed around a kind of projecting headland and coasted along on the other side of it. There he disembarked in shoal water, conquered those who joined battle with him and got a footing on dry land before more numerous assistance could come, after which he repulsed their attack also. Not many of the barbarians fell, for they had chariot drivers, and being mounted easily escaped the Romans whose cavalry had not yet arrived; but alarmed at the reports about them from the mainland and because they had dared to cross at all and had managed to set foot upon the land, they sent to Caesar some of the Morini who were friends of theirs, to see about terms of peace. On this occasion he demanded hostages, which they were willing to give.

But as the Romans meanwhile began to encounter difficulties by reason of a storm which damaged their fleet that was present and also the one on the way, they changed their minds and though not attacking the invaders openly (for their camp was strongly guarded), they received some who had been sent out to bring in provisions on the assumption that the country was friendly, and destroyed them all, save a few, to whose rescue Caesar came with speed. After that they assaulted the very camp of the invaders. Here they accomplished nothing, but fared badly; they would not, however, make terms until they had been often defeated. And Caesar properly did not intend to make peace with them, but since the winter was approaching, and he was not equipped with a sufficient force to continue fighting at that season. Moreover because his supplies had failed and the Gauls in absence had begun an uprising, he somewhat unwillingly concluded a truce with them, demanding this time still more hostages, but obtaining only a few.

So, he sailed back to the mainland and put an end to the disturbances. From Britain, he had won nothing for himself or for the City except the glory of having conducted an expedition against that land. But on this he prided himself greatly and the Romans at home magnified it to a remarkable degree. Seeing that the formerly unknown had become certain and the previously unheard of accessible, they regarded the hope arising from these facts as already realized and exulted over their expected achievements as if the latter were already within their grasp.

In Cath Catharda.

The Civil War of the Romans (Author: [unknown])

Caesar’s Hosting in the Island of Britain.

In the six-hundred-and-ninety-third year from the building of Rome by Romulus, and in the sixtieth year before the birth of Christ, Caesar was appointed to the dictatorship by the Romans, with full-many legions of the loveless youths of Italy, at the rough land of Gaul and of the broad-long country of Lochlann, for those are one country save for the intervention of the very pure river Rhine which divides and separates the two lands.

In those countries he fought great battles, and he came forward westward into the territory of the Morini and into the island of Britain. Never before had the might of the Romans reached that island. Caesar came to the arm of the sea that is there, and on its brink eighty ships were built by him that he might convey the army in them over it westward into the neighbouring harbours of the territory of Britain.

That expedition was not easy for him, for a great storm fell on his fleet, and most of his ships foundered. Moreover, the folk of the country slew a multitude of his foot-soldiers, and almost all his cavalry was killed. A huge tempest and the intolerable storm of the rough weather of winter came thereunder, so Caesar turned his hosts and dismissed his soldiers to their winter-quarters. He trusted and enjoined them to build six hundred wide, full-spacious vessels, so that they might be ready for sea on the return of the following spring. They were all made ready, as Caesar said.

During the season of winter, he waited in the Alps, and at the beginning of the vernal serenity he came, having a great host from his son-in-law Pompey the Great; and his army was taken in those six hundred ships again to the island of Britain.

That night he himself pitched a camp on the shore of the haven, with his ships at anchor in front of him; and he sent his cavalry to raid the country, with Labienus, a tribune of the Romans, at their head. On that night there came on the sea the movement of a mighty tempest, and the storm struck Caesar’s vessels, and sixty of them were shattered so that they could never be repaired. The folk of the country routed the cavalry, and Labienus fell at their hands.

Thereafter Caesar himself encountered the folk of the island of Britain. A bloody battle was fought between them: the Britons were vanquished: their slaughter was inflicted upon them; and Caesar on that occasion avenged all his people, and ravaged the country before him up to the river Thames westward. There was a large army of Britons on the brinks of that river, awaiting him. Cassivellaunus was the name of their leader. Great rows of sharp spikes were planted by him in the banks of the river on the path by which they desired the Romans to come. Still are seen certain butt-ends of those spikes on the strand in summer, and each of the butts is as thick as a warrior’s thigh, and (there are) wraps of lead around them in the deep of the river.

Caesar turned from the ford when he knew of the preparation that was (made) there, and he crossed by another ford on the river, and hunted the host of Britons, and took not (his) hands away from them until the shelter of the woods hid them from him.

Then on that night forty hostages were brought to him out of the city called Trinovantum, and thereout came guides, so that after a great contest he took the city of the chief named Cassivellaunus.

Thereafter he conquered the whole of the island of Britain, and thence returned to the lands of Gaul.

For the space of five years Caesar was subduing and violently seizing that land of the northwest of the world. And yet there were certain tribes there who were not obedient to him during that time.

Virgil.

The Georgics.

Amid my shrine shall Caesar’s godhead dwell.

To him will I, as victor, bravely light

In Tyrian purple, drive along the bank

A hundred four-horse cars. All Greece for me,

Leaving Alpheus and Molorchus’ grove,

On foot shall strive, or with the raw-hide glove;

Whilst I, my head with stripped green olive crowned,

Will offer gifts. Even ’tis present joy

To lead the high processions to the fane,

And view the victims felled; or how the scene

Sunders with shifted face, and Britain’s sons

Inwoven thereon with those proud curtains rise.

The Writings of Julius Caesar

The Gallic Wars
By Julius Caesar

BOOK ONE

Chapter 1

All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, those who in their own language are called Celts, in our Gauls, the third. All these differ from each other in language, customs and laws. The river Garonne separates the Gauls from the Aquitani; the Marne and the Seine separate them from the Belgae. Of all these, the Belgae are the bravest, because they are furthest from the civilization and refinement of [our] Province, and merchants least frequently resort to them, and import those things which tend to effeminate the mind; and they are the nearest to the Germans, who dwell beyond the Rhine, with whom they are continually waging war; for which reason the Helvetii also surpass the rest of the Gauls in valor, as they contend with the Germans in almost daily battles, when they either repel them from their own territories, or themselves wage war on their frontiers. One part of these, which it has been said that the Gauls occupy, takes its beginning at the river Rhone; it is bounded by the river Garonne, the ocean, and the territories of the Belgae; it borders, too, on the side of the Sequani and the Helvetii, upon the river Rhine, and stretches toward the north. The Belgae rises from the extreme frontier of Gaul, extend to the lower part of the river Rhine; and look toward the north and the rising sun. Aquitania extends from the river Garonne to the Pyrenaean mountains and to that part of the ocean which is near Spain: it looks between the setting of the sun, and the north star.

Chapter 29

In the camp of the Helvetii, lists were found, drawn up in Greek characters, and were brought to Caesar, in which an estimate had been drawn up, name by name, of the number which had gone forth from their country of those who were able to bear arms; and likewise the boys, the old men, and the women, separately. Of all which items the total was: Of the Helvetii [lit. of the heads of the Helvetii] 263,000. Of the Tulingi, 36,000. Of the Latobrigi, 14,000. Of the Rauraci, 23,000. Of the Boii, 32,000. The sum of all amounted to 368,000. Out of these, such as could bear arms, [amounted] to about 92,000. When the census of those who returned home was taken, as Caesar had commanded, the number was found to be 110,000.

Chapter 50

The next day, according to his custom, Caesar led out his forces from both camps, and having advanced a little from the larger one, drew up his line of battle, and gave the enemy an opportunity of fighting. When he found that they did not even then come out [from their intrenchments,] he led back his army into camp about noon. Then at last Ariovistus sent part of his forces to attack the lesser camp. The battle was vigorously maintained on both sides till the evening. At sunset, after many wounds had been inflicted and received, Ariovistus led back his forces into camp. When Caesar inquired of his prisoners, wherefore Ariovistus did not come to an engagement, he discovered this to be the reason – that among the Germans it was the custom for their matrons to pronounce from lots and divination, whether it was expedient that the battle should be engaged in or not; that they had said, “that it was not the will of heaven that the Germans should conquer, if they engaged in battle before the new moon.”

BOOK TWO

Chapter 4

When Caesar inquired of them what states were in arms, how powerful they were, and what they could do, in war, he received the following information: that the greater part of the Belgae were sprung, from the Germans, and that having crossed the Rhine at an early period, they had settled there, on account of the fertility of the country, and had driven out the Gauls who inhabited those regions; and that they were the only people who, in the memory of our fathers, when all Gaul was overrun, had prevented the Teutones and the Cimbri from entering their territories; the effect of which was, that, from the recollection of those events, they assumed to themselves great authority and haughtiness in military matters. The Remi said, that they had known accurately everything respecting their number, because being united to them by neighborhood and by alliances, they had learned what number each state had in the general council of the Belgae promised for that war. That the Bellovaci were the most powerful among them in valor, influence, and the number of men; that these could muster 100,000 armed men, [and had] promised 60,000 picked men out of that number, and demanded for themselves the command of the whole war. That the Suessiones were their nearest neighbors and possessed a very extensive and fertile country; that among them, even in our own memory, Divitiacus, the most powerful man of all Gaul, had been king; who had held the government of a great part of these regions, as well as of Britain; that their king at present was Galba; that the direction of the whole war was conferred by the consent of all, upon him, on account of his integrity and prudence; that they had twelve towns; that they had promised 50,000 armed men; and that the Nervii, who are reckoned the most warlike among them, and are situated at a very great distance, [had promised] as many; the Atrebates 15,000; the Ambiani, 10,000; the Morini, 25,000; the Menapii, 9,000; the Caleti, 10,000; the Velocasses and the Veromandui as many; the Aduatuci 19,000; that the Condrusi, the Eburones, the Caeraesi, the Paemani, who are called by the common name of Germans [had promised], they thought, to the number of 40,000.

Chapter 5

Caesar, having encouraged the Remi, and addressed them courteously, ordered the whole senate to assemble before him, and the children of their chief men to be brought to him as hostages; all which commands they punctually performed by the day [appointed]. He, addressing himself to Divitiacus, the Aeduan, with great earnestness, points out how much it concerns the republic and their common security, that the forces of the enemy should be divided, so that it might not be necessary to engage with so large a number at one time. [He asserts] that this might be affected if the Aedui would lead their forces into the territories of the Bellovaci, and begin to lay waste their country. With these instructions he dismissed him from his presence. After he perceived that all the forces of the Belgae, which had been collected in one place, were approaching toward him, and learned from the scouts whom he had sent out, and [also] from the Remi, that they were then not far distant, he hastened to lead his army over the Aisne, which is on the borders of the Remi, and there pitched his camp. This position fortified one side of his camp by the banks of the river, rendered the country which lay in his rear secure from the enemy, and furthermore insured that provisions might without danger be brought to him by the Remi and the rest of the states. Over that river was a bridge: there he places a guard; and on the other side of the river he leaves Q. Titurius Sabinus, his lieutenant, with six cohorts. He orders him to fortify a camp with a rampart twelve feet in height, and a trench eighteen feet in breadth.

Chapter 6

There was a town of the Remi, by name Bibrax, eight miles distant from this camp. This the Belgae on their march began to attack with great vigor. [The assault] was with difficulty sustained for that day. The Gauls’ mode of besieging is the same as that of the Belgae: when after having drawn a large number of men around the whole of the fortifications, stones have begun to be cast against the wall on all sides, and the wall has been stripped of its defenders, [then], forming a testudo, they advance to the gates and undermine the wall: which was easily effected on this occasion; for while so large a number were casting stones and darts, no one was able to maintain his position upon the wall. When night had put an end to the assault, Iccius, who was then in command of the town, one of the Remi, a man of the highest rank and influence among his people, and one of those who had come to Caesar as embassador [to sue] for peace, sends messengers to him, [to report] “That, unless assistance were sent to him he could not hold out any longer.”

Chapter 13

Caesar, having received as hostages the first men of the state, and even the two sons of king Galba himself; and all the arms in the town having been delivered up, admitted the Suessiones to a surrender, and led his army against the Bellovaci. Who, when they had conveyed themselves and all their possessions into the town Galled Bratuspantium, and Caesar with his army was about five miles distant from that town, all the old men, going out of the town, began to stretch out their hands to Caesar, and to intimate by their voice that they would throw themselves on his protection and power, nor would contend in arms against the Roman people. In like manner, when he had come up to the town, and there pitched his camp, the boys and the women from the wall, with outstretched hands, after their custom, begged peace from the Romans.

Chapter 14

For these Divitiacus pleads (for after the departure of the Belgae, having dismissed the troops of the Aedui, he had returned to Caesar). “The Bellovaci had at all times been in the alliance and friendship of the Aeduan state; that they had revolted from the Aedui and made war upon the Roman people, being urged thereto by their nobles, who said that the Aedui, reduced to slavery by Caesar, were suffering every indignity and insult. That they who had been the leaders of that plot, because they perceived how great a calamity they had brought upon the state, had fled into Britain. That not only the Bellovaci, but also the Aedui, entreated him to use his [accustomed] clemency and lenity toward them [the Bellovaci]: which if he did, he would increase the influence of the Aedui among all the Belgae, by whose succor and resources they had been accustomed to support themselves whenever any wars occurred.”

Chapter 23

The soldiers of the ninth and tenth legions, as they had been stationed on the left part of the army, casting their weapons, speedily drove the Atrebates (for that division had been opposed to them,) who were breathless with running and fatigue, and worn out with wounds, from the higher ground into the river; and following them as they were endeavoring to pass it, slew with their swords a great part of them while impeded (therein). They themselves did not hesitate to pass the river; and having advanced to a disadvantageous place, when the battle was renewed, they [nevertheless] again put to flight the enemy, who had returned and were opposing them. In like manner, in another quarter two different legions, the eleventh and the eighth, having routed the Veromandui, with whom they had engaged, were fighting from the higher ground upon the very banks of the river. But, almost the whole camp on the front and on the left side being then exposed, since the twelfth legion was posted in the right wing, and the seventh at no great distance from it, all the Nervii, in a very close body, with Boduognatus, who held the chief command, as their leader, hastened toward that place; and part of them began to surround the legions on their unprotected flank, part to make for the highest point of the encampment.

BOOK THREE

Chapter 7

These things being achieved, while Caesar had every reason to suppose that Gaul was reduced to a state of tranquillity, the Belgae being overcome, the Germans expelled, the Seduni among the Alps defeated, and when he had, therefore, in the beginning of winter, set out for Illyricum, as he wished to visit those nations, and acquire a knowledge of their countries, a sudden war sprang up in Gaul. The occasion of that war was this: P. Crassus, a young man, had taken up his winter quarters with the seventh legion among the Andes, who border upon the [Atlantic] ocean. He, as there was a scarcity of corn in those parts, sent out some officers of cavalry, and several military tribunes among the neighbouring states, for the purpose of procuring corn and provision; in which number T. Terrasidius was sent among the Esubii; M. Trebius Gallus among the Curiosolitae; Q. Velanius, T. Silius, amongst the Veneti.

Chapter 8

The influence of this state is by far the most considerable of any of the countries on the whole sea coast, because the Veneti both have a very great number of ships, with which they have been accustomed to sail to Britain, and [thus] excel the rest in their knowledge and experience of nautical affairs; and as only a few ports lie scattered along that stormy and open sea, of which they are in possession, they hold as tributaries almost all those who are accustomed to traffic in that sea. With them arose the beginning [of the revolt] by their detaining Silius and Velanius; for they thought that they should recover by their means the hostages which they had given to Crassus. The neighboring people led on by their influence (as the measures of the Gauls are sudden and hasty), detain Trebius and Terrasidius for the same motive; and quickly sending embassadors, by means of their leading men, they enter into a mutual compact to do nothing except by general consent, and abide the same issue of fortune; and they solicit the other states to choose rather to continue in that liberty which they had received from their ancestors, than endure slavery under the Romans. All the sea coast being quickly brought over to their sentiments, they send a common embassy to P. Crassus [to say], “If he wished to receive back his officers, let him send back to them their hostages.”

Chapter 9

Caesar, being informed of these things by Crassus, since he was so far distant himself, orders ships of war to be built in the mean time on the river Loire, which flows into the ocean; rowers to be raised from the province; sailors and pilots to be provided. These matters being quickly executed, he himself, as soon as the season of the year permits, hastens to the army. The Veneti, and the other states also, being informed of Caesar’s arrival, when they reflected how great a crime they had committed, in that, the embassadors (a character which had among all nations ever been sacred and inviolable) had by them been detained and thrown into prison, resolve to prepare for a war in proportion to the greatness of their danger, and especially to provide those things which appertain to the service of a navy, with the greater confidence, inasmuch as they greatly relied on the nature of their situation. They knew that the passes by land were cut off by estuaries, that the approach by sea was most difficult, by reason of our ignorance of the localities, [and] the small number of the harbors, and they trusted that our army would not be able to stay very long among them, on account of the insufficiency of corn; and again, even if all these things should turn out contrary to their expectation, yet they were very powerful in their navy. They well understood that the Romans neither had any number of ships, nor were acquainted with the shallows, the harbors, or the islands of those parts where they would have to carry on the war; and the navigation was very different in a narrow sea from what it was in the vast and open ocean. Having come to this resolution, they fortify their towns, convey corn into them from the country parts, bring together as many ships as possible to Venetia, where it appeared Caesar would at first carry on the war. They unite to themselves as allies for that war, the Osismii, the Lexovii, the Nannetes, the Ambiliati, the Morini, the Diablintes, and the Menapii; and send for auxiliaries from Britain, which is situated over against those regions.

Chapter 10

There were these difficulties which we have mentioned above, in carrying on the war, but many things, nevertheless, urged Caesar to that war; – the open insult offered to the state in the detention of the Roman knights, the rebellion raised after surrendering, the revolt after hostages were given, the confederacy of so many states, but principally, lest if, [the conduct of] this part was overlooked, the other nations should think that the same thing was permitted them. Wherefore, since he reflected that almost all the Gauls were fond of revolution, and easily and quickly excited to war; that all men likewise, by nature, love liberty and hate the condition of slavery, he thought he ought to divide and more widely distribute his army, before more states should join the confederation.

Chapter 11

He therefore sends T. Labienus, his lieutenant, with the cavalry to the Treviri, who are nearest to the river Rhine. He charges him to visit the Remi and the other Belgians, and to keep them in their allegiance and repel the Germans (who were said to have been summoned by the Belgae to their aid,) if they attempted to cross the river by force in their ships. He orders P. Crassus to proceed into Aquitania with twelve legionary cohorts and a great number of the cavalry, lest auxiliaries should be sent into Gaul by these states, and such great nations be united. He sends Q. Titurius Sabinus his lieutenant, with three legions, among the Unelli, the Curiosolitae, and the Lexovii, to take care that their forces should be kept separate from the rest. He appoints D. Brutus, a young man, over the fleet and those Gallic vessels which he had ordered to be furnished by the Pictones and the Santoni, and the other provinces which remained at peace; and commands him to proceed toward the Veneti, as soon as he could. He himself hastens thither with the land forces.

Chapter 12

The sites of their towns were generally such that, being placed on extreme points [of land] and on promontories, they neither had an approach by land when the tide had rushed in from the main ocean, which always happens twice in the space of twelve hours; nor by ships, because, upon the tide ebbing again, the ships were likely to be dashed upon the shoals. Thus, by either circumstance, was the storming of their towns rendered difficult; and if at any time perchance the Veneti overpowered by the greatness of our works, (the sea having been excluded by a mound and large dams, and the latter being made almost equal in height to the walls of the town) had begun to despair of their fortunes; bringing up a large number of ships, of which they had a very great quantity, they carried off all their property and betook themselves to the nearest towns; there they again defended themselves by the same advantages of situation. They did this the more easily during a great part of the summer, because our ships were kept back by storms, and the difficulty of sailing was very great in that vast and open sea, with its strong tides and its harbors far apart and exceedingly few in number.

Chapter 13

For their ships were built and equipped after this manner. The keels were somewhat flatter than those of our ships, whereby they could more easily encounter the shallows and the ebbing of the tide: the prows were raised very high, and, in like manner the sterns were adapted to the force of the waves and storms [which they were formed to sustain]. The ships were built wholly of oak, and designed to endure any force and violence whatever; the benches which were made of planks a foot in breadth, were fastened by iron spikes of the thickness of a man’s thumb; the anchors were secured fast by iron chains instead of cables, and for sails they used skins and thin dressed leather. These [were used] either through their want of canvas and their ignorance of its application, or for this reason, which is more probable, that they thought that such storms of the ocean, and such violent gales of wind could not be resisted by sails, nor ships of such great burden be conveniently enough managed by them. The encounter of our fleet with these ships was of such a nature that our fleet excelled in speed alone, and the plying of the oars; other things, considering the nature of the place [and] the violence of the storms, were more suitable and better adapted on their side; for neither could our ships injure theirs with their beaks (so great was their strength), nor on account of their height was a weapon easily cast up to them; and for the same reason they were less readily locked in by rocks. To this was added, that whenever a storm began to rage and they ran before the wind, they both could weather the storm more easily and heave to securely in the shallows, and when left by the tide feared nothing from rocks and shelves: the risk of all which things was much to be dreaded by our ships.

Chapter 14

Caesar, after taking many of their towns, perceiving that so much labor was spent in vain and that the flight of the enemy could not be prevented on the capture of their towns, and that injury could not be done to them, he determined to wait for his fleet. As soon as it came up and was first seen by the enemy, about 220 of their ships, fully equipped and appointed with every kind of [naval] implement, sailed forth from the harbor, and drew up opposite to ours; nor did it appear clear to Brutus, who commanded the fleet, or to the tribunes of the soldiers and the centurions, to whom the several ships were assigned, what to do, or what system of tactics to adopt; for they knew that damage could not be done by their beaks; and that, although turrets were built [on their decks], yet the height of the stems of the barbarian ships exceeded these; so that weapons could not be cast up from [our] lower position with sufficient effect, and those cast by the Gauls fell the more forcibly upon us. One thing provided by our men was of great service, [viz.] sharp hooks inserted into and fastened upon poles, of a form not unlike the hooks used in attacking town walls. When the ropes which fastened the sail-yards to the masts were caught by them and pulled, and our vessel vigorously impelled with the oars, they [the ropes] were severed; and when they were cut away, the yards necessarily fell down; so that as all the hope of the Gallic vessels depended on their sails and rigging, upon these being cut away, the entire management of the ships was taken from them at the same time. The rest of the contest depended on courage; in which our men decidedly had the advantage; and the more so, because the whole action was carried on in the sight of Caesar and the entire army; so that no act, a little more valiant than ordinary, could pass unobserved, for all the hills and higher grounds, from which there was a near prospect of the sea were occupied by our army.

Chapter 15

The sail yards [of the enemy], as we have said, being brought down, although two and [in some cases] three ships [of theirs] surrounded each one [of ours], the soldiers strove with the greatest energy to board the ships of the enemy; and, after the barbarians observed this taking place, as a great many of their ships were beaten, and as no relief for that evil could be discovered, they hastened to seek safety in flight. And, having now turned their vessels to that quarter in which the wind blew, so great a calm and lull suddenly arose, that they could not move out of their place, which circumstance, truly, was exceedingly opportune for finishing the business; for our men gave chase and took them one by one, so that very few out of all the number, [and those] by the intervention of night, arrived at the land, after the battle had lasted almost from the fourth hour till sun-set.

Chapter 16

By this battle the war with the Veneti and the whole of the sea coast was finished; for both all the youth, and all, too, of more advanced age, in whom there was any discretion or rank, had assembled in that battle; and they had collected in that one place whatever naval forces they had anywhere; and when these were lost, the survivors had no place to retreat to, nor means of defending their towns. They accordingly surrendered themselves and all their possessions to Caesar, on whom Caesar thought that punishment should be inflicted the more severely, in order that for the future the rights of embassadors might be more carefully respected by barbarians; having, therefore, put to death all their senate, he sold the rest for slaves.

BOOK FOUR

Chapter 1

The following winter (this was the year in which Cn. Pompey and M. Crassus were consuls), those Germans [called] the Usipetes, and likewise the Tenchtheri, with a great number of men, crossed the Rhine, not far from the place at which that river discharges itself into the sea. The motive for crossing [that river] was, that having been for several years harassed by the Suevi, they were constantly engaged in war, and hindered from the pursuits of agriculture. The nation of the Suevi is by far the largest and the most warlike nation of all the Germans. They are said to possess a hundred cantons, from each of which they yearly send from their territories for the purpose of war a thousand armed men: the others who remain at home, maintain [both] themselves and those-engaged in the expedition. The latter again, in their turn, are in arms the year after: the former remain at home. Thus, neither husbandry, nor the art and practice of war are neglected. But among them there exists no private and separate land; nor are they permitted to remain more than one year in one place for the purpose of residence. They do not live much on corn, but subsist for the most part on milk and flesh, and are much [engaged] in hunting; which circumstance must, by the nature of their food, and by their daily exercise and the freedom of their life (for having from boyhood been accustomed to no employment, or discipline, they do nothing at all contrary to their inclination), both promote their strength and render them men of vast stature of body. And to such a habit have they brought themselves, that even in the coldest parts they wear no clothing whatever except skins, by reason of the scantiness of which, a great portion of their body is bare, and besides they bathe in open rivers.

Chapter 2

Merchants have access to them rather that they may have persons to whom they may sell those things which they have taken in war, than because they need any commodity to be imported to them. Moreover, even as to laboring cattle, in which the Gauls take the greatest pleasure, and which they procure at a great price, the Germans do not employ such as are imported, but those poor and ill-shaped animals, which belong to their country; these, however, they render capable of the greatest labor by daily exercise. In cavalry actions they frequently leap from their horses and fight on foot; and train their horses to stand still in the very spot on which they leave them, to which they retreat with great activity when there is occasion; nor, according to their practice, is any thing regarded as more unseemly, or more unmanly, than to use housings. Accordingly, they have the courage, though they be themselves but few, to advance against any number whatever of horse mounted with housings. They on no account permit wine to be imported to them, because they consider that men degenerate in their powers of enduring fatigue, and are rendered effeminate by that commodity.

Chapter 3

They esteem it their greatest praise as a nation, that the lands about their territories lie unoccupied to a very great extent, inasmuch as [they think] that by this circumstance is indicated, that a great number of nations can not withstand their power; and thus, on one side of the Suevi the lands are said to lie desolate for about six hundred miles. On the other side, they border on the Ubii, whose state was large and flourishing, considering the condition of the Germans, and who are somewhat more refined than those of the same race and the rest [of the Germans], and that because they border on the Rhine, and are much resorted to by merchants, and are accustomed to the manners of the Gauls, by reason of their approximity to them. Though the Suevi, after making the attempt frequently and in several wars, could not expel this nation from their territories, on account of the extent and population of their state, yet they made them tributaries, and rendered them less distinguished and powerful [than they had ever been].

Chapter 20

During the short part of summer which remained, Caesar, although in these countries, as all Gaul lies toward the north, the winters are early, nevertheless resolved to proceed into Britain, because he discovered that in almost all the wars with the Gauls succors had been furnished to our enemy from that country; and even if the time of year should be insufficient for carrying on the war, yet he thought it would be of great service to him if he only entered the island, and saw into the character of the people, and got knowledge of their localities, harbors, and landing-places, all which were for the most part unknown to the Gauls. For neither does any one except merchants generally go thither, nor even to them was any portion of it known, except the sea-coast and those parts which are opposite to Gaul. Therefore, after having called up to him the merchants from all parts, he could learn neither what was the size of the island, nor what or how numerous were the nations which inhabited it, nor what system of war they followed, nor what customs they used, nor what harbors were convenient for a great number of large ships.

Chapter 21

He sends before him Caius Volusenus with a ship of war, to acquire a knowledge of these particulars before he in person should make a descent into the island, as he was convinced that this was a judicious measure. He commissioned him to thoroughly examine into all matters, and then return to him as soon as possible. He himself proceeds to the Morini with all his forces. He orders ships from all parts of the neighboring countries, and the fleet which the preceding summer he had built for the war with the Veneti, to assemble in this place. In the mean time, his purpose having been discovered, and reported to the Britons by merchants, embassadors come to him from several states of the island, to promise that they will give hostages, and submit to the government of the Roman people. Having given them an audience, he after promising liberally, and exhorting them to continue in that purpose, sends them back to their own country, and [dispatches] with them Commius, whom, upon subduing the Atrebates, he had created king there, a man whose courage and conduct he esteemed, and who he thought would be faithful to him, and whose influence ranked highly in those countries. He orders him to visit as many states as he could, and persuade them to embrace the protection of the Roman people, and apprize them that he would shortly come thither. Volusenus, having viewed the localities as far as means could be afforded one who dared not leave his ship and trust himself to barbarians, returns to Caesar on the fifth day, and reports what he had there observed.

Chapter 22

While Caesar remains in these parts for the purpose of procuring ships, embassadors come to him from a great portion of the Morini, to plead their excuse respecting their conduct on the late occasion; alleging that it was as men uncivilized, and as those who were unacquainted with our custom, that they had made war upon the Roman people, and promising to perform what he should command. Caesar, thinking that this had happened fortunately enough for him, because he neither wished to leave an enemy behind him, nor had an opportunity for carrying on a war, by reason of the time of year, nor considered that employment in such trifling matters was to be preferred to his enterprise on Britain, imposes a large number of hostages; and when these were brought, he received them to his protection. Having collected together, and provided about eighty transport ships, as many as he thought necessary for conveying over two legions, he assigned such [ships] of war as he had besides to the quaestor, his lieutenants, and officers of cavalry. There were in addition to these eighteen ships of burden which were prevented, eight miles from that place, by winds, from being able to reach the same port. These he distributed among the horse; the rest of the army, he delivered to Q. Titurius Sabinus and L. Aurunculeius Cotta, his lieutenants, to lead into the territories of the Menapii and those cantons of the Morini from which embassadors had not come to him. He ordered P. Sulpicius Rufus, his lieutenant, to hold possession of the harbor, with such a garrison as he thought sufficient.

Chapter 23

These matters being arranged, finding the weather favorable for his voyage, he set sail about the third watch, and ordered the horse to march forward to the further port, and there embark and follow him. As this was performed rather tardily by them, he himself reached Britain with the first squadron of ships, about the fourth hour of the day, and there saw the forces of the enemy drawn up in arms on all the hills. The nature of the place was this: the sea was confined by mountains so close to it that a dart could be thrown from their summit upon the shore. Considering this by no means a fit place for disembarking, he remained at anchor till the ninth hour, for the other ships to arrive there. Having in the mean time assembled the lieutenants and military tribunes, he told them both what he had learned from Volusenus, and what he wished to be done; and enjoined them (as the principle of military matters, and especially as maritime affairs, which have a precipitate and uncertain action, required) that all things should be performed by them at a nod and at the instant. Having dismissed them, meeting both with wind and tide favorable at the same time, the signal being given and the anchor weighed, he advanced about seven miles from that place, and stationed his fleet over against an open and level shore.

Chapter 24

But the barbarians, upon perceiving the design of the Romans, sent forward their cavalry and charioteers, a class of warriors of whom it is their practice to make great use in their battles, and following with the rest of their forces, endeavored to prevent our men landing. In this was the greatest difficulty, for the following reasons, namely, because our ships, on account of their great size, could be stationed only in deep water; and our soldiers, in places unknown to them, with their hands embarrassed, oppressed with a large and heavy weight of armor, had at the same time to leap from the ships, stand amid the waves, and encounter the enemy; whereas they, either on dry ground, or advancing a little way into the water, free in all their limbs in places thoroughly known to them, could confidently throw their weapons and spur on their horses, which were accustomed to this kind of service. Dismayed by these circumstances and altogether untrained in this mode of battle, our men did not all exert the same vigor and eagerness which they had been wont to exert in engagements on dry ground.

Chapter 25

When Caesar observed this, he ordered the ships of war, the appearance of which was somewhat strange to the barbarians and the motion more ready for service, to be withdrawn a little from the transport vessels, and to be propelled by their oars, and be stationed toward the open flank of the enemy, and the enemy to be beaten off and driven away, with slings, arrows, and engines: which plan was of great service to our men; for the barbarians being startled by the form of our ships and the motions of our oars and the nature of our engines, which was strange to them, stopped, and shortly after retreated a little. And while our men were hesitating [whether they should advance to the shore], chiefly on account of the depth of the sea, he who carried the eagle of the tenth legion, after supplicating the gods that the matter might turn out favorably to the legion, exclaimed, “Leap, fellow soldiers, unless you wish to betray your eagle to the enemy. I, for my part, will perform my duty to the commonwealth and my general.” When he had said this with a loud voice, he leaped from the ship and proceeded to bear the eagle toward the enemy. Then our men, exhorting one another that so great a disgrace should not be incurred, all leaped from the ship. When those in the nearest vessels saw them, they speedily followed and approached the enemy.

Chapter 26

The battle was maintained vigorously on both sides. Our men, however, as they could neither keep their ranks, nor get firm footing, nor follow their standards, and as one from one ship and another from another assembled around whatever standards they met, were thrown into great confusion. But the enemy, who were acquainted with all the shallows, when from the shore, they saw any coming from a ship one by one, spurred on their horses, and attacked them while embarrassed; many surrounded a few, others threw their weapons upon our collected forces on their exposed flank. When Caesar observed this, he ordered the boats of the ships of war and the spy sloops to be filled with soldiers, and sent them up to the succor of those whom he had observed in distress. Our men, as soon as they made good their footing on dry ground, and all their comrades had joined them, made an attack upon the enemy, and put them to flight, but could not pursue them very far, because the horse had not been able to maintain their course at sea and reach the island. This alone was wanting to Caesar’s accustomed success.

Chapter 27

The enemy being thus vanquished in battle, as soon as they recovered after their flight, instantly sent embassadors to Caesar to negotiate about peace. They promised to give hostages and perform what he should command. Together with these embassadors came Commius the Atrebatian, who, as I have above said, had been sent by Caesar into Britain. Him they had seized upon when leaving his ship, although in the character of embassador he bore the general’s commission to them, and thrown into chains: then after the battle was fought, they sent him back, and in suing for peace cast the blame of that act upon the common people, and entreated that it might be pardoned on account of their indiscretion. Caesar, complaining, that after they had sued for peace, and had voluntarily sent embassadors into the continent for that purpose, they had made war without a reason, said that he would pardon their indiscretion, and imposed hostages, a part of whom they gave immediately; the rest they said they would give in a few days, since they were sent for from remote places. In the meantime, they ordered their people to return to the country parts, and the chiefs assembled from all quarter, and proceeded to surrender themselves and their states to Caesar.

Chapter 28

A peace being established by these proceedings four days after we had come into Britain, the eighteen ships, to which reference has been made above, and which conveyed the cavalry, set sail from the upper port with a gentle gale, when, however, they were approaching Britain and were seen from the camp, so great a storm suddenly arose that none of them could maintain their course at sea; and some were taken back to the same port from which they had started; – others, to their great danger, were driven to the lower part of the island, nearer to the west; which, however, after having cast anchor, as they were getting filled with water, put out to sea through necessity in a stormy night, and made for the continent.

Chapter 29

It happened that night to be full moon, which usually occasions very high tides in that ocean; and that circumstance was unknown to our men. Thus, at the same time, the tide began to fill the ships of war which Caesar had provided to convey over his army, and which he had drawn up on the strand; and the storm began to dash the ships of burden which were riding at anchor against each other; nor was any means afforded our men of either managing them or of rendering any service. A great many ships having been wrecked, inasmuch as the rest, having lost their cables, anchors, and other tackling, were unfit for sailing, a great confusion, as would necessarily happen, arose throughout the army; for there were no other ships in which they could be conveyed back, and all things which are of service in repairing vessels were wanting, and, corn for the winter had not been provided in those places, because it was understood by all that they would certainly winter in Gaul.

Chapter 30

On discovering these things the chiefs of Britain, who had come up after the battle was fought to perform those conditions which Caesar had imposed, held a conference, when they perceived that cavalry, and ships, and corn were wanting to the Romans, and discovered the small number of our soldiers from the small extent of the camp (which, too, was on this account more limited than ordinary, because Caesar had conveyed over his legions without baggage), and thought that the best plan was to renew the war, and cut off our men from corn and provisions and protract the affair till winter; because they felt confident, that, if they were vanquished or cut off from a return, no one would afterwards pass over into Britain for the purpose of making war. Therefore, again entering into a conspiracy, they began to depart from the camp by degrees and secretly bring up their people from the country parts.

Chapter 31

But Caesar, although he had not as yet discovered their measures, yet, both from what had occurred to his ships, and from the circumstance that they had neglected to give the promised hostages, suspected that the thing would come to pass which really did happen. He therefore provided remedies against all contingencies; for he daily conveyed corn from the country parts into the camp, used the timber and brass of such ships as were most seriously damaged for repairing the rest, and ordered whatever things besides were necessary for this object to be brought to him from the continent. And thus, since that business was executed by the soldiers with the greatest energy, he effected that, after the loss of twelve ships, a voyage could be made well enough in the rest.

Chapter 32

While these things are being transacted, one legion had been sent to forage, according to custom, and no suspicion of war had arisen as yet, and some of the people remained in the country parts, others went backward and forward to the camp, they who were on duty at the gates of the camp reported to Caesar that a greater dust than was usual was seen in that direction in which the legion had marched. Caesar, suspecting that which was [really the case], – that some new enterprise was undertaken by the barbarians, ordered the two cohorts which were on duty, to march into that quarter with him, and two other cohorts to relieve them on duty; the rest to be armed and follow him immediately. When he had advanced some little way from the camp, he saw that his men were overpowered by the enemy and scarcely able to stand their ground, and that, the legion being crowded together, weapons were being cast on them from all sides. For as all the corn was reaped in every part with the exception of one, the enemy, suspecting that our men would repair to that, had concealed themselves in the woods during the night. Then attacking them suddenly, scattered as they were, and when they had laid aside their arms, and were engaged in reaping, they killed a small number, threw the rest into confusion, and surrounded them with their cavalry and chariots.

Chapter 33

Their mode of fighting with their chariots is this: firstly, they drive about in all directions and throw their weapons and generally break the ranks of the enemy with the very dread of their horses and the noise of their wheels; and when they have worked themselves in between the troops of horse, leap from their chariots and engage on foot. The charioteers in the mean time withdraw some little distance from the battle, and so place themselves with the chariots that, if their masters are overpowered by the number of the enemy, they may have a ready retreat to their own troops. Thus, they display in battle the speed of horse, [together with] the firmness of infantry; and by daily practice and exercise attain to such expertness that they are accustomed, even on a declining and steep place, to check their horses at full speed, and manage and turn them in an instant and run along the pole, and stand on the yoke, and thence betake themselves with the greatest celerity to their chariots again.

Chapter 34

Under these circumstances, our men being dismayed by the novelty of this mode of battle, Caesar most seasonably brought assistance; for upon his arrival the enemy paused, and our men recovered from their fear; upon which thinking the time unfavourable for provoking the enemy and coming to an action, he kept himself in his own quarter, and, a short time having intervened, drew back the legions into the camp. While these things are going on, and all our men engaged, the rest of the Britons, who were in the fields, departed. Storms then set in for several successive days, which both confined our men to the camp and hindered the enemy from attacking us. In the meantime, the barbarians dispatched messengers to all parts, and reported to their people the small number of our soldiers, and how good an opportunity was given for obtaining spoil and for liberating themselves forever, if they should only drive the Romans from their camp. Having by these means speedily got together a large force of infantry and of cavalry they came up to the camp.

Chapter 35

Although Caesar anticipated that the same thing which had happened on former occasions would then occur – that, if the enemy were routed, they would escape from danger by their speed; still, having got about thirty horse, which Commius the Atrebatian, of whom mention has been made, had brought over with him [from Gaul], he drew up the legions in order of battle before the camp. When the action commenced, the enemy were unable to sustain the attack of our men long, and turned their backs; our men pursued them as far as their speed and strength permitted, and slew a great number of them; then, having destroyed and burned everything far and wide, they retreated to their camp.

Chapter 36

The same day, ambassadors sent by the enemy came to Caesar to negotiate a peace. Caesar doubled the number of hostages which he had before demanded; and ordered that they should be brought over to the continent, because, since the time of the equinox was near, he did not consider that, with his ships out of repair, the voyage ought to be deferred till winter. Having met with favourable weather, he set sail a little after midnight, and all his fleet arrived safe at the continent, except two of the ships of burden which could not make the same port which the other ships did, and were carried a little lower down.

Chapter 37

When our soldiers, about 300 in number, had been drawn out of these two ships, and were marching to the camp, the Morini, whom Caesar, when setting forth for Britain, had left in a state of peace, excited by the hope of spoil, at first surrounded them with a small number of men, and ordered them to lay down their arms, if they did not wish to be slain; afterwards however, when they, forming a circle, stood on their defence, a shout was raised and about 6000 of the enemy soon assembled; which being reported, Caesar sent all the cavalry in the camp as a relief to his men. In the meantime, our soldiers sustained the attack of the enemy, and fought most valiantly for more than four hours, and, receiving but few wounds themselves, slew several of them. But after our cavalry came in sight, the enemy, throwing away their arms, turned their backs, and a great number of them were killed.

Chapter 38

The day following Caesar sent Labienus, his lieutenant, with those legions which he had brought back from Britain, against the Morini, who had revolted; who, as they had no place to which they might retreat, on account of the drying up of their marshes (which they had availed themselves of as a place of refuge the preceding year), almost all fell into the power of Labienus. In the mean time Caesar’s lieutenants, Q. Titurius and L. Cotta, who had led the legions into the territories of the Menapii, having laid waste all their lands, cut down their corn and burned their houses, returned to Caesar because the Menapii had all concealed themselves in their thickest woods. Caesar fixed the winter quarters of all the legions among the Belgae. Thither only two British states sent hostages; the rest omitted to do so. For these successes, a thanksgiving of twenty days was decreed by the senate upon receiving Caesar’s letter.

BOOK FIVE

Chapter 1

Lucius Domitius and Appius Claudius being consuls, Caesar, when departing from his winter quarters into Italy, as he had been accustomed to do yearly, commands the lieutenants whom he appointed over the legions to take care that during the winter as many ships as possible should be built, and the old repaired. He plans the size and shape of them. For dispatch of lading, and for drawing them on shore, he makes them a little lower than those which we have been accustomed to use in our sea; and that so much the more, because he knew that, on account of the frequent changes of the tide, less swells occurred there; for the purpose of transporting burdens and a great number of horses, [he makes them] a little broader than those which we use in other seas. All these he orders to be constructed for lightness and expedition, to which object their lowness contributes greatly. He orders those things which are necessary for equipping ships to be brought thither from Spain. He himself, on the assizes of Hither Gaul being concluded, proceeds into Illyricum, because he heard that the part of the province nearest them was being laid waste by the incursions of the Pirustae. When he had arrived there, he levies soldiers upon the states, and orders them to assemble at an appointed place. Which circumstance having been reported [to them], the Pirustae send ambassadors to him to inform him that no part of those proceedings was done by public deliberation, and assert that they were ready to make compensation by all means for the injuries [inflicted]. Caesar, accepting their defence, demands hostages, and orders them to be brought to him on a specified day, and assures them that unless they did so he would visit their state with war. These being brought to him on the day which he had ordered, he appoints arbitrators between the states, who should estimate the damages and determine the reparation.

Chapter 2

These things being finished, and the assizes being concluded, he returns into Hither Gaul, and proceeds thence to the army. When he had arrived there, having made a survey of the winter quarter, he finds that, by the extraordinary ardour of the soldiers, amid the utmost scarcity of all materials, about six hundred ships of that kind which we have described above and twenty-eight ships of war, had been built, and were not far from that state, that they might be launched in a few days. Having commended the soldiers and those who had presided over the work, he informs them what he wishes to be done, and orders all the ships to assemble at port Itius, from which port he had learned that the passage into Britain was shortest, [being only] about thirty miles from the continent. He left what seemed a sufficient number of soldiers for that design; he himself proceeds into the territories of the Treviri with four legions without baggage, and 800 horse, because they neither came to the general diets [of Gaul], nor obeyed his commands, and were moreover, said to be tampering with the Germans beyond the Rhine.

Chapter 5

These matters being settled, Caesar went to port Itius with the legions. There he discovers that forty ships, which had been built in the country of the Meldi, having been driven back by a storm, had been unable to maintain their course, and had returned to the same port from which they had set out; he finds the rest ready for sailing, and furnished with everything. In the same place, the cavalry of the whole of Gaul, in number 4,000, assembles, and [also] the chief persons of all the states; he had determined to leave in Gaul a very few of them, whose fidelity toward him he had clearly discerned, and take the rest with him as hostages; because he feared a commotion in Gaul when he should be absent.

Chapter 6

There was together with the others, Dumnorix, the Aeduan, of whom we have made previous mention. Him, in particular, he had resolved to have with him, because he had discovered him to be fond of change, fond of power, possessing great resolution, and great influence among the Gauls. To this was added, that Dumnorix had before said in an assembly of Aeduans, that the sovereignty of the state had been made over to him by Caesar; which speech the Aedui bore with impatience and yet dared not send ambassadors to Caesar for the purpose of either rejecting or deprecating [that appointment]. That fact Caesar had learned from his own personal friends. He at first strove to obtain by every entreaty that he should be left in Gaul; partly, because, being unaccustomed to sailing, he feared the sea; partly because he said he was prevented by divine admonitions. After he saw that this request was firmly refused him, all hope of success being lost, he began to tamper with the chief persons of the Gauls, to call them apart singly and exhort them to remain on the continent; to agitate them with the fear that it was not without reason that Gaul should be stripped of all her nobility; that it was Caesar’s design, to bring over to Britain and put to death all those whom he feared to slay in the sight of Gaul, to pledge his honour to the rest, to ask for their oath that they would by common deliberation execute what they should perceive to be necessary for Gaul. These things were reported to Caesar by several persons.

Chapter 7

Having learned this fact, Caesar, because he had conferred so much honor upon the Aeduan state, determined that Dumnorix should be restrained and deterred by whatever means he could; and that, because he perceived his insane designs to be proceeding further and further, care should be taken lest he might be able to injure him and the commonwealth. Therefore, having stayed about twenty-five days in that place, because the north wind, which usually blows a great part of every season, prevented the voyage, he exerted himself to keep Dumnorix in his allegiance [and] nevertheless learn all his measures: having at length met with favourable weather, he orders the foot soldiers and the horse to embark in the ships. But, while the minds of all were occupied, Dumnorix began to take his departure from the camp homeward with the cavalry of the Aedui, Caesar being ignorant of it. Caesar, on this matter being reported to him, ceasing from his expedition and deferring all other affairs, sends a great part of the cavalry to pursue him, and commands that he be brought back; he orders that if he use violence and do not submit, that he be slain; considering that Dumnorix would do nothing as a rational man while he himself was absent, since he had disregarded his command even when present. He, however, when recalled, began to resist and defend himself with his hand, and implore the support of his people, often exclaiming that “he was free and the subject of a free state.” They surround and kill the man as they had been commanded; but the Aeduan horsemen all return to Caesar.

Chapter 8

When these things were done [and] Labienus, left on the continent with three legions and 2,000 horse, to defend the harbours and provide corn, and discover what was going on in Gaul, and take measures according to the occasion and according to the circumstance; he himself, with five legions and a number of horse, equal to that which he was leaving on the continent, set sail at sun-set, and [though for a time] borne forward by a gentle south-west wind, he did not maintain his course, in consequence of the wind dying away about midnight, and being carried on too far by the tide, when the sun rose, espied Britain passed on his left. Then, again, following the change of tide, he urged on with the oars that he might make that part of the island in which he had discovered the preceding summer, that there was the best landing-place, and in this affair the spirit of our soldiers was very much to be extolled; for they with the transports and heavy ships, the labour of rowing not being [for a moment] discontinued, equalled the speed of the ships of war. All the ships reached Britain nearly at mid-day; nor was there seen a [single] enemy in that place, but, as Caesar afterwards found from some prisoners, though large bodies of troops had assembled there, yet being alarmed by the great number of our ships, more than eight hundred of which, including the ships of the preceding year, and those private vessels which each had built for his own convenience, had appeared at one time, they had quitted the coast and concealed themselves among the higher points.

Chapter 9

Caesar, having disembarked his army and chosen a convenient place for the camp, when he discovered from the prisoners in what part the forces of the enemy had lodged themselves, having left ten cohorts and 300 horse at the sea, to be a guard to the ships, hastens to the enemy, at the third watch, fearing the less for the ships, for this reason because he was leaving them fastened at anchor upon an even and open shore; and he placed Q. Atrius over the guard of the ships. He himself, having advanced by night about twelve miles, espied the forces of the enemy. They, advancing to the river with their cavalry and chariots from the higher ground, began to annoy our men and give battle. Being repulsed by our cavalry, they concealed themselves in woods, as they had secured a place admirably fortified by nature and by art, which, as it seemed, they had before prepared on account of a civil war; for all entrances to it were shut up by a great number of felled trees. They themselves rushed out of the woods to fight here and there, and prevented our men from entering their fortifications. But the soldiers of the seventh legion, having formed a testudo and thrown up a rampart against the fortification, took the place and drove them out of the woods, receiving only a few wounds. But Caesar forbade his men to pursue them in their flight any great distance; both because he was ignorant of the nature of the ground, and because, as a great part of the day was spent, he wished time to be left for the fortification of the camp.

Chapter 10

The next day, early in the morning, he sent both foot-soldiers and horse in three divisions on an expedition to pursue those who had fled. These having advanced a little way, when already the rear [of the enemy] was in sight, some horse came to Caesar from Quintus Atrius, to report that the preceding night, a very great storm having arisen, almost all the ships were dashed to pieces and cast upon the shore, because neither the anchors and cables could resist, nor could the sailors and pilots sustain the violence of the storm; and thus great damage was received by that collision of the ships.

Chapter 11

These things being known [to him], Caesar orders the legions and cavalry to be recalled and to cease from their march; he himself returns to the ships: he sees clearly before him almost the same things which he had heard of from the messengers and by letter, so that, about forty ships being lost, the remainder seemed capable of being repaired with much labor. Therefore he selects workmen from the legions, and orders others to be sent for from the continent; he writes to Labienus to build as many ships as he could with those legions which were with him. He himself, though the matter was one of great difficulty and labour, yet thought it to be most expedient for all the ships to be brought up on shore and joined with the camp by one fortification. In these matters he employed about ten days, the labor of the soldiers being unremitting even during the hours of night. The ships having been brought up on shore and the camp strongly fortified, he left the same forces as he did before as a guard for the ships; he sets out in person for the same place that he had returned from. When he had come thither, greater forces of the Britons had already assembled at that place, the chief command and management of the war having been entrusted to Cassivellaunus, whose territories a river, which is called the Thames, separates, from the maritime states at about eighty miles from the sea. At an earlier period perpetual wars had taken place between him and the other states; but, greatly alarmed by our arrival, the Britons had placed him over the whole war and the conduct of it.

Chapter 12

The interior portion of Britain is inhabited by those of whom they say that it is handed down by tradition that they were born in the island itself: the maritime portion by those who had passed over from the country of the Belgae for the purpose of plunder and making war; almost all of whom are called by the names of those states from which being sprung they went thither, and having waged war, continued there and began to cultivate the lands. The number of the people is countless, and their buildings exceedingly numerous, for the most part very like those of the Gauls: the number of cattle is great. They use either brass or iron rings, determined at a certain weight, as their money. Tin is produced in the midland regions; in the maritime, iron; but the quantity of it is small: they employ brass, which is imported. There, as in Gaul, is timber of every description, except beech and fir. They do not regard it lawful to eat the hare, and the cock, and the goose; they, however, breed them for amusement and pleasure. The climate is more temperate than in Gaul, the colds being less severe.

Chapter 13

The island is triangular in its form, and one of its sides is opposite to Gaul. One angle of this side, which is in Kent, whither almost all ships from Gaul are directed, [looks] to the east; the lower looks to the south. This side extends about 500 miles. Another side lies toward Spain and the west, on which part is Ireland, less, as is reckoned, than Britain, by one half: but the passage [from it] into Britain is of equal distance with that from Gaul. In the middle of this voyage, is an island, which is called Mona: many smaller islands besides are supposed to lie [there], of which islands some have written that at the time of the winter solstice it is night there for thirty consecutive days. We, in our inquiries about that matter, ascertained nothing, except that, by accurate measurements with water, we perceived the nights to be shorter there than on the continent. The length of this side, as their account states, is 700 miles. The third side is toward the north, to which portion of the island no land is opposite; but an angle of that side looks principally toward Germany. This side is considered to be 800 miles in length. Thus, the whole island is [about] 2,000 miles in circumference.

Chapter 14

The most civilized of all these nations are they who inhabit Kent, which is entirely a maritime district, nor do they differ much from the Gallic customs. Most of the inland inhabitants do not sow corn, but live on milk and flesh, and are clad with skins. All the Britons, indeed, dye themselves with woad, which occasions a bluish colour, and thereby have a more terrible appearance in fight. They wear their hair long, and have every part of their body shaved except their head and upper lip. Ten and even twelve have wives common to them, and particularly brothers among brothers, and parents among their children; but if there be any issue by these wives, they are reputed to be the children of those by whom respectively each was first espoused when a virgin.

Chapter 15

The horse and charioteers of the enemy contended vigorously in a skirmish with our cavalry on the march; yet so that our men were conquerors in all parts, and drove them to their woods and hills; but, having slain a great many, they pursued too eagerly, and lost some of their men. But the enemy, after some time had elapsed, when our men were off their guard, and occupied in the fortification of the camp, rushed out of the woods, and making an attack upon those who were placed on duty before the camp, fought in a determined manner; and two cohorts being sent by Caesar to their relief, and these severally the first of two legions, when these had taken up their position at a very small distance from each other, as our men were disconcerted by the unusual mode of battle, the enemy broke through the middle of them most courageously, and retreated thence in safety. That day, Q. Laberius Durus, a tribune of the soldiers, was slain. The enemy, since more cohorts were sent against them, were repulsed.

Chapter 16

In the whole of this method of fighting since the engagement took place under the eyes of all and before the camp, it was perceived that our men, on account of the weight of their arms, inasmuch as they could neither pursue [the enemy when] retreating, nor dare quit their standards, were little suited to this kind of enemy; that the horse also fought with great danger, because they [the Britons] generally retreated even designedly, and, when they had drawn off our men a short distance from the legions, leaped from their chariots and fought on foot in unequal [and to them advantageous] battle. But the system of cavalry engagement is wont to produce equal danger, and indeed the same, both to those who retreat and to those who pursue. To this was added, that they never fought in close order, but in small parties and at great distances, and had detachments placed [in different parts], and then the one relieved the other, and the vigorous and fresh succeeded the wearied.

Chapter 17

The following day the enemy halted on the hills, a distance from our camp, and presented themselves in small parties, and began to challenge our horse to battle with less spirit than the day before. But at noon, when Caesar had sent three legions, and all the cavalry, with C. Trebonius, the lieutenant, for the purpose of foraging, they flew upon the foragers suddenly from all quarters, so that they did not keep off [even] from the standards and the legions. Our men making an attack on them vigorously, repulsed them; nor did they cease to pursue them until the horse, relying on relief, as they saw the legions behind them, drove the enemy precipitately before them, and slaying a great number of them, did not give them the opportunity either of rallying, or halting, or leaping from their chariots. Immediately after this retreat, the auxiliaries who had assembled from all sides, departed; nor after that time did the enemy ever engage with us in very large numbers.

Chapter 18

Caesar, discovering their design, leads his army into the territories of Cassivellaunus to the river Thames; which river can be forded in one place only and that with difficulty. When he had arrived there, he perceives that numerous forces of the enemy were marshalled on the other bank of the river; the bank also was defended by sharp stakes fixed in front, and stakes of the same kind fixed under the water were covered by the river. These things being discovered from [some] prisoners and deserters, Caesar, sending forward the cavalry, ordered the legions to follow them immediately. But the soldiers advanced with such speed and such ardour, though they stood above the water by their heads only, that the enemy could not sustain the attack of the legions and of the horse, and quitted the banks, and committed themselves to flight.

Chapter 19

Cassivellaunus, as we have stated above, all hope [rising out] of battle being laid aside, the greater part of his forces being dismissed, and about 4,000 charioteers only being left, used to observe our marches and retire a little from the road, and conceal himself in intricate and woody places, and in those neighbourhoods in which he had discovered we were about to march, he used to drive the cattle and the inhabitants from the fields into the woods; and, when our cavalry, for the sake of plundering and ravaging the more freely, scattered themselves among the fields, he used to send out charioteers from the woods by all the well-known roads and paths, and to the great danger of our horse, engage with them; and this source of fear hindered them from straggling very extensively. The result was, that Caesar did not allow excursions to be made to a great distance from the main body of the legions, and ordered that damage should be done to the enemy in ravaging their lands, and kindling fires only so far as the legionary soldiers could, by their own exertion and marching, accomplish it.

Chapter 20

In the mean time, the Trinobantes, almost the most powerful state of those parts, from which the young man, Mandubratius embracing the protection of Caesar had come to the continent of Gaul to [meet] him (whose father, Imanuentius, had possessed the sovereignty in that state, and had been killed by Cassivellaunus; he himself had escaped death by flight), send ambassadors to Caesar, and promise that they will surrender themselves to him and perform his commands; they entreat him to protect Mandubratius from the violence of Cassivellaunus, and send to their state some one to preside over it, and possess the government. Caesar demands forty hostages from them, and corn for his army, and sends Mandubratius to them. They speedily performed the things demanded, and sent hostages to the number appointed, and the corn.

Chapter 21

The Trinobantes being protected and secured from any violence of the soldiers, the Cenimagni, the Segontiaci, the Ancalites, the Bibroci, and the Cassi, sending embassies, surrendered themselves to Caesar. From them he learns that the capital town of Cassivellaunus was not far from that place, and was defended by woods and morasses, and a very large number of men and of cattle had been collected in it. (Now the Britons, when they have fortified the intricate woods, in which they are wont to assemble for the purpose of avoiding the incursion of an enemy, with an entrenchment and a rampart, call them a town.) Thither he proceeds with his legions: he finds the place admirably fortified by nature and art; he, however, undertakes to attack it in two directions. The enemy, having remained only a short time, did not sustain the attack of our soldiers, and hurried away on the other side of the town. A great amount of cattle was found there, and many of the enemy were taken and slain in their flight.

Chapter 22

While these things are going forward in those places, Cassivellaunus sends messengers into Kent, which, we have observed above, is on the sea, over which districts four (several) kings reigned, Cingetorix, Carvilius, Taximagulus and Segonax, and commands them to collect all their forces, and unexpectedly assail and storm the naval camp. When they had come to the camp, our men, after making a sally, slaying many of their men, and also capturing a distinguished leader named Lugotorix, brought back their own men in safety. Cassivellaunus, when this battle was reported to him as so many losses had been sustained, and his territories laid waste, being alarmed most of all by the desertion of the states, sends embassadors to Caesar [to treat] about a surrender through the mediation of Commius the Atrebatian. Caesar, since he had determined to pass the winter on the continent, on account of the sudden revolts of Gaul, and as much of the summer did not remain, and he perceived that even that could be easily protracted, demands hostages, and prescribes what tribute Britain should pay each year to the Roman people; he forbids and commands Cassivellaunus that he wage not war against Mandubratius or the Trinobantes.

Chapter 23

When he had received the hostages, he leads back the army to the sea, and finds the ships repaired. After launching these, because he had a large number of prisoners, and some of the ships had been lost in the storm, he determines to convey back his army at two embarkations. And it so happened, that out of so large a number of ships, in so many voyages, neither in this nor in the previous year was any ship missing which conveyed soldiers; but very few out of those which were sent back to him from the continent empty, as the soldiers of the former convoy had been disembarked, and out of those (sixty in number) which Labienus had taken care to have built, reached their destination; almost all the rest were driven back, and when Caesar had waited for them for some time in vain, lest he should be debarred from a voyage by the season of the year, inasmuch as the equinox was at hand, he of necessity stowed his soldiers the more closely, and, a very great calm coming on, after he had weighed anchor at the beginning of the second watch, he reached land at break of day and brought in all the ships in safety.

Chapter 24

The ships having been drawn up and a general assembly of the Gauls held at Samarobriva, because the corn that year had not prospered in Gaul by reason of the droughts, he was compelled to station his army in its winter-quarters differently from the former years, and to distribute the legions among several states: one of them he gave to C. Fabius, his lieutenant, to be marched into the territories of the Morini; a second to Q. Cicero, into those of the Nervii; a third to L. Roscius, into those of the Essui; a fourth he ordered to winter with T. Labienus among the Remi in the confines of the Treviri; he stationed three in Belgium; over these he appointed M. Crassus, his questor, and L. Munatius Plancus and C. Trebonius, his lieutenants. One legion which he had raised last on the other side of the Po, and five cohorts, he sent among the Eburones, the greatest portion of whom lie between the Meuse and the Rhine, [and] who were under the government of Ambiorix and Cativolcus. He ordered Q. Titurius Sabinus and L. Aurunculeius Cotta, his lieutenants, to take command of these soldiers. The legions being distributed in this manner, he thought he could most easily remedy the scarcity of corn and yet the winter-quarters of all these legions (except that which he had given to L. Roscius, to be led into the most peaceful and tranquil neighbourhood) were comprehended within [about] 100 miles. He himself in the mean while, until he had stationed the legions and knew that the several winter-quarters were fortified, determined to stay in Gaul.

BOOK SIX

Chapter 11

Since we have come to the place, it does not appear to be foreign to our subject to lay before the reader an account of the manners of Gaul and Germany, and wherein these nations differ from each other. In Gaul, there are factions not only in all the states, and in all the cantons and their divisions, but almost in each family, and of these factions those are the leaders who are considered according to their judgement to possess the greatest influence, upon whose will and determination the management of all affairs and measures depends. And that seems to have been instituted in ancient times with this view, that no one of the common people should be in want of support against one more powerful; for, none [of those leaders] suffers his party to be oppressed and defrauded, and if he does otherwise, he has no influence among his party. This same policy exists throughout the whole of Gaul; for all the states are divided into two factions.

Chapter 12

When Caesar arrived in Gaul, the Aedui were the leaders of one faction, the Sequani of the other. Since the latter were less powerful by themselves, inasmuch as the chief influence was from of old among the Aedui, and their dependencies were great, they had united to themselves the Germans and Ariovistus, and had brought them over to their party by great sacrifices and promises. And having fought several successful battles and slain all the nobility of the Aedui, they had so far surpassed them in power, that they brought over, from the Aedui to themselves, a large portion of their dependants and received from them the sons of their leading men as hostages, and compelled them to swear in their public character that they would enter into no design against them; and held a portion of the neighbouring land, seized on by force, and possessed the sovereignty of the whole of Gaul. Divitiacus urged by this necessity, had proceeded to Rome to the senate, for the purpose of entreating assistance, and had returned without accomplishing his object. A change of affairs ensued on the arrival of Caesar, the hostages were returned to the Aedui, their old dependencies restored, and new acquired through Caesar (because those who had attached themselves to their alliance saw that they enjoyed a better state and a milder government), their other interests, their influence, their reputation were likewise increased, and in consequence, the Sequani lost the sovereignty. The Remi succeeded to their place, and, as it was perceived that they equalled the Aedui in favour with Caesar, those, who on account of their old animosities could by no means coalesce with the Aedui, consigned themselves in clientship to the Remi. The latter carefully protected them. Thus, they possessed both a new and suddenly acquired influence. Affairs were then in that position that the Aedui were considered by far the leading people, and the Remi held the second post of honour.

Chapter 13

Throughout all Gaul there are two orders of those men who are of any rank and dignity: for the commonality is held almost in the condition of slaves, and dares to undertake nothing of itself, and is admitted to no deliberation. The greater part, when they are pressed either by debt, or the large amount of their tributes, or the oppression of the more powerful, give themselves up in vassalage to the nobles, who possess over them the same rights without exception as masters over their slaves. But of these two orders, one is that of the Druids, the other that of the knights. The former are engaged in things sacred, conduct the public and the private sacrifices, and interpret all matters of religion. To these a large number of the young men resort for the purpose of instruction, and they [the Druids] are in great honour among them. For they determine respecting almost all controversies, public and private; and if any crime has been perpetrated, if murder has been committed, if there be any dispute about an inheritance, if any about boundaries, these same persons decide it; they decree rewards and punishments; if any one, either in a private or public capacity, has not submitted to their decision, they interdict him from the sacrifices. This among them is the heaviest punishment. Those who have been thus interdicted are esteemed in the number of the impious and the criminal: all shun them, and avoid their society and conversation, lest they receive some evil from their contact; nor is justice administered to them when seeking it, nor is any dignity bestowed on them. Over all these Druids one presides, who possesses supreme authority among them. Upon his death, if any individual among the rest is pre-eminent in dignity, he succeeds; but, if there are many equal, the election is made by the suffrages of the Druids; sometimes they even contend for the presidency with arms. These assemble at a fixed period of the year in a consecrated place in the territories of the Carnutes, which is reckoned the central region of the whole of Gaul. Hither all, who have disputes, assemble from every part, and submit to their decrees and determinations. This institution is supposed to have been devised in Britain, and to have been brought over from it into Gaul; and now those who desire to gain a more accurate knowledge of that system generally proceed thither for the purpose of studying it.

Chapter 14

The Druids do not go to war, nor pay tribute together with the rest; they have an exemption from military service and a dispensation in all matters. Induced by such great advantages, many embrace this profession of their own accord, and [many] are sent to it by their parents and relations. They are said there to learn by heart a great number of verses; accordingly, some remain in the course of training twenty years. Nor do they regard it lawful to commit these to writing, though in almost all other matters, in their public and private transactions, they use Greek characters. That practice they seem to me to have adopted for two reasons; because they neither desire their doctrines to be divulged among the mass of the people, nor those who learn, to devote themselves the less to the efforts of memory, relying on writing; since it generally occurs to most men, that, in their dependence on writing, they relax their diligence in learning thoroughly, and their employment of the memory. They wish to inculcate this as one of their leading tenets, that souls do not become extinct, but pass after death from one body to another, and they think that men by this tenet are in a great degree excited to valour, the fear of death being disregarded. They likewise discuss and impart to the youth many things respecting the stars and their motion, respecting the extent of the world and of our earth, respecting the nature of things, respecting the power and the majesty of the immortal gods.

Chapter 15

The other order is that of the knights. These, when there is occasion and any war occurs (which before Caesar’s arrival was for the most part wont to happen every year, as either they on their part were inflecting injuries or repelling those which others inflected on them), are all engaged in war. And those of them most distinguished by birth and resources, have the greatest number of vassals and dependants about them. They acknowledge this sort of influence and power only.

Chapter 16

The nation of all the Gauls is extremely devoted to superstitious rites; and on that account they who are troubled with unusually severe diseases, and they who are engaged in battles and dangers, either sacrifice men as victims, or vow that they will sacrifice them, and employ the Druids as the performers of those sacrifices; because they think that unless the life of a man be offered for the life of a man, the mind of the immortal gods can not be rendered propitious, and they have sacrifices of that kind ordained for national purposes. Others have figures of vast size, the limbs of which formed of osiers they fill with living men, which being set on fire, the men perish enveloped in the flames. They consider that the oblation of such as have been taken in theft, or in robbery, or any other offence, is more acceptable to the immortal gods; but when a supply of that class is wanting, they have recourse to the oblation of even the innocent.

Chapter 17

They worship as their divinity, Mercury in particular, and have many images of him, and regard him as the inventor of all arts, they consider him the guide of their journeys and marches, and believe him to have great influence over the acquisition of gain and mercantile transactions. Next to him they worship Apollo, and Mars, and Jupiter, and Minerva; respecting these deities they have for the most part the same belief as other nations: that Apollo averts diseases, that Minerva imparts the invention of manufactures, that Jupiter possesses the sovereignty of the heavenly powers; that Mars presides over wars. To him, when they have determined to engage in battle, they commonly vow those things which they shall take in war. When they have conquered, they sacrifice whatever captured animals may have survived the conflict, and collect the other things into one place. In many states you may see piles of these things heaped up in their consecrated spots; nor does it often happen that any one, disregarding the sanctity of the case, dares either to secrete in his house things captured, or take away those deposited; and the most severe punishment, with torture, has been established for such a deed.

Chapter 18

All the Gauls assert that they are descended from the god Dis, and say that this tradition has been handed down by the Druids. For that reason, they compute the divisions of every season, not by the number of days, but of nights; they keep birthdays and the beginnings of months and years in such an order that the day follows the night. Among the other usages of their life, they differ in this from almost all other nations, that they do not permit their children to approach them openly until they are grown up so as to be able to bear the service of war; and they regard it as indecorous for a son of boyish age to stand in public in the presence of his father.

Chapter 19

Whatever sums of money the husbands have received in the name of dowry from their wives, making an estimate of it, they add the same amount out of their own estates. An account is kept of all this money conjointly, and the profits are laid by: whichever of them shall have survived [the other], to that one the portion of both reverts together with the profits of the previous time. Husbands have power of life and death over their wives as well as over their children: and when the father of a family, born in a more than commonly distinguished rank, has died, his relations assemble, and, if the circumstances of his death are suspicious, hold an investigation upon the wives in the manner adopted toward slaves; and, if proof be obtained, put them to severe torture, and kill them. Their funerals, considering the state of civilization among the Gauls, are magnificent and costly; and they cast into the fire all things, including living creatures, which they suppose to have been dear to them when alive; and, a little before this period, slaves and dependants, who were ascertained to have been beloved by them, were, after the regular funeral rites were completed, burnt together with them.

Chapter 20

Those states which are considered to conduct their commonwealth more judiciously, have it ordained by their laws, that, if any person shall have heard by rumour and report from his neighbours any thing concerning the commonwealth, he shall convey it to the magistrate, and not impart it to any other; because it has been discovered that inconsiderate and inexperienced men were often alarmed by false reports, and driven to some rash act, or else took hasty measures in affairs of the highest importance. The magistrates conceal those things which require to be kept unknown; and they disclose to the people whatever they determine to be expedient. It is not lawful to speak of the commonwealth, except in council.

Chapter 21

The Germans differ much from these usages, for they have neither Druids to preside over sacred offices, nor do they pay great regard to sacrifices. They rank in the number of the gods those alone whom they behold, and by whose instrumentality they are obviously benefited, namely, the sun, fire, and the moon; they have not heard of the other deities even by report. Their whole life is occupied in hunting and in the pursuits of the military art; from childhood they devote themselves to fatigue and hardships. Those who have remained chaste for the longest time, receive the greatest commendation among their people; they think that by this the growth is promoted, by this the physical powers are increased and the sinews are strengthened. And to have had knowledge of a woman before the twentieth year they reckon among the most disgraceful acts; of which matter there is no concealment, because they bathe promiscuously in the rivers and [only] use skins or small cloaks of deer’s hides, a large portion of the body being in consequence naked.

Chapter 22

They do not pay much attention to agriculture, and a large portion of their food consists in milk, cheese, and flesh; nor has any one a fixed quantity of land or his own individual limits; but the magistrates and the leading men each year apportion to the tribes and families, who have united together, as much land as, and in the place in which, they think proper, and the year after compel them to remove elsewhere. For this enactment they advance many reasons – lest seduced by long-continued custom, they may exchange their ardour in the waging of war for agriculture; lest they may be anxious to acquire extensive estates, and the more powerful drive the weaker from their possessions; lest they construct their houses with too great a desire to avoid cold and heat; lest the desire of wealth spring up, from which cause divisions and discords arise; and that they may keep the common people in a contented state of mind, when each sees his own means placed on an equality with [those of] the most powerful.

Chapter 23

It is the greatest glory to the several states to have as wide deserts as possible around them, their frontiers having been laid waste. They consider this the real evidence of their prowess, that their neighbours shall be driven out of their lands and abandon them, and that no one dare settle near them; at the same time, they think that they shall be on that account the more secure, because they have removed the apprehension of a sudden incursion. When a state either repels war waged against it, or wages it against another, magistrates are chosen to preside over that war with such authority, that they have power of life and death. In peace there is no common magistrate, but the chiefs of provinces and cantons administer justice and determine controversies among their own people. Robberies which are committed beyond the boundaries of each state bear no infamy, and they avow that these are committed for the purpose of disciplining their youth and of preventing sloth. And when any of their chiefs has said in an assembly “that he will be their leader, let those who are willing to follow, give in their names;” they who approve of both the enterprise and the man arise and promise their assistance and are applauded by the people; such of them as have not followed him are accounted in the number of deserters and traitors, and confidence in all matters is afterwards refused them. To injure guests they regard as impious; they defend from wrong those who have come to them for any purpose whatever, and esteem them inviolable; to them the houses of all are open and maintenance is freely supplied.

Chapter 24

And there was formerly a time when the Gauls excelled the Germans in prowess, and waged war on them offensively, and, on account of the great number of their people and the insufficiency of their land, sent colonies over the Rhine. Accordingly, the Volcae Tectosages, seized on those parts of Germany which are the most fruitful [and lie] around the Hercynian forest, (which, I perceive, was known by report to Eratosthenes and some other Greeks, and which they call Orcynia), and settled there. Which nation to this time retains its position in those settlements, and has a very high character for justice and military merit; now also they continue in the same scarcity, indigence, hardihood, as the Germans, and use the same food and dress; but their proximity to the Province and knowledge of commodities from countries beyond the sea supplies to the Gauls many things tending to luxury as well as civilization. Accustomed by degrees to be overmatched and worsted in many engagements, they do not even compare themselves to the Germans in prowess.

Chapter 25

The breadth of this Hercynian forest, which has been referred to above, is to a quick traveller, a journey of nine days. For it can not be otherwise computed, nor are they acquainted with the measures of roads. It begins at the frontiers of the Helvetii, Nemetes, and Rauraci, and extends in a right line along the river Danube to the territories of the Daci and the Anartes; it bends thence to the left in a different direction from the river, and owing to its extent touches the confines of many nations; nor is there any person belonging to this part of Germany who says that he either has gone to the extremity of that forest, though he had advanced a journey of sixty days, or has heard in what place it begins. It is certain that many kinds of wild beast are produced in it which have not been seen in other parts; of which the following are such as differ principally from other animals, and appear worthy of being committed to record.

Chapter 26

There is an ox of the shape of a stag, between whose ears a horn rises from the middle of the forehead, higher and straighter than those horns which are known to us. From the top of this, branches, like palms, stretch out a considerable distance. The shape of the female and of the male is the, same; the appearance and the size of the horns is the same.

Chapter 27

There are also [animals] which are called elks. The shape of these, and the varied colour of their skins, is much like roes, but in size they surpass them a little and are destitute of horns, and have legs without joints and ligatures; nor do they lie down for the purpose of rest, nor, if they have been thrown down by any accident, can they raise or lift themselves up. Trees serve as beds to them; they lean themselves against them, and thus reclining only slightly, they take their rest; when the huntsmen have discovered from the footsteps of these animals whither they are accustomed to betake themselves, they either undermine all the trees at the roots, or cut into them so far that the upper part of the trees may appear to be left standing. When they have leant upon them, according to their habit, they knock down by their weight the unsupported trees, and fall down themselves along with them.

Chapter 28

There is a third kind, consisting of those animals which are called uri. These are a little below the elephant in size, and of the appearance, colour, and shape of a bull. Their strength and speed are extraordinary; they spare neither man nor wild beast which they have espied. These the Germans take with much pains in pits and kill them. The young men harden themselves with this exercise, and practice themselves in this kind of hunting, and those who have slain the greatest number of them, having produced the horns in public, to serve as evidence, receive great praise. But not even when taken very young can they be rendered familiar to men and tamed. The size, shape, and appearance of their horns differ much from the horns of our oxen. These they anxiously seek after, and bind at the tips with silver, and use as cups at their most sumptuous entertainments.

55 BCE – 40 AD Tacitus. Romans in Germany. Christians in Britain

55 BCE TO 40

Dindshenchas. Mag Raigne

(Ed. Date unknown, but it just might refer to one of Caesars soldiers, heading to Ireland after retiring to Narbone in the South of France. So I include it here.)

I have heard of a brave man, leader of troops,
whose name was Raigne the Roman,
how he came with desired fame swiftly
into the powerful territory of Narbonensis.

Three tasks they put on Raigne,
the populace of Gaulsplendid and vast:
to pile clay on wains,
to level a wood with tangled roots,

To spread the mighty inlet of the sea
that the pure impetuous Ligir visiteth,
so that there should be a kind of island
by the stately side of Torinis.

Raigne of the noble spade completed the tasks —
(he was free from poverty and misadventure,
a man whom want did not visit.)
in just three full days.

The warrior escaped from them,
with his excellences ever-manifest,
that he might not stay there under strict bondage;
he took with him hatchet, bill-hook, and spade.

He fared to the seat of Fotla
without warning, without kingly proclamation;
he settled, the noble fiery scion,
in cheerful Imlech Mecconn.

The keen commanding prince felled
The conspicuous royal-branching forest:
so it is called the Plain of Raigne the champion,
rich in prosperity and in noble qualities.

The son of Ugaine, with hostages unnumbered,
Raigne the poetic, the royal-generous,
held the populous plain a while;
I have heard that he was a brave man.

A translation of the Bodlian Dinnshenchas at www.ucd.ie/tlh/trans/ws.fl.3.001.t.text.html says

Raigne the Roman,

went from the lands of the Romans,

with a spade and a billhook on his shoulder,

after letting out,

in three days,

the inlet round Tours the Pure,

in the land of france.

He feared that another work like it would be imposed upon him.

So he fled till he came to Imluich maic Echonn.

Thatwas then all a wooded ridge,

so Raigne cut it down with his billhook and his spade.

Hence Mag Roigne (Raigne’s Plain).

It is he who cleared the plain,

Roigne the Mighty, the Roman,

When he went eastward from Tours,

Fleeing away, avoiding.

Titus Lucretius Carus

Our earth hath then contracted stench and rot.

Seest thou not, also, that whoso arrive

In region far from fatherland and home

Are by the strangeness of the clime and waters

Distempered?–since conditions vary much.

For in what else may we suppose the clime

Among the Britons to differ from Aegypt’s own

(Where totters awry the axis of the world),

Or in what else to differ Pontic clime

From Gades’ and from climes down the south,

Sextus Propertius

(Extract) So whenever the Fates demand my life, and I become a brief name in slight marble, Maecenas, the hope and envy of our youth, true glory of my death or life, if by chance your road take you by my tomb, halt your chariot from Britain, with its engraved yoke, and as you weep, lay these words on the silent dust: ‘A hard mistress was this wretch’s fate.’

(Extract) A moment ago Bactra saw you in the east again, now the Neuric enemy with armoured horses, the wintry Getae and Britain with its painted chariots, and the dark-skinned Indians pounded by the eastern waves.

(Extract) Now do you even imitate the Britons, stained with woad, you crazy girl, and play games, with foreign glitter painting your cheeks? Everything’s proper form is as Nature made it: Belgian colour looks foul on Roman cheeks. May there be many an evil for that girl, in the underworld, who, false and foolish, dyes her hair! Get rid of it: I’ll still see you as beautiful, truly: your beauty’s sufficient for me, if only you come often. If some girl stains her forehead dark blue, does that mean dark blue beauty’s fine?

Gaius Valerius Catullus

Translation © copyright 17-9-1997 by Bryn Stromberg

Furius and Aurelius, companions of Catullus,
whether he penetrates the furthest of the Indies,
or the shore where the beating of the eastern
waves resonates far and wide,
whether he penetrates into the Hyrcanos or the gentle Arabs,
or the arrow-carrying Parthians,
or the seven fold Nile which
which colors the plains,
whether he will go across the great Alps,
intending to see the great monument to Caesar,
or the Gallic Rhine or the horribly distant Britain,
you who are prepared to try all these things,
and whatever else the will of the gods will bring,
announce to my girl a few nasty words.

Let her live and let her flourish with her adulterers,
whom having embraced 300 of them at the same time, she owns and keeps them,
truly loving none of them, but repeatedly breaking the groins of
all of them;
nor, let her no longer look back for my love as before,
which by her fault, has fallen,
just like the farthest flower of the field
has been killed by a passing plow.

Gaius Valerius Catullus

Carmen 29 translated by Johnny Brezhnev © copyright 21-5-2002 by Johnny Brezhnev

Who is able to see this, who is able to endure it
Except someone who is shameless and a glutton and a gambler,
Mamurra has what the province of Gaul
Used to have in value as well as that of farthest Britain?
Cinaedus Romulus, will you see these things and put up with them?
And now that (man) thinks he is better than everyone and is overflowing
And he will walk through everyone’s bedroom,
As a white dove or Adoneus?
Cinaedus Romulus, will you see these things and put up with them?
You are shameless and a glutton and a gambler.
Is it for this reason, unique commander,
You were on that farthest island of the west
So that he could gobble up everything 200 and 300 times?
What else is this except for wicked liberality?
First squandered was his good inheritance,
Second the plunder from the Black Sea, third
That of Spain, which the gold-bearing Tagus (river) knows:
Now there is fear in Gaul and Britain.
Why do you nurture this wickedness? What is this man able to do
Besides devour an oily inheritance?
Is it for this reason everything extravagent in the city
Has been destroyed, father-in-law and son-in-law?

Gaius Valerius Catullus

Now first completely Englished into Verse and Prose, the Metrical Part by Capt. Sir Richard F. Burton, R.C.M.G., F.R.G.S., etc., etc., etc.,

A PARTING INSULT TO LESBIA.

Furius and Aurelius, Catullus’ friends,

Whether extremest Indian shore he brave,

Strands where far-resounding billow rends

The shattered wave,

Or ‘mid Hyrcanians dwell he, Arabs soft and wild,

Sacae and Parthians of the arrow fain,

Or where the Seven-mouth’d Nilus mud-defiled

Tinges the Main,

Or climb he lofty Alpine Crest and note

Works monumental, Caesar’s grandeur telling,

Rhine Gallic, horrid Ocean and remote

Britons low-dwelling;

All these (whatever shall the will design

Of Heaven-homed Gods) Oh ye prepared to tempt;

Announce your briefest to that damsel mine

In words unkempt:–

Live she and love she wenchers several,

Embrace three hundred wi’ the like requitals,

None truly loving and withal of all

Bursting the vitals:

My love regard she not, my love of yore,

Which fell through fault of her, as falls the fair

Last meadow-floret whenas passed it o’er

Touch of the share.

TO CAESAR OF MAMURRA, CALLED MENTULA.

Who e’er could witness this (who could endure

Except the lewdling, dicer, greedy-gut)

That should Mamurra get what hairy Gaul

And all that farthest Britons held whilome?

(Thou bardache Romulus!) this wilt see and bear?

Then art a lewdling, dicer, greedy-gut!

He now superb with pride superfluous

Shall go perambulate the bedrooms all

Like white-robed dovelet or Adonis-love.

Romulus thou bardache! this wilt see and bear?

Then art a lewdling, dicer, greedy-gut!

Is’t for such like name, sole Emperor thou!

Thou soughtest extreme Occidental Isle?

That this your —- Mentula

Millions and Milliards might at will absorb?

What is’t but Liberality misplaced?

What trifles wasted he, small heirlooms spent?

First his paternal goods were clean dispersed;

Second went Pontus’ spoils and for the third,–

Ebro-land,–weets it well gold-rolling Tage.

Fear him the Gallias? Him the Britons’ fear?

Why cherish this ill-wight? what ‘vails he do?

Save fat paternal heritage devour?

Lost ye for such a name, O puissant pair

(Father and Son-in-law), our all-in-all?

ON ACME AND SEPTUMIUS.

To Acme quoth Septumius who his fere

Held on his bosom–“Acme, mine! next year,

Unless I love thee fondlier than before,

And with each twelve month love thee more and more,

As much as lover’s life can slay with yearning,

Alone in Lybia, or Hind’s clime a-burning,

Be mine to encounter Lion grisly-eyed!”

While he was speaking Love on leftward side

(As wont) approving sneeze from dextral sped.

But Acme backwards gently bending head,

And the love-drunken eyes of her sweet boy

Kissing with yonder rosy mouth, “My joy,”

She murmured, “my life-love Septumillus mine!

Unto one master’s hest let’s aye incline,

As burns with fuller and with fiercer fire

In my soft marrow set, this love-desire!”

While she was speaking, Love from leftward side

(As wont) with sneeze approving rightwards hied.

Now with boon omens wafted on their way,

In mutual fondness, love and loved are they.

Love-sick Septumius holds one Acme’s love,

Of Syrias or either Britains high above,

Acme to one Septumius full of faith

Her love and love-liesse surrendereth.

Who e’er saw mortals happier than these two?

Who e’er a better omened Venus knew?

Annals of the Four Masters.

41 BCE. Conaire, son of Ederscel, after having been seventy years in the sovereignty of Irelend, was slain at Bruighean Da Dhearg, by insurgents. It was in the reign of Conaire that the sea annually cast its produce ashore, at Inbhear Colptha. Great abundance of nuts were annually found upon the Boinn Boyne and the Buais during his time. The cattle were without keepers in Ireland in his reign, on account of the greatness of the peace and concord. His reign was not thunder producing or stormy, for the wind did not take a hair off the cattle from the middle of Autumn to the middle of Spring. Little but the trees bent from the greatness of their fruit during his time.

40 BCE. The first year of Ireland without a king, after Conaire.

35 BCE. The first year of Lughaidh Sriabh nDearg in the sovereignty of Ireland.

10 BCE. Lughaidh Sriabh nDearg, after having been twenty six years in the sovereignty of Ireland, died of grief.

9 BCE. Conchobhar Abhradhruadh, son of Finn. File, son of Rossa Ruadh, son of Fearghus Fairrghe, was one year in the sovereignty of Ireland, when he was slain by Crimhthann, son of Lughaidh Sriabh nDearg.

8 BCE. The first year of Crimhthann Niadhnair, son of Lughaidh, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

7 BCE. The second year of Crimhthann.

Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of the age of Christ, and the eighth year of the reign of Crimhthann Niadhnairg.

Pseudo Aristotle.

Then a little above the Scythians and the land of the Celts the Ocean binds together the inhabited world, towards the Gallic gulf and the Pillars of hercules mentioned before, outside which the Ocaean flows round the world. In it there are very large islands, two in number, called the Brettanic Islands Albion and Ierne, larger than those already mentioned and lying above the Celts…There are not a few small islands around the Bretannic islands and Iberia, wreathing the inhabited world, which as we have said is in itself an island, in a ring

Anglo Saxon Chronicle.
A.D. 1. Octavianus reigned fifty-six winters; and in the forty- second year of his reign Christ was born. Then three astrologers from the east came to worship Christ; and the children in Bethlehem were slain by Herod in persecution of Christ.
A.D. 3. This year died Herod, stabbed by his own hand; and Archelaus his son succeeded him. The child Christ was also this year brought back again from Egypt.
A.D. 6. From the beginning of the world to this year were agone five thousand and two hundred winters.

Annals of the Four Masters.

A.D. 9. The sixteenth year of Crimhthann in the sovereignty of Ireland, when he died at Dun Crimhthainn, at Edair, after returning from the famous expedition upon which he had gone. It was from this expedition he brought with him the wonderful jewels, among which were a golden chariot, and a golden chess board, inlaid with a hundred transparent gems, and the Cedach Crimhthainn, which was a beautiful cloak, embroidered with gold. He brought a conquering sword, with many serpents of refined messy gold inlaid in it; a shield, with bosses of bright silver; a spear, from the wound inflicted by which no one recovered; a sling, from which no erring shot was discharged; and two greyhounds, with a silver chain between them, which chain was worth three hundred cumhals; with many other precious articles.

10. The first year of the reign of Cairbre Cinncait, after he had killed the nobility, except a few who escaped from the massacre in which the nobles were murdered by the Aitheach Tuatha. These are the three nobles who escaped from them at that time: Fearadhach Finnfeachtnach, from whom are sprung all race of Conn of the Hundred Battles; Tibraide Tireach, from whom are the Dal Araidhe; and Corb Olum, from whom are the kings of the Eoghanachts, in Munster. And as to these, it was in their mothers’ wombs they escaped. Baine, daughter of the king of Alba, was the mother of Fearadhach Finnfeachtnach; Cruife, daughter of the king of Britain, was the mother of Corb Olum; and Aine, daughter of the king of Saxony, was the mother of Tibraide Tireach.

Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

11. This year Herod the son of Antipater undertook the government in Judea.

12. This year Philip and Herod divided Judea into four kingdoms.

12. This year Judea was divided into four tetrarchies.

Tiberius Emperor 14 – 37 AD

Annals of the Four Masters.

14. Cairbre Caitcheann, after having been five years in the sovereignty of Ireland, died. Evil was the state of Ireland during his reign; fruitless her corn, for there used to be but one grain on the stalk; fruitless her rivers; milkless her cattle; plentiless her fruit, for there used to be but one acorn on the oak.

Son to this Cairbre was the very intelligent Morann, who was usually called Morann mac Maein.

15. The first year of Fearadhach Finnfeachtnach as king over Ireland; good was Ireland during his time. The seasons were right tranquil. The earth brought forth its fruit; fishful its river mouths; milkful the kine; heavy headed the woods.

Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

16. This year Tiberius succeeded to the empire.

16 to 19 AD Tacitus Annals

Meanwhile the commotion in the East was rather pleasing to Tiberius, as it was a pretext for withdrawing Germanicus from the legions which knew him well, and placing him over new provinces where he would be exposed both to treachery and to disasters. Germanicus, however, in proportion to the strength of the soldiers’ attachment and to his uncle’s dislike, was eager to hasten his victory, and he pondered on plans of battle, and on the reverses or successes which during more than three years of war had fallen to his lot. The Germans, he knew, were beaten in the field and on fair ground; they were helped by woods, swamps, short summers, and early winters. His own troops were affected not so much by wounds as by long marches and damage to their arms. Gaul had been exhausted by supplying horses; a long baggage-train presented facilities for ambuscades, and was embarrassing to its defenders. But by embarking on the sea, invasion would be easy for them, and a surprise to the enemy, while a campaign too would be more quickly begun, the legions and supplies would be brought up simultaneously, and the cavalry with their horses would arrive, in good condition, by the rivermouths and channels, at the heart of Germany.

To this accordingly he gave his mind, and sent Publius Vitellius and Caius Antius to collect the taxes of Gaul. Silius, Anteius, and Caecina had the charge of building a fleet. It seemed that a thousand vessels were required, and they were speedily constructed, some of small draught with a narrow stem and stern and a broad centre, that they might bear the waves more easily; some flat-bottomed, that they might ground without being injured; several, furnished with a rudder at each end, so that by a sudden shifting of the oars they might be run into shore either way. Many were covered in with decks, on which engines for missiles might be conveyed, and were also fit for the carrying of horses or supplies, and being equipped with sails as well as rapidly moved by oars, they assumed, through the enthusiasm of our soldiers, an imposing and formidable aspect.

The island of the Batavi was the appointed rendezvous, because of its easy landing-places, and its convenience for receiving the army and carrying the war across the river. For the Rhine after flowing continuously in a single channel or encircling merely insignificant islands, divides itself, so to say, where the Batavian territory begins, into two rivers, retaining its name and the rapidity of its course in the stream which washes Germany, till it mingles with the ocean. On the Gallic bank, its flow is broader and gentler; it is called by an altered name, the Vahal, by the inhabitants of its shore. Soon that name too is changed for the Mosa river, through whose vast mouth it empties itself into the same ocean.

Caesar, however, while the vessels were coming up, ordered Silius, his lieutenant-general, to make an inroad on the Chatti with a flying column. He himself, on hearing that a fort on the river Luppia was being besieged, led six legions to the spot. Silius owing to sudden rains did nothing but carry off a small booty, and the wife and daughter of Arpus, the chief of the Chatti. And Caesar had no opportunity of fighting given him by the besiegers, who dispersed on the rumour of his advance. They had, however, destroyed the barrow lately raised in memory of Varus’s legions, and the old altar of Drusus. The prince restored the altar, and himself with his legions celebrated funeral games in his father’s honour. To raise a new barrow was not thought necessary. All the country between the fort Aliso and the Rhine was thoroughly secured by new barriers and earthworks.

By this time the fleet had arrived, and Caesar, having sent on his supplies and assigned vessels for the legions and the allied troops, entered “Drusus’s fosse,” as it was called. He prayed Drusus his father to lend him, now that he was venturing on the same enterprise, the willing and favourable aid of the example and memory of his counsels and achievements, and he arrived after a prosperous voyage through the lakes and the ocean as far as the river Amisia. His fleet remained there on the left bank of the stream, and it was a blunder that he did not have it brought up the river. He disembarked the troops, which were to be marched to the country on the right, and thus several days were wasted in the construction of bridges. The cavalry and the legions fearlessly crossed the first estuaries in which the tide had not yet risen. The rear of the auxiliaries, and the Batavi among the number, plunging recklessly into the water and displaying their skill in swimming, fell into disorder, and some were drowned. While Caesar was measuring out his camp, he was told of a revolt of the Angrivarii in his rear. He at once despatched Stertinius with some cavalry and a light armed force, who punished their perfidy with fire and sword.

The waters of the Visurgis flowed between the Romans and the Cherusci. On its banks stood Arminius with the other chiefs. He asked whether Caesar had arrived, and on the reply that he was present, he begged leave to have an interview with his brother. That brother, surnamed Flavus, was with our army, a man famous for his loyalty, and for having lost an eye by a wound, a few years ago, when Tiberius was in command. The permission was then given, and he stepped forth and was saluted by Arminius, who had removed his guards to a distance and required that the bowmen ranged on our bank should retire. When they had gone away, Arminius asked his brother whence came the scar which disfigured his face, and on being told the particular place and battle, he inquired what reward he had received. Flavus spoke of increased pay, of a neck chain, a crown, and other military gifts, while Arminius jeered at such a paltry recompense for slavery.

Then began a controversy. The one spoke of the greatness of Rome, the resources of Caesar, the dreadful punishment in store for the vanquished, the ready mercy for him who surrenders, and the fact that neither Arminius’s wife nor his son were treated as enemies; the other, of the claims of fatherland, of ancestral freedom, of the gods of the homes of Germany, of the mother who shared his prayers, that Flavus might not choose to be the deserter and betrayer rather than the ruler of his kinsfolk and relatives, and indeed of his own people.

By degrees they fell to bitter words, and even the river between them would not have hindered them from joining combat, had not Stertinius hurried up and put his hand on Flavus, who in the full tide of his fury was demanding his weapons and his charger. Arminius was seen facing him, full of menaces and challenging him to conflict. Much of what he said was in Roman speech, for he had served in our camp as leader of his fellow-countrymen.

Next day the German army took up its position on the other side of the Visurgis. Caesar, thinking that without bridges and troops to guard them, it would not be good generalship to expose the legions to danger, sent the cavalry across the river by the fords. It was commanded by Stertinius and Aemilius, one of the first rank centurions, who attacked at widely different points so as to distract the enemy. Chariovalda, the Batavianchief, dashed to the charge where the stream is most rapid. The Cherusci, by a pretended flight, drew him into a plain surrounded by forest-passes. Then bursting on him in a sudden attack from all points they thrust aside all who resisted, pressed fiercely on their retreat, driving them before them, when they rallied in compact array, some by close fighting, others by missiles from a distance. Chariovalda, after long sustaining the enemy’s fury, cheered on his men to break by a dense formation the onset of their bands, while he himself, plunging into the thickest of the battle, fell amid a shower of darts with his horse pierced under him, and round him many noble chiefs. The rest were rescued from the peril by their own strength, or by the cavalry which came up with Stertinius and Aemilius.

Caesar on crossing the Visurgis learnt by the information of a deserter that Arminius had chosen a battle-field, that other tribes too had assembled in a forest sacred to Hercules, and would venture on a night attack on his camp. He put faith in this intelligence, and, besides, several watchfires were seen. Scouts also, who had crept close up to the enemy, reported that they had heard the neighing of horses and the hum of a huge and tumultuous host. And so, as the decisive crisis drew near, that he ought thoroughly to sound the temper of his soldiers, he considered with himself how this was to be accomplished with a genuine result. Tribunes and centurions, he knew, oftener reported what was welcome than what was true; freedmen had slavish spirits, friends a love of flattery. If an assembly were called, there too the lead of a few was followed by the shout of the many. He must probe their inmost thoughts, when they were uttering their hopes and fears at the military mess, among themselves, and unwatched.

At nightfall, leaving his tent of augury by a secret exit, unknown to the sentries, with one companion, his shoulders covered with a wild beast’s skin, he visited the camp streets, stood by the tents, and enjoyed the men’s talk about himself, as one extolled his noble rank, another, his handsome person, nearly all of them, his endurance, his gracious manner and the evenness of his temper, whether he was jesting or was serious, while they acknowledged that they ought to repay him with their gratitude in battle, and at the same time sacrifice to a glorious vengeance the perfidious violators of peace. Meanwhile one of the enemy, acquainted with the Roman tongue, spurred his horse up to the entrenchments, and in a loud voice promised in the name of Arminius to all deserters, wives and lands with daily pay of a hundred sesterces as long as war lasted. The insult fired the wrath of the legions. “Let daylight come,” they said, “let battle be given. The soldiers will possess themselves of the lands of the Germans and will carry off their wives. We hail the omen; we mean the women and riches of the enemy to be our spoil.” About midday there was a skirmishing attack on our camp, without any discharge of missiles, when they saw the cohorts in close array before the lines and no sign of carelessness.

The same night brought with it a cheering dream to Germanicus. He saw himself engaged in sacrifice, and his robe being sprinkled with the sacred blood, another more beautiful was given him by the hands of his grandmother Augusta. Encouraged by the omen and finding the auspices favourable, he called an assembly, and explained the precautions which wisdom suggested as suitable for the impending battle. “It is not,” he said, “plains only which are good for the fighting of Roman soldiers, but woods and forest passes, if science be used. For the huge shields and unwieldly lances of the barbarians cannot, amid trunks of trees and brushwood that springs from the ground, be so well managed as our javelins and swords and closefitting armour. Shower your blows thickly; strike at the face with your swords’ points. The German has neither cuirass nor helmet; even his shield is not strengthened with leather or steel, but is of osiers woven together or of thin and painted board. If their first line is armed with spears, the rest have only weapons hardened by fire or very short. Again, though their frames are terrible to the eye and formidable in a brief onset, they have no capacity of enduring wounds; without, any shame at the disgrace, without any regard to their leaders, they quit the field and flee; they quail under disaster, just as in success they forget alike divine and human laws. If in your weariness of land and sea you desire an end of service, this battle prepares the way to it. The Elbe is now nearer than the Rhine, and there is no war beyond, provided only you enable me, keeping close as I do to my father’s and my uncle’s footsteps, to stand a conqueror on the same spot.”

The general’s speech was followed by enthusiasm in the soldiers, and the signal for battle was given. Nor were Arminius and the other German chiefs slow to call their respective clansmen to witness that “these Romans were the most cowardly fugitives out of Varus’s army, men who rather than endure war had taken to mutiny. Half of them have their backs covered with wounds; half are once again exposing limbs battered by waves and storms to a foe full of fury, and to hostile deities, with no hope of advantage. They have, in fact, had recourse to a fleet and to a trackless ocean, that their coming might be unopposed, their flight unpursued. But when once they have joined conflict with us, the help of winds or oars will be unavailing to the vanquished. Remember only their greed, their cruelty, their pride. Is anything left for us but to retain our freedom or to die before we are enslaved?

When they were thus roused, and were demanding battle, their chiefs led them down into a plain named Idistavisus. It winds between the Visurgis and a hill range, its breadth varying as the river banks recede or the spurs of the hills project on it. In their rear rose a forest, with the branches rising to a great height, while there were clear spaces between the trunks. The barbarian army occupied the plain and the outskirts of the wood. The Cherusci were posted by themselves on the high ground, so as to rush down on the Romans during the battle.

Our army advanced in the following order. The auxiliary Gauls and Germans were in the van, then the foot-archers, after them, four legions and Caesar himself with two praetorian cohorts and some picked cavalry. Next came as many other legions, and light-armed troops with horse-bowmen, and the remaining cohorts of the allies. The men were quite ready and prepared to form in line of battle according to their marching order.

Caesar, as soon as he saw the Cheruscan bands which in their impetuous spirit had rushed to the attack, ordered the finest of his cavalry to charge them in flank, Stertinius with the other squadrons to make a detour and fall on their rear, promising himself to come up in good time. Meanwhile there was a most encouraging augury. Eight eagles, seen to fly towards the woods and to enter them, caught the general’s eye. “Go,” he exclaimed, “follow the Roman birds, the true deities of our legions.” At the same moment the infantry charged, and the cavalry which had been sent on in advance dashed on the rear and the flanks. And, strange to relate, two columns of the enemy fled in opposite directions, that, which had occupied the wood, rushing into the open, those who had been drawn up on the plains, into the wood. The Cherusci, who were between them, were dislodged from the hills, while Arminius, conspicuous among them by gesture, voice, and a wound he had received, kept up the fight. He had thrown himself on our archers and was on the point of breaking through them, when the cohorts of the Raeti, Vendelici, and Gauls faced his attack. By a strong bodily effort, however, and a furious rush of his horse, he made his way through them, having smeared his face with his blood, that he might not be known. Some have said that he was recognised by Chauci serving among the Roman auxiliaries, who let him go.

Inguiomerus owed his escape to similar courage or treachery. The rest were cut down in every direction. Many in attempting to swim across the Visurgis were overwhelmed under a storm of missiles or by the force of the current, lastly, by the rush of fugitives and the falling in of the banks. Some in their ignominious flight climbed the tops of trees, and as they were hiding themselves in the boughs, archers were brought up and they were shot for sport. Others were dashed to the ground by the felling of the trees.

It was a great victory and without bloodshed to us. From nine in the morning to nightfall the enemy were slaughtered, and ten miles were covered with arms and dead bodies, while there were found amid the plunder the chains which the Germans had brought with them for the Romans, as though the issue were certain. The soldiers on the battle field hailed Tiberius as Imperator, and raised a mound on which arms were piled in the style of a trophy, with the names of the conquered tribes inscribed beneath them.

That sight caused keener grief and rage among the Germans than their wounds, their mourning, and their losses. Those who but now were preparing to quit their settlements and to retreat to the further side of the Elbe, longed for battle and flew to arms. Common people and chiefs, young and old, rushed on the Roman army, and spread disorder. At last they chose a spot closed in by a river and by forests, within which was a narrow swampy plain. The woods too were surrounded by a bottomless morass, only on one side of it the Angrivarii had raised a broad earthwork, as a boundary between themselves and the Cherusci. Here their infantry was ranged. Their cavalry they concealed in neighbouring woods, so as to be on the legions’ rear, as soon as they entered the forest.

All this was known to Caesar. He was acquainted with their plans, their positions, with what met the eye, and what was hidden, and he prepared to turn the enemy’s stratagems to their own destruction. To Seius Tubero, his chief officer, he assigned the cavalry and the plain. His infantry he drew up so that part might advance on level ground into the forest, and part clamber up the earthwork which confronted them. He charged himself with what was the specially difficult operation, leaving the rest to his officers. Those who had the level ground easily forced a passage. Those who had to assault the earthwork encountered heavy blows from above, as if they were scaling a wall. The general saw how unequal this close fighting was, and having withdrawn his legions to a little distance, ordered the slingers and artillerymen to discharge a volley of missiles and scatter the enemy. Spears were hurled from the engines, and the more conspicuous were the defenders of the position, the more the wounds with which they were driven from it. Caesar with some praetorian cohorts was the first, after the storming of the ramparts, to dash into the woods. There they fought at close quarters. A morass was in the enemy’s rear, and the Romans were hemmed in by the river or by the hills. Both were in a desperate plight from their position; valour was their only hope, victory their only safety.

The Germans were equally brave, but they were beaten by the nature of the fighting and of the weapons, for their vast host in so confined a space could neither thrust out nor recover their immense lances, or avail themselves of their nimble movements and lithe frames, forced as they were to a close engagement. Our soldiers, on the other hand, with their shields pressed to their breasts, and their hands grasping their sword-hilts, struck at the huge limbs and exposed faces of the barbarians, cutting a passage through the slaughtered enemy, for Arminius was now less active, either from incessant perils, or because he was partially disabled by his recent wound. As for Inguiomerus, who flew hither and thither over the battlefield, it was fortune rather than courage which forsook him. Germanicus, too, that he might be the better known, took his helmet off his head and begged his men to follow up the slaughter, as they wanted not prisoners, and the utter destruction of the nation would be the only conclusion of the war. And now, late in the day, he withdrew one of his legions from the field, to intrench a camp, while the rest till nightfall glutted themselves with the enemy’s blood. Our cavalry fought with indecisive success.

Having publicly praised his victorious troops, Caesar raised a pile of arms with the proud inscription, “The army of Tiberius Caesar, after thoroughly conquering the tribes between the Rhine and the Elbe, has dedicated this monument to Mars, Jupiter, and Augustus.” He added nothing about himself, fearing jealousy, or thinking that the 327roprietor327ss of the achievement was enough. Next he charged Stertinius with making war on the Angrivarii, but they hastened to surrender. And, as suppliants, by refusing nothing, they obtained a full pardon.

When, however, summer was at its height some of the legions were sent back overland into winter-quarters, but most of them Caesar put on board the fleet and brought down the river Amisia to the ocean. At first the calm waters merely sounded with the oars of a thousand vessels or were ruffled by the sailing ships. Soon, a hailstorm bursting from a black mass of clouds, while the waves rolled hither and thither under tempestuous gales from every quarter, rendered clear sight impossible, and the steering difficult, while our soldiers, terrorstricken and without any experience of disasters on the sea, by embarrassing the sailors or giving them clumsy aid, neutralized the services of the skilled crews. After a while, wind and wave shifted wholly to the south, and from the hilly lands and deep rivers of Germany came with a huge line of rolling clouds, a strong blast, all the more frightful from the frozen north which was so near to them, and instantly caught and drove the ships hither and thither into the open ocean, or on islands with steep cliffs or which hidden shoals made perilous. These they just escaped, with difficulty, and when the tide changed and bore them the same way as the wind, they could not hold to their anchors or bale out the water which rushed in upon them. Horses, beasts of burden, baggage, were thrown overboard, in order to lighten the hulls which leaked copiously through their sides, while the waves too dashed over them.

As the ocean is stormier than all other seas, and as Germany is conspicuous for the terrors of its climate, so in novelty and extent did this disaster transcend every other, for all around were hostile coasts, or an expanse so vast and deep that it is thought to be the remotest shoreless sea. Some of the vessels were swallowed up; many were wrecked on distant islands, and the soldiers, finding there no form of human life, perished of hunger, except some who supported existence on carcases of horses washed on the same shores. Germanicus’s trireme alone reached the country of the Chauci. Day and night, on those rocks and promontories he would incessantly exclaim that he was himself responsible for this awful ruin, and friends scarce restrained him from seeking death in the same sea.

At last, as the tide ebbed and the wind blew favourably, the shattered vessels with but few rowers, or clothing spread as sails, some towed by the more powerful, returned, and Germanicus, having speedily repaired them, sent them to search the islands. Many by that means were recovered. The Angrivarii, who had lately been admitted to our alliance, restored to us several had ransomed from the inland tribes. Some had been carried to Britain and were sent back by the petty chiefs. Everyone, as he returned from some far-distant region, told of wonders, of violent hurricanes, and unknown birds, of monsters of the sea, of forms half-human, half beast-like, things they had really seen or in their terror believed.

Meanwhile the rumoured loss of the fleet stirred the Germansto hope for war, as it did Caesar to hold them down. He ordered Caius Silius with thirty thousand infantry, and three thousand cavalry to march against the Chatti. He himself, with a larger army, invaded the Marsi, whose leader, Mallovendus, whom we had lately admitted to surrender, pointed out a neighbouring wood, where, he said, an eagle of one of Varus’s legions was buried and guarded only by a small force. Immediately troops were despatched to draw the enemy from his position by appearing in his front, others, to hem in his rear and open the ground. Fortune favoured both. So, Germanicus, with increased energy, advanced into the country, laying it waste, and utterly ruining a foe who dared not encounter him, or who was instantly defeated wherever he resisted, and, as we learnt from prisoners, was never more panic-stricken. The Romans, they declared, were invincible, rising superior to all calamities; for having thrown away a fleet, having lost their arms, after strewing the shores with the carcases of horses and of men, they had rushed to the attack with the same courage, with equal spirit, and, seemingly, with augmented numbers.

The soldiers were then led back into winter-quarters, rejoicing in their hearts at having been compensated for their disasters at sea by a successful expedition. They were helped too by Caesar’s bounty, which made good whatever loss any one declared he had suffered. It was also regarded as a certainty that the enemy were wavering and consulting on negotiations for peace, and that, with an additional campaign next summer the war might be ended. Tiberius, however, in repeated letters advised Germanicus to return for the triumph decreed him. “He had now had enough of success, enough of disaster. He had fought victorious battles on a great scale; he should also remember those losses which the winds and waves had inflicted, and which, though due to no fault of the general, were still grievous and shocking. He, Tiberius, had himself been sent nine times by Augustus into Germany,and had done more by policy than by arms. By this means the submission of the Sugambri had been secured, and the Suevi with their king Maroboduus had been forced into peace. The Cherusci too and the other insurgent tribes, since the vengeance of Rome had been satisfied, might be left to their internal feuds.”

When Germanicus requested a year for the completion of his enterprise, Tiberius put a severer pressure on his modesty by offering him a second consulship, the functions of which he was to discharge in person. He also added that if war must still be waged, he might as well leave some materials for renown to his brother Drusus, who, as there was then no other enemy, could win only in Germany the imperial title and the triumphal laurel. Germanicus hesitated no longer, though he saw that this was a pretence, and that he was hurried away through jealousy from the glory he had already acquired.

In the consulship of Caius Caecilius and Lucius Pomponius, Germanicus Caesar, on the 26^th day of May, celebrated his triumph over the Cherusci, Chatti, and Angrivarii, and the other tribes which extend as far as the Elbe. There were borne in procession spoils, prisoners, representations of the mountains, the rivers and battles; and the war, seeing that he had been forbidden to finish it, was taken as finished. The admiration of the beholders was heightened by the striking comeliness of the general and the chariot which bore his five children. Still, there was a latent dread when they remembered how unfortunate in the case of Drusus, his father, had been the favour of the crowd; how his uncle Marcellus, regarded by the city populace with passionate enthusiasm, had been snatched from them while yet a youth, and how short-lived and ill-starred were the attachments of the Roman people.

That same year the Frisii, a nation beyond the Rhine, cast off peace, more because of our rapacity than from their impatience of subjection. Drusus had imposed on them a moderate tribute, suitable to their limited resources, the furnishing of ox hides for military purposes. No one ever severely scrutinized the size or thickness till Olennius, a first-rank centurion, appointed to govern the Frisii, selected hides of wild bulls as the standard according to which they were to be supplied. This would have been hard for any nation, and it was the less tolerable to the Germans, whose forests abound in huge beasts, while their home cattle are undersized. First it was their herds, next their lands, last, the persons of their wives and children, which they gave up to bondage. Then came angry remonstrances, and when they received no relief, they sought a remedy in war. The soldiers appointed to collect the tribute were seized and gibbeted. Olennius anticipated their fury by flight, and found refuge in a fortress, named Flevum, where a by no means contemptible force of Romans and allies kept guard over the shores of the ocean.

As soon as this was known to Lucius Apronius, 330roprietor of Lower Germany,he summoned from the Upper province the legionary veterans, as well as some picked auxiliary infantry and cavalry. Instantly conveying both armies down the Rhine, he threw them on the Frisii, raising at once the siege of the fortress and dispersing the rebels in defence of their own possessions. Next, he began constructing solid roads and bridges over the neighbouring estuaries for the passage of his heavy troops, and meanwhile having found a ford, he ordered the cavalry of the Canninefates, with all the German infantry which served with us, to take the enemy in the rear. Already in battle array, they were beating back our auxiliary horse as well as that of the legions sent to support them, when three light cohorts, then two more, and after a while the entire cavalry were sent to the attack. They were strong enough, had they charged altogether, but coming up, as they did, at intervals, they did not give fresh courage to the repulsed troops and were themselves carried away in the panic of the fugitives. Apronius entrusted the rest of the auxiliaries to Cethegus Labeo, the commander of the fifth legion, but he too, finding his men’s position critical and being in extreme peril, sent messages imploring the whole strength of the legions. The soldiers of the fifth sprang forward, drove back the enemy in a fierce encounter, and saved our cohorts and cavalry, who were exhausted by their wounds. But the Roman general did not attempt vengeance or even bury the dead, although many tribunes, prefects, and first-rank centurions had fallen. Soon afterwards it was ascertained from deserters that nine hundred Romans had been cut to pieces in a wood called Braduhenna’s, after prolonging the fight to the next day, and that another body of four hundred, which had taken possession of the house of one Cruptorix, once a soldier in our pay, fearing betrayal, had perished by mutual slaughter.

The Frisian name thus became famous in Germany, and Tiberius kept our losses a secret, not wishing to entrust any one with the war.

Anglo Saxon Chronicle

26. This year Pilate began to reign over the Jews.

30. This year was Christ baptized; and Peter and Andrew were converted, together with James, and John, and Philip, and all the twelve apostles.

St Peter Pope 32-67

Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

33. This year was Christ crucified; about five thousand two hundred and twenty-six winters from the beginning of the world.

Gildas.

Meanwhile these islands, stiff with cold and frost, and in a distant region of the world, remote from the visible sun, received the beams of light, that is, the holy precepts of Christ, the true Sun, showing to the whole world his splendour, not only from the temporal firmament, but from the height of heaven, which surpasses every thing temporal, at the latter part, as we know, of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, by whom his religion was propagated without impediment, and death threatened to those who interfered with its professors.

The Annals of Clonmacnoise.

Eochie Oireaw was the next King & Brother to the former King; raigned 15 years & was then slaine & burnt by lightning fire from heaven. Edersgel More suceeded, he raigned 5 years, and was then slaine by Nuada Noaght. Nuada Noaght was the next King after Edresgell. He Raigned half a year & was slain by conry m c Edersgell in the battle of Cliah in the Country of Idrona. Conary was King 60 years & was burnt by Anckell, King of Wales, his sonn by night in Brwyne da Dearg. Jesus Christ was crucified in his time, but some of the antiquarists afirm that our Saviour Jesus Christ was borne in the Raigne of K. Eochy Feyleagh, & not in the reign of Faghna fathagh & crucified by Tiberius Caesar in the raigne of Edersgall, K. of Ireland.

Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

34. This year was St. Paul converted, and St. Stephen stoned.

35. This year the blessed Peter the apostle settled an episcopal see in the city of Antioch.

Annals of the Four Masters.

36. Fearadhach Finnfeachtnach, son of Crimhthann Niadhnair, after having spent twenty-two years in the sovereignty of Ireland, died at Teamhair.

37. The first year of Fiatach Finn, son of Daire, son of Dluthach, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

37. This year Pilate slew himself with his own hand.

Gaius (Caligula) Emperor 37-41

37-8. Tacitus Annals.

About the same time, from the same causes, the legions of Germany rose in mutiny, with a fury proportioned to their greater numbers, in the confident hope that Germanicus Caesar would not be able to endure another’s supremacy and offer himself to the legions, whose strength would carry everything before it. There were two armies on the bank of the Rhine; that named the upper army had Caius Silius for general; the lower was under the charge of Aulus Caecina. The supreme direction rested with Germanicus, then busily employed in conducting the assessment of Gaul. The troops under the control of Silius, with minds yet in suspense, watched the issue of mutiny elsewhere; but the soldiers of the lower army fell into a frenzy, which had its beginning in the men of the twenty-first and fifth legions, and into which the first and twentieth were also drawn. For they were all quartered in the same summer-camp, in the territory of the Ubii, enjoying ease or having only light on hearing of the death of Augustus, a rabble of city slaves, who had been enlisted under a recent levy at Rome, habituated to laxity and impatient of hardship, filled the ignorant minds of the other soldiers with notions that the time had come when the veteran might demand a timely discharge, the young, more liberal pay, all, an end of their miseries, and vengeance on the cruelty of centurions.

Nor did their commander check them. Indeed, the blind rage of so many had robbed him of his resolution., In a sudden frenzy they rushed with drawn swords on the centurions, the immemorial object of the soldiers’ resentment and the first cause of savage fury. They threw them to the earth and beat them sorely, sixty to one, so as to correspond with the number of centurions. Then tearing them from the ground, mangled, and some lifeless, they flung them outside the entrenchments or into the river Rhine. One Septimius, who fled to the tribunal and was grovelling at Caecina’s feet, was persistently demanded till he was given up to destruction. Cassius Chaerea, who won for himself a memory with posterity by the murder of Caius Caesar, being then a youth of high spirit, cleared a passage with his sword through the armed and opposing throng. Neither tribune nor camp-prefect maintained authority any longer. Patrols, sentries, and whatever else the needs of the time required, were distributed by the men themselves. To those who could guess the temper of soldiers with some penetration, the strongest symptom of a wide-spread and intractable commotion, was the fact that, instead of being divided or instigated by a few persons, they were unanimous in their fury and equally unanimous in their composure, with so uniform a consistency that one would have thought them to be under command.

Meantime Germanicus, while, as I have related, he was collecting the taxes of Gaul, received news of the death of Augustus. He was married to the granddaughter of Augustus, Agrippina, by whom he had several children, and though he was himself the son of Drusus, brother of Tiberius, and grandson of Augusta, he was troubled by the secret hatred of his uncle and grandmother, the motives for which were the more venomous because unjust.

But the nearer Germanicus was to the highest hope, the more laboriously did he exert himself for Tiberius, and he made the neighbouring Sequani and all the Belgic states swear obedience to him. On hearing of the mutiny in the legions, he instantly went to the spot, and met them outside the camp, eyes fixed on the ground, and seemingly repentant. As soon as he entered the entrenchments, confused murmurs became audible. Some men, seizing his hand under pretence of kissing it, thrust his fingers into their mouths, that he might touch their toothless gums; others showed him their limbs bowed with age. He ordered the throng which stood near him, as it seemed a promiscuous gathering, to separate itself into its military companies. They replied that they would hear better as they were. The standards were then to be advanced, so that thus at least the cohorts might be distinguished. The soldiers obeyed reluctantly. Then beginning with a reverent mention of Augustus, he passed on to the victories and triumphs of Tiberius, dwelling with especial praise on his glorious achievements with those legions in Germany. Next, he extolled the unity of Italy, the loyalty of Gaul, the entire absence of turbulence or strife. He was heard in silence or with but a slight murmur.

As soon as he touched on the mutiny and asked what had become of soldierly obedience, of the glory of ancient discipline, whither they had driven their tribunes and centurions, they all bared their bodies and taunted him with the scars of their wounds and the marks of the lash. And then with confused exclamations they spoke bitterly of the prices of exemptions, of their scanty pay, of the severity of their tasks, with special mention of the entrenchment, the fosse, the conveyance of fodder, building-timber, firewood, and whatever else had to be procured from necessity, or as a check on idleness in the camp. The fiercest clamour arose from the veteran soldiers, who, as they counted their thirty campaigns or more, implored him to relieve worn-out men, and not let them die under the same hardships, but have an end of such harassing service, and repose without beggary. Some even claimed the legacy of the Divine Augustus, with words of good omen for Germanicus, and, should he wish for empire, they showed themselves abundantly willing. Thereupon, as though he were contracting the pollution of guilt, he leapt impetuously from the tribunal. The men opposed his departure with their weapons, threatening him repeatedly if he would not go back. But Germanicus protesting that he would die rather than cast off his loyalty, plucked his sword from his side, raised it aloft and was plunging it into his breast, when those nearest him seized his hand and held it by force. The remotest and most densely crowded part of the throng, and, what almost passes belief, some, who came close up to him, urged him to strike the blow, and a soldier, by name Calusidius, offered him a drawn sword, saying that it was sharper than his own. Even in their fury, this seemed to them a savage act and one of evil precedent, and there was a pause during which Caesar’s friends hurried him into his tent.

There they took counsel how to heal matters. For news was also brought that the soldiers were preparing the despatch of envoys who were to draw the upper army into their cause; that the capital of the Ubii was marked out for destruction, and that hands with the stain of plunder on them would soon be daring enough for the pillage of Gaul. The alarm was heightened by the knowledge that the enemy was aware of the Roman mutiny, and would certainly attack if the Rhine bank were undefended. Yet if the auxiliary troops and allies were to be armed against the retiring legions, civil war was in fact begun. Severity would be dangerous; profuse liberality would be scandalous. Whether all or nothing were conceded to the soldiery, the State was equally in jeopardy.

37-8 Tacitus Annals.

Germanicus meantime, though he had concentrated his army and prepared vengeance against the mutineers, thought that he ought still to allow them an interval, in case they might, with the late warning before them, regard their safety. He sent a despatch to Caecina, which said that he was on the way with a strong force, and that, unless they forestalled his arrival by the execution of the guilty, he would resort to an indiscriminate massacre. Caecina read the letter confidentially to the eagle and standardbearers, and to all in the camp who were least tainted by disloyalty, and urged them to save the whole army from disgrace, and themselves from destruction. “In peace,” he said, “the merits of a man’s case are carefully weighed; when war bursts on us, innocent and guilty alike perish.”

Upon this, they sounded those whom they thought best for their purpose, and when they saw that a majority of their legions remained loyal, at the commander’s suggestion they fixed a time for falling with the sword on all the vilest and foremost of the mutineers. Then, at a mutually given signal, they rushed into the tents, and butchered the unsuspecting men, none but those in the secret knowing what was the beginning or what was to be the end of the slaughter. The scene was a contrast to all civil wars which have ever occurred. It was not in battle, it was not from opposing camps, it was from those same dwellings where day saw them at their common meals, night resting from labour, that they divided themselves into two factions, and showered on each other their missiles. Uproar, wounds, bloodshed, were everywhere visible; the cause was a mystery. All else was at the disposal of chance. Even some loyal men were slain, for, on its being once understood who were the objects of fury, some of the worst mutineers too had seized on weapons. Neither commander nor tribune was present to control them; the men were allowed license and vengeance to their heart’s content. Soon afterwards Germanicus entered the camp, and exclaiming with a flood of tears, that this was destruction rather than remedy, ordered the bodies to be burnt.

Even then their savage spirit was seized with desire to march against the enemy, as an atonement for their frenzy, and it was felt that the shades of their fellow-soldiers could be appeased only by exposing such impious breasts to honourable scars. Caesar followed up the enthusiasm of the men, and having bridged over the Rhine, he sent across it 12,000 from the legions, with six-and-twenty allied cohorts, and eight squadrons of cavalry, whose discipline had been without a stain during the mutiny.

There was exultation among the Germans, not far off, as long as we were detained by the public mourning for the loss of Augustus, and then by our dissensions. But the Roman general in a forced march, cut through the Caesian forest and the barrier which had been begun by Tiberius, and pitched his camp on this barrier, his front and rear being defended by intrenchments, his flanks by timber barricades. He then penetrated some forest passes but little known, and, as there were two routes, he deliberated whether he should pursue the short and ordinary route, or that which was more difficult unexplored, and consequently unguarded by the enemy. He chose the longer way, and hurried on every remaining preparation, for his scouts had brought word that among the Germans it was a night of festivity, with games, and one of their grand banquets. Caecina had orders to advance with some light cohorts, and to clear away any obstructions from the woods. The legions followed at a moderate interval. They were helped by a night of bright starlight, reached the villages of the Marsi, and threw their pickets round the enemy, who even then were stretched on beds or at their tables, without the least fear, or any sentries before their camp, so complete was their carelessness and disorder; and of war indeed there was no apprehension. Peace it certainly was not- merely the languid and heedless ease of half-intoxicated people.

Caesar, to spread devastation widely, divided his eager legions into four columns, and ravaged a space of fifty miles with fire and sword. Neither sex nor age moved his compassion. Everything, sacred or profane, the temple too of Tamfana, as they called it, the special resort of all those tribes, was levelled to the ground. There was not a wound among our soldiers, who cut down a half-asleep, an unarmed, or a straggling foe. The Bructeri, Tubantes, and Usipetes, were roused by this slaughter, and they beset the forest passes through which the army had to return. The general knew this, and he marched, prepared both to advance and to fight. Part of the cavalry, and some of the auxiliary cohorts led the van; then came the first legion, and, with the baggage in the centre, the men of the twenty-first closed up the left, those of the fifth, the right flank. The twentieth legion secured the rear, and, next, were the rest of the allies.

Meanwhile the enemy moved not till the army began to defile in column through the woods, then made slight skirmishing attacks on its flanks and van, and with his whole force charged the rear. The light cohorts were thrown into confusion by the dense masses of the Germans, when Caesar rode up to the men of the twentieth legion, and in a loud voice exclaimed that this was the time for wiping out the mutiny. “Advance,” he said, “and hasten to turn your guilt into glory.” This fired their courage, and at a single dash they broke through the enemy, and drove him back with great slaughter into the open country. At the same moment, the troops of the van emerged from the woods and intrenched a camp. After this their march was uninterrupted, and the soldiery, with the confidence of recent success, and forgetful of the past, were placed in winter-quarters.

Germanicus accordingly gave Caecina four legions, five thousand auxiliaries, with some hastily raised levies from the Germansdwelling on the left bank of the Rhine. He was himself at the head of an equal number of legions and twice as many allies. Having established a fort on the site of his father’s entrenchments on Mount Taunus he hurried his troops in quick marching order against the Chatti, leaving Lucius Apronius to direct works connected with roads and bridges. With a dry season and comparatively shallow streams, a rare circumstance in that climate, he had accomplished, without obstruction, rapid march, and he feared for his return heavy rains and swollen rivers. But so suddenly did he come on the Chatti that all the helpless from age or sex were at once captured or slaughtered. Their able-bodied men had swum across the river Adrana, and were trying to keep back the Romans as they were commencing a bridge. Subsequently they were driven back by missiles and arrows, and having in vain attempted for peace, some took refuge with Germanicus, while the rest leaving their cantons and villages dispersed themselves in their forests.

After burning Mattium, the capital of the tribe, and ravaging the open country, Germanicus marched back towards the Rhine, the enemy not daring to harass the rear of the retiring army, which was his usual practice whenever he fell back by way of stratagem rather than from panic. It had been the intention of the Cherusci to help the Chatti; but Caecina thoroughly cowed them, carrying his arms everywhere, and the Marsi who ventured to engage him, he repulsed in a successful battle.

Not long after envoys came from Segestes, imploring aid against the violence of his fellow-countrymen, by whom he was hemmed in, and with whom Arminius had greater influence, because he counselled war. For with barbarians, the more eager a man’s daring, the more does he inspire confidence, and the more highly is he esteemed in times of revolution. With the envoys Segestes had associated his son, by name Segimundus, but the youth hung back from a consciousness of guilt. For in the year of the revolt of Germanyhe had been appointed a priest at the altar of the Ubii, and had rent the sacred garlands, and fled to the rebels. Induced, however, to hope for mercy from Rome, he brought his father’s message; he was graciously received and sent with an escort to the Gallic bank of the Rhine.

It was now worth while for Germanicus to march back his army. A battle was fought against the besiegers and Segestes was rescued with a numerous band of kinsfolk and dependents. In the number were some women of rank; among them, the wife of Arminius, who was also the daughter of Segestes, but who exhibited the spirit of her husband rather than of her father, subdued neither to tears nor to the tones of a suppliant, her hands tightly clasped within her bosom, and eyes which dwelt on her hope of offspring. The spoils also taken in the defeat of Varus were brought in, having been given as plunder to many of those who were then being surrendered.

Segestes too was there in person, a stately figure, fearless in the remembrance of having been a faithful ally. His speech was to this effect. “This is not my first day of steadfast loyalty towards the Roman people. From the time that the Divine Augustus gave me the citizenship, I have chosen my friends and foes with an eye to your advantage, not from hatred of my fatherland (for traitors are detested even by those whom they prefer) but because I held that Romans and Germans have the same interests, and that peace is better than war. And therefore, I denounced to Varus, who then commanded your army, Arminius, the ravisher of my daughter, the violater of your treaty. I was put off by that dilatory general, and, as I found but little protection in the laws, I urged him to arrest myself, Arminius, and his accomplices. That night is my witness; would that it had been my last. What followed, may be deplored rather than defended. However, I threw Arminius into chains and I endured to have them put on myself by his partisans. And as soon as give opportunity, I show my preference for the old over the new, for peace over commotion, not to get a reward, but that I may clear myself from treachery and be at the same time a fit mediator for a Germanpeople, should they choose repentance rather than ruin, For the youth and error of my son I entreat forgiveness. As for my daughter, I admit that it is by compulsion she has been brought here. It will be for you to consider which fact weighs most with you, that she is with child by Arminius or that she owes her being to me.”

Caesar in a gracious reply promised safety to his children and kinsfolk and a home for himself in the old province. He then led back the army and received on the proposal of Tiberius the title of Imperator. The wife of Arminius gave birth to a male child; the boy, who was brought up at Ravenna, soon afterwards suffered an insult, which at the proper time I shall relate.

The report of the surrender and kind reception of Segestes, when generally known, was heard with hope or grief according as men shrank from war or desired it. Arminius, with his naturally furious temper, was driven to frenzy by the seizure of his wife and the foredooming to slavery of his wife’s unborn child. He flew hither and thither among the Cherusci, demanding “war against Segestes, war against Caesar.” And he refrained not from taunts. “Noble the father,” he would say, “mighty the general, brave the army which, with such strength, has carried off one weak woman. Before me, three legions, three commanders have fallen. Not by treachery, not against pregnant women, but openly against armed men do I wage war. There are still to be seen in the groves of Germanythe Roman standards which I hung up to our country’s gods. Let Segestes dwell on the conquered bank; let him restore to his son his priestly office; one thing there is which Germanswill never thoroughly excuse, their having seen between the Elbe and the Rhine the Roman rods, axes, and toga. Other nations in their ignorance of Roman rule, have no experience of punishments, know nothing of tributes, and, as we have shaken them off, as the great Augustus, ranked among dieties, and his chosen heir Tiberius, departed from us, baffled, let us not quail before an inexperienced stripling, before a mutinous army. If you prefer your fatherland, your ancestors, your ancient life to tyrants and to new colonies, follow as your leader Arminius to glory and to freedom rather than Segestes to ignominious servitude.”

This language roused not only the Cherusci but the neighbouring tribes and drew to their side Inguiomerus, the uncle of Arminius, who had long been respected by the Romans. This increased Caesar’s alarm. That the war might not burst in all its fury on one point, he sent Caecina through the Bructeri to the river Amisia with forty Roman cohorts to distract the enemy, while the cavalry was led by its commander Pedo by the territories of the Frisii. Germanicus himself put four legions on shipboard and conveyed them through the lakes, and the infantry, cavalry, and fleet met simultaneously at the river already mentioned. The Chauci, on promising aid, were associated with us in military fellowship. Lucius Stertinius was despatched by Germanicus with a flying column and routed the Bructeri as they were burning their possessions, and amid the carnage and plunder, found the eagle of the nineteenth legion which had been lost with Varus. The troops were then marched to the furthest frontier of the Bructeri, and all the country between the rivers Amisia and Luppia was ravaged, not far from the forest of Teutoburgium where the remains of Varus and his legions were said to lie unburied.

Germanicus upon this was seized with an eager longing to pay the last honour to those soldiers and their general, while the whole army present was moved to compassion by the thought of their kinsfolk and friends, and, indeed, of the calamities of wars and the lot of mankind. Having sent on Caecina in advance to reconnoitre the obscure forest-passes, and to raise bridges and causeways over watery swamps and treacherous plains, they visited the mournful scenes, with their horrible sights and associations. Varus’s first camp with its wide circumference and the measurements of its central space clearly indicated the handiwork of three legions. Further on, the partially fallen rampart and the shallow fosse suggested the inference that it was a shattered remnant of the army which had there taken up a position. In the centre of the field were the whitening bones of men, as they had fled, or stood their ground, strewn everywhere or piled in heaps. Near, lay fragments of weapons and limbs of horses, and also human heads, prominently nailed to trunks of trees. In the adjacent groves were the barbarous altars, on which they had immolated tribunes and first-rank centurions. Some survivors of the disaster who had escaped from the battle or from captivity, described how this was the spot where the officers fell, how yonder the eagles were captured, where Varus was pierced by his first wound, where too by the stroke of his own ill-starred hand he found for himself death. They pointed out too the raised ground from which Arminius had harangued his army, the number of gibbets for the captives, the pits for the living, and how in his exultation he insulted the standards and eagles.

And so, the Roman army now on the spot, six years after the disaster, in grief and anger, began to bury the bones of the three legions, not a soldier knowing whether he was interring the relics of a relative or a stranger, but looking on all as kinsfolk and of their own blood, while their wrath rose higher than ever against the foe. In raising the barrow Caesar laid the first sod, rendering thus a most welcome honour to the dead, and sharing also in the sorrow of those present. This Tiberius did not approve, either interpreting unfavourably every act of Germanicus, or because he thought that the spectacle of the slain and unburied made the army slow to fight and more afraid of the enemy, and that a general invested with the augurate and its very ancient ceremonies ought not to have polluted himself with funeral rites.

Germanicus, however, pursued Arminius as he fell back into trackless wilds, and as soon as he had the opportunity, ordered his cavalry to sally forth and scour the plains occupied by the enemy. Arminius having bidden his men to concentrate themselves and keep close to the woods, suddenly wheeled round, and soon gave those whom he had concealed in the forest passes the signal to rush to the attack. Thereupon our cavalry was thrown into disorder by this new force, and some cohorts in reserve were sent, which, broken by the shock of flying troops, increased the panic. They were being pushed into a swamp, well known to the victorious assailants, perilous to men unacquainted with it, when Caesar led forth his legions in battle array. This struck terror into the enemy and gave confidence to our men, and they separated without advantage to either.

Soon afterwards Germanicus led back his army to the Amisia, taking his legions by the fleet, as he had brought them up. Part of the cavalry was ordered to make for the Rhine along the sea-coast. Caecina, who commanded a division of his own, was advised, though he was returning by a route which he knew, to pass Long Bridges with all possible speed. This was a narrow road amid vast swamps, which had formerly been constructed by Lucius Domitius; on every side were quagmires of thick clinging mud, or perilous with streams. Around were woods on a gradual slope, which Arminius now completely occupied, as soon as by a short route and quick march he had outstripped troops heavily laden with baggage and arms. As Caecina was in doubt how he could possibly replace bridges which were ruinous from age, and at the same time hold back the enemy, he resolved to encamp on the spot, that some might begin the repair and others the attack.

The barbarians attempted to break through the outposts and to throw themselves on the engineering parties, which they harassed, pacing round them and continually charging them. There was a confused din from the men at work and the combatants. Everything alike was unfavourable to the Romans, the place with its deep swamps, insecure to the foot and slippery as one advanced, limbs burdened with coats of mail, and the impossibility of aiming their javelins amid the water. The Cherusci, on the other hand, were familiar with fighting in fens; they had huge frames, and lances long enough to inflict wounds even at a distance. Night at last released the legions, which were now wavering, from a disastrous engagement. The Germanswhom success rendered unwearied, without even then taking any rest, turned all the streams which rose from the slopes of the surrounding hills into the lands beneath. The ground being thus flooded and the completed portion of our works submerged, the soldiers’ labour was doubled.

This was Caecina’s fortieth campaign as a subordinate or a commander, and, with such experience of success and peril, he was perfectly fearless. As he thought over future possibilities, he could devise no plan but to keep the enemy within the woods, till the wounded and the more encumbered troops were in advance. For between the hills and the swamps there stretched a plain which would admit of an extended line. The legions had their assigned places, the fifth on the right wing, the twenty-first on the left, the men of the first to lead the van, the twentieth to repel pursuers.

It was a restless night for different reasons, the barbarians in their festivity filling the valleys under the hills and the echoing glens with merry song or savage shouts, while in the Roman camp were flickering fires, broken exclamations, and the men lay scattered along the intrenchments or wandered from tent to tent, wakeful rather than watchful. A ghastly dream appalled the general. He seemed to see Quintilius Varus, covered with blood, rising out of the swamps, and to hear him, as it were, calling to him, but he did not, as he imagined, obey the call; he even repelled his hand, as he stretched it over him. At daybreak the legions, posted on the wings, from panic or perversity, deserted their position and hastily occupied a plain beyond the morass. Yet Arminius, though free to attack, did not at the moment rush out on them. But when the baggage was clogged in the mud and in the fosses, the soldiers around it in disorder, the array of the standards in confusion, everyone in selfish haste and all ears deaf to the word of command he ordered the Germans to charge, exclaiming again and again, “Behold a Varus and legions once more entangled in Varus’s fate.” As he spoke, he cut through the column with some picked men, inflicting wounds chiefly on the horses. Staggering in their blood on the slippery marsh, they shook off their riders, driving hither and thither all in their way, and trampling on the fallen. The struggle was hottest round the eagles, which could neither be carried in the face of the storm of missiles, nor planted in the miry soil. Caecina, while he was keeping up the battle, fell from his horse, which was pierced under him, and was being hemmed in, when the first legion threw itself in the way. The greed of the foe helped him, for they left the slaughter to secure the spoil, and the legions, towards evening, struggled on to open and firm ground.

Nor did this end their miseries. Entrenchments had to be thrown up, materials sought for earthworks, while the army had lost to a great extent their implements for digging earth and cutting turf. There were no tents for the rank and file, no comforts for the wounded. As they shared their food, soiled by mire or blood, they bewailed the darkness with its awful omen, and the one day which yet remained to so many thousand men.

It chanced that a horse, which had broken its halter and wandered wildly in fright at the uproar, overthrew some men against whom it dashed. Thence arose such a panic, from the belief that the Germanshad burst into the camp, that all rushed to the gates. Of these the decuman gate was the point chiefly sought, as it was furthest from the enemy and safer for flight. Caecina, having ascertained that the alarm was groundless, yet being unable to stop or stay the soldiers by authority or entreaties or even by force, threw himself to the earth in the gateway, and at last by an appeal to their pity, as they would have had to pass over the body of their commander, closed the way. At the same moment, the tribunes and the centurions convinced them that it was a false alarm.

Having then assembled them at his headquarters, and ordered them to hear his words in silence, he reminded them of the urgency of the crisis. “Their safety,” he said, “lay in their arms, which they must, however, use with discretion, and they must remain within the entrenchments, till the enemy approached closer, in the hope of storming them; then, there must be a general sortie; by that sortie the Rhine might be reached. Whereas if they fled, more forests, deeper swamps, and a savage foe awaited them; but if they were victorious, glory and renown would be theirs.” He dwelt on all that was dear to them at home, all that testified to their honour in the camp, without any allusion to disaster. Next, he handed over the horses, beginning with his own, of the officers and tribunes, to the bravest fighters in the army, quite impartially, that these first, and then the infantry, might charge the enemy.

There was as much restlessness in the German host with its hopes, its eager longings, and the conflicting opinions of its chiefs. Arminius advised that they should allow the Romans to quit their position, and, when they had quitted it, again surprise them in swampy and intricate ground. Inguiomerus, with fiercer counsels, heartily welcome to barbarians, was for beleaguering the entrenchment in armed array, as to storm them would, he said, be easy, and there would be more prisoners and the booty unspoilt. So, at daybreak they trampled in the fosses, flung hurdles into them, seized the upper part of the breastwork, where the troops were thinly distributed and seemingly paralysed by fear. When they were fairly within the fortifications, the signal was given to the cohorts, and the horns and trumpets sounded. Instantly, with a shout and sudden rush, our men threw themselves on the German rear, with taunts, that here were no woods or swamps, but that they were on equal ground, with equal chances. The sound of trumpets, the gleam of arms, which were so unexpected, burst with all the greater effect on the enemy, thinking only, as they were, of the easy destruction of a few half-armed men, and they were struck down, as unprepared for a reverse as they had been elated by success. Arminius and Inguiomerus fled from the battle, the first unhurt, the other severely wounded. Their followers were slaughtered, as long as our fury and the light of day lasted. It was not till night that the legions returned, and though more wounds and the same want of provisions distressed them, yet they found strength, healing, sustenance, everything indeed, in their victory.

Meanwhile a rumour had spread that our army was cut off, and that a furious German host was marching on Gaul. And had not Agrippina prevented the bridge over the Rhine from being destroyed, some in their cowardice would have dared that base act. A woman of heroic spirit, she assumed during those days the duties of a general, and distributed clothes or medicine among the soldiers, as they were destitute or wounded. According to Caius Plinius, the historian of the Germanwars, she stood at the extremity of the bridge, and bestowed praise and thanks on the returning legions. This made a deep impression on the mind of Tiberius. “Such zeal,” he thought, “could not be guileless; it was not against a foreign foe that she was thus courting the soldiers. Generals had nothing left them when a woman went among the companies, attended the standards, ventured on bribery, as though it showed but slight ambition to parade her son in a common soldier’s uniform, and wish him to be called Caesar Caligula. Agrippina had now more power with the armies than officers, than generals. A woman had quelled a mutiny which the sovereign’s name could not check.” All this was inflamed and aggravated by Sejanus, who, with his thorough comprehension of the character of Tiberius, sowed for a distant future, hatreds which the emperor might treasure up and might exhibit when fully matured.

Of the legions which he had conveyed by ship, Germanicus gave the second and fourteenth to Publius Vitellius, to be marched by land, so that the fleet might sail more easily over a sea full of shoals, or take the ground more lightly at the ebb-tide. Vitellius at first pursued his route without interruption, having a dry shore, or the waves coming in gently. After a while, through the force of the north wind and the equinoctial season, when the sea swells to its highest, his army was driven and tossed hither and thither. The country too was flooded; sea, shore, fields presented one aspect, nor could the treacherous quicksands be distinguished from solid ground or shallows from deep water. Men were swept away by the waves or sucked under by eddies; beasts of burden, baggage, lifeless bodies floated about and blocked their way. The companies were mingled in confusion, now with the breast, now with the head only above water, sometimes losing their footing and parted from their comrades or drowned. The voice of mutual encouragement availed not against the adverse force of the waves. There was nothing to distinguish the brave from the coward, the prudent from the careless, forethought from chance; the same strong power swept everything before it. At last Vitellius struggled out to higher ground and led his men up to it. There they passed the night, without necessary food, without fire, many of them with bare or bruised limbs, in a plight as pitiable as that of men besieged by an enemy. For such, at least, have the opportunity of a glorious death, while here was destruction without honour. Daylight restored land to their sight, and they pushed their way to the river Visurgis, where Caesar had arrived with the fleet. The legions then embarked, while a rumour was flying about that they were drowned. Nor was there a belief in their safety till they saw Caesar and the army returned.

By this time Stertinius, who had been despatched to receive the surrender of Segimerus, brother of Segestes, had conducted the chief, together with his son, to the canton of the Ubii. Both were pardoned, Segimerus readily, the son with some hesitation, because it was said that he had insulted the corpse of Quintilius Varus. Meanwhile Gaul, Spain, and Italy vied in repairing the losses of the army, offering whatever they had at hand, arms, horses, gold. Germanicus having praised their zeal, took only for the war their arms and horses, and relieved the soldiers out of his own purse. And that he might also soften the remembrance of the disaster by kindness, he went round to the wounded, applauded the feats of soldier after soldier, examined their wounds, raised the hopes of one, the ambition of another, and the spirits of all by his encouragement and interest, thus strengthening their ardour for himself and for battle.

39. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Caius undertook the empire.

39. Annals of the Four Masters.

Fiatach Finn (from whom are the Dal Fiatach in Uladh), after having been three years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was slain by Fiacha Finnfolaidh.

Gildas.

Strabo Book XVI, Chapter2

Now Pompey clipped off some of the territory that had been forcibly appropriated by the Judaeans, and appointed Herod to the priesthood; but later a certain Herod, a descendant of his and a native of the country, who slinked into the priesthood, was so superior to his predecessors, particularly in his intercourse with the Romans and in his administration of affairs of state, that he received the title of king, being given that authority first by Antony and later by Augustus Caesar. As for his sons, he himself put some of them to death, on the ground that they had plotted against him; and at his death left others as his successors, having assigned to them portions of his kingdom. Caesar also honoured the sons of Herod and his sister Salomê and her daughter Berenicê. However, his sons were not successful, but became involved in accusations; and one of them spent the rest of his life in exile, having taken up his abode among the Allobrogian Gauls, whereas the others, by much obsequiousness, but with difficulty, found leave to return home, with a tetrarchy assigned to each.

Geoffrey Ashe.

In King Arthurs Avalon, Ashe says that Dorothea of Tyre wrote a list of the 70 disciples from Lukes Gospel. One of the disciples is listed as Aristobulus Bishop of Brittania. Geoffrey Ashe wonders if this is the Aristobulus that Saint Paul wrote to.

http://www.mailarchive.com/irishcatholicchurch@yahoogroups.com/msg00111.html

[IrishCatholicChurch] [celt-saints] 16 March. Celtic and Old English Saints 16 March

St. Aristobulus, One of the Seventy, Bishop and Martyr in Britain, Feastday also 15 March and 31 October. 1st century.

Saint Aristobulus is one of the 72 disciples commissioned by our Lord Jesus to preach the coming of the Kingdom. Saint Paul mentions him in Romans 16:11. He has been identified with Zebedee, the father of the “sons of Thunder,” Saints James and John. He is said to be St. Peter’s father-in-law, and to have been followed to Britain by his brother Barnabas. Like the others, Barnabas returned, but Aristobulus is said to have met a martyr’s death at the age of 99 in the mountainous heart of Wales. (Benedictines).

‘Ireland & the Celtic Church’ by G.T. Stokes. Page 6 says:-

Aristobulus of Romans XVI said by the Greek Menaea to have been ordained

Bishop for the Britons by St. Paul.

From Chapt 10 of Fr. Lionel Smithett-Lewis’s Book entitled “St.Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury.” ‘The Greek Menology for March 15 says: Arsitobulus was one of the 70 Apostles and a follower of St. Paul. He was chosen by St. Paul to be a Missionary Bishop for Britain.’

St. Dorotheus Bp. of Tyre, AD303 says that ‘Aristobulus who Paul saluted, writing to the Romans, was Bishop of Britain. ‘(Synopsis de Apostol, Synops.23 “Aristobulus”).

Hippolytus makes reference to Aristobulus as being Bishop of theBritons.

St. Ado Abp. of Vienne (AD800-874) in the Adonis Martyrologia for March 17 says: “Natal Day of Aristobulus Bp.of Britain.” Said to be brother of Barnabas and father-in-law of St. Peter.

Achau Saint Prydain (Genealogies of the Saints of Britain): “There came with Bran the Blessed from Rome to Britain — Arwystli Hen (Aristobulus the Aged), Ilid Cyndaf man of Israel (Joseph of Arimathea) and Mawan (Josephes son of Joseph).”

(Ed, An English translation of The Choosing of the Seventy Holy Apostles, as recounted by Dorotheus, Bishop of Tyre, may be found at www.orthodox.net/saints/70apostles.html

Number 28 on the list says – Aristobulus, whom the apostle mentions in his epistle to the Romans, was bishop of Britannia.)

Saint Paul

I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea:
That ye receive her in the Lord, as becometh saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of you: for she hath been a succourer of many, and of myself also. Greet Priscilla and Aquila my helpers in Christ Jesus:
Who have for my life laid down their own necks: unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles.
Likewise greet the church that is in their house. Salute my well beloved Epaenetus, who is the firstfruits of Achaia unto Christ.
Greet Mary, who bestowed much labour on us.
Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.
Greet Amplias my beloved in the Lord.
Salute Urbane, our helper in Christ, and Stachys my beloved.
Salute Apelles approved in Christ. Salute them which are of Aristobulus’ household.
Salute Herodion my kinsman. Greet them that be of the household of Narcissus, which are in the Lord.
Salute Tryphena and Tryphosa, who labour in the Lord. Salute the beloved Persis, which laboured much in the Lord.
Salute Rufus chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine.
Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermas, Patrobas, Hermes, and the brethren which are with them.
Salute Philologus, and Julia, Nereus, and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints which are with them.
Salute one another with an holy kiss. The churches of Christ salute you.
Now I beseaach you, bretheren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have leaned; and avoid them
For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.
For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.
And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.
Timotheus my workfellow, and Lucius, and Jason, and Sosipater, my kinsmen, salute you.
I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord.
Gaius mine host, and of the whole church, saluteth you. Erastus the chamberlain of the city saluteth you, and Quartus a brother.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,
But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith:
To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen.

From wikipedia

Josephus relates that Herodias, jealous at Agrippa’s success, persuaded Antipas to ask Caligula for the title of king for himself. However, Agrippa simultaneously presented the emperor with a list of charges against the tetrarch: allegedly, he had conspired against Tiberius with Sejanus (executed 31 AD) and was now plotting against Caligula with Artabanus. As evidence, Agrippa noted that Antipas had a stockpile of weaponry sufficient for 70,000 men. Hearing Antipas’ admission to this last charge, Caligula decided to credit the allegations of conspiracy. In the summer of 39 AD, Antipas’ money and territory were turned over to Agrippa, while he himself was exiled. The place of his exile is given by Josephus’ “Antiquities” as “Lugdunum” in Gaul. (This may mean the city of Lugdunum now known as Lyon, or the less important Lugdunum Convenarum, modern Saint Bertrand-de-Comminges) Caligula offered to allow Herodias, as Agrippa’s sister, to retain her property. However, she chose instead to join her husband in exile.

Antipas died in exile. Cassius Dio seems to imply that Caligula had him killed, but this is usually treated with scepticism by modern historians.

Josephus.

At about this time Agrippa, son of that Aristobulus who had been put to death by his father Herod, sought an audience of Tiberius in order to accuse Herod the Tetrarch. When the accusation was not accepted, he remained in Rome and made approaches to may eminent men, and particularly to Germanicus’ son Gaius, as yet a private citizen. One day he invited him to dinner and, after entertaining him lavishly, finished by stretching out his hands and openly praying that Tiberius might die soon, so that he could see Gaius lord of the world. One of his domestics passed this on to Tiberius, who was enraged and had Agrippa locked up, keeping him in rigorous confinement for 6 months until his won death. He had reigned 22 years 6 months and 3 days.

Proclaimed Ceasar, Gaius released Agrippa and set him over the tetrarchy of Philip, recently deceased, as king. Agrippa’s acquisition of this title awoke jealous ambition in Herod the Tetrarch. Herod’s hopes of a crown were inspired chiefly by his wife Herodias, who kept nagging him for his inertia and declared that only his unwillingness to make the journey to Ceasar prevented him acquiring a better title. Having promoted Agrippa from private citizen to king, the emperor would surly not hesitate to promote Herod from tetrarch. Yielding to this pressure Herod came to Gaius, who punished his ambition by banishing him to Spain. For he had been followed by Agrippa, who brought acusations against him and was rewarded by Gaius with the addition of Herod’s tetrarchy. Herod, whose wife shared his exile in Spain, died there.

SBG St Arwystl

Arwystl is probably not the Aristobulus mentioned by St Paul.

SBG St Claudia

She was the wife of Pudens to whom St Paul sent a salutation in his Second Epistle to Timothy, has been supposed to have been a British princess. Possibly the daughter of Claudius Cogidubnus, or Caractacus.The Pudens and Claudia of Martial are the Pudens and Claudia of S. Paul,

Martial LIII. ON CLAUDIA RUFINA

Although born among the woad-stained Britons, how fully has Claudia Rufina the intelligence of the Roman people! What beauty is hers! The matrons of Italy might take her for a Roman; those of Attica for an Athenian. The gods have kindly ordered that she proves fruitful to her revered husband, and that, while yet young, she may hope for sons-in-law and daughters-in-law! May heaven grant her ever to rejoice in one single husband, and to exult in being the mother of three children.

SBG St Eigen, (or Eigan, Eurgen, Eurgain, and Eurgan)

Eigen is supposed to have lived towards the end of the first century, the first female Saint among the Britons. Eigen, the daughter of Caradog ab Bran ab Llyr Llediaith, married a chieftain named Sarllog, who was lord of Caer Sarllog (Old Sarum), and she was the first female Saint of the Isle of Britain. Her husband is said to have been ” Sallog, lord of Garth Mathrin; and he was a Roman chieftain who accompanied her to Wales, and that Cor Sarllog was in Llandaff, for thirty Saints, Sarllog being principal. She had a brotherCyllin, also a Saint. At Rome, she, together with her father, was converted to the Faith in Christ by S. Hid, a man of Israel, [elsewhere identified with Joseph of Arimathea]; which Hid came from Rome to this Island with Caradog and Eurgen, and they were the first that converted the Cymry to the Faith in Christ. Eurgen formed a cor for twelve Saints; and Lies ab Coel gave possessions to that cor [for a hundred Saints], and after that it became the most eminent cor in the world. Illtyd made there three new cells through the endowment of Marcian [the Emperor]. Previously to this the place was called Bangor Lleufer Sant, and afterwards Bangor Illtyd, and Llanilltyd.” Again, she founded the church and cor of Eigan in Caer Urgon, otherwise Caer Worgorn, but later Llanilltyd. It was for twenty-four Saints, and was ultimately destroyed by the Saxons. Eigen, or Eurgen, was thus the daughter who, with her mother and uncles, was taken captive to Rome, as related by Tacitus, and afterwards liberated with her father and friends.

SBG St Lucius.

A homily of the ninth century in the Library of S. Gall gives the following story. S. Paul sent his disciple Timothy into Gaul. Encouraged thereto by a Gaulish king, Timothy pushed on into Britain, where King Lucius ruled over a pagan people. Lucius summoned Timothy before him, believed, and was converted and baptised along with his family and a great number of his subjects. Later, he resolved on leaving his kingdom, and preaching the Gospel elsewhere. He passed through Gaul, and visited Augsburg, where he was well received by the patrician Cam pesterius, and founded the first Christian community in that city.

Cam Stow in his Chronicle says that the Church of S. Peter, Cornhill, London, was founded by S. Lucius, and he gives an inscription in that church testifying to this. Stow says “He was after some chronicle bueried in london and after some chronicle bueried at Gloucester”. Gloucester to this day claims his tomb.

Annals of the Four Masters.

40. The first year of the reign of Fiacha Finnfolaidh over Ireland.

40 Pomponius Mela. De Chorographia.

Europe has as its boundaries on the east of the Tanais (Don), the Maeotis (Sea of Azov) and the Pontus (Black Sea), on the south the rest of our sea (the Mediteranean), on the West the Oceanus Atlanticus and on the north the Oceanus Britannicus.

The Pyrenees first of all run down to the Oceanus Britannicus

In the Celtic regions there are several islands which, since they are rich in tin, are all called by the one name of the Cassiterides.

Sena, (Sein off Brittany) in the Mare Brittannicum opposite the Ossismican shores, is notable for the oracle of a Gaulish divinity whose priestesses, sancified by perpetual virginity, are said to be nine in number. They call them Gallizenae and think that they are endowed with special abilities to rouse the seas and winds with their songs, to turn themselves into whatever animals they wish, to cure things which for others are incurable and to know and predict the future, though they only do this for people who sail who sail there for the specific purpose of consulting them. What Britannia is like and what sort of people it produces we shall soon know more certainly and in greater detail, for behold, the greatest of emperors is now revealing this land so long hidden and, victor over races not merely unconquered but even unknown before him, having, having established the credibility of his own deeds in war, is soon to carry it in triumph.

But so far as we know at present, it stretches between the north and the west and with a wide angle looks towards the mouths of the Rhine, then draws its sides back obliquely, with one long one facing Gaul, with the other Germany; then again with a continuous boundary of straight shore it is drawn back behind and very like Sicily, huge with plains that are fertile, though with things that benefit herds rather than men. It has woods and groves and very large rivers which with alternate motions flow now towards the sea, now backwards from it, and some of them produce gems and pearls. It has peoples and kings of peoples, but they are all uncivilized and the further they are from the continent the less they know of other kinds of wealth, being rich only in herds and lands; whether for appearance or for some other reason, they paint their bodies with woad. Nevertheless they find occasions for wars and do fight them and often attack each other, mostly from a wish for domination and a desire to carry off what they possess. They fight not only on horseback and on foot but also from vehicles and chariots equipped in the Gaulish fashion: they are called covini those in which they use scythes axles. Above Britannia is Ivernia, nearly equal to it in extent but oblong, with equal sides to each of its shores, and with a climate unfavourable to the ripening of crops, but so rich in grass which is not only in plentiful but sweet that the herds satisfy themselves in a very small part of a day, and unless they are kept off the pastures they would feed to long and burst. Its farmers are uncouth and more ignorant of all virtues than other races, and almost entirely lacking in piety. There are 30 Orcades, separated from one another by narrow spaces, and seven Haemodae, located towards Germany… Thyle, famous in the poems of the Greeks and our own writers, is situated opposite the shores of the Belgae. In it because there the sun rises so far from its settings, the nights are short; in winter they are dark as elsewhere, but light in summer, because at that time the sun raises itself higher and although it is not seen itself, yet it lights up the parts nearest to it with its neighboring glow; but at the solstice there are no nights, because then it reveals not merely a glow but even the most part of itself.

Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

40. Meanwhile (Emperor) Gaius sent for Ptolemaeus, the son of Juba, and on ascertaining that he was wealthy put him to death and a number of others with him. Also, when he reached the ocean and was to all appearances about to conduct a campaign in Britain and had drawn up all the soldiers on the beach, he embarked on the triremes but after putting out a little from the land he sailed back again. Next, he took his seat on a high platform and gave his soldiers the watchword as if for battle, while the trumpeters urged them on. All of a sudden, however, he ordered them to gather the shells. Having secured these “spoils” (you see he needed booty for the celebration of his triumph) he became immensely elated, assuming that he had enslaved the ocean itself; and he gave his soldiers many presents. The shells he took back to Rome for the purpose of exhibiting the spoils to the people there as well. The senate did not see how it could remain inactive in the face of this procedure, inasmuch as it learned he was in an exalted frame of mind, nor yet again how it could praise him. For, when anybody bestows great praise or extraordinary honors for a small success or none at all, that person becomes suspected of making a mock and jest of the affair. Still, for all that, when Gaius entered the City he came very near devoting the whole senate to destruction because it had not voted him divine honors. But he contented himself with assembling the populace, upon whom he showered from a raised position, quantities of silver and gold. Many perished in the effort to seize it; for, as some say, he had mixed small knife-blades in with the coin.

As a result of his adulteries he repeatedly received the titles of imperator and Germanicus and Britannicus no less than if he had subdued Gaul and Britain entire.

Suetonius Tranquillus.

Life of Caius Caesar Caligula.

He invented besides a new kind of spectacle, such as had never been heard of before. For he made a bridge, of about three miles and a half in length, from Baiae to the mole of Puteoli, collecting trading vessels from all quarters, mooring them in two rows by their anchors, and spreading earth upon them to form a viaduct, after the fashion of the Appian Way. This bridge he crossed and recrossed for two days together; the first day mounted on a horse richly caparisoned, wearing on his head a crown of oak leaves, armed with a battle-axe, a Spanish buckler and a sword, and in a cloak made of cloth of gold; the day following, in the habit of a charioteer, standing in a chariot, drawn by two high-bred horses, having with him a young boy, Darius by name, one of the Parthian hostages, with a cohort of the pretorian guards attending him, and a party of his friends in cars of Gaulish make.

Most people, I know, are of opinion, that this bridge was designed by Caius, in imitation of Xerxes, who, to the astonishment of the world, laid a bridge over the Hellespont, which is somewhat narrower than the distance betwixt Baiae and Puteoli. Others, however, thought that he did it to strike terror in Germany and Britain, which he was upon the point of invading, by the fame of some prodigious work. But for myself, when I was a boy, I heard my grandfather say, that the reason assigned by some courtiers who were in habits of the greatest intimacy with him, was this; when Tiberius was in some anxiety about the nomination of a successor, and rather inclined to pitch upon his grandson, Thrasyllus the astrologer had assured him, “That Caius would no more be emperor than he would ride on horseback across the gulf of Baiae.”

Persons were often put to the torture in his presence, whilst he was dining or carousing. A soldier, who was an adept in the art of beheading, used at such times to take off the heads of prisoners, who were brought in for that purpose. At Puteoli, at the dedication of the bridge which he planned, as already mentioned, he invited a number of people to come to him from the shore, and then suddenly, threw them headlong into the sea; thrusting down with poles and oars those who, to save themselves, had got hold of the rudders of the ships.

Only once in his life did he take an active part in military affairs, and then not from any set purpose, but during his journey to Mevania, to see the grove and river of Clitumnus. Being recommended to recruit a body of Batavians, who attended him, he resolved upon an expedition into Germany. Immediately he drew together several legions, and auxiliary forces from all quarters, and made every where new levies with the utmost rigour. Collecting supplies of all kinds, such as never had been assembled upon the like occasion, he set forward on his march, and pursued it sometimes with so much haste and precipitation, that the praetorian cohorts were obliged, contrary to custom, to pack their standards on horses or mules, and so follow him. At other times, he would march so slow and luxuriously, that he was carried in a litter by eight men; ordering the roads to be swept by the people of the neighbouring towns, and sprinkled with water to lay the dust.

On arriving at the camp, in order to show himself an active general, and severe disciplinarian, he cashiered the lieutenants who came up late with the auxiliary forces from different quarters. In reviewing the army, he deprived of their companies most of the centurions of the first rank, who had now served their legal time in the wars, and some whose time would have expired in a few days; alleging against them their age and infirmity; and railing at the covetous disposition of the rest of them, he reduced the bounty due to those who had served out their time to the sum of six thousand sesterces. Though he only received the submission of Adminius, the son of Cunobeline, a British king, who being driven from his native country by his father, came over to him with a small body of troops, yet, as if the whole island had been surrendered to him, he dispatched magnificent letters to Rome, ordering the bearers to proceed in their carriages directly up to the forum and the senate-house, and not to deliver the letters but to the consuls in the temple of Mars, and in the presence of a full assembly of the senators.

At last, as if resolved to make war in earnest, he drew up his army upon the shore of the ocean, with his balistae and other engines of war, and while no one could imagine what he intended to do, on a sudden commanded them to gather up the sea shells, and fill their helmets, and the folds of their dress with them, calling them “the spoils of the ocean due to the Capitol and the Palatium.” As a monument of his success, he raised a lofty tower, upon which, as at Pharos, he ordered lights to be burnt in the night-time, for the direction of ships at sea; and then promising the soldiers a donative of a hundred denarii a man, as if he had surpassed the most eminent examples of generosity, “Go your ways,” said he, “and be merry: go, ye are rich.”

In making preparations for his triumph, besides the prisoners and deserters from the barbarian armies, he picked out the men of greatest stature in all Gaul, such as he said were fittest to grace a triumph, with some of the chiefs, and reserved them to appear in the procession; obliging them not only to dye their hair yellow, and let it grow long, but to learn the German language, and assume the names commonly used in that country. He ordered likewise the gallies in which he had entered the ocean, to be conveyed to Rome a great part of the way by land, and wrote to his comptrollers in the city, “to make proper preparations for a triumph against his arrival, at as small expense as possible; but on a scale such as had never been seen before, since they had full power over the property of every one.”

Strabo

Strabo Book I Chapter 4

Next, in determining the breadth of the inhabited world, Eratosthenes says that, beginning at Meroë and measuring on the meridian that runs through Meroë, it is ten thousand stadia to Alexandria; and thence to the Hellespont about eight thousand one hundred; then to the Borysthenes five thousand; then to the parallel circle that runs through Thule (which Pytheas says is a six days’ sail north of Britain, and is near the frozen sea) about eleven thousand five hundred more. Accordingly, if we add three thousand four hundred stadia more to the south of Meroë, in order to embrace the Island of the Egyptians, the Cinnamon-producing country, and Taprobane, we shall have thirty-eight thousand stadia.

However, with one exception, let all the distances of Eratosthenes be granted him — for they are sufficiently agreed upon; but what man of sense could grant his distance from the Borysthenes to the parallel of Thule? For not only has the man who tells about Thule, Pytheas, been found, upon scrutiny, to be an arch-falsifier, but the men who have seen Britain and Ierne do not mention Thule, though they speak of other islands, small ones, about Britain; and Britain itself stretches alongside of Celtica with a length about equal thereto, being not greater in length than five thousand stadia, and its limits are defined by the extremities of Celtica which lie opposite its own. For the eastern extremity of the one country lies opposite the eastern extremity of the other, and the western extremity of the one opposite the western of the other; and their eastern extremities, at all events, are near enough to each other for a person to see across from one to the other — I mean Cantium and the mouths of the Rhine. But Pytheas declares that the length of Britain is more than twenty thousand stadia, and that Cantium is several days’ sail from Celtica; and in his account both of the Ostimians and of what is beyond the Rhine as far as Scythia he has in every case falsified the regions. However, any man who has told such great falsehoods about the known regions would hardly, I imagine, be able to tell the truth about places that are not known to anybody.

The parallel through the mouth of the Borysthenes is conjectured by Hipparchus and others to be the same as that through Britain, from the fact that the parallel through Byzantium is the same as that through Massilia; for as to the relation of the dial-index to the shadow, which Pytheas has given for Massilia, this same relation Hipparchus says he observed at Byzantium, at the same time of the year as that mentioned by Pytheas. But it is not more than five thousand stadia from Massilia to the centre of Britain. Furthermore, if you were to proceed not more than four thousand stadia north from the centre of Britain you would find a region that is inhabitable only after a fashion (which region would be in the neighbourhood of Ierne); and so, as for the regions farther on, far out where Eratosthenes places Thule, you would find places no longer habitable. But by what guesswork Eratosthenes could say that the distance from the parallel through Thule to that through the mouth of the Borysthenes is eleven thousand five hundred stadia, I do not see.

Strabo Book II Chapter 1

And yet the voyage from Celtica to the north is nowadays called the remotest voyage to the north; I mean the voyage to Ierne, which island not only lies beyond Britain but is such a wretched place to live in on account of the cold that the regions on beyond are regarded as uninhabitable. And Ierne is not farther from Celtica, he says, than five thousand stadia; so that about thirty thousand stadia all told, or perhaps a few more, would represent the breadth of the inhabited world.

Strabo Book II Chapter 1

Hipparchus says, at all events, that at the Borysthenes and Celtica, throughout the nights in summer-time, the light of the sun shines dimly, moving round from the west to the east, and at the winter solstice the sun ascends at most only nine cubits; but that among the people who are six thousand three hundred stadia distant from Massilia (people who live two thousand five hundred stadia north of Celtica, whom Hipparchus assumes still to be Celts, though I think they are Britons) this phenomenon is much more marked; and on the winter days there the sun ascends only six cubits, and only four cubits among the people who are distant from Massilia nine thousand one hundred stadia; and less than three cubits among the people who live on beyond (who, according to my argument, would be much farther north than Ierne). But Hipparchus, trusting Pytheas, puts this inhabited country in the regions that are farther south than Britain, and says that the longest day there has nineteen equinoctial hours, but that the longest day has eighteen hours where the sun ascends only four cubits; and these people, he says, are distant from Massilia nine thousand and one hundred stadia; and hence the most southerly of the Britons are more northerly than these people. Accordingly, they are either on the same parallel as the Bactrians that live near the Caucasus or on some parallel close to it; for, as I have stated, according to Deïmachus and his followers our result will be that the Bactrians that live near the Caucasus are more northerly than Ierne by three thousand eight hundred stadia; and if these stadia be added to those from Massilia to Ierne, we get twelve thousand five hundred stadia. Now who has ever reported in these regions (I mean the regions about Bactra) such a length of the longest days, or such a meridian height of the sun at the winter solstice?

However, let it be said at this moment that Timosthenes and Eratosthenes and the still earlier geographers were completely ignorant of Iberia and Celtica; and vastly more ignorant of Germany and Britain, and likewise of the countries of the Getans and the Bastarnians; and they were to a considerable extent ignorant of Italy, the Adriatic Sea, the Pontus, and the regions beyond them on the north; though perhaps such statements are censorious.

Strabo Book II Chapter 4

Polybius, in his account of the geography of Europe, says he passes over the ancient geographers but examines the men who criticise them, namely, Dicaearchus, and Eratosthenes, who has written the most recent treatise on Geography; and Pytheas, by whom many have been misled; for after asserting that he travelled over the whole of Britain that was accessible Pytheas reported that the coast-line of the island was more than forty thousand stadia, and added his story about Thule and about those regions in which there was no longer either land properly so-called, or sea, or air, but a kind of substance concreted from all these elements, resembling a sea-lungs — a thing in which, he says, the earth, the sea, and all the elements are held in suspension; and this is a sort of bond to hold all together, which you can neither walk nor sail upon. Now, as for this thing that resembles the sea-lungs, he says that he saw it himself, but that all the rest he tells from hearsay. That, then, is the narrative of Pytheas, and to it he adds that on his return from those regions he visited the whole coast-line of Europe from Gades to the Tanaïs.

Now Polybius says that, in the first place, it is incredible that a private individual — and a poor man too — could have travelled such distances by sea and by land; and that, though Eratosthenes was wholly at a loss whether he should believe these stories, nevertheless he has believed Pytheas’ account of Britain, and the regions about Gades, and of Iberia; but he says it is far better to believe Euhemerus, the Messenian, than Pytheas. Euhemerus, at all events, asserts that he sailed only to one country, Panchaea, whereas Pytheas asserts that he explored in person the whole northern region of Europe as far as the ends of the world — an assertion which no man would believe, not even if Hermes made it.

Strabo Book II Chapter 5

Now the Roxolanians, the most remote of the known Scythians, live beyond the Borysthenes, though they are farther south than the most remote peoples of whom we have knowledge north of Britain; and the regions beyond the Roxolanians become at once uninhabitable because of the cold; and farther south than the Roxolanians are the Sarmatians who dwell beyond Lake Maeotis, and also the Scythians as far as the Eastern Scythians.

Now Pytheas of Massilia tells us that Thule, the most northerly of the Britannic Islands, is farthest north, and that there the circle of the summer tropic is the same as the arctic circle. But from the other writers I learn nothing on the subject — neither that there exists a certain island by the name of Thule, nor whether the northern regions are inhabitable up to the point where the summer tropic becomes the arctic circle. But in my opinion the northern limit of the inhabited world is much farther to the south than where the summer tropic becomes the arctic circle. For modern scientific writers are not able to speak of any country north of Ierne, which lies to the north of Britain and near thereto, and is the home of men who are complete savages and lead a miserable existence because of the cold; and therefore, in my opinion, the northern limit of our inhabited world is to be placed there. But if the parallel though Byzantium passes approximately through Massilia, as Hipparchus says on the testimony of Pytheas (Hipparchus says, namely, that in Byzantium the relation of the index to the shadow is the same as that which Pytheas gave for Massilia), and if the parallel through the mouth of the Borysthenes is about three thousand eight hundred stadia distant from that parallel, then, in view of the distance from Massilia to Britain, the circle drawn through the mouth of the Borysthenes would fall somewhere in Britain. But Pytheas, who misleads people everywhere else, is, I think, wholly in error here too; for it has been admitted by many writers that all the line drawn from the Pillars to the regions of Strait of Sicily and of Athens, and of Rhodes, lies on the same parallel; and it is admitted that the part of that line from the Pillars to the strait runs approximately through the middle of the sea. And further, sailors say that the longest passage from Celtica to Libya, namely, that from the Galatic Gulf, is five thousand stadia, and that this is also the greatest width of the Mediterranean sea, and therefore the distance from the line in question to the head of the gulf would be two thousand five hundred stadia and less than that to Massilia; for Massilia is farther south than the head of the gulf. But the distance from Rhodes to Byzantium is about four thousand nine hundred stadia, and therefore the parallel through Byzantium would be much farther north than that through Massilia. And the distance from Massilia to Britain may possibly correspond to that from Byzantium to the mouth of the Borysthenes; but the distance that should be set down for the stretch from Britain to Ierne is no longer a known quantity, nor is it known whether there are still inhabitable regions farther on, nor need we concern ourselves about the question if we give heed to what Hesiod said above. For, so far as science is concerned, it is sufficient to assume that, just as it was appropriate in the case of the southern regions to fix a limit of the habitable world by proceeding three thousand stadia south of Meroë (not indeed as though this were a very accurate limit, but as one that at least approximates accuracy), so in this case too we must reckon not more than three thousand stadia north of Britain, or only a little more, say, four thousand stadia. And for governmental purposes there would be no advantage in knowing such countries and their inhabitants, and particularly if the people live in islands which are of such a nature that they can neither injure nor benefit us in any way because of their isolation. For although they could have held even Britain, the Romans scorned to do so, because they saw that there was nothing at all to fear from the Britons (for they are not strong enough to cross over and attack us), and that no corresponding advantage was to be gained by taking and holding their country. For it seems that at present more revenue is derived from the duty on their commerce than the tribute could bring in, if we deduct the expense involved in the maintenance of an army for the purpose of guarding the island and collecting the tribute; and the unprofitableness of an occupation would be still greater in the case of the other islands about Britain.

Strabo Book II Chapter 5 (beginning)

In particular the writers of the present time can give a better account of the Britons, the Germans, the peoples both north and south of the Ister, the Getans, the Tyregetans, the Bastarnians, and, furthermore, the peoples in the regions of the Caucasus, such as the Albanians and the Iberians……

But if you sail…. from the Sacred Cape until you come to the people called Artabrians, your voyage is northward, and you have Lusitania on your right hand. Then all the rest of your voyage is eastward, thus making an obtuse angle to your former course, until you reach the headlands of the Pyrenees that abut on the ocean. The westerly parts of Britain lie opposite these headlands towards the north; and in like manner the islands called Cassiterides, situated in the open sea approximately in the latitude of Britain, lie opposite to, and north of, the Artabrians. Therefore it is clear how greatly the east and west ends of the inhabited world have been narrowed down by the surrounding sea.

Next to Iberia towards the east lies Celtica, which extends to the River Rhine. On its northern side it is washed by the whole British Channel (for the whole island of Britain lies over against and parallel to the whole of Celtica and stretches lengthwise about five thousand stadia); on its eastern side it is bounded by the River Rhine, whose stream runs parallel to the Pyrenees; and on its southern side it is bounded, on the stretch that begins at the Rhine, by the Alps, and by our sea itself in the region where the so called Galatic Gulf widens out — the region in which Massilia and Narbo are situated, very famous cities. Opposite this gulf, and facing in the opposite direction, lies another gulf that is also called Galatic Gulf; and it looks toward the north and Britain; and it is between these two gulfs that Celtica has its least breadth; for it is contracted into an isthmus of less than three thousand, but more than two thousand, stadia……

The islands which I have already mentioned lie off Europe; outside the Pillars: Gades, the Cassiterides, and the Britannic islands; and inside the Pillars: the Gymnesiae and other little islands of the Phoenicians, and those off Massilia and Liguria, and the islands of Italy up to the Islands of Aeolus and to Sicily, and all the islands round about Epirus and Greece and as far as Macedonia and the Thracian Chersonese.

In this southern sea, off the coast of India, lies an island, Taprobane, which is not less than Britain.

Strabo Book III, Chapter 2

For the whole country of the Iberians is full of metals, although not all of it is so rich in fruit, or so fertile either, and in particular that part of it which is well supplied with metals. It is rare for a country to be fortunate in both respects, and it is also rare for the same country to have within a small area an abundance of all kinds of metals. But as for Turdetania and the territory adjoining it, there is no worthy word of praise left to him who wishes to praise their excellence in this respect. Up to the present moment, in fact, neither gold, nor silver, nor yet copper, nor iron, has been found anywhere in the world, in a natural state, either in such quantity or of such good quality. And the gold is not only mined, but is also washed down; that is, the gold-bearing sand is carried down by the rivers and the torrents, although it is often found in p41the waterless districts also; but in these districts it cannot be seen, whereas in the flooded districts the gold-dust glitters. Besides, they flood the waterless districts by conducting water thither, and thus they make the gold-dust glitter; and they also get the gold out by digging pits, and by inventing other means for washing the sand; and the so called “gold-washeries” are now more numerous than the gold mines. The Galatae hold that their own mines, both those in the Cemmenus Mountains and those situated at the foot of the Pyrenees themselves, are equal to those of Turdetania; the metals from the latter, however, are held in greater esteem. And in the gold-dust, they say, nuggets weighing as much as half a pound are some found, which are called “palae,” and they need but little refining. They further say that when stones are split they find in them small nuggets resembling nipples, and when the gold is smelted and refined by means of a sort of styptic earth the residuum thereof is “electrum”; and, again, that when this electrum, which contains a mixture of silver and gold, is smelted, the silver is burned away, while the gold remains. For the alloy-type is easily fused and stone-like. For this reason, too, the gold is preferably melted with chaff-fire, because the flame, on account of its softness, is suitable to a substance that yields and fuses easily; but the charcoal-fire consumes much of it because, owing to its intensity, it over-melts the gold and carries it off as vapour. The soil is carried along in the streams, and is washed in by troughs; or else a pit is dug, and the soil that has been accumulated is there washed. They build the silver-smelting furnaces with high chimneys, so that the gas from the ore may be carried high into the air; for it is heavy and deadly. Some of the copper-mines are called gold-mines, and from this fact it is inferred that in former times gold was mined from them.

Poseidonius, in praising the quantity and the excellence of these ores, does not abstain from his usual rhetorical speech; indeed, he enthusiastically concurs with the extravagant stories told; for example, he does not discredit the story, he says, that, when on a time the forests had been burned, the soil, since it was composed of silver and gold ores, melted and boiled out over the surface, because, as he says, every mountain and every hill is bullion heaped up there by some prodigal fortune. And, in general, he says, anyone who had seen these regions would declare that they are everlasting storehouses of nature, or a never-failing treasury of an empire. For the country was, he adds, not only rich, but also rich down below; and with the Turdetanians it is verily Pluto, and not Hades, who inhabits the region down below. Such, then, are the flowery utterances of Poseidonius on this subject — himself drawing much of his language from a mine, as it were. Again, in speaking of the industry of the miners, he cites the statement of Demetrius of Phalerum. Demetrius, he says, states in reference to the Attic silver-mines, that the people dig as strenuously as if they expected to bring up Pluto himself. So Poseidonius implies that the energy and industry of the Turdetanian miners is similar, since they cut their shafts aslant and deep, and, as regards the streams that meet them in the shafts, oftentimes draw them off with the Egyptian screw. However, the whole affair, he says, is never the same for these miners as for the Attic miners; indeed, for the latter, mining is like a riddle: “What they took up,” he says, “they did not take, yet what they had, they lost”; but, for the Turdetanians, mining is profitable beyond measure, since one-fourth of the ore brought out by their copper-workers is pure copper, while some of their private adventurers who search for silver pick up within three days a Euboean talent of silver. Tin, however, is not found there on the surface of the ground, he says, as the historians continually repeat, but is dug up; and it is produced both in the country of the barbarians who live beyond Lusitania, and in the Cassiterides Islands; and tin is brought to Massilia from the British Islands also. But among the Artabrians, who live farthest on the north-west of Lusitania, the soil “effloresces,” he says, with silver, tin, and “white gold” (for it is mixed with silver). This soil, however, he adds, is brought by the streams; and the women scrape it up with shovels and wash it in sieves woven basket-like. Such, then, is what Poseidonius has said about the mines.

Polybius, in mentioning the silver-mines of New Carthage, says that they are very large; that they are distant from the city about twenty stadia and embrace an area four hundred stadia in circuit; and that forty thousand workmen stay there, who (in his time) bring into the Roman exchequer a daily revenue of twenty-five thousand drachmae. But as for the processes of the work, I omit all he says about it (for it is a long story) except what he says of the silver-bearing ore that is carried along in the streams, namely, that it is crushed and by means of sieves disengaged in water; then the sediment is again crushed, and again strained through (the waters meantime being poured off), and crushed; then the fifth sediment is smelted, and, after the lead has been poured off, yields the pure silver. The silver-mines are still being worked at the present time; they are not state-property, however, either at New Carthage or anywhere else, but have passed over to private ownership. But the majority of the gold-mines are state-property. Both in Castalo and elsewhere there is a special metal of mined lead; this, too, has a slight quantity of silver mixed with it, though not enough to make the refining of it profitable.

Not very far from Castalo is also the mountain in which the Baetis is said to rise; it is called “Silver Mountain” on account of the silver-mines that are in it. According to Polybius, however, both this river and the Anas, though distant from each other as much as nine hundred stadia, rise in Celtiberia; for, as a result of their growth in power, the Celtiberians caused the whole neighbouring country to have the same name as their own. The ancients seem to have called the Baetis River “Tartessus”; and to have called Gades and the adjoining islands “Erytheia”; and this is supposed to be the reason why Stesichorus spoke as he did about the neat-herd of Geryon, namely, that he was born “about opposite famous Erytheia, beside the unlimited, silver-rooted springs of the river Tartessus, in a cavern of a cliff.” Since the river had two mouths, a city was planted on the intervening territory in former times, it is said,— a city which was called “Tartessus,” after the name of the river; and the country, which is now occupied by Turdulians, was called “Tartessis.” Further, Eratosthenes says that the country adjoining Calpe is called “Tartessis,” and that Erytheia is called “Blest Isle.” Eratosthenes is contradicted by Artemidorus, who says that this is another false statement of Eratosthenes, like his statement that the distance from Gades to the Sacred Cape is a five days’ sail (although it is not more than one thousand seven hundred stadia), and his statement that the tides come to an end at the Sacred Cape (although the tides take place round the whole circuit of the inhabited world), and his statement that the northerly parts of Iberia afford an easier passage to Celtica than if you sail thither by the ocean; and, in fact, every other statement which he had made in reliance upon Pytheas, on account of the latter’s false pretensions.

Strabo Book III Chapter 5

The Cassiterides are ten in number, and they lie near each other in the high sea to the north of the port of the Artabrians. One of them is desert, but the rest are inhabited by people who wear black cloaks, go clad in tunics that reach to their feet, wear belts around their breasts, walk around with canes, and resemble the goddesses of vengeance in tragedies. They live off their herds, leading for the most part a nomadic life. As they have mines of tin and lead, they give these metals and the hides from their cattle to the sea-traders in exchange for pottery, salt and copper utensils. Now in former times it was the Phoenicians alone who carried on this commerce (that is, from Gades), for they kept the voyage hidden from everyone else. And when once the Romans were closely following a certain ship-captain in order that they too might learn the markets in question, out of jealousy the ship-captain purposely drove his ship out of its course into shoal water; and after he had lured the followers into the same ruin, he himself escaped by a piece of wreckage and received from the State the value of the cargo he had lost. Still, by trying many times, the Romans learned all about the voyage. After Publius Crassus crossed over to these people and saw that the metals were being dug from only a slight depth, and that the men there were peaceable, he forthwith laid abundant information before all who wished to traffic over this sea, albeit a wider sea than that which separates Britain from the continent. So much, then, for Iberia and the islands that lie off its coast.

Strabo Book IV Chapter 1

Next, in order, comes Transalpine Celtica. I have already indicated roughly both the shape and the size of this country; but now I must speak of it in detail. Some, as we know, have divided it into three parts, calling its inhabitants Aquitani, Belgae, and Celtae. The Aquitani, they said, are wholly different, not only in respect to their language but also in respect to their physique — more like the Iberians than the Galatae; while the rest of the inhabitants are Galatic in appearance, although not all speak the same language, but some make slight variations in their languages. Furthermore, their governments and their modes of life are slightly different. Now by “Aquitani” and “Celtae” they meant the two peoples (separated from each other by the Cemmenus Mountain) who live next to the Pyrenees; for, as has already been said, this Celtica is bounded on the west by the Pyrenees Mountains, which join the sea on either side, that is, both the inner and the outer sea; on the east, by the River Rhenus, which is parallel to the Pyrenees; as for the parts on the north and the south, those on the north are surrounded by the ocean (beginning at the northern headlands of the Pyrenees) as far as the mouths of the Rhenus, while those on the opposite side are surrounded by the sea that is about Massilia and Narbo, and by the Alps (beginning at Liguria) as far as the sources of the Rhenus. The Cemmenus Mountain has been drawn at right angles to the Pyrenees, through the midst of the plains; and it comes to an end about the centre of these plains, near Lugdunum, with an extent of about two thousand stadia. So, then, by “Aquitani” they meant the people who occupy the northern parts of the Pyrenees and, from the country of the Cemmenus on to the ocean, the parts this side the Garumna River; by “Celtae” they meant the people whose territory extends in the other direction; — down to the sea that is about Massilia and Narbo — and also joins some of the Alpine Mountains; and by “Belgae” they meant the rest of the people who live beside the Rhenus and the Alps. Thus the Deified Caesar, also, has put it in his “Commentaries.” Augustus Caesar, however, divided Transalpine Celtica into four parts: the Celtae he designated as belonging to the province of Narbonitis; the Aquitani he designated as the former Caesar had already done, although he added to them fourteen tribes of the peoples who dwell between the Garumna and the Liger Rivers; the rest of the country he divided into two parts: one part he included within the boundaries of Lugdunum as far as the upper districts of the Rhenus, while the other he included within the boundaries of the Belgae. Now although the geographer should tell of all the physical and ethnic distinctions which have been made, whenever they are worth recording, yet, as for the diversified political divisions which are made by the rulers (for they suit their government to the particular times), it is sufficient if one state them merely in a summary way; and the scientfic treatment of them should be left to others.

Strabo Book IV Chapter 1

In the first place, the voyage which the Rhodanus affords inland is a considerable one, even for vessels of great burden, and reaches numerous parts of the country, on account of the fact that the rivers which fall into it are navigable, and in their turns receive most of the traffic. Secondly, the Rhodanus is succeeded by the Arar, and by the Dubis (which empties into the Arar); then the traffic goes by land as far as the Sequana River; and thence it begins its voyage down to the ocean, and to the Lexobii and Caleti; and from these peoples it is less than a day’s run to Britain. But since the Rhodanus is swift and difficult to sail up, some of the traffic from here preferably goes by land on the wagons, that is, all the traffic that is conveyed to the Arvernians and the Liger River — albeit in a part of its course the Rhodanus draws close to these also; still, the fact that the road is level and not long (about eight hundred stadia) is an inducement not to use the voyage upstream, since it is easier to go by land; from here, however, the road is naturally succeeded by the Liger; and it flows from the Cemmenus Mountain to the ocean. Thirdly, from Narbo traffic goes inland for a short distance by the Atax River, and then a greater distance by land to the Garumna River; and this latter distance is about eight hundred or seven hundred stadia. And the Garumna, too, flows to the ocean. This, then, is what I have to say about the people who inhabit the dominion of Narbonitis, whom the men of former times named “Celtae”; and it was from the Celtae, I think, that the Galatae as a whole were by the Greeks called “Celti” — on account of the fame of the Celtae, or it may also be that the Massiliotes, as well as other Greek neighbours, contributed to this result, on account of their proximity.

Strabo Book IV Chapter 2

The Liger, however, discharges its waters between the Pictones and the Namnitae. Formerly there was an emporium on this river, called Corbilo, with respect to which Polybius, calling to mind the fabulous stories of Pytheas, has said: “Although no one of all the Massiliotes who conversed with Scipio was able, when questioned by Scipio about Britain, to tell anything worth recording, nor yet any one of the people from Narbo or of those from Corbilo, though these were the best of all the cities in that country, still Pytheas had the hardihood to tell all those falsehoods about Britain.” The city of the Santoni, however, is Mediolanium. Now most of the ocean-coast of the Aquitani is sandy and thin-soiled, thus growing millet, but it is rather unproductive in respect of the other products. Here too is the gulf which, along with that Galatic Gulf which is within the coastline of Narbonitis, forms the isthmus (itself too, like the latter gulf, having the name “Galatic”). The gulf is held by the Tarbelli, in whose land the gold mines are most important of all; for in pits dug only to a slight depth they find slabs of gold as big as the hand can hold, which at times require but little refining; but the rest is gold dust and nuggets, the nuggets too requiring no great amount of working.

Strabo Book IV Chapter 3

He (Asinius) further says it (The Rhenus) has only two mouths, after first finding fault with those who say it has more than that. So then, both this river and the Sequana encircle somewhat of territory within their windings, but not so much as that. Both rivers flow from the southern parts towards the north; and in front of them lies Britain, which is near enough to the Rhenus for Cantium, which is the eastern cape of the island, to be visible from it, though it is slightly farther off from the Sequana. Here, too, the Deified Caesar established his navy-yard when he sailed to Britain.

The passage across to Britain from the rivers of Celtica is three hundred and twenty stadia; for if you put to sea on the ebb-tide at nightfall, you land upon the island about the eighth hour on the following day. After the Mediomatrici and the Tribocchi, along the Rhenus, dwell the Treveri, near whom the bridge has been built by the Roman officers who are now conducting the Germanic war. The Ubii used to live opposite this region, across the Rhenus, though by their own consent they were transferred by Agrippa to the country this side the Rhenus. Next after the Treveri are the Nervii, who are also a Germanic tribe. Last come the Menapii, who dwell on both sides of the river near its mouths, in marshes and woods (not of tall timber, but dense and thorny). It is opposite to these that the Sugambri are situated, a Germanic people. But beyond this whole river-country are those Germans who are called the Suevi and excel all the others in power and numbers (the people driven out by the Suevi in our time have been fleeing for refuge to this side of the Rhenus). And other peoples, also, lord it in different places, and in their turn take up the tinders of war, but the foremost are always put down.

West of the Treveri and the Nervii dwell the Senones and the Remi, and farther on, the Atrebatii and the Eburones; and after the Menapii, on the sea, are, in their order, the Morini, the Bellovaci, the Ambiani, the Suessiones, and the Caleti, as far as the outlet of the Sequana River. Both the country of the Morini and that of the Atrebatii and Eburones resemble that of the Menapii; for much of it, though not so much as the historians have said (four thousand stadia), is a forest, consisting of trees that are not tall; the forest is called Arduenna. At the time of hostile onsets they used to intertwine the withes of the brushwood, since the withes were thorny, and thus block the passage of the enemy. In some places they also used to fix stakes in the ground — themselves, with their whole families, slinking away into the depths of the forest, for they had small islands in their marshes. Now although the refuge they took was safe for them in the rainy seasons, they were easily captured in the dry seasons. But as it is, all the peoples this side the Rhenus are living in a state of tranquillity and are submissive to the Romans. The Parisii live round about the Sequana River, having an island in the river and a city called Lucotocia; and so do the Meldi and the Lexovii — these latter beside the ocean. But the most noteworthy of all the tribes in this region of Celtica is that of the Remi; their metropolis, Duricortora, is most thickly settled and is the city that entertains the Roman governors.

Strabo Book IV Chapter 4

After the aforesaid tribes, the rest are tribes of those Belgae who live on the ocean-coast. Of the Belgae, there are, first, the Veneti who fought the naval battle with Caesar; for they were already prepared to hinder his voyage to Britain, since they were using the emporium there. But he easily defeated them in the naval battle, making no use of ramming (for the beams were thick), but when the Veneti bore down upon him with the wind, the Romans hauled down their sails by means of pole-hooks; for, on account of the violence of the winds, the sails were made of leather, and they were hoisted by chains instead of ropes. Because of the ebb-tides, they make their ships with broad bottoms, high sterns, and high prows; they make them of oak (of which they have a plentiful supply), and this is why they do not bring the joints of the planks together but leave gaps; they stuff the gaps full of sea-weed, however, so that the wood may not, for lack of moisture, become dry when the ships are hauled up, because the sea-weed is naturally rather moist, whereas the oak is dry and without fat. It is these Veneti, I think, who settled the colony that is on the Adriatic (for about all the Celti that are in Italy migrated from the transalpine land, just as did the Boii and Senones), although, on account of the likeness of name, people call them Paphlagonians. I do not speak positively, however, for with reference to such matters probability suffices. Secondly, there are the Osismii (whom Pytheas calls the Ostimii), who live on a promontory that projects quite far out into the ocean, though not so far as he and those who have trusted him say. But of the tribes that are between the Sequana and the Liger, some border on the Sequani, others on the Arverni.

The whole race which is now called both “Gallic” and “Galatic” is war-mad, and both high-spirited and quick for battle, although otherwise simple and not ill-mannered. And therefore, if roused, they come together all at once for the struggle, both openly and without circumspection, so that for those who wish to defeat them by stratagem they become easy to deal with (in fact, irritate them when, where, or by what chance pretext you please, and you have them ready to risk their lives, with nothing to help them in the struggle but might and daring); whereas, if coaxed, they so easily yield to considerations of utility that they lay hold, not only of training in general, but of language-studies as well. As for their might, it arises partly from their large physique and partly from their numbers. And on account of their trait of simplicity and straightforwardness they easily come together in great numbers, because they always share in the vexation of those of their neighbours whom they think wronged. At the present time they are all at peace, since they have been enslaved and are living in accordance with the commands of the Romans who captured them, but it is from the early times that I am taking this account of them, and also from the customs that hold fast to this day among theGermans. For these peoples are not only similar in respect to their nature and their governments, but they are also kinsmen to one another; and, further, they live in country that has a common boundary, since it is divided by the River Rhenus, and the most of its regions are similar (though Germany is more to the north), if the southern regions be judged with reference to the southern and also the northern with reference to the northern. But it is also on account of this trait that their migrations easily take place, for they move in droves, army and all, or rather they make off, households and all, whenever they are cast out by others stronger than themselves. Again, the Romans conquered these people much more easily than they did the Iberians; in fact, the Romans began earlier, and stopped later, carrying on war with the Iberians, but in the meantime defeated all these — I mean all the peoples who live between the Rhenus and the Pyrenees Mountains. For, since the former were wont to fall upon their opponents all at once and in great numbers, they were defeated all at once, but the latter would husband their resources and divide their struggles, carrying on war in the manner of brigands, different men at different times and in separate divisions. Now although they are all fighters by nature, they are better as cavalry than as infantry; and the best cavalry-force the Romans have comes from these people. However, it is always those who live more to the north and along the ocean-coast that are the more warlike.

Of these people, they say, the Belgae are bravest (who have been divided into fifteen tribes, the tribes that live along the ocean between the Rhenus and the Liger); consequently they alone could hold out against the onset of the Germans — the Cimbri and Teutones. But of the Belgae themselves, they say, the Bellovaci are bravest, and after them the Suessiones. As for the largeness of the population, this is an indication: it is found upon inquiry, they say, that there are as many as three hundred thousand of those Belgae (of former times) who are able to bear arms; and I have already told the number of the Elvetii, and of the Arverni, and of their allies,— from all of which the largeness of the population is manifest, as is also the thing of which I spoke above — the excellence of the women in regard to the bearing and nursing of children. The Gallic people wear the “sagus,” let their hair grow long, and wear tight breeches; instead of tunics they wear slit tunics that have sleeves and reach as far as their private parts and the buttocks. The wool of their sheep, from which they weave the coarse “sagi” (which they call “laenae”), is not only rough, but also flocky at the surface; the Romans, however, even in the most northerly parts raise skin-clothed flocks with wool that is sufficiently fine. The Gallic armour is commensurate with the large size of their bodies: a long sabre, which hangs along the right side, and a long oblong shield, and spears in proportion, and a “madaris,” a special kind of javelin. But some of them also use bows and slings. There is also a certain wooden instrument resembling the “grosphus” (it is hurled by hand, not by thong, and ranges even farther than an arrow), which they use particularly for the purposes of bird-hunting. Most of them, even to the present time, sleep on the ground, and eat their meals seated on beds of straw. Food they have in very great quantities, along with milk and flesh of all sorts, but particularly the flesh of hogs, both fresh and salted. Their hogs run wild, and they are of exceptional height, boldness, and swiftness; at any rate, it is dangerous for one unfamiliar with their ways to approach them, and likewise, also, for a wolf. As for their houses, which are large and dome-shaped, they make them of planks and wicker, throwing up over them quantities of thatch. And their flocks of sheep and herds of swine are so very large that they supply an abundance of the “sagi” and the salt-meat, not only to Rome, but to most parts of Italy as well. The greater number of their governments used to be aristocratic — although in the olden time only one leader was chosen, annually; and so, likewise, for war, only one man was declared general by the common people. But now they give heed, for the most part, to the commands of the Romans. There is a procedure that takes place in their assemblies which is peculiar to them: if a man disturbs the speaker and heckles him, the sergeant-at-arms approaches him with drawn sword, and with a threat commands him to be silent; if he does not stop, the sergeant-at-arms does the same thing a second time, and also a third time, but at last cuts off enough of the man’s “sagus” to make it useless for the future. But as for their custom relating to the men and the women (I mean the fact that their tasks have been exchanged, in a manner opposite to what obtains among us), it is one which they share in common with many other barbarian peoples.

Among all the Gallic peoples, generally speaking, there are three sets of men who are held in exceptional honour; the Bards, the Vates and the Druids. The Bards are singers and poets; the Vates, diviners and natural philosophers; while the Druids, in addition to natural philosophy, study also moral philosophy. The Druids are considered the most just of men, and on this account they are entrusted with the decision, not only of the private disputes, but of the public disputes as well; so that, in former times, they even arbitrated cases of war and made the opponents stop when they were about to line up for battle, and the murder cases, in particular, had been turned over to them for decision. Further, when there is a big yield from these cases, there is forthcoming a big yield from the land too, as they think. However, not only the Druids, but others as well, say that men’s souls, and also the universe, are indestructible, although both fire and water will at some time or other prevail over them.

In addition to their trait of simplicity and high-spiritedness, that of witlessness and boastfulness is much in evidence, and also that of fondness for ornaments; for they not only wear golden ornaments — both chains round their necks and bracelets round their arms and wrists — but their dignitaries wear garments that are dyed in colours and sprinkled with gold. And by reason of this levity of character they not only look insufferable when victorious, but also scared out of their wits when worsted. Again, in addition to their witlessness, there is also that custom, barbarous and exotic, which attends most of the northern tribes — I mean the fact that when they depart from the battle they hang the heads of their enemies from the necks of their horses, and, when they have brought them home, nail the spectacle to the entrances of their homes. At any rate, Poseidonius says that he himself saw this spectacle in many places, and that, although at first he loathed it, afterwards, through his familiarity with it, he could bear it calmly. The heads of enemies of high repute, however, they used to embalm in cedar-oil and exhibit to strangers, and they would not deign to give them back even for a ransom of an equal weight of gold. But the Romans put a stop to these customs, as well as to all those connected with the sacrifices and divinations that are opposed to our usages. They used to strike a human being, whom they had devoted to death, in the back with a sabre, and then divine from his death-struggle. But they would not sacrifice without the Druids. We are told of still other kinds of human sacrifices; for example, they would shoot victims to death with arrows, or impale them in the temples, or, having devised a colossus of straw and wood, throw into the colossus cattle and wild animals of all sorts and human beings, and then make a burnt-offering of the whole thing.

In the ocean, he says, there is a small island, not very far out to sea, situated off the outlet of the Liger River; and the island is inhabited by women of the Samnitae, and they are possessed by Dionysus and make this god propitious by appeasing him with mystic initiations as well as other sacred performances; and no man sets foot on the island, although the women themselves, sailing from it, have intercourse with the men and then return again. And, he says, it is a custom of theirs once a year to un-roof the temple and roof it again on the same day before sunset, each woman bringing her load to add to the roof; but the woman whose load falls out of her arms is rent to pieces by the rest, and they carry the pieces round the temple with the cry of “Ev-ah,” and do not cease until their frenzy ceases; and it is always the case, he says, that some one jostles the woman who is to suffer this fate. But the following story which Artemidorus has told about the case of the crows is still more fabulous: there is a certain harbour on the ocean-coast, his story goes, which is surnamed “Two Crows,” and in this harbour are to be seen two crows, with their right wings somewhat white; so the men who have disputes about certain things come here, put a plank on an elevated place, and then throw on barley cakes, each man separately; the birds fly up, eat some of the barley cakes, scatter the others; and the man whose barley cakes are scattered wins his dispute. Now although this story is more fabulous, his story about Demeter and Core is more credible. He says that there is an island near Britain on which sacrifices are performed like those sacrifices in Samothrace that have to do with Demeter and Core. And the following, too, is one of the things that are believed, namely, that in Celtica there grows a tree like a fig-tree, and that it brings forth a fruit similar to a Corinthian-wrought capital of a column; and that, if an incision be made, this fruit exudes a sap which, as used for the smearing of arrows, is deadly. And the following, too, is one of the things that are repeated over and over again, namely, that not only are all Celti fond of strife, but among them it is considered no disgrace for the young men to be prodigal of their youthful charms. Ephorus, in his account, makes Celtica so excessive in its size that he assigns to the regions of Celtic most of the regions, as far as Gades, of what we now call Iberia; further, he declares that the people are fond of the Greeks, and specifies many things about them that do not fit the facts of to-day. The following, also, is a thing peculiar to them, that they endeavour not to grow fat or pot-bellied, and any young man who exceeds the standard measure of the girdle is punished. So much for Transalpine Celtica.

Strabo Book IV Chapter 5

Britain is triangular in shape; and its longest side stretches parallel to Celtica, neither exceeding nor falling short of the length of Celtica; for each of the two lengths is about four thousand three hundred — or four hundred — stadia: the Celtic length that extends from the outlets of the Rhenus as far as those northern ends of the Pyrenees that are near Aquitania, as also the length that extends from Cantium (which is directly opposite the outlets of the Rhenus), the most easterly point of Britain, as far as that westerly end of the island which lies opposite the Aquitanian Pyrenees. This, of course, is the shortest distance from the Pyrenees to the Rhenus, since, as I have already said, the greatest distance is as much as five thousand stadia; yet it is reasonable to suppose that there is a convergence from the parallel position which the river and the mountains occupy with reference to each other, since at the ends where they approach the ocean there is a curve in both of them.

There are only four passages which are habitually used in crossing from the mainland to the island, those which begin at the mouths of the rivers — the Rhenus, the Sequana, the Liger, and the Garumna. However, the people who put to sea from the regions that are near the Rhenus make the voyage, not from the mouths themselves, but from the coast of those Morini who have a common boundary with the Menapii. (On their coast, also, is Itium, which the Deified Caesar used as a naval station when he set sail for the island. He put to sea by night and landed on the following day about the fourth hour, thus having completed three hundred and twenty stadia in his voyage across; and he found the grain still in the fields.) Most of the island is flat and overgrown with forests, although many of its districts are hilly. It bears grain, cattle, gold, silver, and iron. These things, accordingly, are exported from the island, as also hides, and slaves, and dogs that are by nature suited to the purposes of the chase; the Celti, however, use both these and the native dogs for the purposes of war too. The men of Britain are taller than the Celti, and not so yellow-haired, although their bodies are of looser build. The following is an indication of their size: I myself, in Rome, saw mere lads towering as much as half a foot above the tallest people in the city, although they were bandy-legged and presented no fair lines anywhere else in their figure. Their habits are in part like those of the Celti, but in part more simple and barbaric so much so that, on account of their inexperience, some of them, although well supplied with milk, make no cheese; and they have no experience in gardening or other agricultural pursuits. And they have powerful chieftains in their country.

For the purposes of war they use chariots for the most part, just as some of the Celti do. The forests are their cities; for they fence in a spacious circular enclosure with trees which they have felled, and in that enclosure make huts for themselves and also pen up their cattle — not, however, with the purpose of staying a long time. Their weather is more rainy than snowy; and on the days of clear sky fog prevails so long a time that throughout a whole day the sun is to be seen for only three or four hours round about midday. And this is the case also among the Morini and the Menapii and all the neighbours of the latter.

The Deified Caesar crossed over to the island twice, although he came back in haste, without accomplishing anything great or proceeding far into the island, not only on account of the quarrels that took place in the land of the Celti, among the barbarians and his own soldiers as well, but also on account of the fact that many of his ships had been lost at the time of the full moon, since the ebb-tides and the flood-tides got their increase at that time. However, he won two or three victories over the Britons, albeit he carried along only two legions of his army; and he brought back hostages, slaves, and quantities of the rest of the booty. At present, however, some of the chieftains there, after procuring the friendship of Caesar Augustus by sending embassies and by paying court to him, have not only dedicated offerings in the Capitol, but have also managed to make the whole of the island virtually Roman property. Further, they submit so easily to heavy duties, both on the exports from there to Celtica and on the imports from Celtica (these latter are ivory chains and necklaces, and amber-gems and glass vessels and other petty wares of that sort), that there is no need of garrisoning the island; for one legion, at the least, and some cavalry would be required in order to carry off tribute from them, and the expense of the army would offset the tribute-money; in fact, the duties must necessarily be lessened if tribute is imposed, and, at the same time, dangers be encountered, if force is applied.

Besides some small islands round about Britain, there is also a large island, Ierne, which stretches parallel to Britain on the north, its breadth being greater than its length. Concerning this island I have nothing certain to tell, except that its inhabitants are more savage than the Britons, since they are man-eaters as well as heavy eaters, and since, further, they count it an honourable thing, when their fathers die, to devour them, and openly to have intercourse, not only with the other women, but also with their mothers and sisters; but I am saying this only with the understanding that I have no trustworthy witnesses for it; and yet, as for the matter of man-eating, that is said to be a custom of the Scythians also, and, in cases of necessity forced by sieges, the Celti, the Iberians, and several other peoples are said to have practised it.

Concerning Thule our historical information is still more uncertain, on account of its outside position; for Thule, of all the countries that are named, is set farthest north. But that the things which Pytheas has told about Thule, as well as the other places in that part of the world, have indeed been fabricated by him, we have clear evidence from the districts that are known to us, for in most cases he has falsified them, as I have already said before, and hence he is obviously more false concerning the districts which have been placed outside the inhabited world. And yet, if judged by the science of the celestial phenomena and by mathematical theory, he might possibly seem to have made adequate use of the facts as regards the people who live close to the frozen zone, when he says that, of the animals and domesticated fruits, there is an utter dearth of some and a scarcity of the others, and that the people live on millet and other herbs, and on fruits and roots; and where there are grain and honey, the people get their beverage, also, from them.

As for the grain, he says,— since they have no pure sunshine — they pound it out in large storehouses, after first gathering in the ears thither; for the threshing floors become useless because of this lack of sunshine and because of the rains.

Strabo Book IV Chapter 6

Next, in order, come those parts of the mountains that are towards the east, and those that bend round towards the south: the Rhaeti and the Vindelici occupy them, and their territories join those of the Elvetii and the Boii; for their territories overlook the plains of those peoples. Now the Rhaeti reach down as far as that part of Italy which is above Verona and Comum (moreover, the “Rhaetic” wine, which has the repute of not being inferior to the approved wines of the Italic regions, is made in the foot-hills of the Rhaetic Alps), and also extend as far as the districts through which the Rhenus runs; the Lepontii, also, and Camuni, belong to this stock. But the Vindelici and Norici occupy the greater part of the outer side of the mountain, along with the Breuni and the Genauni, the two peoples last named being Illyrians. All these peoples used to overrun, from time to time, the neighbouring parts, not only of Italy, but also of the country of the Elvetii, the Sequani, the Boii and the Germans. The Licattii, the Clautenatii, and the Vennones proved to be the boldest warriors of all the Vindelici, as did the Rucantii and the Cotuantii of all the Rhaeti. The Estiones, also, belong to the Vindelici, and so do the Brigantii, and their cities, Brigantium and Cambodunum, and also Damasia, the acropolis, as it were, of the Licatii. The stories of the severity of these brigands towards the Italiotes are to this effect: When they capture a village or city, they not only murder all males from youths up but they also go on and kill the male infants, and they do not stop there either, but also kill all the pregnant women who their seers say are pregnant with male children.

Strabo Book VII, Chapter 1

Now the parts beyond the Rhenus, immediately after the country of the Celti, slope towards the east and are occupied by the Germans, who, though they vary slightly from the Celtic stock in that they are wilder, taller, and have yellower hair, are in all other respects similar, for in build, habits, and modes of life they are such as I have said the Celti are. And I also think that it was for this reason that the Romans assigned to them the name “Germani,” as though they wished to indicate thereby that they were “genuine” Galatae, for in the language of the Romans “germani” means “genuine.”

The first parts of this country are those that are next to the Rhenus, beginning at its source and extending as far as its outlet; and this stretch of river-land taken as a whole is approximately the breadth of the country on its western side. Some of the tribes of this river-land were transferred by the Romans to Celtica, whereas the others anticipated the Romans by migrating deep into the country, for instance, the Marsi; and only a few people, including a part of the Sugambri, are left. After the people who live along the river come the other tribes that live between the Rhenus and the River Albis, which latter flows approximately parallel to the former, towards the ocean, and traverses no less territory than the former. Between the two are other navigable rivers also (among them the Amasias, on which Drusus won a naval victory over the Bructeri), which likewise flow from the south towards the north and the ocean; for the country is elevated towards the south and forms a mountain chain that connects with the Alps and extends towards the east as though it were a part of the Alps; and in truth some declare that they actually are a part of the Alps, both because of their aforesaid position and of the fact that they produce the same timber; however, the country in this region does not rise to a sufficient height for that. Here, too, is the Hercynian Forest, and also the tribes of the Suevi, some of which dwell inside the forest, as, for instance, the tribes of the Coldui, in whose territory is Boihaemum, the domain of Marabodus, the place whither he caused to migrate, not only several other peoples, but in particular the Marcomanni, his fellow-tribesmen; for after his return from Rome this man, who before had been only a private citizen, was placed in charge of the affairs of state, for, as a youth he had been at Rome and had enjoyed the favour of Augustus, and on his return he took the rulership and acquired, in addition to the peoples aforementioned, the Lugii (a large tribe), the Zumi, the Butones, the Mugilones, the Sibini, and also the Semnones, a large tribe of the Suevi themselves. However, while some of the tribes of the Suevi dwell inside the forest, as I was saying, others dwell outside of it, and have a common boundary with the Getae.

Strabo Book VII, Chapter 2

As for the Cimbri, some things that are told about them are incorrect and others are extremely improbable. For instance, one could not accept such a reason for their having become a wandering and piratical folk as this — that while they were dwelling on a Peninsula they were driven out of their habitations by a great flood-tide; for in fact they still hold the country which they held in earlier times; and they sent as a present to Augustus the most sacred kettle in their country, with a plea for his friendship and for an amnesty of their earlier offences, and when their petition was granted they set sail for home; and it is ridiculous to suppose that they departed from their homes because they were incensed on account of a phenomenon that is natural and eternal, occurring twice every day. And the assertion that an excessive flood-tide once occurred looks like a fabrication, for when the ocean is affected in this way it is subject to increases and diminutions, but these are regulated and periodical. And the man who said that the Cimbri took up arms against the flood-tides was not right, either; nor yet the statement that the Celti, as a training in the virtue of fearlessness, meekly abide the destruction of their homes by the tides and then rebuild them, and that they suffer a greater loss of life as the result of water than of war, as Ephorus says. Indeed, the regularity of the flood-tides and the fact that the part of the country subject to inundations was known should have precluded such absurdities; for since this phenomenon occurs twice every day, it is of course improbable that the Cimbri did not so much as once perceive that the reflux was natural and harmless, and that it occurred, not in their country alone, but in every country that was on the ocean. Neither is Cleitarchus right; for he says that the horsemen, on seeing the onset of the sea, rode away, and though in full flight came very near being cut off by the water. Now we know, in the first place, that the invasion of the tide does not rush on with such speed as that, but that the sea advances imperceptibly; and, secondly, that what takes place daily and is audible to all who are about to draw near it, even before they behold it, would not have been likely to prompt in them such terror that they would take to flight, as if it had occurred unexpectedly.

Writers report a custom of the Cimbri to this effect: Their wives, who would accompany them on their expeditions, were attended by priestesses who were seers; these were grey-haired, clad in white, with flaxen cloaks fastened on with clasps, girt with girdles of bronze, and bare-footed; now sword in hand these priestesses would meet with the prisoners of war throughout the camp, and having first crowned them with wreaths would lead them to a brazen vessel of about twenty amphorae; and they had a raised platform which the priestess would mount, and then, bending over the kettle, would cut the throat of each prisoner after he had been lifted up; and from the blood that poured forth into the vessel some of the priestesses would draw a prophecy, while still others would split open the body and from an inspection of the entrails would utter a prophecy of victory for their own people; and during the battles they would beat on the hides that were stretched over the wicker-bodies of the wagons and in this way produce an unearthly noise.

41 – 99 Rome Invades Britain. Caractacus. Boedicea.

41 TO 99

Claudius Emperor 41-54

Suetonius Tranquillus.

Life of Tiberius Claudius Drusus Caesar

Livia, having married Augustus when she was pregnant, was within three months afterwards delivered of Drusus, the father of Claudius Caesar, who had at first the praenomen of Decimus, but afterwards that of Nero; and it was suspected that he was begotten in adultery by his father-in-law. The following verse, however, was immediately in every one’s mouth:

Tois eutychousi kai primaena paidia.

Nine months for common births the fates decree;

But, for the great, reduce the term to three.

This Drusus, during the time of his being quaestor and praetor, commanded in the Rhaetian and German wars, and was the first of all the Roman generals who navigated the Northern Ocean

He (Claudius) undertook only one expedition, and that was of short duration. The triumphal ornaments decreed him by the senate, he considered as beneath the imperial dignity, and was therefore resolved to have the honour of a real triumph. For this purpose, he selected Britain, which had never been attempted by any one since Julius Caesar, and was then chafing with rage, because the Romans would not give up some deserters. Accordingly, he (Claudius) set sail from Ostia, but was twice very near being wrecked by the boisterous wind called Circius, upon the coast of Liguria, and near the islands called Stoechades. Having marched by land from Marseilles to Gessoriacum, he thence passed over to Britain, and part of the island submitting to him, within a few days after his arrival, without battle or bloodshed, he returned to Rome in less than six months from the time of his departure, and triumphed in the most solemn manner; to witness which, he not only gave leave to governors of provinces to come to Rome, but even to some of the exiles. Among the spoils taken from the enemy, he fixed upon the pediment of his house in the Palatium, a naval crown, in token of his having passed, and, as it were, conquered the Ocean, and had it suspended near the civic crown which was there before. Messalina, his wife, followed his chariot in a covered litter. Those who had attained the honour of triumphal ornaments in the same war, rode behind; the rest followed on foot, wearing the robe with the broad stripes. Crassus Frugi was mounted upon a horse richly caparisoned, in a robe embroidered with palm leaves, because this was the second time of his obtaining that honour.

The following was well-intended, and well-timed; having, amidst great applause, spared a gladiator, on the intercession of his four sons, he (Claudius) sent a billet immediately round the theatre, to remind the people, “how much it behoved them to get children, since they had before them an example how useful they had been in procuring favour and security for a gladiator.” He likewise represented in the Campus Martius, the assault and sacking of a town, and the surrender of the British kings, presiding in his general’s cloak.

Amongst his freedmen, the greatest favourite was the eunuch Posides, whom, in his British triumph, he presented with the pointless spear, classing him among the military men.

Claudius, at the time of his accession, was fifty years of age; and though he had hitherto lived apparently unambitious of public honours, accompanied with great ostentation, yet he was now seized with a desire to enjoy a triumph. As there existed no war, in which he might perform some military achievement, his vanity could only be gratified by invading a foreign country, where, contrary to the advice contained in the testament of Augustus, he might attempt to extend still further the limits of the empire. Either Britain, therefore, or some nation on the continent, at a great distance from the capital, became the object of such an enterprise; and the former was chosen, not only as more convenient, from its vicinity to the maritime province of Gaul, but on account of a remonstrance lately presented by the Britons to the court of Rome, respecting the protection afforded to some persons of that nation, who had fled thither to elude the laws of their country. Considering the state of Britain at that time, divided as it was into a number of principalities, amongst which there was no general confederacy for mutual defence, and where the alarm excited by the invasion of Julius Caesar, upwards of eighty years before, had long since been forgotten; a sudden attempt upon the island could not fail to be attended with success. Accordingly, an army was sent over, under the command of Aulus Plautius, an able general, who defeated the natives in several engagements, and penetrated a considerable way into the country. Preparations for the emperor’s voyage now being made, Claudius set sail from Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber; but meeting with a violent storm in the Mediterranean, he landed at Marseilles, and proceeding thence to Boulogne in Picardy, passed over into Britain. In what part he debarked, is uncertain, but it seems to have been at some place on the south-east coast of the island. He immediately received the submission of several British states, the Cantii, Atrebates, Regni, and Trinobantes, who inhabited those parts; and returning to Rome, after an absence of six months, celebrated with great pomp the triumph, for which he had undertaken the expedition.

In the interior parts of Britain, the natives, under the command of Caractacus, maintained an obstinate resistance, and little progress was made by the Roman arms, until Ostorius Scapula was sent over to prosecute the war. He penetrated into the country of the Silures, a warlike tribe, who inhabited the banks of the Severn; and having defeated Caractacus in a great battle, made him prisoner, and sent him to Rome. The fame of the British prince had by this time spread over the provinces of Gaul and Italy; and upon his arrival in the Roman capital, the people flocked from all quarters to behold him. The ceremonial of his entrance was conducted with great solemnity. On a plain adjoining the Roman camp, the pretorian troops were drawn up in martial array: the emperor and his court took their station in front of the lines, and behind them was ranged the whole body of the people. The procession commenced with the different trophies which had been taken from the Britons during the progress of the war. Next followed the brothers of the vanquished prince, with his wife and daughter, in chains, expressing by their supplicating looks and gestures the fears with which they were actuated. But not so Caractacus himself. With a manly gait and an undaunted countenance, he marched up to the tribunal, where the emperor was seated, and addressed him in the following terms:

“If to my high birth and distinguished rank, I had added the virtues of moderation, Rome had beheld me rather as a friend than a captive; and you would not have rejected an alliance with a prince, descended from illustrious ancestors, and governing many nations. The reverse of my fortune to you is glorious, and to me humiliating. I had arms, and men, and horses; I possessed extraordinary riches; and can it be any wonder that I was unwilling to lose them? Because Rome aspires to universal dominion, must men therefore implicitly resign themselves to subjection? I opposed for a long time the progress of your arms, and had I acted otherwise, would either you have had the glory of conquest, or I of a brave resistance? I am now in your power: if you are determined to take revenge, my fate will soon be forgotten, and you will derive no honour from the transaction. Preserve my life, and I shall remain to the latest ages a monument of your clemency.”

Immediately upon this speech, Claudius granted him his liberty, as he did likewise to the other royal captives. They all returned their thanks in a manner the most grateful to the emperor; and as soon as their chains were taken off, walking towards Agrippina, who sat upon a bench at a little distance, they repeated to her the same fervent declarations of gratitude and esteem.

History has preserved no account of Caractacus after this period; but it is probable, that he returned in a short time to his own country, where his former valour, and the magnanimity, which he had displayed at Rome, would continue to render him illustrious through life, even amidst the irretrievable ruin of his fortunes.

Orosius.

He (Claudius) crossed to the island, which no one had dared to approach either before Julius Caesar or after him, and there, to quote the words of Suetonius Tranquillus, “without and battle or bloodshed within a very few days he received the surrender of the greatest part of the island”. He also added to the Roman Empire the Orcades islands, which lie in the ocean beyond Britannia, and returned to Rome in the sixth month after he had set out.

AD41-54-Eutropius

After him reigned CLAUDIUS, the uncle of Caligula, and son of that Drusus who has a monument at Moguntiacum, whose grandson Caligula also was. His reign was of no striking character; he acted, in many respects, with gentleness and moderation, in some with cruelty and folly. He made war upon Britain, which no Roman since Julius Caesar had visited; and, having reduced it through the agency of Cnaeus Sentius and Aulus Plautius, illustrious and noble men, he celebrated a magnificent triumph. Certain islands also, called the Orcades, situated in the ocean, beyond Britain, he added to the Roman empire, and gave his son the name of Britannicus. So, condescending, too, was he towards some of his friends, that he even attended Plautius, a man of noble birth, who had obtained many signal successes in the expedition to Britain, in his triumph, and walked at his left hand when he went up to the Capitol. He lived to the age of sixty-four, and reigned fourteen years; and after his death was consecrated and deified.

Liber Britannicus.

Cluids Ceissir, the fourth king after Juil, came into the island of Britain even to the island of Orc.

Nennius.

The second after him, who came into Britain, was the emperor Claudius, who reigned forty-seven years after the birth of Christ. He carried with him war and devastation; and, though not without loss of men, he at length conquered Britain. He next sailed to the Orkneys, which he likewise conquered, and afterwards rendered tributary. No tribute was in his time received from the Britons; but it was paid to British emperors. He reigned thirteen years and eight months. Hismonument is to be seen at Moguntia (among the Lombards), where he died in his way to Rome.

43. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

At the same time that these events were happening in the City Aulus Plautius, a senator of great renown, made a campaign against Britain. The cause was that a certain Bericus, who had been ejected from the island during a revolution, had persuaded Claudius to send a body of troops there. This Plautius after he was made general had difficulty in leading his army beyond Gaul. The soldiers objected, on the ground that their operations were to take place outside the limits of the known world, and would not yield him obedience until the arrival of Narcissus, sent by Claudius, who mounted the tribunal of Plautius and tried to address them. This made them more irritated than ever and they would not allow the newcomer to say a word, but all suddenly shouted together the well-known phrase: “Ho! Ho! the Saturnalia!” (For at the festival of Saturn slaves celebrate the occasion by donning their masters’ dress.) After this they at once followed Plautius voluntarily, but their delay had brought the expedition late in the season. Three divisions were made, in order that they might not be hindered in advancing (as might happen to a single force), and some of them in their voyage across became discouraged because they were buffeted into a backward course, whereas others acquired confidence from the fact that a flash of light starting from the east shot across to the west, the direction in which they were sailing. So, they came to anchor on the shore of the island and found no one to oppose them. The Britons as a result of their inquiries had not expected that they would come and had therefore not assembled beforehand. Nor even at this time would they come into closer conflict with the invaders, but took refuge in the swamps and in the forests, hoping to exhaust their opponents in some other way, so that the latter as in the days of Julius Caesar would sail back empty-handed.

Plautius accordingly had considerable trouble in searching for them. They were not free and independent but were parceled out among various kings. When at last he did find them, he conquered first Caratacus and next Togodumnus, children of Cynobelinus, who was dead. After the flight of those kings he attached by treaty a portion of the Bodunni, ruled by a nation of the Catuellani. Leaving a garrison there he advanced farther. On reaching a certain river, which the barbarians thought the Romans would not be able to cross without a bridge, a conviction which led them to encamp in rather careless fashion on the opposite bank, he sent ahead Celtae who were accustomed to swim easily in full armor across the most turbulent streams. These fell unexpectedly upon the enemy, but instead of shooting at any of the men confined themselves to wounding the horses that drew their chariots and consequently in the confusion not even the mounted warriors could save themselves. Plautius sent across also Fiavius Vespasian, who afterward obtained the imperial office, and his brother Sabinus, a lieutenant of his. So, they likewise got over the river in some way and killed numbers of the foe, who were not aware of their approach. The survivors, however, did not take to flight, and on the next day joined issue with them again. The two forces were rather evenly matched until Gnaeus Hosidius Geta, at the risk of being captured, managed to conquer the barbarians in such a way that he received triumphal honors without having ever been consul.

Thence the Britons retired to the river Thames at a point near where it empties into the ocean and the latter’s flood-tide forms a lake. This they crossed easily because they knew where the firm ground in this locality and the easy passages were; but the Romans in following them up came to grief at this spot. However, when the Celtae swam across again and some others had traversed a bridge a little way up stream, they assailed the barbarians from many sides at once and cut down large numbers of them. In pursuing the remainder incautiously, they got into swamps from which it was not easy to make one’s way out, and in this way lost many men.

Shortly after Togodumnus perished, but the Britons so far from yielding stood together all the more closely to avenge his death. Because of this fact and his previous mishap Plautius became alarmed, and instead of advancing farther proceeded to guard what he had already gained and sent for Claudius. He had been notified to do this in case he met with any particularly stubborn resistance, and a large reinforcement for the army, consisting partly of elephants, had been assembled in advance. When the message reached him, Claudius entrusted domestic affairs (including the management of the soldiers) to his colleague Vitellius, whom he had caused to become consul like himself for the entire six months’ period, and started himself on the expedition. He sailed down the river to Ostia, and from there followed the coast to Massilia. Thence advancing partly by land and partly along the water courses he came to the ocean and crossed over to Britain, where he joined the legions that were waiting for him near the Thames. Taking charge of these he crossed the stream, and encountering the barbarians, who had gathered at his approach, he defeated them in a pitched battle and captured Camulodunum, the capital of Cynobelinus. Next, he extended his authority over numerous tribes, in some cases by treaty, in others by force, and was frequently, contrary to precedent, saluted as imperator. The usual practice is that no single person may receive this title more than once from one and the same war. He deprived those he conquered of their arms and assigned them to the attention of Plautius, bidding him to subjugate the regions that were left. Claudius himself now hastened back to Rome, sending ahead the news of the victory by his sons-in-law, Magnus and Silanus.

The senate on learning of his achievement gave him the title of Britannicus and allowed him to celebrate a triumph.

Bede.

CHAP. III.

How Claudius, the second of the Romans who came into Britain, brought the islands Orcades into subjection to the Roman empire; and Vespasian, sent by him, reduced the Isle of Wight under the dominion of the Romans. [44 AD]

In the year of Rome 798, Claudius, fourth emperor from Augustus, being desirous to approve himself a prince beneficial to the republic, and eagerly bent upon war and conquest on every side, undertook an expedition into Britain, which as it appeared, was roused to rebellion by the refusal of the Romans to give up certain deserters. No one before or after Julius Caesar had dared to land upon the island. Claudius crossed over to it, and within a very few days, without any fighting or bloodshed, the greater part of the island was surrendered into his hands. He also added to the Roman empire the Orcades, which lie in the ocean beyond Britain, and, returning to Rome in the sixth month after his departure, he gave his son the title of Britannicus. This war he concluded in the fourth year of his reign, which is the forty-sixth from the Incarnation of our Lord. In which year there came to pass a most grievous famine in Syria, which is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles to have been foretold by the prophet Agabus.

Vespasian, who was emperor after Nero, being sent into Britain by the same Claudius, brought also under the Roman dominion the Isle of Wight, which is close to Britain on the south, and is about thirty miles in length from east to west, and twelve from north to south; being six miles distant from the southern coast of Britain at the east end, and three at the west. Nero, succeeding Claudius in the empire, undertook no wars at all; and, therefore, among countless other disasters brought by him upon the Roman state, he almost lost Britain; for in his time two most notable towns were there taken and destroyed.

44. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

They voted also that there should be an animal festival commemorating the event and that an arch bearing a trophy should be erected in the City and a second in Gaul, because it was from that district that he had set sail in crossing over to Britain. They bestowed on his son the same honorific title as upon him, so that Claudius was known in a way as Britannicus Proper. Messalina was granted the same privilege of front seats as Livia had enjoyed and also the use of the carpentum. These were the honors bestowed upon the imperial family.

The memory of Gaius disgusted the senators so much that they resolved that all the bronze coinage which had his image stamped upon it should be melted down. Though this was done, yet the bronze was converted to no better use, for Messalina made statues of Mnester the dancer out of it. Inasmuch as the latter had once been on intimate terms with Gaius, she made this offering as a mark of gratitude for his consenting to a _liaison_ with her. She had been madly enamored of him, and when she found herself unable in any way either by promises or by frightening him to persuade him to have intercourse with her, she had a talk with her husband and asked him that the man might be forced to obey her, pretending that she wanted his help for some different purpose. Claudius accordingly told him to do whatsoever he should be ordered by Messalina. On these terms he agreed to enjoy her, alleging that he had been commanded to do so by her husband. Messalina adopted this same method with numerous other men, and committed adultery feigning that Claudius knew what was taking place and countenanced her unchastity.

Portions of Britain, then, were captured at this time in the manner described. After this, during the second consulship of Gaius Crispus and the first of Titus Statilius, Claudius came to Rome at the end of a six months’ absence from the city (of which time he had spent only sixteen days in Britain) and celebrated his triumph. In this he followed the well-established precedents, even to the extent of ascending the steps of the Capitol on his knees, with his sons-in-law supporting him on each side. He granted to the senators taking part with him in the procession triumphal honors, and this not merely to the ex-consuls for he was accustomed to do that most lavishly on other occasions and with the slightest excuse. Upon Rufrius Pollio the prefect he bestowed an image and a seat in the senatorial body as often as he would enter that assembly with him. And to avoid having it thought that he was making any innovation, he declared that Augustus had done this in the case of a certain Valerius, a Ligurian. He also increased the dignity of Laco (formerly praefectus vigilum but now procurator of the Gauls) by this same mark of esteem and in addition by the honors belonging to ex-consuls.

Having finished this business, he held the festival following the triumph and assumed for the occasion some of the consular authority. It took place in both the theatres at once. In the course of the spectacle he would frequently absent himself while others superintended it in his place. He had announced as many horse-races as could find place in a day, but they amounted to not more than ten altogether. For between the separate courses bears were slaughtered and athletes struggled. Boys sent for from Asia also executed the Pyrrhic dance. The performers in the theatre gave, with the consent of the senate, another festival likewise intended to commemorate the victory. All this was done on account of the successes in Britain, and to the end that other nations might more readily capitulate it was voted that all the agreements which Claudius or the lieutenants representing him should make with any peoples should be binding, the same as if sanctioned by the senate and the people.

Liber Britannicus.

Cluid Claudius was the second king that took possession of Britain, at the end of forty and four years after the birth of Christ, and he brought a great slaughter upon the Britons, and he penetrated to the islands of Orc, after causing a slaughter of his people, and after a great loss of his people by the chieftain whose name was Cassibellaunus. He reigned thirteen years and seven months, when he died in Magnantia of the Longobards, as he was going to Rome from the island of Britain.

44. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year the blessed Peter the apostle settled an episcopal see at Rome; and James, the brother of John, was slain by Herod.

SBG St Bran Fendigaid.

Mythological, based on the old Celtic god Bran The Blessed. Brin ab Llyr was a valiant King. After the death of his brothers, childless, he went to reside in Cornwall, leaving Essyllwg (Siluria) to his second son, Caradog. He effected much good in repelling his enemies, and was victorious over the Romans. He permitted the Armoricans to remain in Cornwall on condition that they assisted him against the Romans, which they did most manfully. This Brin became Emperor of Britain. He was the biggest man ever. He was the kindest and most liberal in his gifts, and the most heroic in war and distress. He drove the Goidels out of his country, where they had remained from the time of Gwrgan Farfdrwch, and he made a fortress (caer) on the banks of the River Loughor, which he called Dinmorfael, after his beloved daughter, who died there. He erected a church there called Llanmorfael, but now Castell Llychwr.

He was the first who brought the Faith in Christ to the nation of the Welsh from Rome, where he had been seven years as hostage for his son Caradog, ( Caratacus) whom the Romans had taken prisoner. He was the first of the Welsh nation that was converted to the Faith in Christ, as well as the first to bring that Faith hither, on which latter account he was called BrsLn the Blessed; and with him came Hid and Cyndaf, men of Israel, and Arwystli Hen, a man of Italy.

46. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Claudius, the second of the Roman emperors who invaded Britain, took the greater part of the island into his power, and added the Orkneys to rite dominion of the Romans. This was in the fourth year of his reign. And in the same year happened the great famine in Syria which Luke mentions in the book called “The Acts of the Apostles”. After Claudius Nero succeeded to the empire, who almost lost the island Britain through his incapacity.

46 . This year the Emperor Claudius came to Britain, and subdued a large part of the island; and he also added the island of Orkney to the dominion of the Romans.

46. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

Vespasian in Britain had been hemmed in by the barbarians and was in danger of annihilation, but his son Titus becoming alarmed about his father managed by unusual daring to break through the enclosing line; he then pursued and destroyed the fleeing enemy. Plautius for his skillful handling of the war with Britain and his successes in it both received praise from Claudius and obtained an ovation. [In the course of the armed combat of gladiators many foreign freedmen and British captives fought. The number of men receiving their finishing blow in this part of the spectacle was large, and he took pride in the fact.]

Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo as praetor in Celtica organized the forces and damaged among other barbarians the Cauchi, as they are commonly called. While in the midst of the enemy’s country he was recalled by Claudius, who on ascertaining his valor and his discipline would not allow him to climb to any greater heights. Corbulo learning this turned back, giving vent only to the following exclamation:–“How fortunate were those who became praetors in the days of old!” He implied that the latter had been permitted to exhibit their prowess without danger whereas his progress had been blocked by the emperor on account of jealousy. Yet even so he obtained a triumph. Being again entrusted with an army he trained it no less thoroughly, and as the nations were at peace he had the men dig a trench all the way across from the Rhine to the Meuse, as much as a hundred and seventy stadia long, the purpose of which was to prevent the rivers flowing back and causing inundations at the flood tide of the ocean.

47. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Mark, the evangelist in Egypt beginneth to write the gospel. This year Claudius, king of the Romans, went with an army into Britain, and subdued the island, and subjected all the Picts and Welsh to the rule of the Romans. This was in the fourth year of his reign, and in this same year was the great famine in Syria which Luke speaks of in the book called “Actus Apostolorum”.

50 Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Paul was sent bound to Rome.

52. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

The astrologers were banished from the entire expanse of Italy, and their disciples were punished. Carnetacus, a barbarian chieftain who was captured and brought to Rome and received his pardon at the hands of Claudius, then, after his liberation, wandered about the city; and on beholding its brilliance and its size he exclaimed: “Can you, who own these things and things like them, still yearn for our miserable tents?”

Claudius conceived a wish to have a naval battle in a certain lake; so, after building a wooden wall around it and setting up benches, he gathered an enormous multitude. Claudius and Nero were arrayed in military costume. Agrippina wore a beautiful chlamys woven with gold, and the rest of the people whatever pleased their fancy. Those who were to take part in this sea-fight were condemned criminals, and each side had fifty ships, one party being called Rhodians and the other Sicilians. First, they drew close together and after uniting at one spot they addressed Claudius in this fashion: “Salve, imperator, morituri salutamus.” Since this afforded them no salvation and they were still ordered to fight, they used simple smashing tactics and took very good care not to harm each other. This went on until they were cut down by outside force. [Somewhat later the Fucinian Lake caved in and Narcissus was severely criticised for it. He presided over the undertaking, and it was thought that after spending a great deal less than he had received he had then purposely contrived the collapse, in order that his villainy might go undetected.]

Seneca.

Apocolocyntosis

Claudius began to breathe his last, and could not make an end of the matter. Then Mercury, who had always been much pleased with his wit, drew aside one of the three Fates, and said: “Cruel beldame, why do you let the poor wretch be tormented? After all this torture cannot he have a rest? Four and sixty years it is now since he began to pant for breath. What grudge is this you bear against him and the whole empire? Do let the astrologers tell the truth for once; since he became emperor, they have never let a year pass, never a month, without laying him out for his burial. Yet it is no wonder if they are wrong, and no one knows his hour. Nobody ever believed he was really quite born. Do what has to be done: Kill him, and let a better man rule in empty court.” Clotho replied: “Upon my word, I did wish to give him another hour or two, until he should make Roman citizens of the half dozen who are still outsiders. (He made up his mind, you know, to see the whole world in the toga, Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards, Britons, and all.) But since it is your pleasure to leave a few foreigners for seed, and since you command me, so be it.” She opened her box and out came three spindles. One was for Augurinus, one for Baba, one for Claudius. “These three,” she says, “I will cause to die within one year and at no great distance apart, and I will not dismiss him unattended. Think of all the thousands of men he was wont to see following after him, thousands going before, thousands all crowding about him, and it would never do to leave him alone on a sudden. These boon companions will satisfy him for the nonce.” This said, she twists the thread around his ugly spindle once, and snaps off the last bit of the life of that Imperial dunce.

Seneca.

Apocolocyntosis

Read your books, stupid: you may go half-way at Athens, the whole way at Alexandria. Because the mice lick meal at Rome, you say. Is this creature to mend our crooked ways? What goes on in his own closet he knows not; and now he searches the regions of the sky, wants to be a god. Is it not enough that he has a temple in Britain, that savages worship him and pray to him as a god, so that they may find a fool to have mercy upon them?”

Seneca.

Apocolocyntosis

When Claudius saw his own funeral train, he understood that he was dead. For they were chanting his dirge in anapaests, with much mopping and mouthing:

“Pour forth your laments, your sorrow declare,

Let the sounds of grief rise high in the air:

For he that is dead had a wit most keen,

Was bravest of all that on earth have been.

Racehorses are nothing to his swift feet:

Rebellious Parthians he did defeat;

Swift after the Persians his light shafts go:

For he well knew how to fit arrow to bow,

Swiftly the striped barbarians fled:

With one little wound he shot them dead.

And the Britons beyond in their unknown seas,

Blue-shielded Brigantians too, all these

He chained by the neck as the Romans’ slaves.

He spake, and the Ocean with trembling waves

Accepted the axe of the Roman law.

O weep for the man! This world never saw

One quicker a troublesome suit to decide,

When only one part of the case had been tried,

(He could do it indeed and not hear either side).

Who’ll now sit in judgment the whole year round?

Now he that is judge of the shades underground

Once ruler of fivescore cities in Crete,

Must yield to his better and take a back seat.

Mourn, mourn, pettifoggers, ye venal crew,

And you, minor poets, woe, woe is to you!

And you above all, who get rich quick

By the rattle of dice and the three card trick.”

Seneca’s Essays.

TO MARCIA ON CONSOLATION, xiii. 4-xiv. 3

Gaius Caesar, when he was traversing Britain, and could not endure that even the ocean should set bounds to his success, heard that his daughter\d had departed; and with her went the fate of the republic. It was already plain to his eyes that Gnaeus Pompeius would not endure with calmness that any other should become “great” in the commonwealth, and would place a check upon his own advancement, which seemed to cause him offence even when it was increasing to their common interest. Yet within three days he returned to his duties as a general, and conquered his grief as quickly as he was wont to conquer everything

Seneca’s Essays.

TO POLYBIUS ON CONSOLATION, xiii. 1-4

Suffer him (Claudius) to heal the human race, that has long been sick and in evil case, suffer him to restore and return all things to their place out of the havoc the madness of the preceding princes has wrought! May this sun, which has shed its light upon a world that had plunged into the abyss and was sunk in darkness, ever shine! May he bring peace to Germany, open up Britain and celebrate again both his father’s triumphs and new ones! And his mercy, which in the list of his virtues holds the chief place, raises the hope that of these I also shall not fail to be a spectator.

Nero Emperor 54-68

54-68. Eutropius.

To him succeeded NERO, who greatly resembled his uncle Caligula, and both disgraced and weakened the Roman empire; he indulged in such extraordinary luxury and extravagance, that, after the example of Caius Caligula, he even bathed in hot and cold perfumes, and fished with golden nets, which he drew up with cords of purple silk. He put to death a very great number of the senate. To all good men he was an enemy. At last he exposed himself in so disgraceful a manner, that he danced and sung upon the stage in the dress of a harp-player and tragedian. He was guilty of many murders, his brother, wife, and mother, being put to death by him. He set on fire the city of Rome, that he might enjoy the sight of a spectacle such as Troy formerly presented when taken and burned.

In military affairs, he attempted nothing. Britain, he almost lost; for two of its most noble towns were taken and levelled to the ground under his reign. The Parthians took from him Armenia, and compelled the Roman legions to pass under the yoke. Two provinces however were formed under him; Pontus Polemoniacus, by the concession of King Polemon; and the Cottian Alps, on the death of King Cottius.

XVIII. He never entertained the least ambition or hope of augmenting and extending the frontiers of the empire. On the contrary, he had thoughts of withdrawing the troops from Britain, and was only restrained from so doing by the fear of appearing to detract from the glory of his father.

XXXIX. To these terrible and shameful calamities brought upon the people by their prince, were added some proceeding from misfortune. Such were a pestilence, by which, within the space of one autumn, there died no less than thirty thousand persons, as appeared from the registers in the temple of Libitina; a great disaster in Britain, where two of the principal towns belonging to the Romans were plundered; and a dreadful havoc made both amongst our troops and allies; a shamefudiscomfiture of the army of the East; where, in Armenia, the legions werobliged to pass under the yoke, and it was with great difficulty thaSyria was retained.

In this reign, the conquest of the Britons still continued to be the principal object of military enterprise, and Suetonius Paulinus was invested with the command of the Roman army employed in the reduction of that people. The island of Mona, now Anglesey, being the chief seat of the Druids, he resolved to commence his operations with attacking a place which was the centre of superstition, and to which the vanquished Britons retreated as the last asylum of liberty. The inhabitants endeavoured, both by force of arms and the terrors of religion, to obstruct his landing on this sacred island. The women and Druids assembled promiscuously with the soldiers upon the shore, where running about in wild disorder, with flaming torches in their hands, and pouring forth the most hideous exclamations, they struck the Romans with consternation. But Suetonius animating his troops, they boldly attacked the inhabitants, routed them in the field, and burned the Druids in the same fires which had been prepared by those priests for the catastrophe of the invaders, destroying at the same time all the consecrated groves and altars in the island. Suetonius having thus triumphed over the religion of the Britons, flattered himself with the hopes of soon effecting the reduction of the people. But they, encouraged by his absence, had taken arms, and under the conduct of Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, who had been treated in the most ignominious manner by the Roman tribunes, had already driven the hateful invaders from their several settlements. Suetonius hastened to the protection of London, which was by this time a flourishing Roman colony; but he found upon his arrival, that any attempt to preserve it would be attended with the utmost danger to the army. London therefore was reduced to ashes; and the Romans, and all strangers, to the number of seventy thousand, were put to the sword without distinction, the Britons seeming determined to convince the enemy that they would acquiesce in no other terms than a total evacuation of the island. This massacre, however, was revenged by Suetonius in a decisive engagement, where eighty thousand of the Britons are said to have been killed; after which, Boadicea, to avoid falling into the hands of the insolent conquerors, put a period to her own life by means of poison. It being judged unadvisable that Suetonius should any longer conduct the war against a people whom he had exasperated by his severity, he was recalled, and Petronius Turpilianus appointed in his room. The command was afterwards given successively to Trebellius Maximus and Vettius Bolanus; but the plan pursued by these generals was only to retain, by a conciliatory administration, the parts of the island which had already submitted to the Roman arms.

During these transactions in Britain, Nero himself was exhibiting, in Rome or some of the provinces, such scenes of extravagance as almost exceed credibility.

48-54 Tacitus.

Annals

Meanwhile, in Britain, Publius Ostorius, the propraetor, found himself confronted by disturbance. The enemy had burst into the territories of our allies with all the more fury, as they imagined that a new general would not march against them with winter beginning and with an army of which he knew nothing. Ostorius, well aware that first events are those which produce alarm or confidence, by a rapid movement of his light cohorts, cut down all who opposed him, pursued those who fled, and lest they should rally, and so an unquiet and treacherous peace might allow no rest to the general and his troops, he prepared to disarm all whom he suspected, and to occupy with encampments the whole country to the Avon and Severn. The Iceni, a powerful tribe, which war had not weakened, as they had voluntarily joined our alliance, were the first to resist. At their instigation, the surrounding nations chose as a battlefield a spot walled in by a rude barrier, with a narrow approach, impenetrable to cavalry. Through these defences the Roman general, though he had with him only the allied troops, without the strength of the legions, attempted to break, and having assigned their positions to his cohorts, he equipped even his cavalry for the work of infantry. Then at a given signal they forced the barrier, routing the enemy who were entangled in their own defences. The rebels, conscious of their guilt, and finding escape barred, performed many noble feats. In this battle, Marius Ostorius, the general’s son, won the reward for saving a citizen’s life.

The defeat of the Iceni quieted those who were hesitating between war and peace. Then the army was marched against the Cangi; their territory was ravaged, spoil taken everywhere without the enemy venturing on an engagement, or if they attempted to harass our march by stealthy attacks, their cunning was always punished. And now Ostorius had advanced within a little distance of the sea, facing the island Hibernia, when feuds broke out among the Brigantes and compelled the general’s return, for it was his fixed purpose not to undertake any fresh enterprise till he had consolidated his previous successes. The Brigantes indeed, when a few who were beginning hostilities had been slain and the rest pardoned, settled down quietly; but on the Silures neither terror nor mercy had the least effect; they persisted in war and could be quelled only by legions encamped in their country. That this might be the more promptly effected, a colony of a strong body of veterans was established at Camulodunum on the conquered lands, as a defence against the rebels, and as a means of imbuing the allies with respect for our laws.

The army then marched against the Silures, a naturally fierce people and now full of confidence in the might of Caractacus, who by many an indecisive and many a successful battle had raised himself far above all the other generals of the Britons. Inferior in military strength, but deriving an advantage from the deceptiveness of the country, he at once shifted the war by a stratagem into the territory of the Ordovices, where, joined by all who dreaded peace with us, he resolved on a final struggle. He selected a position for the engagement in which advance and retreat alike would be difficult for our men and comparatively easy for his own, and then on some lofty hills, wherever their sides could be approached by a gentle slope, he piled up stones to serve as a rampart. A river too of varying depth was in his front, and his armed bands were drawn up before his defences.

Then too the chieftains of the several tribes went from rank to rank, encouraging and confirming the spirit of their men by making light of their fears, kindling their hopes, and by every other warlike incitement. As for Caractacus, he flew hither and thither, protesting that that day and that battle would be the beginning of the recovery of their freedom, or of everlasting bondage. He appealed, by name, to their forefathers who had driven back the dictator Caesar, by whose valour they were free from the Roman axe and tribute, and still preserved inviolate the persons of their wives and of their children. While he was thus speaking, the host shouted applause; every warrior bound himself by his national oath not to shrink from weapons or wounds.

Such enthusiasm confounded the Roman general. The river too in his face, the rampart they had added to it, the frowning hilltops, the stern resistance and masses of fighting men everywhere apparent, daunted him. But his soldiers insisted on battle, exclaiming that valour could overcome all things; and the prefects and tribunes, with similar language, stimulated the ardour of the troops. Ostorius having ascertained by a survey the inaccessible and the assailable points of the position, led on his furious men, and crossed the river without difficulty. When he reached the barrier, as long as it was a fight with missiles, the wounds and the slaughter fell chiefly on our soldiers; but when he had formed the military testudo, and the rude, ill-compacted fence of stones was torn down, and it was an equal hand-to-hand engagement, the barbarians retired to the heights. Yet even there, both light and heavy-armed soldiers rushed to the attack; the first harassed the foe with missiles, while the latter closed with them, and the opposing ranks of the Britons were broken, destitute as they were of the defence of breast-plates or helmets. When they faced the auxiliaries, they were felled by the swords and javelins of our legionaries; if they wheeled round, they were again met by the sabres and spears of the auxiliaries. It was a glorious victory; the wife and daughter of Caractacus were captured, and his brothers too were admitted to surrender.

There is seldom safety for the unfortunate, and Caractacus, seeking the protection of Cartismandua, queen of the Brigantes, was put in chains and delivered up to the conquerors, nine years after the beginning of the war in Britain. His fame had spread thence, and travelled to the neighbouring islands and provinces, and was actually celebrated in Italy. All were eager to see the great man, who for so many years had defied our power. Even at Rome the name of Caractacus was no obscure one; and the emperor, while he exalted his own glory, enhanced the renown of the vanquished. The people were summoned as to a grand spectacle; the praetorian cohorts were drawn up under arms in the plain in front of their camp; then came a procession of the royal vassals, and the ornaments and neck-chains and the spoils which the king had won in wars with other tribes, were displayed. Next were to be seen his brothers, his wife and daughter; last of all, Caractacus himself. All the rest stooped in their fear to abject supplication; not so the king, who neither by humble look nor speech sought compassion.

When he was set before the emperor’s tribunal, he spoke as follows: “Had my moderation in prosperity been equal to my noble birth and fortune, I should have entered this city as your friend rather than as your captive; and you would not have disdained to receive, under a treaty of peace, a king descended from illustrious ancestors and ruling many nations. My present lot is as glorious to you as it is degrading to myself. I had men and horses, arms and wealth. What wonder if I parted with them reluctantly? If you Romans choose to lord it over the world, does it follow that the world is to accept slavery? Were I to have been at once delivered up as a prisoner, neither my fall nor your triumph would have become famous. My punishment would be followed by oblivion, whereas, if you save my life, I shall be an everlasting memorial of your clemency.”

Upon this the emperor granted pardon to Caractacus, to his wife, and to his brothers. Released from their bonds, they did homage also to Agrippina who sat near, conspicuous on another throne, in the same language of praise and gratitude. It was indeed a novelty, quite alien to ancient manners, for a woman to sit in front of Roman standards. In fact, Agrippina boasted that she was herself a partner in the empire which her ancestors had won.

The Senate was then assembled, and speeches were delivered full of pompous eulogy on the capture of Caractacus. It was as glorious, they said, as the display of Syphax by Scipio, or of Perses by Lucius Paulus, or indeed of any captive prince by any of our generals to the people of Rome. Triumphal distinctions were voted to Ostorius, who thus far had been successful, but soon afterwards met with reverses; either because, when Caractacus was out of the way, our discipline was relaxed under an impression that the war was ended, or because the enemy, out of compassion for so great a king, was more ardent in his thirst for vengeance. Instantly they rushed from all parts on the camp-prefect, and legionary cohorts left to establish fortified positions among the Silures, and had not speedy succour arrived from towns and fortresses in the neighbourhood, our forces would then have been totally destroyed. Even as it was, the camp-prefect, with eight centurions, and the bravest of the soldiers, were slain; and shortly afterwards, a foraging party of our men, with some cavalry squadrons sent to their support, was utterly routed.

Ostorius then deployed his light cohorts, but even thus he did not stop the flight, till our legions sustained the brunt of the battle. Their strength equalized the conflict, which after a while was in our favour. The enemy fled with trifling loss, as the day was on the decline. Now began a series of skirmishes, for the most part like raids, in woods and morasses, with encounters due to chance or to courage, to mere heedlessness or to calculation, to fury or to lust of plunder, under directions from the officers, or sometimes even without their knowledge. Conspicuous above all in stubborn resistance were the Silures, whose rage was fired by words rumoured to have been spoken by the Roman general, to the effect, that as the Sugambri had been formerly destroyed or transplanted into Gaul, so the name of the Silures ought to be blotted out. Accordingly, they cut off two of our auxiliary cohorts, the rapacity of whose officers let them make incautious forays; and by liberal gifts of spoil and prisoners to the other tribes, they were luring them too into revolt, when Ostorius, worn out by the burden of his anxieties, died, to the joy of the enemy, who thought that a campaign at least, though not a single battle, had proved fatal to general whom none could despise.

The emperor on hearing of the death of his representative appointed Aulus Didius in his place, that the province might not be left without a governor. Didius, though he quickly arrived, found matters far from prosperous, for the legion under the command of Manlius Valens had meanwhile been defeated, and the disaster had been exaggerated by the enemy to alarm the new general, while he again magnified it, that he might win the more glory by quelling the movement or have a fairer excuse if it lasted. This loss too had been inflicted on us by the Silures, and they were scouring the country far and wide, till Didius hurried up and dispersed them. After the capture of Caractacus, Venutius of the Brigantes, as I have already mentioned, was pre-eminent in military skill; he had long been loyal to Rome and had been defended by our arms while he was united in marriage to the queen Cartismandua. Subsequently a quarrel broke out between them, followed instantly by war, and he then assumed a hostile attitude also towards us. At first, however, they simply fought against each other, and Cartismandua by cunning stratagems captured the brothers and kinsfolk of Venutius. This enraged the enemy, who were stung with shame at the prospect of falling under the dominion of a woman. The flower of their youth, picked out for war, invaded her kingdom. This we had foreseen; some cohorts were sent to her aid and a sharp contest followed, which was at first doubtful but had a satisfactory termination.

The legion under the command of Caesius Nasica fought with a similar result. For Didius, burdened with years and covered with honours, was content with acting through his officers and merely holding back the enemy. These transactions, though occurring under two propraetors, and occupying several years, I have closely connected, lest, if related separately, they might be less easily remembered.

54. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

[Sidenote: A.D. 54 (a.u. 807)] [Sidenote:–1–]

At the death of Claudius the leadership on most just principles belonged to Britannicus, who had been born a legitimate son of Claudius and in physical development was beyond what would have been expected of his years. Yet by law the power passed to Nero on account of his adoption. No claim, indeed, is stronger than that of arms. Every one who possesses superior force has always the appearance of both saying and doing what is more just. So Nero, having first disposed of Claudius’s will and having succeeded him as master of the whole empire, put Britannicus and his sisters out of the way. Why, then, should one stop to lament the misfortunes of other victims?

56. Annals of the Four Masters.

Fiacha Finnfolaidh, after having been seventeen years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was killed by the provincial kings, at the instigation of the Aitheach Tuatha, in the slaughter of Magh Bolg. These were the provincial kings by whom he was killed: Elim, son of Conra, King of Ulster; Sanbh, son of Ceat Mac Magach, King of Connaught; Foirbre, son of Fin, King of Munster; and Eochaidh Aincheann, King of Leinster. He left of children but one son only, who was in the womb of Eithne, daughter of the King of Alba Scotland. Tuathal was his the son’s name.

57. The first year of the reign of Elim, son of Conra.

c60. Lucan.

THE CROSSING OF THE RUBICON

Now rest the Belgians, and the Arvernian race

That boasts our kinship by descent from Troy;

And those brave rebels whose undaunted hands

Were dipped in Cotta’s blood, and those who wear

Sarmatian garb. Batavia’s warriors fierce

No longer listen for the bugle call,

THE FLIGHT OF POMPEIUS

Does he take heart from Gaul:

For years on years rebellious, and a life

Spent there in labour? or because he fled

Rhine’s icy torrent and the shifting pools

He calls an ocean? or unchallenged sought

Britannia’s cliffs; then turned his back in flight?

Or does he boast because his citizens

Were driven in arms to leave their hearths and homes?

Ah, vain delusion! not from thee they fled:

My steps they follow — mine, whose conquering signs

Swept all the ocean (29), and who, ere the moon

Twice filled her orb and waned, compelled to flight

The pirate, shrinking from the open sea,

And humbly begging for a narrow home

In some poor nook on shore.

MASSILIA

This ordered, Caesar leads his legions on,

Not armed for war, but as in time of peace

Returning to his home. Ah! had he come

With only Gallia conquered and the North (4),

What long array of triumph had he brought!

What pictured scenes of battle! how had Rhine

And Ocean borne his chains! How noble Gaul,

And Britain’s fair-haired chiefs his lofty car

Had followed! Such a triumph had he lost

By further conquest. Now in silent fear

They watched his marching troops, nor joyful towns

Poured out their crowds to welcome his return.

Yet did the conqueror’s proud soul rejoice,

Far more than at their love, at such a fear.

CAESAR IN SPAIN.

When Sicoris kept his banks, the shallop light

Of hoary willow bark they build, which bent

On hides of oxen, bore the weight of man

And swam the torrent. Thus on sluggish Po

Venetians float; and on th’ encircling sea (8)

Are borne Britannia’s nations; and when Nile

Fills all the land, are Memphis’ thirsty reeds

Shaped into fragile boats that swim his waves.

The further bank thus gained, they haste to curve

The fallen forest, and to form the arch

By which imperious Sicoris shall be spanned.

THE FIGHT NEAR DYRRHACHIUM.

At first Pompeius knew not: so the hind

Who peaceful tills the mid-Sicilian fields

Hears not Pelorous (2) sounding to the storm;

So billows thunder on Rutupian shores (3),

Unheard by distant Caledonia’s tribes.

But when he saw the mighty barrier stretch

O’er hill and valley, and enclose the land,

He bade his columns leave their rocky hold

And seize on posts of vantage in the plain;

Thus forcing Caesar to extend his troops

On wider lines;

61. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

And, as there needed to be a fitting climax to these deeds, Nero himself appeared as an actor and Gallio proclaimed him by name. There stood Caesar on the stage wearing the garb of a singing zither-player. Spoke the emperor: “My lords, of your kindness give me ear.” Then did the Augustus sing to the zither a thing called “Attis or the Bacchantes,” [Footnote: The title of one of Nero’s poems.] whilst many soldiers stood by and all the people that the seats would hold sat watching. Yet had he (according to the tradition) but a slight voice and an indistinct, so that he moved all present to laughter and tears at once. Beside him stood Burrus and Seneca like teachers prompting a pupil: they would wave their hands and togas at every utterance and draw others on to do the same. Indeed, Nero had ready a peculiar corps of about five thousand soldiers, called Augustans; these would begin the applause, and all the rest, however loath, were obliged to shout aloud with them,–except Thrasea. He would never stoop to such conduct. But the rest, and especially the prominent men, gathered with alacrity even when in grief and joined as if glad in all the shouts of the Augustans. One could hear them saying: “Excellent Caesar! Apollo! Augustus! One like unto the Pythian! By thine own self, O Caesar, no one can surpass thee!” After this performance he entertained the people at a feast on boats on the site of the naval battle given by Augustus: thence at midnight he sailed through a canal into the Tiber.

[Sidenote: A.D. 60 (a.u. 813)] [Sidenote:–21–]

This, then, he did to celebrate the shaving of his chin. In behalf of his preservation and thecontinuance of his authority,–thus he gave notice,–he instituted quinquennial games, naming them Neronia. In honor of the event he also constructed the gymnasium at the dedication of which he made a free distribution of olive oil to the senators and knights. The crown for singing to the zither, moreover, he took without a contest, for all others were debarred on the assumption that they were unworthy of victory. [And immediately in their garb he was enrolled on the very lists of the gymnasium.] Thenceforward all other crowns for zither playing at all the contests were sent to him as the only person competent to win victories of that sort.

61. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

[Sidenote: A.D. 61 (a.u. 814)] [Sidenote: 1]

While this sport was going on at Rome, a terrible disaster had taken place in Britain. Two cities had been sacked, eight myriads of Romans and of their allies had perished, and the island had been lost. Moreover, all this ruin was brought upon them by a woman, a fact which in itself caused them the greatest shame. Heaven evidently gave them in advance an indication of the catastrophe. At night there was heard to issue from the senate-house foreign jargon mingled with laughter and from the theatre outcries with wailing: yet no mortal man had uttered the speeches or the groans. Houses under water came to view in the river Thames, and the ocean between the island and Gaul sometimes grew bloody at flood-tide.

The casus belli lay in the confiscation of the money which Claudius had given to the foremost Britons, Decianus Catus, governor of the island, announcing that this must now be sent back. This was one reason [Lacuna] and had afterward called in this loan all at once and levied on them for it with severity. But the person who most stirred their spirits and persuaded them to fight the Romans, who was deemed worthy to stand at their head and to have the conduct of the entire war, was a British woman, Buduica, of the royal family and possessed of greater judgment than often belongs to women. It was she who gathered the army to the number of nearly twelve myriads and ascended a tribunal of marshy soil made after the Roman fashion. In person she was very tall, with a most sturdy figure and a piercing glance; her voice was harsh; a great mass of yellow hair fell below her waist and a large golden necklace clasped her throat; wound about her was a tunic of every conceivable color and over it a thick chlamys had been fastened with a brooch. This was her constant attire. She now grasped a spear to aid her in terrifying all beholders and spoke as follows:

“You have had actual experience of the difference between freedom and slavery. Hence, though some of you previously through ignorance of which was better may have been deceived by the alluring announcements of the Romans, yet now that you have tried both you have learned how great a mistake you made by preferring a self-imposed despotism to your ancestral mode of life. You have come to recognize how far superior is the poverty of independence to wealth in servitude. What treatment have we met with that is not most outrageous, that is not most grievous, ever since these men insinuated themselves into Britain? Have we not been deprived of our most numerous and our greatest possessions entire, while for what remains we must pay taxes? Besides pasturing and tilling all the various regions for them do we not contribute a yearly sum for our very bodies? How much better it would have been to be sold to masters once and for all than to ransom ourselves annually and possess empty names of freedom! How much better to have been slain and perish rather than go about with subservient heads! Yet what have I said? Even dying is not free from expense among them, and you know what fees we deposit on behalf of the dead. Throughout the rest of mankind death frees even those who are in slavery; only in the case of the Romans do the very dead live for their profit. Why is it that though none of us has any money, and how or whence should we get it?,–we are stripped and despoiled like a murderer’s victims? How should the Romans grow milder in process of time, when they have conducted themselves so toward us at the very start, a period when all men show consideration for even newly captured beasts?

“But, to tell the truth, it is we who have made ourselves responsible for all these evils in allowing them so much as to set foot on the island in the first place instead of expelling them at once as we did their famous Julius Caesar, yes, in not making the idea of attempting the voyage formidable to them, while they were as yet far off, as it was to Augustus and to Gaius Caligula. So great an island, or rather in one sense a continent encircled by water, do we inhabit, a veritable world of our own, and so far are we separated by the ocean from all the rest of mankind that we have been believed to dwell on a different earth and under a different sky and some of their wisest men were not previously sure of even our exact name. Yet for all this we have been scorned and trampled under foot by men who know naught else than how to secure gain. Still, let us even at this late day, if not before, fellow-citizens, friends and relatives, for I deem you all relatives, in that you inhabit a single island and are called by one common name, let us do our duty while the memory of freedom still abides within us, that we may leave both the name and the fact of it to our children. For if we utterly lose sight of the happy conditions amid which we were born and bred, what pray will they do, reared in bondage?

“This I say not to inspire you with a hatred of present circumstances, that hatred is already apparent, nor with a fear of the future, that fear you already have, but to commend you because of your own accord you choose to do just what you ought, and to thank you for cooperating so readily with me and your own selves at once. Be nowise afraid of the Romans. They are not more numerous than are we nor yet braver. And the proof is that they have protected themselves with helmets and breastplates and greaves and furthermore have equipped their camps with palisades and walls and ditches to make sure that they shall suffer no harm by any hostile assault. [Footnote: Corruptions in the text emended by Reiske.] Their fears impel them to choose this method rather than engage in any active work like us. We enjoy such a superabundance of bravery that we regard tents as safer than walls and our shields as affording greater protection than their whole suits of mail. As a consequence, we when victorious can capture them and when overcome by force can elude them. And should we ever choose to retreat, we can conceal ourselves in swamps and mountains so inaccessible that we can be neither found nor taken. The enemy, however, can neither pursue any one by reason of their heavy armor nor yet flee. And if they ever should slip away from us, taking refuge in certain designated spots, there, too, they are sure to be enclosed as in a trap. These are some of the respects in which they are vastly inferior to us, and others are their inability to bear up under hunger, thirst, cold, or heat, as we can; for they require shade and protection, they require kneaded bread and wine and oil, and if the supply of any of these things fails them they simply perish. For us, on the other hand, any root or grass serves as bread, any plant juice as olive oil, any water as wine, any tree as a house. Indeed, this very region is to us an

acquaintance and ally, but to them unknown and hostile. As for the rivers, we swim them naked, but they even with boats can not cross easily. Let us therefore go against them trusting boldly to good fortune. Let us show them that they are hares and foxes trying to rule dogs and wolves.”

At these words, employing a species of divination, she let a hare escape from her bosom, and as it ran in what they considered a lucky direction, the whole multitude shouted with pleasure, and Buduica raising her hand to heaven, spoke: “I thank thee, Andraste, and call upon thee, who are a woman, being myself also a woman that rules not burden-bearing Egyptians like Nitocris, nor merchant Assyrians like Semiramis (of these things we have heard from the Romans), nor even the Romans themselves, as did Messalina first and later Agrippina;–at present their chief is Nero, in name a man, in fact a woman, as is shown by his singing, his playing the cithara, his adorning

himself:–but ruling as I do men of Britain that know not how to till the soil or ply a trade yet are thoroughly versed in the arts of war and hold all things common, even children and wives; wherefore the latter possess the same valor as the males: being therefore queen of such men and such women I supplicate and pray thee for victory and salvation and liberty against men insolent, unjust, insatiable, impious,–if, indeed we ought to term those creatures men who wash in warm water, eat artificial dainties, drink unmixed wine, anoint themselves with myrrh, sleep on soft couches with boys for bedfellows (and past their prime at that), are slaves to a zither-player, yes, an inferior zither-player. Wherefore may this Domitia-Nero _woman_ reign no more over you or over me: let the wench sing and play the despot over the Romans. They surely deserve to be in slavery to such a being whose tyranny they have patiently borne already this long time. But may we, mistress, ever look to thee alone as our head.”

After an harangue of this general nature Buduica led her army against the Romans. The latter chanced to be without a leader for the reason that Paulinus their commander had gone on an expedition to Mona, an island near Britain. This enabled her to sack and plunder two Roman cities, and, as I said, she wrought indescribable slaughter. Persons captured by the Britons underwent every form of most frightful treatment. The conquerors committed the most atrocious and bestial outrages. For instance, they hung up naked the noblest and most distinguished women, cut off their breasts and sewed them to their mouths, to make the victims appear to be eating them. After that they impaled them on sharp skewers run perpendicularly the whole length of the body. All this they did to the accompaniment of sacrifices, banquets, and exhibitions of insolence in all of their sacred places, but chiefly in the grove of Andate, that being the name of their personification of Victory, to whom they paid the most excessive reverence.

It happened that Paulinus had already brought Mona to terms; hence on learning of the disaster in Britain he at once set sail thither from Mona. He was unwilling to risk a conflict with the barbarians immediately, for he feared their numbers and their frenzy; therefore, he was for postponing the battle to a more convenient season. But as he grew short of food and the barbarians did not desist from pressing him hard, he was compelled, though contrary to his plan, to enter into an engagement with them. Buduica herself, heading an army of about twenty-three myriads of men, rode on a chariot and assigned the rest to their several stations. Now Paulinus could not extend his phalanx the width of her whole line, for, even if the men had been drawn up only one deep, they would not have stretched far enough, so inferior were they in numbers: nor did he dare to join battle with one compact force, for fear he should be surrounded and cut down. Accordingly, he separated his army into three divisions in order to fight at several points at once, and he made each of the divisions so strong that it could not easily be broken through. While ordering and arranging his men he likewise exhorted them, saying:

“Up, fellow-soldiers! Up, men of Rome! Show these pests how much even in misfortune we surpass them. It is a shame for you now to lose ingloriously what but a short while ago you gained by your valor. Often have we ourselves and also our fathers with far fewer numbers than we have at the present conquered far more numerous antagonists. Fear not the host of them or their rebellion: their boldness rests on nothing better than headlong rashness unaided by arms and exercise. Fear not because they have set on fire a few cities: they took these not by force nor after a battle, but one was betrayed and the other abandoned. Do you now exact from them the proper penalty for these deeds, that so they may learn by actual experience what they undertook when they wronged such men as us?”

After speaking these words to some he came to a second group and said: “Now is the occasion, now, fellow-soldiers, for zeal, for daring. If to-day you prove yourselves brave men, you will recover what has slipped from your grasp. If you overcome this enemy, no one else will any longer withstand us. By one such battle you will both make sure of your present possessions and subdue whatever is left. All soldiers stationed anywhere else will emulate you and foes will be terror-stricken. Therefore, since it is in your own hands either to rule fearlessly all mankind, both the nations that your fathers left under your control and those which you yourselves have gained in addition, or else to be bereft of them utterly, choose rather to be free, to rule, to live in wealth, to enjoy prosperity, than through indolence to suffer the reverse of these conditions.”

After making an address of this sort to the group in question, he came up to the third division and said also to them: “You have heard what sort of acts these wretches have committed against us, nay more, you have even seen some of them. Therefore, choose either yourselves to suffer the same treatment as previous victims and furthermore to be driven entirely out of Britain, or else through victory to avenge those that perished and also to give to the rest of mankind an example of mild clemency toward the obedient, of necessary severity toward the rebellious. I entertain the highest hopes of victory for our side, counting on the following factors: first, the assistance of the gods; they usually cooperate with the party that has been wronged: second, our inherited bravery; we are Romans and have shown ourselves superior to all mankind in various instances of valor: next, our experience; we have defeated and subdued these very men that are now arrayed against us: last, our good name; it is not worthy opponents but our slaves with whom we are coming in conflict, persons who enjoyed freedom and self-government only so far as we allowed it. Yet even should the outcome prove contrary to our hope, and I will not shrink from mentioning even this contingency, it is better for us to fall fighting bravely than to be captured and impaled, to see our own entrails cut out, to be spitted on red hot skewers, to perish dissolved in boiling water, when we have fallen into the power of creatures that are very beasts, savage, lawless, godless. Let us therefore either beat them or die on the spot. Britain shall be a noble memorial to us, even though all subsequent Romans should be driven from it; for in any case our bodies shall forever possess the land.”

At the conclusion of exhortations of this sort and others like them he raised the signal for battle. Thereupon they approached each other, the barbarians making a great outcry intermingled with menacing incantations, but the Romans silently and in order until they came within a javelin’s throw of the enemy. Then, while the foe were advancing against them at a walk, the Romans started at a given word andcharged them at full speed, and when the clash came easily broke through the opposing ranks; but, as they were surrounded by the great numbers, they had to be fighting everywhere at once. Their struggle took many forms. In the first place, light-armed troops might be in conflict with light-armed, heavy-armed be arrayed against heavy-armed, cavalry join issue with cavalry; and against the chariots of the barbarians the Roman archers would be contending. Again, the barbarians would assail the Romans with a rush of their chariots, knocking them helter-skelter, but, since they fought without breastplates, would be themselves repulsed by the arrows. Horseman would upset foot-soldier, and foot-soldier strike down horseman; some, forming in close order, would go to meet the chariots, and others would be scattered by them; some would come to close quarters with the archers and rout them, whereas others were content to dodge their shafts at a distance: and all these things went on not at one spot, but in the three divisions at once. They contended for a long time, both parties being animated by the same zeal and daring. Finally, though late in the day, the Romans prevailed, having slain numbers in the battle, beside the wagons, or in the wood: they also captured many alive. Still, not a few made their escape and went on to prepare to fight a second time. Meanwhile, however, Buduica fell sick and died. The Britons mourned her deeply and gave her a costly burial; but, as they themselves were this time really defeated, they scattered to their homes. So far the history of affairs in Britain.

59-62. Tacitus Annals.

In the consulship of Caesonius Paetus and Petronius Turpilianus, a serious disaster was sustained in Britain, where Aulius Didius, the emperor’s legate, had merely retained our existing possessions, and his successor Veranius, after having ravaged the Silures in some trifling raids, was prevented by death from extending the war. While he lived, he had a great name for manly independence, though, in his will’s final words, he betrayed a flatterer’s weakness; for, after heaping adulation on Nero, he added that he should have conquered the province for him, had he lived for the next two years. Now, however, Britainwas in the hands of Suetonius Paulinus, who in military knowledge and in popular favour, which allows no one to be without a rival, vied with Corbulo, and aspired to equal the glory of the recovery of Armenia by the subjugation of Rome’s enemies. He therefore prepared to attack the island of Mona which had a powerful population and was a refuge for fugitives. He built flat-bottomed vessels to cope with the shallows, and uncertain depths of the sea. Thus, the infantry crossed, while the cavalry followed by fording, or, where the water was deep, swam by the side of their horses.

On the shore stood the opposing army with its dense array of armed warriors, while between the ranks dashed women, in black attire like the Furies, with hair dishevelled, waving brands. All around, the Druids, lifting up their hands to heaven, and pouring forth dreadful imprecations, scared our soldiers by the unfamiliar sight, so that, as if their limbs were paralysed, they stood motionless, and exposed to wounds. Then urged by their general’s appeals and mutual encouragements not to quail before a troop of frenzied women, they bore the standards onwards, smote down all resistance, and wrapped the foe in the flames of his own brands. A force was next set over the conquered, and their groves, devoted to inhuman superstitions, were destroyed. They deemed it indeed a duty to cover their altars with the blood of captives and to consult their deities through human entrails.

Suetonius while thus occupied received tidings of the sudden revolt of the province. Prasutagus, king of the Iceni, famed for his long prosperity, had made the emperor his heir along with his two daughters, under the impression that this token of submission would put his kingdom and his house out of the reach of wrong. But the reverse was the result, so much so that his kingdom was plundered by centurions, his house by slaves, as if they were the spoils of war. First, his wife Boudicea was scourged, and his daughters outraged. All the chief men of the Iceni, as if Rome had received the whole country as a gift, were striped of their ancestral possessions, and the king’s relatives were made slaves. Roused by these insults and the dread of worse, reduced as they now were into the condition of a province, they flew to arms and stirred to revolt the Trinobantes and others who, not yet cowed by slavery, had agreed in secret conspiracy to reclaim their freedom. It was against the veterans that their hatred was most intense. For these new settlers in the colony of Camulodunum drove people out of their houses, ejected them from their farms, called them captives and slaves, and the lawlessness of the veterans was encouraged by the soldiers, who lived a similar life and hoped for similar licence. A temple also erected to the Divine Claudius was ever before their eyes, a citadel, as it seemed, of perpetual tyranny. Men chosen as priests had to squander their whole fortunes under the pretence of a religious ceremonial. It appeared too no difficult matter to destroy the colony, undefended as it was by fortifications, a precaution neglected by our generals, while they thought more of what was agreeable than of what was expedient.

Meanwhile, without any evident cause, the statue of Victory at Camulodunum fell prostrate and turned its back to the enemy, as though it fled before them. Women excited to frenzy prophesied impending destruction; ravings in a strange tongue, it was said, were heard in their Senate-house; their theatre resounded with wailings, and in the estuary of the Tamesa had been seen the appearance of an overthrown town; even the ocean had worn the aspect of blood, and, when the tide ebbed, there had been left the likenesses of human forms, marvels interpreted by the Britons, as hopeful, by the veterans, as alarming. But as Suetonius was far away, they implored aid from the procurator, Catus Decianus. All he did was to send two hundred men, and no more, without regular arms, and there was in the place but a small military force. Trusting to the protection of the temple, hindered too by secret accomplices in the revolt, who embarrassed their plans, they had constructed neither fosse nor rampart; nor had they removed their old men and women, leaving their youth alone to face the foe. Surprised, as it were, in the midst of peace, they were surrounded by an immense host of the barbarians. All else was plundered or fired in the onslaught; the temple where the soldiers had assembled, was stormed after a two days’ siege. The victorious enemy met Petilius Cerialis, commander of the ninth legion, as he was coming to the rescue, routed his troops, and destroyed all his infantry. Cerialis escaped with some cavalry into the camp, and was saved by its fortifications. Alarmed by this disaster and by the fury of the province which he had goaded into war by his rapacity, the procurator Catus crossed over into Gaul.

Suetonius, however, with wonderful resolution, marched amidst a hostile population to Londinium, which, though undistinguished by the name of a colony, was much frequented by a number of merchants and trading vessels. Uncertain whether he should choose it as a seat of war, as he looked round on his scanty force of soldiers, and remembered with what a serious warning the rashness of Petilius had been punished, he resolved to save the province at the cost of a single town. Nor did the tears and weeping of the people, as they implored his aid, deter him from giving the signal of departure and receiving into his army all who would go with him. Those who were chained to the spot by the weakness of their sex, or the infirmity of age, or the attractions of the place, were cut off by the enemy. Like ruin fell on the town of Verulamium, for the barbarians, who delighted in plunder and were indifferent to all else, passed by the fortresses with military garrisons, and attacked whatever offered most wealth to the spoiler, and was unsafe for defence. About seventy thousand citizens and allies, it appeared, fell in the places which I have mentioned. For it was not on making prisoners and selling them, or on any of the barter of war, that the enemy was bent, but on slaughter, on the gibbet, the fire and the cross, like men soon about to pay the penalty, and meanwhile snatching at instant vengeance.

Suetonius had the fourteenth legion with the veterans of the twentieth, and auxiliaries from the neighbourhood, to the number of about ten thousand armed men, when he prepared to break off delay and fight a battle. He chose a position approached by a narrow defile, closed in at the rear by a forest, having first ascertained that there was not a soldier of the enemy except in his front, where an open plain extended without any danger from ambuscades. His legions were in close array; round them, the light-armed troops, and the cavalry in dense array on the wings. On the other side, the army of the Britons, with its masses of infantry and cavalry, was confidently exulting, a vaster host than ever had assembled, and so fierce in spirit that they actually brought with them, to witness the victory, their wives riding in waggons, which they had placed on the extreme border of the plain.

Boudicea, with her daughters before her in a chariot, went up to tribe after tribe, protesting that it was indeed usual for Britons to fight under the leadership of women. “But now,” she said, “it is not as a woman descended from noble ancestry, but as one of the people that I am avenging lost freedom, my scourged body, the outraged chastity of my daughters. Roman lust has gone so far that not our very persons, nor even age or virginity, are left unpolluted. But heaven is on the side of a righteous vengeance; a legion which dared to fight has perished; the rest are hiding themselves in their camp, or are thinking anxiously of flight. They will not sustain even the din and the shout of so many thousands, much less our charge and our blows. If you weigh well the strength of the armies, and the causes of the war, you will see that in this battle you must conquer or die. This is a woman’s resolve; as for men, they may live and be slaves.”

Nor was Suetonius silent at such a crisis. Though he confided in the valour of his men, he yet mingled encouragements and entreaties to disdain the clamours and empty threats of the barbarians. “There,” he said, “you see more women than warriors. Unwarlike, unarmed, they will give way the moment they have recognised that sword and that courage of their conquerors, which have so often routed them. Even among many legions, it is a few who really decide the battle, and it will enhance their glory that a small force should earn the renown of an entire army. Only close up the ranks, and having discharged your javelins, then with shields and swords continue the work of bloodshed and destruction, without a thought of plunder. When once the victory has been won, everything will be in your power.”

Such was the enthusiasm which followed the general’s address, and so promptly did the veteran soldiery, with their long experience of battles, prepare for the hurling of the javelins, that it was with confidence in the result that Suetonius gave the signal of battle.

At first, the legion kept its position, clinging to the narrow defile as a defence; when they had exhausted their missiles, which they discharged with unerring aim on the closely approaching foe, they rushed out in a wedge-like column. Similar was the onset of the auxiliaries, while the cavalry with extended lances broke through all who offered a strong resistance. The rest turned their back in flight, and flight proved difficult, because the surrounding waggons had blocked retreat. Our soldiers spared not to slay even the women, while the very beasts of burden, transfixed by the missiles, swelled the piles of bodies. Great glory, equal to that of our old victories, was won on that day. Some indeed say that there fell little less than eighty thousand of the Britons, with a loss to our soldiers of about four hundred, and only as many wounded. Boudicea put an end to her life by poison. Poenius Postumus too, camp-prefect of the second legion, when he knew of the success of the men of the fourteenth and twentieth, feeling that he had cheated his legion out of like glory, and had contrary to all military usage disregarded the general’s orders, threw himself on his sword.

The whole army was then brought together and kept under canvas to finish the remainder of the war. The emperor strengthened the forces by sending from Germany two thousand legionaries, eight cohorts of auxiliaries, and a thousand cavalry. On their arrival, the men of the ninth had their number made up with legionary soldiers. The allied infantry and cavalry were placed in new winter quarters, and whatever tribes still wavered or were hostile were ravaged with fire and sword. Nothing however distressed the enemy so much as famine, for they had been careless about sowing corn, people of every age having gone to the war, while they reckoned on our supplies as their own. Nations, too, so high-spirited inclined the more slowly to peace, because Julius Classicanus, who had been sent as successor to Catus and was at variance with Suetonius, let private animosities interfere with the public interest, and had spread an idea that they ought to wait for a new governor who, having neither the anger of an enemy nor the pride of a conqueror, would deal mercifully with those who had surrendered. At the same time, he stated in a despatch to Rome that no cessation of fighting must be expected, unless Suetonius were superseded, attributing that general’s disasters to perverseness and his successes to good luck.

Accordingly, one of the imperial freedmen, Polyclitus, was sent to survey the state of Britain, Nero having great hopes that his influence would be able not only to establish a good understanding between the governor and the pro-curator, but also to pacify the rebellious spirit of the barbarians. And Polyclitus, who with his enormous suite had been a burden to Italy and Gaul, failed not, as soon as he had crossed the ocean, to make his progresses a terror even to our soldiers. But to the enemy he was a laughing-stock, for they still retained some of the fire of liberty, knowing nothing yet of the power of freedmen, and so they marvelled to see a general and an army who had finished such a war cringing to slaves. Everything, however, was softened down for the emperor’s ears, and Suetonius was retained in the government; but as he subsequently lost a few vessels on the shore with the crews, he was ordered, as though the war continued, to hand over his army to Petronius Turpilianus, who had just resigned his consulship. Petronius neither challenged the enemy nor was himself molested, and veiled this tame inaction under the honourable name of peace.

Gildas.

When afterwards they returned to Rome, for want of pay, as is said, and had no suspicion of an approaching rebellion, that deceitful lioness (Boadicea) put to death the rulers who had been left among them, to unfold more fully and to confirm the enterprises of the Romans. When the report of these things reached the senate, and they with a speedy army made haste to take vengeance on the crafty foxes,* as they called them, there was no bold navy on the sea to fight bravely for the country; by land there was no marshalled army, no right wing of battle, nor other preparation for resistance; but their backs were their shields against their vanquishers, and they presented their necks to their swords, whilst chill terror ran through every limb, and they stretched out their hands to be bound, like women; so that it has become a proverb far and wide, that the Britons are neither brave in war nor faithful in time of peace.

The Romans, therefore, having slain many of the rebels, and reserved others for slaves, that the land might not be entirely reduced to desolation, left the island, destitute as it was of wine and oil, and returned to Italy, leaving behind them taskmasters, to scourge the shoulders of the natives, to reduce their necks to the yoke, and their soil to the vassalage of a Roman province; to chastise the crafty race, not with warlike weapons, but with rods, and if necessary to gird upon their sides the naked sword, so that it was no longer thought to be Britain, but a Roman island; and all their money, whether of copper, gold, or silver, was stamped with Caesar’s image.

62. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year James, the brother of Christ, suffered.

63 . This year Mark the evangelist departed this life.

St Linus, Pope 67-76.

68. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

The city was all decked with garlands, was ablaze with lights and smoky with incense, and the whole population, the senators themselves most of all,–kept shouting aloud: “Vah, Olympian Victor! Vah Pythian Victor! Augustus! Augustus! Hail to Nero the Hercules, hail to Nero the Apollo!! The one National Victor, the only one from the beginning of time! Augustus! Augustus! O, Divine Voice! Blessed are they that hear thee!”–Why should I employ circumlocutions instead of letting you see their very words? The actual expressions used do not disgrace my history: no, the concealment of none of them rather lends it distinction.

When he had finished these ceremonies, he announced a series of horse-races, and transferring to the hippodrome these crowns and all the rest that he had secured by victories in chariot racing, he put them about the Egyptian obelisk. The number of them was one thousand eight hundred and eight. After doing this he appeared as charioteer. A certain Larcius, a Lydian, approached him with an offer of twenty-five myriads if he would play and sing for them. Nero would not take the money, disdaining to do anything for pay; and so Tigillinus collected it, as the price of not putting Larcius to death. However, the emperor did appear on the stage with an accompanied song and he also gave a tragedy. In the equestrian contests he was seldom absent, and sometimes he would voluntarily let himself be defeated in order to make it more credible that he really won at other times.: “And he inflicted uncounted woes on many cities.”

This was the kind of life Nero led, this was the way he ruled. I shall narrate also how he was put down and driven from his throne.

While Nero was still in Greece, the Jews revolted openly and he sent Vespasian against them. The inhabitants of Britain and of Gaul, likewise, oppressed by the taxes, experienced an even keener distress, which added fuel to the already kindled fire of their indignation.

–There was a Gaul named Gaius Julius Vindex [an Aquitanian], descended from the native royal race and on his father’s side entitled to rank as a Roman senator. He was strong of body, had an intelligent mind, was skilled in warfare and was full of daring for every enterprise. [He was to the greatest degree a lover of freedom and was ambitious; and he stood at the head of the Gauls.] Now this Vindex made an assembly of the Gauls, who had suffered much during the numerous forced levies of money, and were still suffering at Nero’s hands. And ascending a tribunal he delivered a long and detailed speech against Nero, saying that they ought to revolt from the emperor and join him in an attack [upon him],–“because,” said he, “he has despoiled the whole Roman world, because he has destroyed all the flower of their senate, because he debauched and likewise killed his mother, and does not preserve even the semblance of sovereignty. Murders, seizures and outrages have often been committed and by many other persons: but how may one find words to describe the remainder of his conduct as it deserves?

I have seen, my friends and allies, believe me, I have seen that man (if he is a man, who married Sporus and was given in marriage to Pythagoras) in the arena of the theatre and in the orchestra, sometimes with the zither, the loose tunic, the cothurnus, sometimes with wooden shoes and mask. I have often heard him sing, I have heard him make proclamations, I have heard him perform tragedy. I have seen him in chains, I have seen him dragged about, pregnant, bearing children, going through all the situations of mythology, by speech, by being addressed, by being acted upon, by acting. Who, then, will call such a person Caesar and emperor and Augustus? Let no one for any consideration so abuse those sacred titles. They were held by Augustus and by Claudius. This fellow might most properly be termed Thyestes and Oedipus, Alcmeon and Orestes. These are the persons he represents on the stage and it is these titles that he has assumed rather than the others. Therefore, now at length rise against him: come to the succor of yourselves and of the Romans; liberate the entire world!”

Such words falling from the lips of Vindex met with entire approval from all. Vindex was not working to get the imperial office for himself but chose Servius Sulpicius Galba for that position: this man was distinguished for his upright behavior and knowledge of war, was governor of Spain, and had a not inconsiderable force. He was also nominated by the soldiers as emperor.

It is stated that Nero having offered by proclamation two hundred and fifty myriads to the person who should kill Vindex, the latter when he heard of it remarked: “The person who kills Nero and brings his head to me may take mine in return.” That was the sort of man Vindex was.

Rufus, governor of Germany, set out to make war on Vindex; but when he reached Vesontio he sat down to besiege the city, for the alleged reason that it had not received him. Vindex came against him to the aid of the city and encamped not far off. They then sent messages back and forth to each other and finally held a conference together at which no one else was present and made a mutual agreement, against Nero, as it was thought. After this Vindex set his army in motion for the apparent purpose of occupying the town: and the soldiers of Rufus, becoming aware of their approach, and thinking the force was marching straight against them, set out without being ordered to oppose their progress. They fell upon the advancing troop while the men were off their guard and in disarray, and so cut down great numbers of them. Vindex seeing this was afflicted with so great grief that he slew himself. For he felt, besides, at odds with Heaven itself, in that he had not been able to attain his goal in an undertaking of so great magnitude, involving the overthrow of Nero and the liberation of the Romans.

This is the truth of the matter. Many afterwards inflicted wounds on his body, and so gave currency to the erroneous supposition that they had themselves killed him.

Rufus mourned deeply his demise, but refused to accept the office of emperor, although his soldiers frequently obtained it. He was an energetic man and had a large, wide-awake body of troops. His soldiers tore down and shattered the image of Nero and called their general Caesar and Augustus. When he would not heed them, one of the soldiers thereupon quickly inscribed these words on one of his standards. He erased the terms, however, and after a great deal of trouble brought the men to order and persuaded them to submit the question to the senate and the people. It is hard to say whether this was merely because he did not deem it right for the soldiers to bestow the supreme authority upon any one (for he declared this to be the prerogative of the senate and the people), or because he was entirely high-minded and felt no personal desire for the imperial power, to secure which others were willing to do everything. He was on the point of putting those measures into effect when the senate first withdrew the guard that surrounded Nero, then entered the camp, and declared Nero an enemy but chose Galba in his place as emperor.

But when he perceived that he had been deserted also by his body-guards (he happened to be asleep in some garden), he undertook to make his escape. Accordingly, he assumed shabby clothing and mounted a horse no better than his attire. After a long time, as no one was seen to be searching for him, he went over into the cave, where in his hunger he ate such bread as he had never before tasted and in his thirst drank water such as he had never drunk before. This gave him such a qualm that he said: “So this is my famous frigid _decocta_.”

While he was in this plight the Roman people were going wild with delight and offering whole oxen in sacrifice. Some carried small liberty caps, and they voted to Galba the rights pertaining to the imperial office. For Nero himself they instituted a search in all directions and for some time were at a loss to know whither he could have betaken himself. When they finally learned, they sent horsemen to dispose of him. He, then, perceiving that they were drawing near, commanded his companions to kill him. As they refused to obey, he uttered a groan and said: “I alone have neither friend nor foe.” By this time, the horsemen were close at hand, and so he killed himself, uttering that far-famed sentence: “Jupiter, what an artist perishes in me!” And as he lingered in his agony Epaphroditus dealt him a finishing stroke. He had lived thirty years and nine months, out of which he had ruled thirteen years and eight months. Of the descendants of Aeneas and of Augustus he was the last, as was plainly indicated by the fact that the laurels planted by Livia and the breed of white chickens perished somewhat before his death.

Galba Emperor 68-69

Suetonius Tranquillus.

Life of Sergius Sulpicius Galba.

Upon the news of Caius’s death, though many earnestly pressed him to lay hold of that opportunity of seizing the empire, he chose rather to be quiet. On this account, he was in great favour with Claudius, and being received into the number of his friends, stood so high in his good opinion, that the expedition to Britain was for some time suspended, because he was suddenly seized with a slight indisposition.

Otho Emperor 69

Vitellius Emperor 69

69. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Peter and Paul suffered.

Suetonius Tranquillus.

Life of Aulus Vitellius

He afterwards filled two ordinary consulships, and also the censorship jointly with the emperor Claudius. Whilst that prince was absent upon his expedition into Britain, the care of the empire was committed to him, being a man of great integrity and industry. But he lessened his character not a little, by his passionate fondness for an abandoned freed woman, with whose spittle, mixed with honey, he used to anoint his throat and jaws, by way of remedy for some complaint, not privately nor seldom, but daily and publicly.

69. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

While he (Vitellius) was behaving in this way, evil omens occurred. A comet star was seen, and the moon contrary to precedent appeared to have had two eclipses, being obscured by shadows on the fourth and on the seventh day. Also people saw two suns at once, one in the west weak and pale, and one in the east brilliant and powerful. On the Capitol many huge footprints were seen, presumably of some spirits that had descended that hill. The soldiers who had slept there the night in question said that the temple of Jupiter had opened of itself with great clangor and some of the guards were so terrified that they expired. At the same time that this happened Vespasian, engaged in warfare with the Jews, [sent his son Titusto the emperor Galba to give him a message. But when Titus returned, having learned on the way] of the rebellion of Vitellius and of Otho, he deliberated what ought to be done. [For Vespasian was in general not rashly inclined and he hesitated very much about involving himself in such troublous affairs.]

But people favored him greatly: his reputation won in Britain, his fame derived from the war under way, his kind heartedness and prudence, all led them to desire to have him at their head. Likewise Mucianus urged him strongly, hoping that Vespasian should get the name of emperor and that he as a result of the other’s good nature should enjoy an equal share of power. Vespasian’s soldiers on ascertaining all these facts surrounded his tent and hailed him as emperor. Portents and dreams pointing him out as sovereign long before had also fallen to the lot of Vespasian, and these will be recited in the story of his life. For the time being he sent Mucianus to Italy against Vitellius, while he himself, after taking a look at affairs in Syria and entrusting to others the conduct of the war against the Jews, proceeded to Egypt. There he collected money, of which of course he needed a great deal, and grain, which he desired to send in as large quantities as possible to Rome.

Vespasian Emperor 69-79

Suetonius Tranquillus.

Life of Flavous Vespasianus Augustus.

In the reign of Claudius, by the interest of Narcissus, he was sent to Germany, in command of a legion; whence being removed into Britain, he engaged the enemy in thirty several battles. He reduced under subjection to the Romans two very powerful tribes, and above twenty great towns, with the Isle of Wight, which lies close to the coast of Britain; partly under the command of Aulus Plautius, the consular lieutenant, and partly under Claudius himself.

He (Vespasian.) had not only served with great reputation in the wars both in Britain and Judaea, but seemed as yet untainted with any vice which could pervert his conduct in the civil administration of the empire. It appears, however, that he was prompted more by the persuasion of friends, than by his own ambition, to prosecute the attainment of the imperial dignity. To render this enterprise more successful, recourse was had to a new and peculiar artifice, which, while well accommodated to the superstitious credulity of the Romans, impressed them with an idea, that Vespasian’s destiny to the throne was confirmed by supernatural indications. But, after his elevation, we hear no more of his miraculous achievements.

The prosecution of the war in Britain, which had been suspended for some years, was resumed by Vespasian; and he sent thither Petilius Cerealis, who by his bravery extended the limits of the Roman province. Under Julius Frontinus, successor to that general, the invaders continued to make farther progress in the reduction of the island: but the commander who finally established the dominion of the Romans in Britain, was Julius Agricola, not less distinguished for his military achievements, than for his prudent regard to the civil administration of the country. He began his operations with the conquest of North Wales, whence passing over into the island of Anglesey, which had revolted since the time of Suetonius Paulinus, he again reduced it to subjection. Then proceeding northwards with his victorious army, he defeated the Britons in every engagement, took possession of all the territories in the southern parts of the island, and driving before him all who refused to submit to the Roman arms, penetrated even into the forests and mountains of Caledonia. He defeated the natives under Galgacus, their leader, in a decisive battle; and fixing a line of garrisons between the firths of Clyde and Forth, he secured the Roman province from the incursions of the people who occupied the parts of the island beyond that boundary. Wherever he established the Roman power, he introduced laws and civilization amongst the inhabitants, and employed every means of conciliating their affection, as well as of securing their obedience.

69-79-Eutropius.

To him succeeded VESPASIAN, who had been chosen emperor in Palestine, a prince indeed of obscure birth, but worthy to be compared with the best emperors, and in private life greatly distinguished, as he had been sent by Claudius into Germany, and afterwards into Britain, and had contended two and thirty times with the enemy; he had also added to the Roman empire two very powerful nations, twenty towns, and the Isle of Wight on the coast of Britain. At Rome he acted with the greatest forbearance during his government; though he was rather too eager after money; not however that he deprived any one of it unjustly, and even when he had collected it with the greatest diligence and anxiety, he was in the habit of distributing it most readily, especially to the indigent; nor was the liberality of any prince before him greater or more judicious: he was also of a most mild and amiable disposition, insomuch that he never willingly inflicted a severer penalty than banishment, even on persons convicted of treason against himself.

70. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Vespasian undertook the empire

71 . This year Titus, son of Vespasian, slew in Jerusalem eleven hundred thousand Jews.

SBG St Dogfael.

Albert le Grand gives us a series of Bishops of Lexovia, an apocryphal see that preceded Treguier, and was supposed to have been founded by Drennalus, disciple of Joseph of Arimathea. He even gives the date of the arrival of this Drennalus as taking place in 72, and that of his death as 92.

St Anacletus (Cletus) Pope 76-88

76. Annals of the Four Masters.

Elim, son of Conra, after having been twenty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was slain in the battle of Aichill, by Tuathal Teachtmhar. God took vengeance on the Aitheach Tuatha for their evil deed, during the time that Elim was in the sovereignty, namely, Ireland was without corn, without milk, without fruit, without fish, and without every other great advantage, since the Aitheach Tuatha had killed Fiacha Finnolaidh in the slaughter of Magh Bolg, till the time of Tuathal Teachtmhar.

Titus Emperor 79-81

79. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

In his reign also the False Nero appeared, who was an Asiatic and called himself Terentius Maximus. He resembled Nero in form and voice: he even sang to the zither’s accompaniment. He gained a few followers in Asia and in his onward progress to the Euphrates he secured a far greater number and at length sought a retreat with Artabanus, the Parthian chief, who, out of the anger that he felt toward Titus, both received the pretender and set about preparations for restoring him to Rome.

Meantime war had again broken out in Britain, and Gnaeus Julius Agricola overran the whole of the hostile region. He was the first of the Romans whom we know to discover that Britain was surrounded by water. Some soldiers had rebelled and after killing centurions and a military tribune had taken refuge in boats. In these they put out to sea and sailed around to the western portion of the country just as the billows and the wind bore them. And without knowing it they came around from the opposite side and stopped at the camps on this side again. At that Agricola sent others to try the voyage around Britain and learned from them, too, that it was an island.

As a result of these events in Britain Titus received the title of imperator for the fifteenth time. Agricola for the rest of his life lived in dishonor and even in want because he had accomplished greater things than a mere general should. Finally, he was murdered on this account by Domitian, in spite of having received triumphal honors from Titus.

In Campania, remarkable and frightful occurrences took place. A great fire was suddenly created just at the end of autumn. It was this way. The mountain Vesuvius stands over against Naples near the sea and has unquenchable springs of fire.

Xiphilinus.

From Epitome Dionis Nicaeensis

At this time, war having broken out again in Britannia, Gnaeus Julius Agriciola both overran all the territory of the enemy and became the first of the Romans of whom we know to discover that Britannia is surrounded by water, for certain soldiers, having mutinied and murdered a centurion and a tribune, took refuge in ships and having put to sea sailed round the western part of it, just as the waves and the wind carried them, and without realising it, coming from the other side, put in at the camps which were on this side. Thereafter Agricola sent others to attempt the circumnavigation and learned from them that it is an island. Such were the events in Britannia.

80AD? Valerius Flaccus,

Argonautica(extract)

My song is of the straits first navigated by the mighty sons of gods, of the prophetic ship that dared to seek the shores of Scythian Phasis, that burst unswerving through the clashing rocks, to slink at length to rest in the starry firmament.

Phoebus, be thou my guide, if there stands in a pure home the tripod that shares the secrets of the Cymaean prophetess, if the green laurel lies on a worthy brow. And thou too, that didst win still greater glory for opening up the sea, after the Caledonian ocean had borne thy sails, the ocean that of yore would not brook the Phrygian Iuli, do thou, holy sire, raise me above the nations and the cloud-wrapped earth, and be favourable unto me as I hymn the wondrous deeds of old time heroes. Thy son shall tell of the overthrow of Idume – for well he can – of his brother foul with the dust of Solyma, as he hurls the brands and spreads havoc in every tower.

Domitian Emperor 81-96

Suetonius Tranquillus.

Life of Titus Flavius Domitianus.

Salvius Cocceianus was condemned to death for keeping the birth-day of his uncle Otho, the emperor: Metius Pomposianus, because he was commonly reported to have an imperial nativity, and to carry about with him a map of the world upon vellum, with the speeches of kings and generals extracted out of Titus Livius; and for giving his slaves the names of Mago and Hannibal; Sallustius Lucullus, lieutenant in Britain, for suffering some lances of a new invention to be called “Lucullean;” and Junius Rusticus, for publishing a treatise in praise of Paetus Thrasea and Helvidius Priscus, and calling them both “most upright men.” Upon this occasion, he likewise banished all the philosophers from the city and Italy.

81. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Titus came to the empire, after Vespasian, who said that he considered the day lost in which he did no good.

83 This year Domitian, the brother of Titus, assumed the government.

83-4. Plutarch.

The obsolescence of oracles.

Yet a short time before the Pythian games, which were held when Callistratus was in office in our own day, it happened that two revered men coming from opposite ends of the inhabited earth met together at Delphi, Demetrius the grammarian journeying homeward from Britain to Tarsus, and Cleombrotus of Sparta, who had made many excursions in Egypt and about the land of the Cave-dwellers, and had sailed beyond the Persian Gulf;

Demetrius said that among the islands lying near Britain were many isolated, having few or no inhabitants, some of which bore the names of divinities or heroes. He himself, by the emperor’s order, had made a voyage for inquiry and observation to the nearest of these islands which had only a few inhabitants, holy men who were all held inviolate by the Britons. Shortly after his arrival there occurred a great tumult in the air and many portents; fviolent winds suddenly swept down and lightning-flashes darted to earth. When these abated, the people of the island said that the passing of someone of the mightier souls had befallen. “For,” said they, “as a lamp when it is being lighted has no terrors, but when it goes out is distressing to many, so the great souls have a kindling into life that is gentle and inoffensive, but their passing and dissolution often, as at the present moment, fosters tempests and storms, and often infects the air with pestilential properties.” Moreover, they said that in this part of the world there is one island where Cronus is confined, guarded while he sleeps by Briareus; for his sleep has been devised as a bondage for him, and round about him are many demigods (daimones) as attendants and servants.

84. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year John the evangelist in the island Patmos wrote the book called “The Apocalypse”.

84. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

[Domitian also took pride in the fact that he did not bury alive, as was the custom, the virgins he found guilty of debauchery, but ordered them to be killed by some different way.]

After this he set out for Gaul and plundered some of the tribes across the Rhine enjoying treaty rights, a performance which filled him with conceit as if he had achieved some great success. Presumably on account of the victory he increased the soldiers’ wages, so that whereas each had been receiving seventy-five denarii he commanded that a hundred be given them. Later he thought better of it, but instead of diminishing the amount he curtailed the number of men-at-arms. Both of these steps entailed great injury to the public weal: he had made the defenders of the State too few, while rendering their support an item of great expense.

Next, he made a campaign into Germanyand returned without having seen a trace of war anywhere. And what need is there of mentioning the honors bestowed upon him at this juncture for his exploit or from time to time upon the other emperors who were like him? For the object in any case was simply not to arouse the rage of those despots by letting them suspect, in consequence of the small number and insignificance of the rewards, that the people saw through them. Yet Domitian had this worst quality of all, that he desired to be flattered, and was equally displeased with both sorts of men, those who paid court to him and those who did not. He disliked the former because their attitude seemed one of cajolery and the latter because it seemed one of contempt. Notwithstanding [he affected to take pleasure in the honorary decrees voted him by the senate. Ursus he came near killing because he was not pleased with his sovereign’s exploits, and then, at the request of Julia, he appointed him consul.] Subsequently, being still more puffed up by his folly, he was elected consul for ten years in succession, and first and only censor for life of all private citizens and emperors: and he obtained the right to employ twenty-four lictors and the triumphal garb whenever he entered the senate-house. He gave October a new name, Domitianum, because he had been born in that month. Among the charioteers he instituted two more parties, calling one the Golden and the other the Purple. To the spectators he gave many objects by means of balls thrown among them; and once he gave them a banquet while they remained in their seats and at night provided for them wine that flowed out in several different places. All this caused pleasure seemingly to the populace, but was a source of ruin to the powerful. For, as he had no resources for his expenditures, he murdered numbers of men, bringing some of them before the senate and accusing others in their absence. Lastly, he put some out of the way by concocting a plot and administering to them secret drugs.

Many of the peoples tributary to the Romans revolted when contributions of money were forcibly extorted from them. The Nasamones are an instance in point. They massacred all the collectors of the money and so thoroughly defeated Flaccus, governor of Numidia, who attacked them, that they were able to plunder his camp. Having gorged themselves on the provisions and the wine that they found there they fell into a slumber, and Flaccus becoming aware of this fact assailed and annihilated them all and destroyed the non-combatants. Domitian experienced a thrill of delight at the news and remarked to the senate: “Well, I have put a ban on the existence of the Nasamones.”

Even as early as this he was insisting upon being regarded as a god and took a huge pleasure in being called “master” and “god.” These titles were used not merely orally but also in documents.

St Clement 1 Pope 88-97

Grattius (Faliscus), the Cynegetica (Late 1st Century)

But that same Umbrian dog which has tracked wild beasts flees from facing them. Would that with his fidelity and shrewdness in scent he could have corresponding courage and corresponding will-power in the conflict!

What if you visit the straits of the Morini, tide-swept by a wayward sea, and choose to penetrate even among the Britons? How great your reward, how great your gain beyond any outlays! If you are not bent on looks and deceptive graces (this is the one defect of the British whelps), at any rate when serious work has come, when bravery must be shown, and the impetuous War-god calls in the utmost hazard, then you could not admire the renowned Molossians so much.

With these last cunning Athamania compares her breeds; as also do Azorus, Pherae and the furtive Acarnanian: just as the men of Acarnania steal secretly into battle, so does the bitch surprise her foes without a sound.

90. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Simon, the apostle, a relation of Christ, was crucified: and John the evangelist rested at Ephesus.

92 . This year died Pope Clement.

95? Quintilian

Institutio Oratoria VII 4

Sometimes, on the other hand, the question turns on size and number, as, for instance, what is the size of the sun or whether there are more worlds than one. In all these cases we arrive at our conclusions by conjecture, yet each involves a question of quality. Such questions are sometimes treated in deliberative themes: for example, if Caesar is deliberating whether to attack Britain, he must enquire into the nature of the Ocean, consider whether Britain is an island (a fact not then ascertained), and estimate the size and the number of troops which he will require for the invasion.

Quintilian Institutio Oratoria VIII 3

But there are still some old words that are endeared to us by their antique sheen, while there are others that we cannot avoid using occasionally, such, for example, as nuncupare and fari:there are yet others which it requires some daring to use, but which may still be employed so long as we avoid all appearance of that affectation which Virgil has derided so cleverly:

“Britain’s Thucydides, whose mad Attic brain

Loved word-amalgams like Corinthian bronze,

First made a horrid blend of words from Gaul,

Tau, al, min, sil and God knows how much else,

Then mixed them in a potion for his brother!”

This was a certain Cimber who killed his brother, a fact which Cicero recorded in the words, “Cimber has killed his brother German.”

Nerva Emperor 96-98

Trajan Emperor 98-117

St Evaristus Pope 97-105

Trajan Emperor 98-117

The Battle of Airtech

1. After the destruction of Cormac at Da Choca’s Hostel an assembly was held by the Ulid, and they placed the kingdom under the control of Conall Cernach, and they offer it unto him. ‘Nay indeed,’ said Conall, ‘I will not take it, but give it to my fosterling, namely, Cuscraid the Stammerer of Macha, for it has surpassed my vigour and my skill of hand; but whosoever will share an equal portion of prowess and will go round wood and plain before you by day and night in the gap of danger against your enemies, for they are numerous in every place, he is the proper person to have as your battle-chief.’

Thereupon Cuscraid was proclaimed king, and he binds them with pledges. And then it was that Conall spake these words lamenting Conchobar, and moreover the Instruction of Cuscraid:

2. ‘Great sorrow has consumed me,
a mist of heavy grief wastes me away
for the loss of my mighty sovran
the diadem of a renowned prince,
Conchobar of the comely face,
famous king of famous Emain.

My prowess does not exceed that of a woman in travail.
I am powerless, I am useless after the great deeds of noble Emain.
The veins of my body do not kindle
though it hear of a high wondrous deed.
Let this be my choice
that death be dealt to me in the midst of my comrades
that I should not incarnadine my deeds among raw striplings
in the order of youthful championship.
My body is wounded.
I am useless, unprofitable, sickly,
after the fierce one of Ard Ulid,
and that is what has consumed me.’

3. ‘Rise up O fair Cuscraid,
arise upon the path of a noble father.
Let thy assemblies be frequent concerning the right of borders,
for meeting of nobles
who go to (?) an act of hospitality and generosity (?)
for bestowing of kine and horses . . . with jewels (?)
Be a follower of sovran law.
Fulfil the word given on oath.
Let the law of thy rule be consolidated, lest thy misdeeds ruin the heavy fruits of the people that increase under thy protection.
Be thou skilled in every tongue, so thou be not ignorant in any art that one will speak in argument with thee.
Be just and righteous in judgment, not suppressing speech between the tethra of the strong and the weak.
Be not brutish in the mead court.
To exalt the good is incumbent on thee, to enslave the oppressor, to destroy criminals.
Be a zealous and mighty champion, holding assemblies, ardent, warlike, contending against foreign lands, for the protection of thy great territories.
Be heedful of swift obstinate ignoble strife, lest there be added to thy numerous sorrows the sorrows of a sick bed.
May they not attain thee, may they not lay hold upon thee . . . thy heavy sorrows. That is. . .

4. Now Cuscraid the Stammerer of Macha, Conchobar’s son, divided his land among his brethren, namely the children of Rudraige and the rest of the children of Conchobar, as follows: He gave to Conall Cernach all from the strand of Inber Colpa to Coba, that is Caille Chonaill Cernaig its name thereafter. To Furbaide Fer Bend, the two Teffas, that is, northern Teffa and southern Teffa. Fir Maland and Fianclair na Bredcha he gave to Glaisne son of Conchobar. To Irial Glunmar, Goll and Irgoll, that is, the land of Gerg son of Faeburdel. To Follamain son of Conchobar, Farney. To Maine son of Conchobar, Loch Erne. To Lama son of Conchobar, Lamraige. To Benda son of Conchobar, Corcu Oche. To Conaing son of Conchobar, the Mugdorna. To Fiacha son of Conchobar, Ailechthir. The land of Dubthach Doeltengthach (Chafer-tongued) and his two sons, namely Corc and Conroi, was Tir Liath Maini and the place where Loch Neagh is to-day.

5. Now in that wise, after a space, he distributed the Fifth of the Ulid among the clann of Conchobar, as was fitting.

6. The nobles of the Ulid were saying that it would be a good thing for them if Fergus son of Roch were brought back to them, and peace made with him, for they would be so much the stronger against their enemies; for the ill-deeds of the men of Ireland were mighty against them, and they were being raided and maimed and slain on all sides. These tidings reached Fergus, and he made peace with the Ulid, and they bound one another with a covenant, that is, Fergus and Cuscraid.

7. Medb sought to prevent Fergus from going back to the Ulid, and offered to pay him the cumals of his Sons who were slain at Da Choca’s Hostel, namely Illand the Fair and Fiachna the One-eyed.

8. Now Fergus went eastwards to the Ulid, with a great retinue, and his wife Flidais along with him. And the land Fergus demanded was the land of Sualdam son of Roch, and of Cu Chulinn son of Sualdam, namely, Crich Cuailnge and Mag Murthemne and Crich Rois and Brug Mna Elcmairi. The said land was given to him, and he dwelt there until Flidais his wife died at the Strand of Baile mac Buain, after which he went back to Ailill and Medb, for his householding in the east was not good after Flidais. In this way he met his death, through the one act of jealousy of Ailill son of Mata.

9. A great contention thereupon arose between Ailill and Medb and Conchobar’s fifth concerning Crich Maland. For to Conchobar it had been given on account of those that were slain around him on the hosting of Táin Bó Cuailnge. Medb said that she had made over her land to none save Conchobar alone. The Ulid replied that they would not yield up the land unless it were won from them on the field of battle.

10. Awful now and untold was the war that broke out between them because of that. Many a stiff stout fight there was, many the gigantic deeds, and many were the swift-slaying heroes that fell in that war. Because of that war it was the lot of (?) the Ulid to fall around Cuscraid and around Conall Cernach and around Amergin son of Ecetsalach the Smith, and around Follamain and Furbaide, two sons of Conchobar. ‘Twas it brought about the death of Cet son of Magu, and Doiche, and Mug Corb, and Scannal, and Ailill sons of Magu, and Ailill son of Cet, Magu’s son, and Cet himself, and Beichu of Breifne along with his sons.

11. Because of that a great hosting was gathered by the Ulid in the fifth of Ol nEgmacht, and they fell to harrying the land before them, until they came to the territory of Airtech Uchtlethan (Broad-breast) son of Tomanten, son of Fer Choga of the Fir Domnann.

12. The three Connachts then assembled, namely, Fir Domnann, Fir Craibe, and Tuatha Taiden. Now these are the war lords of the Fir Ol nEgmacht, namely, Mac Cecht, and huge fierce Cet son of Magu, and Maine Aithremail, and Sanb son of Cet, and Maine Maithremail, and Ailill of Breifrie, and Loingsech of Loch Ri, and Aengus king of the Fir Bolg, and Fer Deiched son of Fer Diad, Daman’s son, and Aengus son of Ailill Find, and Mata son of Goll Eilech, and Troga and Flaithri, two sons of Fraech, Fidach’s son, and Imchad son of Lugaid.

13. These however are the war lords of the Ulid, namely, Conall Cernach son of Amergin, and Amergin the poet, and the sons of Conchobar, and Fiac son of Fergus, and Fergus son of Eirrge Echbel (Horse-mouth), and Sothach son of Sencha, Ailill’s son, and Fiachu son of Laidgen king of the Fir Bolg, and Guala son of Gerg son of Faeburdel.

[H. 3, 18] 14. The Fir Ol nEgmacht however did not let Ailill or Medb go with them into the battle. They form battalions then on each side, one as great and lofty as the other, and they make towards one another on the field of battles and of conflicts. Then they encountered, and every man took to smiting his fellow and to hard hacking. Rude and sharp was the fight between the Fir Ol nEgmacht and the Ulid. Envy and hatred and ill-will there was on every side. There was uproar and tumult on both sides of the host, namely, the bawling of the men, the outcry of the soldiers, the groans and lamentations of the strongmen, and clashing and clatter of the swords, the whiz and whirr of the spears and arrows, and the roaring and wailing of the huge tottering rocks as they crashed upon the shields and breastplates and helms of the wardogs and veterans. Mighty and great was the tumult, for never have there been heroes from that day to this like the heroes of that time, for vigour and strength and [spear] casting, for greatness and beauty and dignity, for valour and daring and prowess. Mighty and great also was the tumult and . . ., the noise and the din and the quaking of the earth under the feet of the strongmen, . . . of the mighty virile men as they were being heavily overthrown to the earth and to the ground. After that every man engaged in combat in the battle.

15. There fell by Conall Cernach, Ailill Ardagach and Scannal, both sons of Magu. Ailill of Breifne and Loingsech of Loch Ri fell by him also on the same day. Aengus king of the Fir Bolg and Fer Teiched son of Fer Diad fell by Cuscraid son of Conchobar king of the Ulid. Aengus son of Ailill Find fell by Amergin son of Ecetsalach the Smith. Mata son of Goll Eilech, by Irial Glunmar son of Conall Cernach. Troga and Flaithri, two sons of Fraech, Fidach’s son, fell by Glaisne son of Conchobar. Imchad son of Lugaid fell by Guala son of Gerg.

16. Even the Ulid also fell in great numbers in the battle. Fiachu and Conaing were slain by Cet and Mac Cecht. Corc son of Dubthach Doeltengthach (Chafer-tongued) fell by Sanb son of Cet. Guala son of Gerg was slain by Maine Aithremail. Two fell by one another’s hands in the battle, namely, Benna son of Conchobar and Cet son of Ailill and Medb.

17. Now after that the battle went against the Fir Ol nEgmacht, owing to the force of the onset and the slaughter, and every man thereupon followed up his pursuit of the battle. Amergin pursued the two Eithiars, sons of Fergus son of Roich, until they fell by one another at Imlech Ai. After which the Fir Ol nEgmacht raised a red wall against the Ulid, for the Ulid never followed up a slaughter if only a wall were set up against them.

18. It was in this battle of Airtech the Fir Domnann were finally destroyed. Whereupon the Ulid returned home, bearing great spoil with them. IT ENDS

[H adds: It is of this battle Gennan son of Cathbad said, ‘The Battle of Airtech we fought by day, etc.’]

Táin Bó Cúailnge

Táin Bó Cúailnge

A great army was mustered by the Connachtmen, that is, by Ailill and Medb, and word went from them to the three other provinces. And Ailill sent messengers to the seven sons of Mágu: Ailill, Anlúan, Moccorb, Cet, Én, Bascall and Dóche, each with his fighting force of three thousand, and also to Cormac Conn Longas the son of Conchobor, who was billeted with his three hundred men in Connacht. They all came on then until they reached Crúachain Aí

Now Cormac’s men were in three companies as they marched to Crúachain. The first band wore vari-coloured cloaks wrapped around them. Their hair was shorn. They had tunics falling to the knee. They carried long shields, and each man bore in his hand a broad, bright spear on a slender shaft. The second band wore dark-grey cloaks and red-embroidered tunics reaching down to their calves. Their long hair hung down behind. They carried white shields, and in their hands they bore five-pronged spears.

‘It is not Cormac as yet’, said Medb.

Then came the third band. They wore purple cloaks and hooded red-embroidered tunics reaching to their feet. Their trimmed hair fell down to their shoulders. They bore curved shields with scalloped rims, and each man carried a spear as great as the pillar of a palace in his hand.

‘This is Cormac now,’ said Medb.

So then the four provinces of Ireland were gathered together in Crúachain Aí. Their prophets and druids did not permit them to go thence, but kept them for a fortnight awaiting an auspicious omen.

Then, on the day that they set forth, Medb said to her charioteer: ‘All those who part here today from comrade and friend will curse me for it is I who have mustered this hosting.’

‘Wait then,’ said the charioteer, ‘until the chariot has turned right- handwise to strengthen the good omen so that we may come back again.’

When the charioteer turned back the chariot and they were about to descend, they saw in front of them a grown maiden. She had yellow hair. She wore a vari- coloured cloak with a golden pin in it and a hooded tunic with red embroidery. She had shoes with golden fastenings. Her face was oval, narrow below, broad above. Her eyebrows were dark and black. Her beautiful black eyelashes cast a shadow on to the middle of her cheeks. Her lips seemed to be made of partaing. Her teeth were like a shower of pearls between her lips. She had three plaits of hair: two plaits wound around her head, the third hanging down her back, touching her calves behind. In her hand, she carried a weaver’s beam of white bronze, with golden inlay. There were three pupils in each of her eyes. The maiden was armed and her chariot was drawn by two black horses.

‘What is your name,’ asked Medb of the maiden.

‘I am Feidelm, the poetess of Connacht,’ said the maiden.

‘Whence do you come?’ asked Medb.

‘From Albion after learning the art of divination,’ answered the maiden.

‘Have you the power of prophecy called imbas forosna?’

‘I have indeed,’ said the maiden.

‘Look for me then and tell me how it will fare with my hosting.’

Then the maiden looked and Medb said: ‘O Feidelm Prophetess, how do you see the fate of the army?’

Feidelm answered and said: ‘I see it bloody, I see it red.’

‘That is not so,’ said Medb, ‘for Conchobor lies in his debility in Emain together with the Ulstermen and all the mightiest of their warriors, and my messengers have come and brought me tidings of them. O Feidelm Prophetess, how do you see our host?’ asked Medb again.

‘I see it blood-stained, I see it red,’ said the maiden.

‘That is not so,’ said Medb, ‘for Celtchar mac Uthidir is in Dún Lethglaise together with a third of the men of Ulster, and Fergus mac Roeich meic Echdach is here in exile with us with three thousand men. O Feidelm Prophetess, how do you see our host?’

‘I see it blood-stained, I see it red,’ answered the maiden.

‘That matters not indeed,’ said Medb, ‘for in every muster and in every army assembled in a great encampment there are quarrels and strife and bloody woundings. So look once more for us, and tell us the truth. O Feidelm Prophetess, how do you see our host?’

‘I see it blood-stained, I see it red,’ said Feidelm and she spoke as follows:

1. I see a fair man who will perform weapon-feats, with many a wound in his flesh. A hero’s light is on his brow. His forehead is the meeting-place of many virtues.

2. In each of his eyes are the seven jewel-bright pupils of a hero. His spearpoints(?) are unsheathed. He wears a red mantle with clasps.

3. His face is beautiful. He amazes women-folk. This lad of handsome countenance looks in the battle like a dragon.

4. Like is his prowess to that of Cú Chulainn of Murthemne.I know not who is this Cú Chulainn of fairest fame, but this I do know, that by him the army will be bloodily wounded.

5. I see a tall man in the plain who gives battle to the host. In each hand, he holds four small swords with which to perform great deeds.

6. He attacks with his gáe bolga and also with his ivory-hilted sword and his spear. He can ply them on the host. Each weapon as he casts it has its own special use.

7. This man wrapped in a red mantle sets his foot on every battle-field. Across the left wheel-rim of his chariot he attacks them. The distorted one kills them. I see that he has changed from the form in which hitherto he has appeared to me.

8. He has moved forward to the battle. Unless heed be taken, there will be destruction. I think that it is Cú Chulainn mac Súaldaim who now comes to you.

9. He will lay low your entire army. He will slaughter you in dense crowds. Ye will leave with him a thousand severed heads. The prophetess Feidelm does not conceal your fate.

10.Blood will flow from heroes’ bodies. Much harm will be wrought by the hand of this hero. He will kill warriors; the men of Clanna Dedad meic Sin will flee. Men’s bodies will be hacked and women will weep because of the Hound of the Smith whom I now see.

On the Monday after the autumn festival of Samain they set out. They travelled south-east from Crúachain Aí, past Mucc Cruinb, past Terloch Teóra Crích, past Túaim Móna, past Cúil Silinne

i.e. Loch Carrcín”, and got its name from Silend daughter of Madchar

, past Fid, past Bolga, past Coltain, past Glune Gabair, past Mag Trego, past northern Tethbab

i.e. Cairpre

, past southern Tethba, past Tíarthechta, past Ord, southwards past Slais, past Indeóind, past Carn, past Ochtrach, past Mide, past Findglassa Assail, past Delt, past Delind, past Sailig, past Slaibre, past Slechta (where they hewed down the trees), past Cúil Sibrinne, southwards past Ochuinn, northwards past Úata, past Dub, southwards past Comur, past Tromma and eastwards past Fothromma, past Sláne and Gort Sláni, southwards past Druim Licce, past Áth Gabla, past Ardachad, northwards past Féraind, past Findabair, southwards past Aisse, past Druim Sálfind, past Druim Caín, past Druim mac nDega, past Eódond Mór and Eódond Bec, past Méthe Tog[maill] and Méthe Eóin; past Druim Cáemtechta, past Scúap and Imscúap, past Cend Ferna, past Baile, past Aile, past Báil Scena and Dáil Scena, past Ferste, past Ross Lochad, past Sále, past Lochmach, past Ánmag, past Deind, past Delt, past Dubglais, past Fid Mór

i.e. Trúalli”

, past Colptha, past Crond in Cúailnge. From Findabair in Cúailnge the armies of Ireland spread out over the province in quest of the Bull. For they had gone past all these places before reaching Findabair.

Here ends the introductory part. The story in due order now begins.

The Story in Due Order

When they had come on the first stage of their journey from Crúachain to Cúil Silinne, the site of Loch Cairrcín today, Medb told her charioteer to harness her nine chariots.

She was always accompanied by nine chariots, so that the dust raised by the great army should not soil her that she might drive around the encampment and see who among them was reluctant and who was glad to go on the hosting.

Now his tent was pitched for Ailill and his equipment was placed therein, both beds and blankets. Fergus mac Róich was next to Ailill in his tent. Cormac Conn Longas, son of Conchobor, was next to him. Then came Conall Cernach, with Fíacha mac Fir Fhebe, the son of Conchobor’s daughter, beside him. Medb, the daughter of Eochu Feidlech was on the other side of Ailill, with Finnabair, the daughter of Ailill and Medb, beside her and Flidais next to Finnabair. This was not counting the servants and attendants.

After she had surveyed the host, Medb came back and said that it would be vain for the rest to go on that expedition if the division of the Gailióin went also.

‘Why do you belittle the men?’ asked Ailill.

‘I am not belittling them,’ said Medb. ‘They are splendid warriors. When the others were making their shelters, the Gailióin had already finished thatching their shelters and cooking their food. When the rest were eating, they had already finished their meal and their harpers were playing to them. So it is useless for them to go on this expedition,’ said Medb, ‘for it is they who will take credit for the victory of the army.’

‘Yet it is for us they fight,’ said Ailill.

‘They shall not go with us,’ said Medb.

‘Let them stay here then,’ said Ailill.

‘Indeed, they shall not,’ said Medb. ‘They will overpower us when we have come back and seize our land.’

‘Well then, what shall be done with them,’ asked Ailill, ‘since neither their staying nor their going pleases you?’

‘Kill them!’ said Medb.

‘I shall not deny that is a woman’s counsel,’ said Ailill.

‘You speak foolishly,’ said Fergus in a low voice. ‘It shall not happen unless we are all killed, for they are allies of us Ulstermen.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Medb, ‘we could do it. For I have here with me my own household retinue numbering two divisions, and the seven Maines are here, my seven sons, with seven divisions. Their luck can protect them,’ said she. ‘Their names are Maine Máthramail, Maine Aithremail, Maine Mórgor, Maine Mingor, Maine Mo Epirt, who is also called Maine Milscothach, Maine Andóe and Maine Cotageib Uile—he it is who has inherited the appearance of his mother and his father and the dignity of them both’

‘That will not be,’ said Fergus, ‘There are here seven kings from Munster, allies of us Ulstermen, and a division with each king. I shall give you battle in the middle of the encampment where we now are, supported by those seven divisions, by my own division and by the division of the Gailióin. But I shall not argue the point,’ said Fergus. ‘We shall arrange the warriors of the Gailióin so that they shall not prevail over the rest of the army. Seventeen divisions,’ said Fergus, ‘is the number here in our encampment, not counting the camp-followers and our boys and our women- folk—for each chief here in Medb’s company has brought his wife. The eighteenth division is that of the Gailióin. Let them be distributed throughout all the host.’

‘I care not,’ said Medb, ‘provided that they do not remain in the close battle array in which they now are.’

This then was done; the Gailióin were distributed among the host. Next morning, they set out for Móin Choltna. There they met with eight score deer in a single herd. They encircled them and killed them. Wherever there was a man of the Gailióin, it was he who got a deer, for the rest of the host got only five of the deer. They came on then to Mag Trego and there they encamped and prepared food for themselves.

According to one version it was then that Dubthach chanted this lay:

1. Admit that hitherto ye have not heard nor listened to the trance-speech of Dubthach. A fierce hosting lies before you, contending for Findbenn, the bull of Ailill’s wife.

2. There will come a leader of armies who will try to recover the cattle of Murthemne. Because of the companionship of the two swineherds, ravens on the battle-field will drink men’s blood.

3. The watchful river Crann will offer them resistance and will not let them cross into Murthemne until the work of warriors is finished in the mountain north of Ochaíne.

4. ‘Quickly,’ said Ailill to Cormac, ‘come and hold back your son.’ None comes from the plains where the cattle graze but is affrighted(?) by the din of the army.

5. In due course a battle will be fought here with Medb and a third of the army. Men’s corpses will then lie here if the distorted one come to you. Thereupon the Némain, that is, the war-goddess, attacked them. That was not the quietest of nights for them with the trance-speech of the boorish Dubthach as he slept. The hosts rose up at once and the army was thrown into confusion until Medb came and quelled them.

Then, after the army had been led astray across bogs and streams, they went and spent the night in Granard in northern Tethba. For the sake of kinship Fergus sent a warning to the Ulstermen who were still suffering from their debility, all except Cú Chulainn and his father Súaltaim. When the warning message had come from Fergus, Cú Chulainn and his father went as far as Irard Cuillenn, that is, Crossa Cail, there to watch for the enemy host.

‘I have a premonition that the host will arrive tonight,’ said Cú Chulainn to his father. ‘Take a warning from us to the men of Ulster. I must go to Feidelm Noíchride’—he meant to tryst with her handmaiden who was secretly Cú Chulainn’s concubine—‘to fulfil my own pledge which I gave her.’

Then before he went, he twisted a withe into a ring and wrote an ogam inscription on its peg, and cast it over the top of a pillar-stone. Then Fergus was given the task of leading the army along the path. He went far astray to the south to give the Ulstermen time to complete the mustering of their army. This he did out of affection for his own kin.

Ailill and Medb noticed this, and Medb said:

1. O Fergus, this is strange. What manner of path do we travel? We go astray to south and to north, past every strange district.

2. Ailill of Mag Aí with his army fears that you will betray him. Until now he heeded not where the path led.

3. If you feel the pull of kinship, do not lead horses any longer. Perhaps someone else may be found to guide us on our way.

Fergus answered:

1. O Medb, what perturbs you? This is not anything resembling treachery. O woman, the land across which I shall lead you belongs to the men of Ulster.

2. Not with intent to harm the hosting do I go in turn along each devious road, but that I may avoid the great one who guards Mag Murthemne.

3. It is not to save my mind from weariness that I go thus aside from the path, but I am trying to avoid meeting Cú Chulainn mac Súaltaim even at a later time.

They went on then to Irard Cuilenn, today called Crossa Caíl. The four sons of Irard mac Anchinnel, or the four sons of Nera mac Núada meic Taccain, as is found in other versions

, Eirr and Indell with Foich and Fochlam their two charioteers, were those who always preceded the hosts to protect their brooches and their rugs and their mantles that the dust raised by the army might not soil them. These men found the withe Cú Chulainn had cast and they noticed the grazing made by the horses. For Súaltaim’s two horses had cropped the grass to its roots in the earth while Cú Chulainn’s horses had licked the soil down to the bedrock beneath the grass. Then these four men sat still till the host came up, and their musicians played to them. They handed the withe to Fergus mac Róich; he read out the ogam inscription that was on it.

When Medb arrived, she asked: ‘Why are you waiting here?’

‘We are waiting,’ said Fergus, ‘because of yonder withe. There is on its peg an ogam inscription which reads: ‘Let none go past till there be found a man to throw a withe made of one branch as it is in the same way with one hand. But I except my friend Fergus.’ In truth,’ said Fergus, ‘it is Cú Chulainn who has cast it and it is his horses which grazed this plain.’ And he put the withe in the druid’s hand and chanted this song:

1. Here is a withe. What is its message for us? What is its secret meaning? And how many put it there? Was it few or many?

2. Will it bring ruin on the army if they go past it? Find out, O ye druids, why the withe was left there.

A druid answered:

1. A hero cast it there, the swift cutting(?) of a hero, a source of perplexity to warriors, containment of chiefs with their followers. One man cast it there with one hand.

2. Does not the king’s army obey him unless they have broken faith? I know no reason why the withe was cast there save that one of you should cast a withe even as one man did.

Then said Fergus to them ‘If ye flout this withe or if ye go past it, though it be in a man’s possession or in a locked house, it will go after the man who wrote the ogam inscription, and he will kill one of you before morning unless one of you cast a withe in like manner.’

‘We do not wish, however, that any one of us should be killed straight away,’ said Ailill. ‘Let us go to the end of yon great wood to the south of us, Fid Dúin. We shall go no farther than that.’

The army then hewed down the wood to make a path for the chariots. That place is called Slechta. It is there that the Partraige (now) live.

—According to others, however, it was here that the dialogue between Medb and Feidelm Banfháith as we have related above took place, and it was after the answer Feidelm made to Medb that the wood was cut down.

Thus: ‘Look for me,’ said Medb, ‘(to see) how will my expedition fare.’

‘It is hard for me,’ said the maiden. ‘The wood prevents me from seeing them properly.’

‘That can be arranged,’ said Medb. ‘We shall cut down the wood.’ it was done, and Slechta is the name of that place.—

They spent the night then in Cúil Sibrille, that is, Cennannas. Heavy snow fell on them, reaching to the girdles of the men and the wheels of the chariots. They rose early on the morrow. That had not been a restful night for them because of the snow, nor had they prepared food for themselves that night.

But Cú Chulainn did not come early from his tryst; he remained until he had washed and bathed. Then he came on to the track of the army. ‘Would that we had not gone thither nor betrayed the men of Ulster!’ cried Cú Chulainn. ‘We have let the enemy host come upon them unawares. Make an estimate of the host for us,’ said Cú Chulainn to Lóeg, ‘that we may know their number.’

Lóeg did so and said to Cú Chulainn ‘I am confused. I cannot estimate exactly.’

‘If only I come, I shall not see them confusedly,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘Get out of the chariot,’ said Lóeg.

Cú Chulainn got out of the chariot and for a long time he estimated the number of the host. ‘Even you,’ said Lóeg, ‘do not find it easy.’ ‘It is easier for me, however, than for you. For I have three gifts, namely, the gift of sight, the gift of understanding, the gift of reckoning. I have reckoned up the numbers here.

This is one of the three cleverest yet most difficult reckonings ever made in Ireland, the three being this reckoning of the men of Ireland made by Cú Chulainn in the Táin, the reckoning made by Lug of the Fomorians in the battle of Mag Tuired and the reckoning of the army in Bruiden Da Derga made by Ingcél, [marginal note]

There are here in number eighteen divisions, but the eighteenth division, that is, the division of the Gailióin, has been distributed among the whole host so that it is confusing to count them.’

Then Cú Chulainn went round the host until he was at Áth nGrencha. There he cut down a forked branch with one blow of his sword and fixed it in the middle of the stream so that a chariot could not pass it on this side or on that.

While he was thus engaged Eirr and Indell with their two charioteers, Fóich and Fochlam, came up with him. He cut off their four heads and impaled them on the four prongs of the forked branch. Hence the name Áth nGabla. that is, at the place called Beloch Caille Móire to the north of Cnogba, [marginal note]

Then the horses of the four men went towards the host, with their bloodstained trappings. The host thought that there had been a battle in the ford before them. A band went from them to survey the ford; they saw only the track of one chariot and the forked branch with the four heads and an ogam inscription on its side. At that point, the whole army arrived.

‘Are yonder heads those of some of our people?’ asked Medb.

‘They are of our people and of our choice men,’ said Ailill.

One of them read aloud the ogam inscription that was on the side of the forked branch: ‘One man has cast this forked branch with one hand, and ye shall not go past it unless one of you, but not Fergus, has cast it with one hand.’

‘It is marvellous,’ said Ailill, ‘how quickly the four were slain.’

‘Do not think that marvellous,’ said Fergus, ‘but rather the cutting of the forked branch from its root with one blow, and if its end shows one cutting, it is all the greater achievement, and (it is marvellous) that it should have been driven in in this manner, for no hole was dug for it but it was cast from the back of a chariot with one hand.’

‘Deliver us in this difficulty, Fergus,’ said Medb.

‘Give me a chariot then,’ said Fergus, ‘that I may pull the branch out so that it may be seen if its end shows one cutting.’

Then Fergus smashed fourteen of their chariots but from his own chariot he drew the forked branch out of the ground and he saw that its end was one cutting.

‘We must take heed of the nature of the people to whom we are going,’ said Ailill. ‘Let all of you prepare food. Last night was not restful for you with the snow. And let some of the adventures and stories of the people to whom we go be related to us.’

So then they were told the adventures of Cú Chulainn.

Ailill asked ‘Is it Conchobar who has done this?’

‘It is not indeed,’ said Fergus. ‘He would not have come to the marches unless he was accompanied by a number sufficient to give battle.’

‘Was it Celtchar mac Uthidir?’

‘It was not indeed,’ said Fergus. ‘He would not have come to the marches without a number sufficient to give battle around him.’

‘Was it Eógan mac Durthacht?’

‘It was not indeed,’ said Fergus. ‘He would not have come past the marches without thirty scythed chariots. The man who would have done the deed is Cú Chulainn,’ said Fergus. ‘It is he who would have cut down the tree with one blow from its root, and he who would have killed the four men as quickly as they were killed, and he who would have come to the border accompanied (only) by his charioteer.’

The Eulogy of Cú Chulainn

‘What manner of man,’ asked Ailill, ‘is this Hound whom we have heard of among the Ulstermen? What age is that famous youth?’

‘I can tell you that,’ said Fergus. ‘In his fifth year, he went to the boys in Emain Macha to play. In his sixth year, he went to learn feats of arms to Scáthach and went to woo Emer. In his seventh year, he took up arms. At the present time, he is seventeen years old.’

‘Is he the most formidable among the Ulstermen?’ asked Medb.

‘More so than any one of them,’ answered Fergus. ‘You will not encounter a warrior harder to deal with, nor a spear-point sharper or keener or quicker, nor a hero fiercer, nor a raven more voracious, nor one of his age to equal a third of his valour, nor a lion more savage, nor a shelter in battle nor a sledge-hammer for smiting, nor a protector in fighting, nor doom of hosts, nor one better able to check a great army. You will not find there any man his equal in age like unto Cú Chulainn in growth, in dress, in fearsomeness, in speech, in splendour, in voice and appearance, in power and harshness, in feats, in valour, in striking power, in rage and in anger, in victory and in doom- dealing and in violence, in stalking, in sureness of aim and in game-killing, in swiftness and boldness and rage, with the feat of nine men on every spear- point.’

‘I reek little of that,’ said Medb. ‘He has but one body; he suffers wounding; he is not beyond capture. Moreover, he is only the age of a grown girl and as yet his manly deeds have not developed.’

‘Nay,’ said Fergus. ‘It was no wonder that he should perform a goodly exploit today, for even when he was younger, his deeds were those of a man.’

The Boyhood Deeds

‘He was reared,’ said Fergus, ‘by his father and mother at the Airgthech in Mag Muirthemne. He was told the famous tales of the youths in Emain. For,’ said Fergus, ‘thrice fifty youths are usually there engaged in play. This is how Conchobor spends his time of sovereignty: one third of the day spent watching the youths, another third playing fidchell, another third drinking ale till he falls asleep therefrom. Though we have been exiled by him, (I still maintain that) there is not in Ireland a warrior more wonderful,’ said Fergus.

‘Cú Chulainn asked his mother to let him go to join the boys.

‘You shall not go,’ said his mother, ‘till you be escorted by some of the Ulster warriors.’

‘I think it too long to wait for that,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘Point out to me in what direction is Emain.’

‘To the north there,’ said his mother, ‘and the journey is hard. Slíab Fúait lies between you and Emain.’

‘I shall make an attempt at it at all events,’ said Cú Chulainn. He went off then with his wooden shield and his toy javelin, his hurley and his ball. He kept throwing the javelin in front of him and catching it by the point before its end touched the ground.’

‘Then he went to the boys without binding them over to protect him. For no one used to come to them in their playing-field till his protection was guaranteed, but Cú Chulainn was not aware of the fact that this was tabu for them.

‘The boy insults us,’ said Follomon mac Conchobair. ‘Yet we know he is of the Ulstermen. Attack him.’

They threw their thrice fifty javelins at him, and they all stuck in his toy shield. Then they threw all their balls at him and he caught them, every single ball, against his breast. Then they threw their thrice fifty hurling-clubs at him. He warded them off so that they did not touch him, and he took a load of them on his back.’

‘Thereupon he became distorted. His hair stood on end so that it seemed as if each separate hair on his head had been hammered into it. You would have thought that there was a spark of fire on each single hair. He closed one eye so that it was no wider than the eye of a needle; he opened the other until it was as large as the mouth of a mead-goblet. He laid bare from his jaw to his ear and opened his mouth rib-wide(?) so that his internal organs were visible. The champion’s light rose above his head.’

‘Then he attacked the boys. He knocked down fifty of them before they reached the gate of Emain. Nine of them came past me and Conchobar where we were playing chess. Cú Chulainn leapt over the chess-board in pursuit of the nine.

Conchobar seized him by the forearm. ‘The boys are not well treated.’ said Conchobar.

‘It was right for me (to treat them so), master Conchobar,’ said he. ‘I came to play with them from my home, from my father and mother, and they were not kind to me.’

‘What is your name?’ said Conchobar.

‘I am Sétanta the son of Súaltaim and of Deichtire, your sister. It was not to be expected that I should be tormented there.’

‘Why were the boys not bound over to protect you?’ asked Conchobar.

‘I did not know of (the need of) that,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘Undertake to protect me against them.’

‘I agree,’ said Conchobar. But then he turned again and attacked the boys throughout the house. ‘What have you got against them now?’ asked Conchobar.

‘Let me be bound over to protect them,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘Undertake it then,’ said Conchobar.

‘I agree,’ said Cú Chulainn. So, they all went into the playing field. And those boys who had been knocked down there rose to their feet, helped by their fostermothers and their foster- fathers.’

‘At one time,’ said Fergus, ‘when Cú Chulainn was a boy, he never slept in Emain.

‘Tell me,’ said Conchobar to him, ‘Why do you not sleep?’

‘I do not sleep unless my head and my feet are equally high.’ So a pillar-stone was placed by Conchobar at his head and another at his feet, and a special couch was made for him between them. On another occasion a certain man went to wake him and with his fist Cú Chulainn struck him on the forehead, driving the front of his forehead on to his brain, while with his arm he knocked down the pillar-stone.

‘Surely,’ said Ailill, ‘that was the fist of a warrior and the arm of a strong man!’

‘From that time on,’ said Fergus, ‘they never dared to wake him (but left him) till he woke of his own accord.’

The Death of the Boys

‘Another time he was playing ball in the playing-field east of Emain, he alone on one side against the thrice fifty boys. He kept defeating them in every game in that way all the time. Eventually the boy began to belabour them with his fists and fifty of them died. Whereupon he fled and hid under the pillow of Conchobar’s couch. The Ulstermen rose up around him but I and Conchobar stood up to defend him. The boy rose to his feet under the couch and on to the floor of the house he threw from him the couch together with the thirty warriors who were in it.’

‘Then the Ulstermen sat around him in the house and we arranged matters and made peace between the boys and him,’ said Fergus.

The Fight between Eógan mac Durthacht and Conchobar

‘There was strife between the Ulstermen and Eógan mac Durthacht. The Ulstermen went to battle while Cú Chulainn was left behind asleep. The Ulstermen were defeated. Conchobar and Cúscraid Menn Macha and many others besides were left on the field. Their groans awoke Cú Chulainn. Then he stretched himself so that the two flag-stones which were about him were smashed. Bricriu yonder witnessed this happening,’ said Fergus. ‘Then he arose. I met him in front of the fort as I came in severely wounded. ‘Hey! Welcome! master Fergus,’ said he. ‘Where is Conchobar?’ ‘I do not know,’ said I. He went on his way then. The night was dark. He made for the battlefield. He saw in front of him a man with half a head carrying the half of another man on his back.’

‘‘Help me, Cú Chulainn!’ said he. ‘I have been wounded and I have brought half of my brother on my back. Take a turn with me in carrying him.’

‘I will not,’ said he. Whereupon the other threw the burden he was carrying to him, but Cú Chulainn cast it off. They wrestled then and Cú Chulainn was thrown. He heard the war- goddess crying from among the corpses. ‘Poor stuff to make a warrior is he who is overthrown by phantoms!’ Whereupon Cú Chulainn rose to his feet, and, striking off his opponent’s head with his hurley, he began to drive the head like a ball before him across the plain’.

‘‘Is my master Conchobar on this battle-field?’ Conchobar answered him. Cú Chulainn went towards him and saw him in the ditch with the earth around him on all sides hiding him. ‘Why have you come to the battle-field’ said Conchobar, ‘where you may die of fright?’ He lifted Conchobar out of the ditch then. Six of our strong men in Ulster could not have lifted him out more courageously. ‘Go before us to yonder house,’ said Conchobar, ‘and make a fire for me there.’ He kindled a big fire for him.’

‘‘Well,’ said Conchobar, ‘if I now had a roast pig, I should live.’

‘I will go and fetch one,’ said Cú Chulainn. He went off then and saw a man at a cooking-pit in the middle of the wood, with one hand holding his weapons, the other cooking a pig. Great was the fearsomeness of the man. Nevertheless, he attacked him and carried off his head and his pig. Afterwards Conchobar ate the pig.

‘Let us go to our house,’ said Conchobar.

They met Cúscraid mac Conchobair. He too bore severe wounds, Cú Chulainn carried him on his back. The three of them went on to Emain Macha.’

The fate of the twenty-seven men and the reason why none dared to wound the Ulstermen when they were in their debility.

‘On another occasion, the Ulstermen were in their debility. ‘Among us,’ said Fergus, ‘women and boys do not suffer from the debility nor does anyone outside the territory of Ulster, nor yet Cú Chulainn and his father, and so none dares to shed their blood for whosoever wounds them at once suffers himself from the debility or he wastes away or his life-span is shortened.’’

‘Twenty-seven men came to us from the Isles of Faiche. While we were suffering the debility, they climbed over into our backcourt. The women in the fort cried out in warning. The boys who were in the playing-field came on hearing the cries, but when they saw the dark gloomy men, they all fled except Cú Chulainn alone. He cast hand-stones at them and belaboured them with his hurley. He killed nine of them but they dealt him fifty wounds, and then they went off’.

‘If a man did those deeds when he was five years old, it was no wonder that he should have come to the marches, and cut off the heads of yon four men.’

The killing of the Smith’s Hound by Cú Chulainn and the reason why he is called Cú Chulainn

‘Indeed, we know that boy’, said Conall Cernach, ‘and we know him all the better in that he is a fosterling of ours. Not long after the deed which Fergus has just related, he performed another exploit.’

‘When Culann the smith prepared a feast for Conchobar, he asked Conchobar not to bring a great crowd with him for the feast he had made was not provided by his possession of land or estate but was gained by the work of his hands and his tongs. Then Conchobar set off together with fifty chariot-warriors, the noblest and most illustrious of the heroes.’

‘Conchobar visited the playing-field then. It was always his custom to pay the boys a fleeting visit to ask a greeting of them. There he saw Cú Chulainn playing ball against thrice fifty boys, and defeating them. When they were engaged in driving the ball into the hole, he would fill the hole with his balls and the boys would not be able to ward him off. When it was they who were throwing at the hole, he by himself would ward them off so that not even a single ball would go into it. When they were wrestling, he alone would throw the thrice fifty boys, yet not all of them together could surround him to throw him. When they were engaged in the game of stripping one another, he would strip them all stark-naked but they could not even take his brooch from his mantle. Conchobor marvelled at this. He asked if the boy’s deeds would correspond (to his present ones) when he attained the age of manhood. They all said that they would.

Conchobor said to Cú Chulainn ‘Come with me to the feast to which we are going since you are a guest.’

‘I have not yet had my fill of play, master Conchobor,’ said the boy. ‘I shall follow you.’

When they had all come to the feast, Culann asked Conchobar: ‘Do you expect anyone to follow you?’

‘No,’ said Conchobor. He did not remember the arrangement with his fosterling to come after him. ‘I have a blood hound,’

[i.e. a hound brought from overseas, i.e. the whelp of a mastiff.] said Culann. ‘There are three chains on him and three men holding each chain. He was brought from Spain. Let him be loosed to guard our cattle and our stock and let the fort be shut.’

At that point the boy arrived. The dog made for him. He still kept on with the play; he would throw his ball and then throw his hurley after it so that it struck the ball, neither stroke being greater than the other. And he threw his toy spear after them and caught it before it fell. And though the dog was approaching him, it interfered not with his play.

Conchobor and his household were so dismayed by this that they could not move. They thought they would not reach him alive though the fort was open.

Now when the hound came towards the boy, he cast aside his ball and his hurley, and he tackled the dog with both hands, that is, he put one hand on the apple of the hound’s throat and the other at the back of his head, and dashed him against the pillar-stone that was beside him so that all the hound’s limbs sprang apart.

According to another version, however, he threw his ball into the hound’s mouth and it drove his entrails out through him.’

‘The Ulstermen rose up to fetch the boy, some leaping over the wall of the court, others going out by the gate. They placed him in Conchobar’s arms. A great alarm was raised by them at the thought that the son of the king’s sister had almost been killed. At that point Culann entered the house.’

‘‘Welcome, little lad, for your mother’s sake. But as for myself, would that I had not prepared a feast! My livelihood is now a livelihood wasted, my husbandry a husbandry lost without my hound. That hound was not one of the three hounds that were in the brain of Conganchness, as some hold, for it was to take vengeance for Cú Roí’s death on the men of Ulster that Conganchness had gone and that happened long after the Cattle-Raid, but Cú Chulainn was only seven years old when he killed the smith’s hound. Thus, the theory held by those people is false; the smith’s hound had been brought from Spain, as is asserted in the text of the tale. The servant who has been taken from me, that is, my hound, maintained life and honour for me. He was defence and protection for my goods and my cattle. He guarded all my beasts for me in field and in house.’’

‘‘That is no great matter,’ said the boy. ‘A whelp of the same litter will be reared by me for you, and until such time as that hound grows and is fit for action, I myself shall be a hound to protect your cattle and to protect yourself. And I shall protect all Mag Murthemne; neither flock nor herd shall be taken thence from me without my knowing it.’

‘Your name shall be Cú Chulainn (the Hound of Culann) then,’ said Catbhad.

‘I am glad that it should be my name,’ said Cú Chulainn.

It were no cause of wonder that one who had done this when he was seven, should have performed a valiant deed now that he is seventeen years old,’ said Conall Cernach.

The Death of Nechta Scéne’s Three Sons

‘He did still another exploit,’ said Fiachu mac Fir Fhebe. ‘Cathbad the druid was with his son Conchobar mac Nessa. There were with him a hundred active men learning the druid’s art—that was the number that Cathbad used to instruct. One of his pupils asked him for what that day would be of good omen. Cathbad said that if a warrior took up arms on that day, his name for deeds of valour would be known throughout Ireland and his fame would last for ever.

Cú Chulainn heard this. He went to Conchobar to ask for arms.

Conchobar asked: ‘Who prophesied good fortune for you?’

‘Master Cathbad,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘We know him indeed,’ said Conchobar. He gave him a spear and a shield. Cú Chulainn brandished them in the middle of the hall so that not one was left unbroken of the fifteen spare sets of weapons which were kept in Conchobar’s household to replace broken weapons or to provide for the taking up of arms by someone.

Finally, Conchobar’s own arms were given to him. They withstood him, and he brandished them and blessed the king whose arms they were, saying: ‘Happy the people and race over whom reigns the owner of these arms’’

‘Then Cathbad came to them and asked: ‘Is the boy taking up arms?’

‘Yes,’ said Conchobar. ‘That is not lucky for the son of his mother,’ said he. ‘Why, was it not you who instructed him?’

‘It was not I indeed,’ said Cathbad.

‘What use is it for you to deceive me so, you sprite?’ said Conchobar to Cú Chulainn.

‘O king of the Fían, it is no deceit,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘He prophesied good fortune for his pupils this morning and I heard him from where I was on the south side of Emain, and then I came to you.’ ‘It is indeed a day of good omen,’ said Cathbad. ‘It is certain that he who takes up arms today will be famous and renowned, but he will, however, be short-lived.’

‘A mighty thing!’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘Provided I be famous, I am content to be only one day on earth.’’

‘On another day, a certain man asked the druids for what that day was a good omen. ‘The name of one who goes (for the first time) into a chariot on this day,’ said Cathbad, ‘will be famed throughout Ireland for ever.’

Then Cú Chulainn heard this, and he came to Conchobar and said to him: ‘Master Conchobar, give me a chariot.’ Conchobar gave him a chariot. Cú Chulainn put his hand between the two shafts and the chariot broke. In the same way, he smashed twelve chariots. So finally, Conchobar’s chariot was given to him and it withstood the test. Thereafter he went into the chariot with Conchobar’s charioteer.

The charioteer, whose name was Ibor, turned the chariot under him. ‘Come out of the chariot now,’ said the charioteer. ‘These are fine horses.’

‘I am fine too, lad,’ said Cú Clulainn. ‘Just go on around Emain and you shall be rewarded for it.’’

‘The charioteer drove off and Cú Chulainn made him go along the road that he might greet the boys, ‘and so that the boys may wish me well.’ Then he besought him to go back over the road again.

When they had come there Cú Chulainn said to the charioteer: ‘Ply the goad on the horses.’

‘In what direction?’ asked the charioteer.

‘As far as the road will lead,’ said Cú Chulainn.’

‘Thence they came to Slíab Fúait where they found Conall Cernach. It had fallen to Conall to guard the province that day. For each warrior of the Ulstermen spent a day in turn in Slíab Fúait, to protect anyone who came that way with poetry or with challenge to battle, so that there he might be encountered and so that no one should go unnoticed into Emain.

‘I wish you prosperity, victory and triumph!’ said Conall.

‘Go to the fort, Conall, and leave me here to watch now,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘That will do,’ said Conall, ‘if it is (merely) to undertake the protection of one coming with poetry. However, if it be to fight some one, it is still too soon for you to do that.’

‘Perhaps it will not be necessary at all,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘Meanwhile let us go to take a look at the sand-bank of Loch Echtra. There are usually warriors staying there.’

‘I am willing,’ said Conall. So, they set out.’

‘Cú Chulainn threw a stone from his sling and the shaft of Conall Cernach’s chariot broke.

‘Why have you thrown the stone, lad?’ asked Conall.

‘To test my shooting and the accuracy of my shot,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘And it is the custom with you Ulstermen that you do not drive on in a chariot which is unsafe. Go back to Emain master Conall, and leave me here to keep watch.’

‘I am willing,’ said Conall. Conall Cernach did not go past that spot afterwards.’

‘Cú Chulainn went on to Loch Echtra but they found no one there.

The charioteer told Cú Chulainn that they should go to Emain to be in time for the feasting there. ‘No,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘What mountain is that over there?’

‘Slíab Monduirnd,’ said the charioteer.

‘Let us go to it,’ said Cú Chulainn.’

‘Then they went to it, and when they had reached the mountain, Cú Chulainn asked ‘What white cairn is that over there on the mountain-top?’

‘Finncharn,’ said the charioteer.

‘What plain is that yonder?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘Mag mBreg,’ said the charioteer.’

‘So, he told him the name of every chief fort between Temair and Cennannas. He named, moreover, their meadowlands and their fords, their renowned places and their dwellings, their forts and their fortified heights. He showed him too the fort of the three sons of Nechta Scéne, from Inber Scene. Fer Ulli mac Lugdach was their father and Nechtan Scéne their mother. The Ulstermen had killed their father which is the reason they were at war with the Ulstermen to wit, Fóill, Fannall and Túachell.

‘Is it they who say,’ asked Cú Chulainn, ‘that there are not more Ulstermen alive than they have killed of them?’

‘It is they indeed,’ said the charioteer.

‘Let us go to meet them,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘It is dangerous for us,’ said the charioteer.’

‘‘Indeed, it is not to avoid danger that we go,’ said Cú Chulainn.

Then they set off, and they unyoked their horses at the confluence of a bog and a river, on the south above the fort of the sons of Nechta Scéne. And Cú Chulainn cast the withe that was on the pillar-stone as far as his arm could throw it out into the river and let it float downstream. This violated a tabu which bound the sons of Nechta Scéne who noticed what had been done and came towards them.

But Cú Chulainn, after letting the withe drift with the current, fell asleep at the pillar-stone, having said to the charioteer: ‘Do not wake me for a few, but wake me for several.’’

‘However, the charioteer was now sore afraid, and he harnessed the chariot and he tugged at the rugs and skin-coverings that were under Cú Chulainn, though he did not dare to waken him because Cú Chulainn had previously told him not to waken him for a few.’

‘Then came the sons of Nechta Scéne. ‘Who is here?’ said one of them.

‘A little lad who has come on an expedition in a chariot today,’ answered the charioteer.

‘May his first taking up of arms not bring him prosperity or success. He must not stay in our land and the horses must not graze here any longer,’ said the warrior.

‘Their reins are ready in my hand.’ said the charioteer.

‘You had no reason to show yourself unfriendly to him, and anyway,’ said Ibor to the warrior, ‘the lad is asleep.’

‘I am no lad indeed,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘but the lad who is here has come to seek battle with a man.’

‘That pleases me well,’ said the warrior.

‘It will please you well now in yonder ford,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘This is fitting for you,’ said the charioteer. ‘Beware of the man who comes against you. Fóill (Sly) is his name. If you reach him not with the first thrust, you will never reach him.’

‘I swear by the god by whom my people swear, he shall not play that trick again on Ulstermen if once the broad spear of my master Conchobar reach him from my hand. It will mean an outlaw’s hand, that is, death, for him.’

Then Cú Chulainn cast the spear at Fóill so that his back broke therefrom and he carried off his spoils and his severed head then.’

‘‘Beware of the next man,’ said the charioteer. ‘Fannall (Swallow) is his name. He skims over water as lightly as a swan or a swallow.’

‘I swear that he will not play that stick on Ulstermen again,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘You have seen how I travel across the pool in Emain.’ Then they met in the ford. Cú Chulainn killed that man and carried off his spoils and his head.’

‘‘Beware of the next man who comes to you,’ said the charioteer. ‘Túachell (Cunning) is his name, and it is no misnomer for no weapons wound him.’

‘Here is the deil chlis for him to confound him so that it may riddle him like a sieve,’ said Cú Chulainn. Then he cast the spear at him and knocked him down. He went towards him and cut off his head. He carried off his head and his spoils to his own charioteer.

Then he heard the cry of their mother, Nechta Scéne, bewailing them. He carried off the spoils and brought the three heads with him in his chariot and said, ‘I will not part from these tokens of my triumph until I reach Emain.’

Thereupon they set forth with their trophies. Cú Chulainn said to the charioteer: ‘You promised us a good drive, and we need it now because of the fight and because of the pursuit behind us.’’

‘They drove on then to Slíab Fúait. So swift was the run they made across Brega after his urging of the charioteer that the chariot-horses used to outstrip the wind and birds in flight, and Cú Chulainn used to catch the stone he had thrown from his sling before it reached the ground.’

‘On reaching Slíab Fuait they found a herd of deer before them.

‘What are those nimble cattle over there?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘Wild deer,’ said the charioteer.

‘Which would the Ulstermen deem best, that I should take them to them alive or dead?’

‘It is more wonderful (to take them) alive’ said the charioteer. ‘Not everyone can do so, but there is not one of them who cannot take them dead. But you cannot carry off any one of them alive,’ added the charioteer.

‘Indeed I can,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘Ply the goad on the horses and drive them to the bog.’

The charioteer did so, and the horses stuck fast in the bog. Cú Chulainn sprang out of the chariot and caught the deer that was nearest to him and the finest of the herd. He lashed the horses through the bog and subdued the deer immediately and tied it up between the two poles of the chariot.’

‘Again, they saw before them a flock of swans.

‘Which would the Ulstermen deem best,’ asked Cú Chulainn, ‘that I should carry them alive to them or carry them dead?’

‘The bravest and most active carry them off alive,’ said the charioteer.

Cú Chulainn then threw a small stone at the birds and brought down eight of them. Again, he threw a big stone and struck twelve of them. All this was done by his ‘return-stroke’. ‘Collect the birds for me,’ said Cú Chulainn to his charioteer. ‘If I go to get them, the wild deer will spring on you.’’

‘‘It is not easy for me to go there,’ said the charioteer. ‘The horses have become wild so that I cannot go past them. Nor can I go past the iron wheels of the chariot because of their sharpness, and I cannot go past the deer for his antlers have filled all the space between the two poles of the chariot.’

‘Step from his antlers then,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘I swear by the god by whom the Ulstermen swear, that I shall so nod at him and so glare at him that he will not move his head towards you and will not dare to stir.’

That was done then. Cú Chulainn fastened the reins and the charioteer collected the birds. Then Cú Chulainn tied the birds to the strings and cords of the chariot. In this wise he went to Emain Macha with a wild deer behind his chariot, a flock of swans fluttering over it and three severed heads in his chariot.’

‘They reached Emain then.

‘A chariot-warrior is driving towards you!’ cried the watchman in Emain Macha. ‘He will shed the blood of every man in the fort unless heed be taken and naked women go out to meet him.’’

‘Then he turned the left side of his chariot towards Emain which was tabu for it. And Cú Chulainn said. ‘I swear by the god by whom Ulstermen swear that, unless some man is found to fight with me, I shall shed the blood of everyone in the fort.’

‘Send forth naked women to meet him!’ ordered Conchobor. Then the women-folk of Emain came forth to meet him led by Mugain, (or by Férach, according to other versions [gloss]) the wife of Conchobor mac Nessa, and they bared their breasts to him.

‘These are the warriors who will encounter you today,’ said Mugain. or Férach [gloss]”

‘He hid his face. Then the warriors of Emain seized him and cast him into a tub of cold water. That tub burst about him. The second tub into which he was plunged boiled hands high therefrom. The third tub into which he went after that he warmed so that its heat and its cold were properly adjusted for him.

Then he came out and the queen, Mugain, put on him a blue mantle with a silver brooch therein, and a hooded tunic, and he sat at Conchobor’s knee which was his resting-place always after that.’

‘One who did that in his seventh year,’ said Fiachu mac Fir Pebe, ‘it were no wonder that he should triumph over odds and overcome in fair fight now that his seventeen years are complete today.’

A different Version up to the Death of Órlám

‘Let us go forward now,’ said Ailill. Then they reached Mag Mucceda. There Cú Chulainn cut down an oaktree in their path and on its side he wrote an ogam inscription which said that none should go past it until a warrior should leap across it in a chariot. They pitched their tents at that spot and they came to leap across it in their chariots. Thirty horses fell in the attempt and thirty chariots were broken there. Bélach nÁne is the name of that place ever since.

The Death of Fráech

They remained there till the morrow. Fráech was summoned to them.

‘Help us, Fráech,’ said Medb. ‘Deliver us in this strait. Go for us to meet Cú Chulainn to see if perhaps you may encounter him in battle.’

Fráech set forth, a company of nine men, early in the morning and reached Áth Fúait. He saw a warrior bathing in the river. ‘Wait here,’ said Fráech to his followers, ‘till I fight with yonder man. He is not good in water.’ He took off his clothes and went into the water to Cú Chulainn.

‘Do not come against me,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘You will die if you do and I should be sorry to kill you.’

‘Indeed I shall go,’ said Fráech, ‘so that we may meet in the water, and give me fair play.’

‘Arrange that as you please,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘Let each of us clasp the other (and wrestle),’ said Fráech.

For a long time, they kept wrestling in the water, and Fráech was submerged. Cú Chulainn lifted him up again.

‘Now this time will you yield and accept your life?’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘I will not,’ said Fráech.

Cú Chulainn thrust him down again and Fráech died. He came to land. His people carried his body to the encampment. Ever after that ford was called Áth Fraích. The whole encampment mourned for Fráech. They saw a band of women dressed in green tunics bending over the corpse of Fráech mac Idaid. They carried him off into the fairy mound which was called Síd Fraích ever afterwards.

Fergus leapt across the oak-tree in his own chariot.

They went on as far as Áth Taiten. There Cú Chulainn overthrew six of them, namely, the six Dungail Irruis.

Thence they went on to Fornocht. Medb had a young hound named Baiscne. Cú Chulainn threw a stone at it and took its head off. Druim Baiscne was the name of that place henceforth.

‘It is a disgrace for you,’ said Medb, ‘that you do not hunt down that wicked hind who is killing you.’ So they went in pursuit of him then and the shafts of their chariots broke in the hunting.

The Death of Órlám

On the morrow they went over Iraird Culenn. Cú Chulainn went forward and came upon the charioteer of Órlám, son of Ailill and Medb, at a place called Tamlachta Órláim a little to the north of Dísert Lochait where he was cutting wood.

According to another version, however, it was the shaft of Cú Chulainn’s chariot that had broken and he had gone to cut a new shaft when he met the charioteer of Órlám. But according to this version it was the charioteer who cut the shafts.

‘It is a bold action on the part of the Ulstermen if it is they who are yonder,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘while the army is on their track.’ He went to the charioteer to reprimand him, thinking he was one of the Ulstermen. He saw the man cutting wood, that is, chariot-shafts.

‘What are you doing here?’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘Cutting chariot-shafts,’ said the charioteer. ‘We have broken our chariots hunting yon wild deer, Cú Chulainn. Help me,’ said the charioteer.

‘Decide whether you will collect the shafts or strip them.’

‘I will strip them,’ said Cú Chulainn. Then Cú Chulainn stripped the shafts between his fingers in the presence of the other, and he cleaned them both of bark and of knots.

‘It was not your proper work that I set you,’ said the charioteer who was sore afraid.

‘Who are you?’ asked Cú Chulainn. ‘I am the charioteer of Órlám, son of Ailill and Medb,’ said he. ‘And who are you?’

‘My name is Cú Chulainn,’ said he.

‘Woe is me!’said the charioteer.

‘Fear nothing,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘Where is your master?’

‘He is on the mound yonder,’ said the charioteer.

‘Come on then with me,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘for I do not kill charioteers.’

Cú Chulainn went to Órlám, killed him and cut off his head and brandished it before the host. He put the head then on the charioteer’s back and said: ‘Take that with you and go thus to the camp. If you do not go thus, I shall cast a stone at you from my sling.’

When the charioteer drew near the camp, he took the head from his back, and related his adventures to Ailill and Medb. ‘It is not like catching a fledgling,’ said she. ‘And he said that if I did not bring the head to the camp on my back, he would break my head for me with a stone.’

The Death of the three Sons of Gárach

Then the three Meic Gárach remained at their ford. Their names were Lon, Úalu and Diliu, and Mes Lir, Mes Lóech and Mes Lethan were their three charioteers. They thought Cú Chulainn had gone too far in doing what he had done, namely, killing the king’s two foster-sons and his son and brandishing his son’s head before the host. (They came then) that they might kill Cú Chulainn in revenge for Órlám and so that they might themselves alone remove this cause of anxiety from the host.

They cut three wooden rods for their charioteers so that the six of them together might do battle with Cú Chulainn. But then he killed all of them for they had broken the terms of fair play.

At that time Órlám’s charioteer was standing between Ailill and Medb. Cú Chulainn threw a stone at him and his head broke and his brains gushed out over his ears. His name was Fer Teidil. So it is not true that Cú Chulainn never slew charioteers; but he did not kill them unless they were at fault.

The Death of the Marten and of the Pet Bird

Cú Chulainn threatened in Méithe that, wherever afterwards he should see Ailill or Medb, he would cast a stone from his sling at them.

He did so indeed; he threw a stone from his sling and killed the marten on Medb’s shoulder south of the ford. Hence is the name Méithe Togmaill. And north of the ford he killed the bird that was on Ailill’s shoulder. Hence the name Méithe nEoin.

—Or, according to another version, both marten and bird were on Medb’s shoulder and their heads were struck off by the stones cast.

Then Reúin was drowned in his lake; hence the name Loch Reóin.

‘Your opponent is not far from you,’ said Ailill to the Maines. They rose to their feet and gazed around. When they sat down again Cú Chulainn struck one of them and smashed his head.

‘That was no successful expedition! It ill befitted you to boast,’ said Maenén the jester. ‘I should have cut his head off.’

Then Cú Chulainn cast a stone at him and smashed his head.

In this manner then these men were killed: first of all Órlám on his height, then the three Meic Gárach at their ford, Fer Teidil at his dedil and Maenén on his hill.

‘I swear by the god by whom my people swear,’ said Ailill, ‘that I shall cut in twain whatever man shall make a mock of Cú Chulainn here. Come on now, I beg you, travelling by day and by night until we reach Cúailnge. That man will kill two thirds of your army (if he continues) in this way.’

Then the harpers of Caín Bile came to them from Ess Ruaid to entertain them with music. But they thought that the harpers had come from the Ulstermen to spy on them. So they hunted them until they went before them into the pillar-stones at Lía Mór in the north, transformed into deer, for (in reality) they were druids possessed of great occult knowledge.

The Death of Lethan

Lethan came on to his ford over the Níth in Conaille, and he indeed waited to encounter Cú Chulainn. He was grieved by what Cú Chulainn had already done. Cú Chulainn cut off his head and left it there beside the body. Hence is the name Áth Lethan on the Níth. And their chariots broke when they met on the ford beside it. Hence is the name Áth Carpat. Mulcha, Lethan’s charioteer, fell on the shoulder of the hill that lies between Áth Lethan and Áth Carpat. Hence comes the place-name Gúala Mulcha.

While the army was going over Mag mBreg Allecto came for a while, that is, the Mórrígan, in the form of a bird which perched on the pillar-stone in Temair Cúailnge and said to the bull: ‘Does the restless Black Bull know (it) without destructive falsehood? … I have a secret that the Black Bull will know if he graze(?) … on the green grass … Fierce is the raven, men are dead, a sorrowful saying … every day the death of a great tribe … ’

Then the bull went with fifty heifers to Slíab Cuillinn, and his herdsman, Forgaimen, followed him. The bull threw off the thrice fifty boys who used to play on his back and killed two thirds of them. And before he went he pawed the earth in Tir Margéni in Cúailnge.

Cú Chulainn did not kill anyone between the Saili Imdoirchi in the district of Conaille until they reached Cúailnge.

Cú Chulainn was then on the mountain Cuinche. He threatened that wherever he saw Medb he would cast a stone at her head. This was not easy for him, for Medb travelled surrounded by half the army and with a screen of shields over her head.

The Death of Lócha

A handmaid of Medb’s called Lócha went with a great company of women to fetch water. Cú Chulainn thought that she was Medb. He threw a stone at her from Cuinche and killed her on her plain. Hence comes the place-name Réid Lócha in Cúailnge.

From Findabair Cúailnge the army scattered and set the country on fire. They gathered together all the women, boys, girls and cows that were in Cúailnge and brought them all to Findabair.

‘Your expedition was not successful,’ said Medb. ‘I do not see that you have the bull.’

‘He is not in the province at all,’ said they all.

Lóthar, Medb’s cowherd was summoned to them.

‘Where do you think the bull is?’ she asked.

‘I am afraid to tell,’ said the cowherd. ‘The night that the Ulstermen fell into their debility the bull went away with sixty heifers and he is now in Dubchaire in Glenn Gat.’

‘Go,’ said Medb, ‘and take a withe between each pair of you.’

They did so then, and hence the glen is called Glenn Gat. Then they brought the bull to Findabair. When the bull caught sight of Lóthar the cowherd, he rushed at him and disembowelled him with his horns. Then together with his thrice fifty heifers the bull made for the encampment and fifty warriors were killed by him. That is the Death of Lóthar on the Foray.

Then the bull went away from them out of the camp, but they knew not where he had gone and they were grieved.

Medb asked the cowherd if he knew where the bull was.

‘I fancy that he might be in the recesses of Slíab Cuillinn.’

So they turned back after ravaging Cúailnge but they did not find the bull there.

The river Cronn rose up against them as high as the tops of the trees. They spent the night by the river-bank. And Medb ordered some of her people to go across.

The Death of Úalu

On the morrow a valiant hero called Úalu went and took a great flagstone on his back to go across the water. But the river turned him over and he lay with his stone on his belly. His grave and his headstone are on the road beside the stream. Lia Úalann is its name.

Afterwards they went round the river Cronn as far as its source, and they would have gone between its source and the mountain only that Medb would not allow it. She preferred that they should go across the mountain so that the track they made might remain there for ever as an insult to the men of Ulster.

So they remained there three days and three nights until they had dug up the earth in front of them (to make a pass through the mountain) which was called Bernas Bó Cúailnge.

Then Cú Chulainn killed Cronn and Cóemdele and fought a furious(?) combat. A hundred warriors died by his hand … together with Roán and Roae, the two historians of the Táin. A hundred and forty-four kings were slain by him beside that same stream.

After that they came through the pass Bernas Bó Cúailnge with the stock and cattle of Cúailnge, and they spent the night in Glenn Dáil Imda in Cúailnge. Botha is the name of that place because they made huts (botha) to shelter them there. On the morrow they went on to the river Colptha. They heedlessly tried to cross it but it rose in flood against them and carried off to sea a hundred of their chariot- warriors. Cluain Carpat is the name of the district where they were drowned.

They went round the river Colptha then to its source at Belat Alióin and spent the night at Liasa Liac. It is so called because they made sheds (liasa) for their calves there between Cúailnge and Conaille. They came through Glenn Gatlaig and the river Glais Gatlaig rose in flood against them. Before that its name was Sechaire, but from that time it was called Glais Gatlaig because they had taken their calves across bound together with wither. They spent the night in Druim Féne in Conaille.

Those then were their journeyings from Cúailnge to Machaire according to this version. But other authors and books give a different account of their wanderings from Findabair to Conaille, which is as follows.

The Harrying of Cúailnge

When they had all arrived with their booty and assembled at Findabair Cúailnge, Medb said ‘Let the army be divided here. All the cattle cannot be taken by one route. Let Ailill go with half of them by Slige Midlúachra. Fergus and I will go by Bernas Bó nUlad.’

‘The half of the drove that has fallen to our share is not lucky for us,’ said Fergus. ‘The cattle cannot be taken across the mountain unless they are divided.’ So it was done. Whence comes the name Bernas Bó nUlad.

Then Ailill said to Cuillius, his charioteer: ‘Spy for me today on Medb and Fergus. I do not know what has brought them thus together. I shall be glad if you can bring me a proof.’ Cuillius arrived when they were in Cluichri. The lovers remained behind while the warriors went on ahead. Cuillius came to where they were, but they did not hear the spy. Fergus’s sword happened to be beside him and Cuillius drew it out of its scabbard, leaving the scabbard empty.

Then he came back to Ailill. ‘Well?’ said Ailill.

‘Well indeed,’ said Cuillius. ‘Here is a proof for you.’

‘That is well,’ said Ailill. They exchanged smiles.

‘As you thought,’ said Cuillius, ‘I found them both lying together.’

‘She is right (to behave thus),’ said Ailill. ‘She did it to help in the cattle-driving. Make sure that the sword remains in good condition. Put it under your seat in the chariot, wrapped in a linen cloth.’

Then Fergus rose up to look for his sword. ‘Alas!’ he cried.

‘What ails you?’asked Medb.

‘I have wronged Ailill,’ said he. ‘Wait here until I come out of the wood, and do not wonder if it is a long time until I return.’

Now in fact Medb did not know of the loss of the sword. Fergus went off, taking his charioteer’s sword in his hand. In the wood he cut a wooden sword. Hence the Ulstermen have the place-name Fid Mórdrúalle.

‘Let us go on after the others,’ said Fergus. All their hosts met in the plain. They pitched their tents.

Fergus was summoned to Ailill to play chess. When he came into the tent Ailill began to laugh at him.

Fergus said: ‘Well for the man who is being laughed at if he be not deluded by the foolish violence of his fateful deed. By the point of my sword, halidom of Macha, swiftly shall we wreak vengeance on swords following on a cry (for help) from the Gaileóin had not a woman’s triumph misdirected (me); following on a tryst bloody and gravestrewn and with blunt-edged spears between a great host with [their] commanders, there shall be fought a battle [extending] to the mountain of Nessa’s grandson (Cú Chulainn) by a stout host, and the battle shall scatter the headless trunks of men.’

Then Ailill spoke: ‘Do not wage battle after the loss of your sword … It defends Medb against many tribes … Sit down then,’ said Ailill, ‘so that we may play a game of chess. Your arrival is welcome.’

Then Ailill said ‘Play chess and draughts before a king and a queen. They have prepared a game for great eager armies. It matters not(?) what stake you lay … I am well- skilled. Perhaps in truth the first guilt will lie on the women … Findabair loves the bold Fergus, Fergus mac Rossa Róich with lowing cattle and great armies surrounded(?) by tribes with great possessions, Fergus with the beauty of a king, the fierceness of a dragon, the venemous breath of a viper, the powerful blow of a lion.’ Then they began to play chess. They moved the gold and silver chessmen across the bronze chessboard.

Ailill was heard speaking: ‘It is not the due of a king … ’

Medb was heard to say: ‘Cease those uncouth speeches. A noble lady is not the secret love of a stranger … I am not given to destruction and unjust judgments … ’

Then Fergus was heard saying: ‘Alas! With many words they wage war facing many tribes, and with secret counsels they will be nourished(?) and with treasure they will be bewitched(?), and with spears they will be cleared away … that is, you will be obeyed.’

They remained there that night and on the following morning they heard Ailill say ‘A great champion comes to face the mighty army by Cronn, the river of Nessa’s grandson. The men of Connacht will fight against an opponent. There will flow streams of blood from headless necks in a bloody and grave-strewn meeting of heroes. Many waters rise up against the beardless champion who will come from Ulster to the fray.’

Then Medb spoke: ‘Do not contend, O arrogant son of Máta … men are herded together, women are carried off … great armies propose to come from the battle-field of Cúailnge and the hosts sleep on.’

Fergus was heard: ‘Let a great prince(?) be seized … Let them swear by their people, let them make promises to their queens, let them fight against their enemies.’

Medb was heard saying: ‘Let what he says be done, let it be done.’ Medb spoke: ‘He judges in submission to you for many armies. Let them advance while Ailill is in your power…’

They set forth on their way to the river Cronn, and Mane mac Ailella was heard to say: ‘If I am quickly sent forth against a fair opponent of many feats, he will ward off father and mother on horned cattle … ’

Then Fergus was heard saying: ‘Do not go, O valorous boy. They will give no other counsel until a beardless lad shall strike your head from your neck … ’

‘Let me go in front with the banished Ulstermen,’ said Fergus, ‘to make sure that the lad gets fair play, with the cattle before us and the army in our rear, and the women folk behind the army.’

Then Medb was heard saying: ‘Hark, O Fergus! for the sake of your honour … ward off (the enemy) with your fine army. Do not drive away the Ulstermen … In Mag nAí you prevail over a meeting of companies.’

Fergus spoke: ‘Alas! O foolish Medb whose voice I do not hear … I am not the son of a weakling … I shall not strike a great blow upon the tribes. Cease to cast stones at me … ’

Cú Chulainn came to Áth Cruinn to meet them.

‘My friend Láeg,’ said he to his charioteer, ‘the armies are coming towards us.’

Láeg spoke: ‘I swear by the gods that I shall perform a great deed in front of chariot- warriors in the small remnant of the battle. They are carried on slender steeds with silver yokes and golden wheels (on their chariots) … You will march against kings. They will conquer with their power of leaping.’

Cú Chulainn spoke: ‘Take heed, O Láeg, that you grasp the reins with the great victory of Macha … I beseech the rivers to come to my help. I call upon heaven and earth and especially the river Cronn to aid me.’

The plaintive river Cronn offers them resistance and will not let them cross into Muirthemne until the work of warriors is finished in the mountain north of Ochaíne.

Thereupon the river rose in flood as high as the tree-tops.

Maine, the son of Ailill and Medb came forward before the others. Cú Chulainn slaughtered him on the ford and thirty horsemen of his household were submerged in the water. Cú Chulainn overthrew thirty-two of their brave warriors again at the river. They pitched their tents at that ford.

Lugaid mac Nóis uí Lomairc Allchomaig accompanied by thirty horsemen came on a fleeting visit to parley with Cú Chulainn.

‘Welcome, Lugaid,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘If birds fly over Mag Murthemne you shall have a barnacle goose and a half. Or else if fish swim into the estuaries you shall have a salmon and a half. Or else you shall have three sprigs, a sprig of cress, a sprig of laver, a sprig of seaweed. A man shall take your place (to fight) at the ford.’

‘That is welcome,’ said Lugaid. ‘I wish all goodness of the tribe for the lad.’

‘Your army is fine,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘You will not suffer even though the company you bring against them is few,’ said Lugaid.

‘Grant me fair play and goodly combat,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘O friend Lugaid, do the army hold me in fear?’

‘I swear by the god of my people,’ said Lugaid, ‘that not one man or two dare go outside the camp to make water unless they go in companies of twenty or of thirty.’

‘It will be a fine thing for them,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘if I begin to pelt them with stones from my sling. If every man’s strength is put forth against me, it will be right for you, Lugaid, (to remember) your alliance with the men of Ulster. Tell me now what it is that you want.’

‘I want a truce from you for my company.’

‘You shall have that provided that they bear a special sign (that I may recognize them.) And tell my friend Fergus that his company too should bear a special sign. Tell the physicians to make their company also bear a sign and let them swear to preserve my life and send me food every night.’

Lugaid left him then.

Now it chanced that Fergus was in his tent with Ailill. Lugaid called him out and gave him the message.

Ailill was heard speaking: ‘Cair iss i sanassaib … Let us go with a small army, to a choice tent and an encampment … ’

‘I swear by the god of my people that it is not so,’ said Fergus, ‘unless I ask the lad. Come, Lugaid, go and ask him if Ailill and his division of three thousand may join together with my company. Take him an ox and a flitch of bacon and a barrel of wine.’

Then Lugaid goes to him and gives him that message.

‘I do not mind if he go,’ said Cú Chulainn.

So the two companies joined them. They remained there until night. Cú Chulainn wounded thirty of their warriors with stones from his sling. —Or, as some books tell it, they remained there for twenty nights.

‘Your journeyings will be unpleasant,’ said Fergus. ‘The Ulstermen will recover from their debility and they will crush us into the dust and gravel. We are ill-placed for battle. Come on to Cúil Airthir.’

It happened that Cú Chulainn went that night to speak with the men of Ulster.

‘What tidings have you?’ asked Conchobar. ‘Women are taken captive,’ said he, ‘cattle are driven away, men are slain.’

‘Who takes them captive? Who drives them away? Who kills them?’

‘… The man foremost in slaughter and killing, Ailill mac Máta, carries them off and Fergus mac Róich, the brave one, who wields a sword …’

‘That is not of much benefit to you,’ said Conchobar. ‘Today we have been smitten (by the cess) as before.’

Thereafter Cú Chulainn left them. He saw the army going forth.

Ailill spoke: ‘Alas! I see a chariot with bright points … he will slay men in fords and capture cows, and the thirty will act when the army has come from Laigin. Blood will flow from headless necks. They will fall fighting for the cattle of the Ulstermen in the ford.’

Cú Chulainn killed thirty of their warriors at Áth Durn. They made no stop then until at nightfall they reached Cúil Airthir. He killed thirty of them at that spot and they pitched their tents there.

Ailill’s charioteer, Cuillius, was at the ford early in the morning washing the wheels of the chariot. Cú Chulainn hit him with a stone and killed him. Hence the place-name Áth Cuillne in Cúil Airthir.

They travelled on then and spent the night in Druim Féine in Conaille, as we have related above.

Cú Chulainn attacked them there. On each of the three nights that they were there he killed a hundred of them. He let fly at them with his sling from Ochaíne near them.

‘Our army will not long survive with Cú Chulainn attacking us in this fashion,’ said Ailill. ‘Let an offer of terms from us be made to him, namely, that he shall have an extent of Mag nAí equal to Mag Muirthemne, the best chariot in Mag nAí and the equipment of twelve men. Or, if he prefer, this plain in which he was reared and thrice seven cumala (female slave). And all that has been destroyed in his household or among his cattle shall be made good, and he shall be compensated for it. And let him take service with me, it is better for him than to be in the service of a princeling.’

‘Who will go on that mission?’ they asked.

‘Mac Roth yonder.’

Mac Roth, the messenger of Ailill and Medb—he it is who could go all round Ireland in one day—went to Delga on that mission, for Fergus believed that Cú Chulainn was in Delga.

‘I see a man coming towards us,’ said Láeg to Cú Chulainn. ‘He has yellow hair. He wears the linen garments of his office. In his hand a great club and at his waist an ivory-hilted sword. He wears a hooded tunic with red insertion.’

‘That is one of the king’s warriors,’ said Cú Chulainn.

Mac Roth asked Láeg whose vassal he was.

‘Vassal to yonder man below,’ said Láeg.

Cú Chulainn was sitting stark-naked in the snow which reached up to his thighs, examining his shirt for lice.

So Mac Roth asked Cú Chulainn whose vassal he was.

‘Vassal of Conchobor mac Nessa,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘Have you no more definite description?’

‘That is sufficient,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘Where is Cú Chulainn then?’ asked Mac Roth.

‘What would you say to him?’ said Cú Chulainn.

So Mac Roth told him the whole message as we have (already) related.

‘Even if Cú Chulainn were here near at hand, he would not agree to that. He will not exchange his mother’s brother for another king.’

Once again Cú Chulainn was visited (by Mac Roth) and he was told that he would be given the noblest of the (captured) women and the dry kine on condition that he should not ply his sling on them by night even if he killed them by day.

‘I will not agree,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘If our base-born women are carried off, then our noble women will work at querns, and if our milch cows are taken away we shall be left without milk.’

A third time Cú Chulainn was visited by Mac Roth and he was told that he would get the base-born women and the milch cows.

‘I will not agree,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘The Ulstermen will take their base born women to bed and base offspring will be born to them, and they will use their milch cows for meat in the winter.’

‘Is there anything else then?’ asked the messenger.

‘There is,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘but I shall not tell you. It will be agreed to if some one (else) tell you.’

‘I know what it is,’ said Fergus. ‘The man has arranged that I should make it known. But indeed it is of no advantage to you. These then are the terms: that for a day and a night the cattle shall not be taken away from the ford on which he shall fight in single combat, in the hope that help may come from the Ulstermen to him. And I find it strange,’ said Fergus, ‘that they are so long in recovering from their debility.’

‘It is better for us indeed,’ said Ailill, ‘to lose one man every day than a hundred men every night.’

The death of Etarcomol and the terms offered by the men of Ireland as told to Cú Chulainn by Fergus:

Then Fergus went on that mission. Etarcomol, the son of Ed and Leithrinn, fosterson of Ailill and Medb, followed Fergus. ‘I do not wish you to go,’ said Fergus, ‘and it is not out of hatred of you that I say so, but I dislike the thought of a fight between you and Cú Chulainn because of your pride and insolence and because of the fierceness and violence, the boldness and fury of your opponent, Cú Chulainn. No good will come of your encounter.’

‘Can you not protect me from him?’ said Etarcomol.

‘I can,’ said Fergus, ‘provided that you do not provoke a quarrel.’

They set off then for Delga in two chariots. At that time Cú Chulainn was playing draughts with Láeg: the back of his head was towards them and Láeg was facing them.

‘I see two chariots coming towards us,’ said Láeg. ‘There is a tall dark man in the first chariot. He has dark bushy hair. He wears a purple cloak in which is a golden brooch, and a hooded tunic with red insertion. He carries a curved shield with a scalloped rim of white gold. In his hand he holds a broad spear with perforations from point to upper shaft (?). Across his thighs a sword as long as a boat’s rudder.’

‘That great rudder carried by my master Fergus is empty,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘for there is no sword in the scabard, only a sword of wood. I have been told,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘that Ailill came unawares upon Fergus and Medb as they slept, and he took away Fergus’s sword and gave it into the keeping of his charioteer, and a wooden sword was put into its scabbard.’ At that point Fergus arrived.

‘Welcome, master Fergus,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘If fish swim into the estuaries you shall have a salmon and a half; or else if a flock of birds fly over the plain you shall have a barnacle goose and the half of another; or you shall have a handful of cress or seaweed, a handful of laver, a drink from the sand. I shall to go the ford to encounter an opponent if he challenge (you) and you shall be guarded until you shall have slept.’

‘I trust your welcome,’ said Fergus, ‘but it is not for food that I have come. I know what provisions you have here.’ Then Cú Chulainn received the message from Fergus, and Fergus departed.

Etarcomol remained behind gazing at Cú Chulainn.

‘What are you looking at?’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘You,’ said Etarcomol.

‘An eye can soon glance over that,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘So I see,’ answered Etarcomol. ‘I see no reason why anyone should fear you. I see in you no horror or fearfulness or superiority in numbers. You are merely a handsome youth with wooden weapons and fine feats of arms.’

‘Though you revile me’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘I will not kill you because of Fergus. But for your being under his protection, I would have sent back your distended loins and your dismembered body behind your chariot to the encampment.’

‘Do not threaten me thus,’ said Etarcomol. ‘As for the wonderful agreement you made, namely, to engage in single combat, it is I who will be the first of the men of Ireland to fight with you tomorrow.’ Then he went away, but he turned back again from Méithe and Ceithe, saying to his charioteer: ‘I boasted in the presence of Fergus that I would encounter Cú Chulainn tomorrow. It is not easy for me, however, to wait until then. Turn the horses back again from the hill.’

Láeg saw what was happening and said to Cú Chulainn ‘The chariot is coming again and has turned its left side to us.’

‘That is a challenge which must be met,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘Let us go down to meet him at the ford and find out (what he wants).’

‘I do not wish to do what you ask,’ said Cú Chulainn (to Etarcomol).

‘You must do it, however,’ said Etarcomol. Cú Chulainn struck the sod beneath his feet and he fell prostrate with the sod on his belly.

‘Begone!’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘I am loath to dip my hands in your blood. I should have cut you into pieces just now but for Fergus.’

‘We shall not part like this,’ said Etarcomol, ‘until I carry off your head or until I leave my head with you.’

‘The latter is what will happen,’ said Cú Chulainn. Then Cú Chulainn struck him with his sword under his armpits so that his garments fell off him, but he did not cut his skin. ‘Begone then!’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘No,’ said Etarcomol. Cú Chulainn touched him then with the edge of his sword and cut his hair off as cleanly as if it had been shaved off with a razor. He did not even scratch his skin. Then since the fellow was troublesome and pertinacious, he struck him on the crown of his head and clove him down to the navel.

Fergus saw the chariot go past with only one man in it. He turned back to scold Cú Chulainn. ‘It was wicked of you, you whippersnapper,’ said he, ‘to violate my protection (of Etarcomol). You think my club is short.’

‘Do not be angry with me, master Fergus,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘…Do not reproach me, master Fergus.’ He bowed down and let Fergus’s chariot go past him three times. ‘Ask his charioteer if I was the one who instigated the fight.’

‘Indeed it was not you,’ said Etarcomol’s charioteer.

‘He said,’ went on Cú Chulainn, ‘that he would not go away till he carried off my head or left his own head with me. Which would you prefer, master Fergus?’

‘Indeed I prefer what has been done,’ said Fergus, ‘for it is he who was insolent.’

Then Fergus put a spanceling band through Etarcomol’s heels and dragged him behind his own chariot to the camp. Whenever Etarcomol’s body went over rocks, one half would part from the other; when the path was smooth, the two parts would come together again. Medb looked at him. ‘That was not kind treatment for a young hound, Fergus,’ said Medb.

‘It is no source of annoyance to me,’ said Fergus, ‘that the mongrel should have waged battle with the great hound for whom he was no match.’

Then Etarcomol’s grave was dug and his headstone was planted in the ground; his name was written in ogam and he was mourned.

That night Cú Chulainn did not attack them with his sling.

The Death of Nad Crantail

‘What man have you got to encounter Cú Chulainn tomorrow?’ asked Lugaid.

‘They will give you him tomorrow,’ said Maine son of Ailill.

‘We can get no one to encounter him,’ said Medb. ‘Let us make a truce with him till a man be sought for him.’

A truce was granted them.

‘Whither will you send,’ asked Ailill, ‘to seek a man to encounter Cú Chulainn?’

‘There is no one in Ireland to be got for him,’ said Medb, ‘unless Cú Roí mac Dáire or Nad Crantail the warrior be brought.’

One of Cú Roí’s followers was in the tent. ‘Cú Roí will not come,’ said he. ‘He thinks that enough of his people have already come.’

‘Let a message be sent to Nad Crantail then.’ Maine Andoí went to Nad Crantail. They related their tidings to him. ‘Come with us for the sake of the honour of Connacht.’

‘I will not,’ said he, ‘unless Findabair is given to me.’ He came with them then. They brought his weapons in a cart from the east of Connacht to the encampment.

‘You shall get Findabair,’ said Medb, ‘as a reward for encountering yonder man.’

‘I shall do so,’ said he.

That night Lugaid came to Cú Chulainn. ‘Nad Crantail is coming to meet you tomorrow. Alas for you! You will not stand out against him.’

‘That is no matter,’ said Cú Chulainn.

—According to another version it was then that Cú Chulainn chanted the verse: ‘If Nad Crantail should fall.’—

On the morrow Nad Crantail went forth from the camp, taking with him nine stakes of holly, sharpened and charred. Cú Chulainn was there engaged in fowling, with his chariot beside him. Nad Crantail cast a stake at Cú Chulainn. Cú Chulainn sprang on to the top of that stake but it did not hinder him in his fowling. Similarly with the other eight stakes. When Nad Crantail cast the ninth stake, the flock of birds flew away from Cú Chulainn who went in pursuit of them. Then, like a bird himself, he stepped on to the points of the stakes, going from one stake to another, pursuing the birds that they might not escape him. They were all certain, however, that Cú Chulainn was fleeing from Nad Crantail.

‘That Cú Chulainn of yours,’ said Nad Crantail, ‘has taken to flight before me.’

‘It was to be expected,’ said Medb, ‘if goodly warriors opposed him, that the sprite would not hold out against bold men.’

Fergus and the Ulstermen were grieved to hear this. Fíacha mac Fir Fhebe was sent by them to upbraid Cú Chulainn.

‘Tell him,’ said Fergus, ‘that it was fine for him to attack the warriors as long as he acted bravely. It is better for him, however, to hide himself when he flees from a single opponent, for it is no greater dishonour for him than for the rest of the Ulstermen.’

‘Who boasted that I fled?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘Nad Crantail,’ said Fíacha.

‘If he had boasted of the feat I had performed in his presence; it would have become him better,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘But he would not boast if only he had a weapon in his hand. You know that I kill no man unarmed. So let him come tomorrow and stand between Ochaíne and the sea, and however early he come, he shall find me waiting there and I shall not flee from him.’

Cú Chulainn ended the meeting, and he cast his mantle around him after his night watch, but he did not notice the great pillar-stone as big as himself which was beside him and he covered it over between himself and his mantle and sat down beside it.

Then Nad Crantail arrived. His weapons were brought by him in a wagon. ‘Where is Cú Chulainn?’ he asked.

‘There he is over there,’ said Fergus.

‘That is not how he appeared to me yesterday,’ said Nad Crantail. ‘Are you the famous Cú Chulainn?’

‘And what if I am?’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘If you are,’ said Nad Crantial, ‘then until I carry the head of a little lamb to the camp, I shall not take back your head which is the head of a beardless boy.’

‘I am not Cú Chulainn at all,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘Go round the hill to him.’

Cú Chulainn came to Láeg. ‘Smear a false beard on me. The champion refuses to fight with me since I am beardless.’ So it was done for him. He went to meet Nad Crantail on the hill.

‘I think that better,’ said Nad Crantail. ‘Grant me fair play now.’

‘You shall have it provided that we know it.’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘I will throw a cast at you,’ said Nad Crantail, ‘and do not avoid it.’

‘I shall avoid it only by leaping upwards,’ said Cú Chulainn.

Nad Crantail threw a cast at him and Cú Chulainn leapt upwards as it came.

‘You do ill to avoid the cast,’ said Nad Crantail.

‘Avoid my cast upwards also,’ said Cú Chulainn.

Cú Chulainn threw the spear at him but it was upwards he threw so that the spear came down on the crown of Nad Crantail’s head and went through him to the ground. ‘Indeed,’ he cried, ‘you are the best warrior in Ireland! I have twenty- four sons in the encampment. Let me go and tell them what hidden treasures I have. And I shall come back so that you may behead me for I shall die if the spear is taken out of my head.’

‘Good,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘provided that you come back again.’

Then Nad Crantail went to the encampment.

They all came forth to meet him. ‘Where is the head of the distorted one that you have brought?’ they all asked.

‘Stay, O warriors, until I tell my tale to my sons and go back again to fight with Cú Chulainn.’

He went off to meet Cú Chulainn and cast his sword at him.

Cú Chulainn leapt up so that the sword struck the pillar-stone and broke in two. Cú Chulainn was distorted as he had been when with the boys in Emain. Thereupon Cú Chulainn leapt on to Nad Crantail’s shield and cut off his head. He struck him again on his headless neck (and split him) down to the navel and Nad Crantail fell in four sections to the ground. Then Cú Chulainn spoke these words

If Nad Crantail has fallen, there will be increase of strife.

Alas that I do not now give battle to Medb with a third of the host!

The Finding of the Bull according to this Version

Then Medb went with a third of the army to Cuib in search of the bull and Cú Chulainn followed them. She went along Slige Midlúachra then as far as Dún Sobairche to harry the Ulstermen and the Cruithne.

Cú Chulainn caught sight of Buide mac Báin from Slíab Cuilinn with the bull and fifteen heifers. Sixty warriors of Ailill’s household formed his company, each man wrapped in a mantle.

Cú Chulainn came towards them. ‘Whence have you brought the cattle?’ asked he.

‘From yonder mountain,’ answered the warrior.

‘Tell me, where is their cow-herd?’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘He is where we found him,’ said the warrior.

Cú Chulainn gave three leaps to follow them as far as the ford, seeking to have speech with them. Then he spoke to their leader. ‘What is your name?’ said he.

‘One who hates you not, who loves you not, Buide mac Báin,’ said he.

‘Here is this spear for Buide,’ said Cú Chulainn.

He cast a small spear at him and it went into his armpit, and his liver on the other side broke in two at the impact of the spear. Cú Chulainn killed him at his ford. Hence the place-name Áth mBuide. Thereupon the bull was brought into the encampment.

Then they decided in debate that if Cú Chulainn were deprived of his javelin, he would be no more formidable (than anyone else).

The Death of Redg the Satirist

Then Redg the satirist went, on Ailill’s advice, to ask Cú Chulainn for the javelin, that is, Cú Chulainn’s spear. ‘Give me your spear,’ said the satirist.

‘No indeed,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘but I will give your treasure.’

‘I shall not accept that,’ said the satirist.

So he wounded the satirist since he did not accept what was offered him, and Redg said that he would bring dishonour on him (by satire) unless he got the javelin.

So Cú Chulainn threw the javelin at him and it went right through his head.

‘This treasure was quickly delivered indeed,’ said the satirist. Hence the name Áth Tolam Sét.

There is also a ford to the east of that place where the copper from the spear landed. Umarrith (Umashruth) is the name of that ford.

It was in Cuib that Cú Chulainn killed all those that we have mentioned, namely, Nath Coirpthe at his trees, Cruthen on his ford, Meic Búachalla at their cairn, Marc on his hill, Meille in his stronghold, Bodb in his tower, Bogaine in his marsh.

Cú Chulainn turned back again into Mag Muirthemne. He preferred to guard his own homeland.

After going there, he killed the men of Crochen (or Crónech), that is, Focherda, he cast off twenty men. He come upon them as they were setting up camp, ten cupbearers and ten warriors.

Medb turned back again from the north when she had remained there for a fortnight, ravaging the province, and when she had fought a battle against Findmór the wife of Celtchar mac Uthidir. After the destruction of Dún Sobairche in the territory of Dál Riada against Findmór she carried off fifty women captives.

Wherever in Cuib, Medb planted her horsewhip is named Bile Medba. Every ford and every hill by which she spent the night is named Áth Medba and Dindgna Medba. Then they all met at Focherd, Ailill and Medb and the men who drove the bull. His herdsman took the bull from them but by beating their shields with sticks they drove the bull across into a narrow pass and the cattle trampled the herdsman into the ground. His name was Forgemen. And the hill there is called Forgemen.

Their only anxiety that night was to get some one from among them to contend with Cú Chulainn at the ford. ‘Let us ask Cú Chulainn for a truce,’ said Ailill.

‘Let Lugaid go on that mission,’ said they all.

So Lugaid went to speak with him.

‘What do the army think of me now?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘They think that the request you made of them is a great disgrace, namely, that they should return to you your women and girls and half your cattle. But they think it more grievous than anything else that you should go on killing them and yet be provided with food by them.’

Then every day for a week a man fell there at Cú Chulainn’s hands. Terms of fair play were broken against him; twenty men were sent to attack him all together, but he killed them all.

‘Go to him, Fergus,’ said Ailill, ‘and ask if he will allow us to move camp.’

So they went then to Crónech. In that place there fell by him in single combat two men called Roth, two called Lúan, two female thieves, ten jesters, ten cupbearers, ten men called Fergus, six called Fedelm and six called Fiachrach. All these were killed by him in single combat.

Then when they had pitched their tents in Crónech, they debated as to what they should do about Cú Chulainn.

‘I know what is right in this matter,’ said Medb. ‘Send a message asking him to grant a truce with the host and say that he shall have half the cattle that are here.’

That message was taken to him.

‘I shall do so,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘on condition that you do not violate the agreement.’

The Meeting of Cú Chulainn and Finnabair

Aithremail went to him, and he went first to Láeg. ‘Whose vassal are you?’ he asked.

Láeg did not address him.

Maine asked him the same question three times.

‘I am Cú Chulainn’s vassal,’ said Láeg, ‘and do not plague me lest perchance I strike your head off.’

‘What a bad-tempered fellow!’ said Maine turning away from him.

So then Maine went to speak to Cú Chulainn.

Cú Chulainn had taken off his shirt and was sitting in the snow up to his waist while around him the snow had melted a man’s length, so great was the fierce ardour of the warrior.

Maine asked him three times in the same way whose vassal he was.

‘Conchobor’s vassal, and do not plague me. If you bother me any more, I shall cut off your head as the head is cut off a blackbird’.

‘It is not easy to speak to these two,’ said Maine.

He left them then and told Ailill and Medb what had happened.

‘Let Lugaid go to him,’ said Ailill, ‘and speak to him (and offer him) the maid.’

So Lugaid went and gave Cú Chulainn the message.

‘Friend Lugaid,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘this is a trick.’

‘It is the word of a king,’ said Lugaid. ‘There will be no trickery.’

‘So be it done,’ said Cú Chulainn.

Thereupon Lugaid went from him and told that answer to Ailill and Medb.

‘Let the jester go disguised as me,’ said Ailill, ‘wearing a king’s crown on his head. And let him stand far away from Cú Chulainn that he may not recognize him. And the girl shall go with him and he shall betroth her to Cú Chulainn. They shall come away quickly then and very likely you will deceive Cú Chulainn in that way and he will not hinder you until such time as he comes with the Ulstermen to the great battle.’

So the jester went, accompanied by the maid, to Cú Chulainn and from afar off he addressed him.

Cú Chulainn went to meet them. But in fact he recognized by the man’s speech that he was a jester. He threw at him a sling-stone which he had in his hand and it went into the jester’s head and drove his brains out.

He came to the girl. He cut off her two plaits and thrust a stone through her mantle and her tunic. Then he thrust a stone through the middle of the jester. Their two pillar-stones are still there, Finnabair’s stone and the jester’s stone. Cú Chulainn left them thus.

Messengers came from Ailill and Medb in search of their people, for it seemed to them that they had long been gone. They were found in that plight. The whole story spread through the camp. Thereafter there was no truce between them and Cú Chulainn.

The Combat of Munremar and Cú Roí

When the hosts were there in the evening, they saw one stone thrown at them from the east and another thrown to meet it from the west. The stones collided in the air and they kept falling between Fergus’s camp and that of Ailill and that of the Érainn. This performance went on until the same time next day, and the hosts were standing, holding their shields over their heads to protect them from the battle-stones, until the plain was full of stones. Hence the name Mag Clochair.

In fact it was Cú Ruí mac Dáire who had done this; he came to help his followers and he was in Cotail facing Munremar mac Gerrcinn. Munremar had come from Emain Macha to Ard Róich to the assistance of Cú Chulainn. Cú Roí knew that there was no one in the army who could withstand Munremar. So they both carried on this performance (with the stones). The host begged them to desist. Then Munremar and Cú Roí made peace and Cú Roí went to his house while Munremar returned to Emain Macha and did not come (again) until the day of the great battle. Cú Roí, however, did not come until the fight with Fer Diad.

‘Ask Cú Chulainn,’ said Medb and Ailill, ‘to allow us to move camp.’

They were given permission and they moved camp. By this time the debility of the Ulstermen was at an end. As they awoke from their torpor, some of them kept still attacking the army until they were once more smitten by their affliction.

The Death of the Youths

Then the youths of Ulster took counsel together in Emain Macha.

‘Alas for us,’ said they, ‘that our friend Cú Chulainn should be left unaided!’

‘Tell me,’ said Fiachna Fuilech mac Fir Fhebi, a brother of Fíachach Fialdána mac Fir Fhebi, ‘shall I have a band of fighters from among you so that I may go and help him thus?’

Thrice fifty boys, a third of the youths of Ulster, went with him, carrying their hurleys.

The army saw them approaching across the plain.

‘There is a great host coming towards us across the plain,’ said Ailill. Fergus went to see them.

‘Those are some of the boys of Ulster,’ he said, ‘and they are coming to help Cú Chulainn.’

‘Let a band of armed men go to meet them,’ said Ailill, ‘but without Cú Chulainn’s knowledge, for if they meet with him, you will not withstand them.’

Thrice fifty warriors went to encounter them. Both sides fell and not one of those splendid boys escaped alive at Lia Toll. Hence the place-name Lia Fiachrach meic Fir Fhebi for it is here he fell. ‘Take counsel,’ said Ailill. ‘Ask Cú Chulainn to let you leave this place for you will hardly escape from him now that his hero’s flame has sprung forth.’

For it was usual with him that when his hero’s flame sprang forth his feet would turn to the back and his hams turn to the front and the round muscles of his calves would come on to his shins, while one eye sank into his head and the other protruded. A man’s head would go into his mouth. Every hair on him would be as sharp as a spike of hawthorn and there would be a drop of blood on every hair. He would recognise neither comrades nor friends. He would attack alike before him and behind him. Hence the men of Connacht named Cú Chulainn the Distorted One.

The Bloodless Fight of Rochad

Cú Chulainn sent his charioteer to Rochad mac Fathemain of Ulster to ask him to come to his aid. Now it happened that Finnabair was in love with Rochad for he was the handsomest of the Ulster warriors of the day. The charioteer went to Rochad and asked him to come and help Cú Chulainn if he had recovered from his debility, and he suggested that they should set a snare for the host to entrap some of them and kill them. Rochad came from the north with a hundred men.

‘Scan the plain for us today,’ said Ailill.

‘I see a troop coming across the plain,’ said the watchman, ‘and a youthful warrior among them. He towers shoulder-high above the other warriors.’

‘Who is that, Fergus?’ asked Ailill.

‘Rochad mac Fathemain,’ said he, ‘and he comes to help Cú Chulainn. I know what you must do,’ said Fergus. ‘Send a hundred men with the maid yonder as far as the middle of the plain, and let the maid go in front of them. A messenger shall go and speak to Rochad and ask him to come alone to talk to the maid, and then let him be seized and that will save us from attack by his followers.’

This was done then. Rochad went to meet the messenger. ‘I have come to you from Finnabair to ask you to go and speak with her.’

So he went alone to speak with her. The host rushed about him on all sides; he was captured and seized. His followers took to flight. Afterwards he was released and bound over not to attack the host until he came with all the Ulstermen. He was promised that Finnabair should be given to him, and then he went away from them. That is the Bloodless Fight of Rochad.

The Death of the Royal Mercenaries

‘Let Cú Chulainn be asked for a truce for us,’ said Ailill and Medb.

Lugaid went with that message and Cú Chulainn granted the truce.

‘Send a man to the ford for me tomorrow,’ said Cú Chulainn.

There were with Medb six royal mercenaries, that is, six royal heirs of Clanna Dedad, to wit, three called Dub from Imlech, and three called Derg from Sruthair.

‘Why should we not go against Cú Chulainn?’ said they. So they went to meet him on the morrow and Cú Chulainn killed the six of them.

The Death of Cúr

Then Cúr mac Da Lath was asked by them to encounter Cú Chulainn. He from whom Cúr drew blood died before the ninth day.

‘If he kill Cú Chulainn,’ said Medb, ‘it means victory. If he is himself killed, it will be a relief to the host. It is not pleasant to consort with Cúr eating and sleeping.’

So Cúr went forth. But he disliked going to encounter a beardless whipper- snapper of a boy.

‘In truth,’ said he, ‘ye make little account of me. Had I known that I was sent against this man, I should not have stirred to meet him. I should think it enough to send a boy of his own age from my followers to encounter him.’

‘Nay,’ said Cormac Cond Longas. ‘It would be a wonderful thing for us were you yourself to repel him.’

‘However that be,’ said Cúr, ‘since I have been entrusted with this task, ye shall go on your way early tomorrow for it will not take me long to kill that young deer.’

So early in the morning on the morrow he went to meet Cú Chulainn, and he told the host to start on their journey for it would be a joyful expedition for him to go and meet Cú Chulainn. So he went off. Cú Chulainn at that time was practising feats.

A List of the Feats

The ball-feat, the blade-feat, the feat with horizontally-held shield, the javelin-feat, the rope-feat, the feat with the body, the cat-feat, the hero’s salmon-leap, the cast of a wand, the leap across …, the bending of a valiant hero, the feat of the gae bolga, the feat of quickness (?), the wheel-feat, the eight-men feat, the overbreath feat, the bruising with a sword, the hero’s war-cry, the well-measured blow, the return-stroke, the mounting on a spear and straightening the body on its point, with the bond of a valiant champion.

For a third of the day Cúr was plying his weapons against him protected by the boss of his shield, and no blow or thrust reached Cú Chulainn in the wild excitement of his feats, nor did he realise that the man was attacking him until Fíacha mac Fir Fhebe cried to him: ‘Beware of the man who is attacking you!’ Cú Chulainn glanced at Cúr and cast the ball-feat which he held in his hand so that it went between the boss and the centre of the shield and back through the fellow’s head. —According to another version it was in (the battle of) Imshlige Glendamnach that Cúr fell.—

Fergus turned to the host. ‘If your surety binds you,’ said he, ‘stay here until tomorrow.’

‘Not here,’ said Ailill, ‘but we shall go back to our encampment.’

Then Láth mac Da Bró was asked to fight him even as Cúr had been asked. He too fell.

Fergus turned again to enforce their surety. So they remained there until there were slain Cúr mac Da Lath and Lath mac Da Bro and Foirc mac Trí nAignech and Srubgaile mac Eóbith.

These men were all killed in single combat.

The Death of Fer Baeth

‘Go for me, friend Láeg, to the encampment and consult Lugaid mac Nóis uí Lomairc, and find out who is coming to fight me tomorrow. Question him closely and greet him.’

Láeg went off then.

‘Welcome!’ said Lugaid. ‘Cú Chulainn is indeed in unlucky plight, fighting single handed against the men of Ireland.’

‘Who is coming to fight him tomorrow?’

‘It is Fer Báeth—bad luck to him in his fighting!—who goes to meet him tomorrow, Fer Báeth, the comrade of us both. He has been given Finnabair for doing so and sway over his own people.’ Láeg returned to where Cú Chulainn was.

‘My friend Láeg is not glad of the answer he got,’ said Cú Chulainn.

Láeg recounted it all to him, telling him how Fer Báeth had been summoned to Ailill and Medb in their tent and told to sit beside Finnabair and that she would be given to him as a reward for fighting with Cú Chulainn, for he was her chosen lover. They considered that he was a match for Cú Chulainn for they had both learnt the same art of war with Scáthach. Fer Báeth was plied with wine until he was intoxicated. He was told that they prized that liquor for only fifty wagon-loads of it had been brought by them. And the maiden used to serve him his share of the wine.

‘I do not wish to go,’ said Fer Báeth. ‘Cú Chulainn is my foster brother and bound to me by solemn covenant. Nevertheless, I shall go and oppose him tomorrow and cut off his head.’

‘You will be the man to do it,’ said Medb.

Cú Chulainn told Láeg to go and ask Lugaid to come and speak with him. Lugaid came to him. ‘So it is Fer Báeth who comes to oppose me tomorrow,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘It is he indeed,’ said Lugaid.

‘It is an evil day,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘I shall not survive this encounter. We two are of equal age, of equal swiftness and of equal weight. Leave me now so that we may meet, and tell him that it is unworthy of his valour that he should come against me. Ask him to come and meet me and speak to me tonight.’

Lugaid told this to Fer Báeth. Since Fer Báeth did not avoid the conflict, he went that night accompanied by Fíacha mac Fir Fhbe, to renounce his friendship with Cú Chulainn.

Cú Chulainn adjured him by his foster-brotherhood and by their common foster-mother Scáthach.

‘I must fight,’ said Fer Báeth. ‘I have promised to do so.’

‘Renounce your bond of friendship then,’ said Cú Chulainn. Cú Chulainn went away from him in anger. He trampled a sharp shoot of holly into his foot and it came up to his knee and appeared there. Cú Chulainn pulled it out.

‘Do not go away, Fer Báeth, until you see what I have found.’

‘Throw it here,’ said Fer Báeth.

Then Cú Chulainn threw the holly shoot after Fer Báeth and it struck the depression at the back of his neck and went out through his mouth, and he fell on his back in the glen.

‘That is indeed a throw,’ said Fer Báeth.

From this comes the place-name Focherd Muirthemne.

—Or (according to another version), Fíacha said: ‘Your throw is lucky today, Cú Chulainn.’ Whence the place-name Focherd Muirthemne.— Fer Báeth fell dead at once in the glen. Whence the place-name Glend Fir Baíth.

Fergus was heard saying:

O Fer Báeth, foolish is your expedition on this spot wherein is your grave. Ruin has reached you there … in Cróen Corand. The hill is named Fríthe; forever it will be Cróenech in Muirthemne. Henceforth its name will be Focherd, the place in which you fell, a Fer Báeth.

‘Your opponent has fallen,’ said Fergus. ‘Tell me, will that man give compensation tomorrow?’ ‘He will indeed,’ said Cú Chulainn.

Cú Chulainn sent Láeg again to find out how matters stood in the camp and whether Fer Báeth was alive.

Lugaid said: ‘Fer Báeth has died, and tell Cú Chulainn to come presently to talk with me.’

The Combat of Láiríne mac Nóis

‘Let one of you go speedily tomorrow to meet your opponent,’ said Lugaid.

‘No one will be got,’ said Ailill, ‘unless ye employ some trickery in this matter. Give wine to every man that comes to you until he is gladdened in mind, and tell him: ‘That is all that is left of the wine that was brought from Crúachain. We are grieved that you should have only water to drink in the camp.’—and let Finnabair be placed at his right hand, and tell him: ‘You shall have her if you bring back to us the head of the distorted one.’’

A message was sent to each warrior on his night, and he was told that. But Cú Chulainn killed each of them in turn. At last no one could be got to oppose him.

Láríne mac Nóis, brother of Lugaid King of Munster, was summoned to them. His pride was over-weening. He was plied with wine and Finnabair was placed at his right hand.

Medb looked at the two. ‘I think that couple well matched,’ said she. ‘A marriage between them would be fitting.’

‘I shall not oppose you,’ said Ailill. ‘He shall have her if he bring me the head of the distorted one.’

‘I shall do so indeed,’ said Láiríne.

Thereupon Lugaid arrived. ‘What man have ye got to send to the ford tomorrow?’

‘Láiríne is going,’ said Ailill.

Then Lugaid went to speak with Cú Chulainn. They met in Glend Fir Baíth. Each greeted the other in friendly fashion.

‘This is why I have come to speak with you,’ said Lugaid. ‘There is a boorish fellow, foolish and arrogant, yonder, my brother who is called Láiríne. He is being tricked about the same girl. By our friendship do not kill him, do not leave me without my brother, for he is being sent to you in order that we two may quarrel. But I am willing for you to give him a sound thrashing, for it is against my wishes he goes.’

On the morrow Láiríne came to meet Cú Chulainn and the maiden came with him to encourage him. Cú Chulainn came unarmed to attack him, and forcibly took his weapons from Láiríne. Then he seized him with both hands and squeezed him and shook him until he drove his excrement out of him and the water of the ford was turbid with his dung and the air of the firmament was polluted with his stench.

Then Cú Chulainn threw him into Lugaid’s arms. As long as Láiríne lived, his inward parts never recovered. He was never without chest-disease; he never ate without pain. Yet he is the only man of all those who met Cú Chulainn on the Táin who escaped from him, even though it was a poor escape.

The Conversation of the Mórrígan with Cú Chulainn

Cú Chulainn saw coming towards him a young woman of surpassing beauty, clad in clothes of many colours.

‘Who are you?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘I am the daughter of Búan the king,’ said she. ‘I have come to you for I fell in love with you on hearing your fame, and I have brought with me my treasures and my cattle.’

‘It is not a good time at which you have come to us, that is, our condition is ill, we are starving (?). So it is not easy for me to meet a woman while I am in this strife.’

‘I shall help you in it.’

‘It is not for a woman’s body that I have come.’

‘It will be worse for you’, said she, ‘when I go against you as you are fighting your enemies. I shall go in the form of an eel under your feet in the ford so that you shall fall.’

‘I prefer that to the king’s daughter,’ said he. ‘I shall seize you between my toes so that your ribs are crushed and you shall suffer that blemish until you get a judgment blessing.’

‘I shall drive the cattle over the ford to you while I am in the form of a grey she-wolf.’

‘I shall throw a stone at you from my sling so and smash your eye in your head, and you shall suffer from that blemish until you get a judgment blessing.’

‘I shall come to you in the guise of a hornless red heifer in front of the cattle and they will rush upon you at many fords and pools yet you will not see me in front of you.’

‘I shall cast a stone at you,’ said he, ‘so that your legs will break under you, and you shall suffer thus until you get a judgment blessing.’

Whereupon she left him.

—(According to one version) he was a week at Áth nGreacha and every day a man fell by him at Áth nGrencha, that is, at Áth Darteisc.

The Death of Lóch Mac Mo Femis

Then Lóch mac Emonis was summoned like the others and he was promised the extent of Mag Muirthemne in the arable land of Mag nAí, the equipment of twelve men, and a chariot worth seven cumala. But he scorned to encounter a mere lad. He had a brother, namely Long mac Ebonis. The same payment was offered to him, the maiden, the raiment, chariot and land.

Long went to meet Cú Chulainn. Cú Chulainn killed him and he was brought back dead and set down before his brother Lóch. Then Lóch said that if he knew that it was a bearded man who killed his brother he would himself kill him in revenge.

‘Attack him vigorously,’ said Medb to her men, ‘over the ford from the west, so that ye may cross the river, and let terms of fair play be broken against him.’

The seven Maines, the warriors, went first and saw him on the brink of the ford to the west.

That day Cú Chulainn put on his festive apparel. The women kept climbing on the men’s shoulders to get a glimpse of him.

‘I am grieved,’ said Medb, ‘that I do not see the lad around whom they gather there.’

‘You would be no more joyful for seeing him,’ said Lethrend, Ailill’s groom. She came then to the ford where he was.

‘Who is that man yonder, Fergus?’ asked Medb.

‘A lad who defends with sword and shield … if it be Cú Chulainn.’

So Medb too climbed on the men to get a look at him. Then the women told Cú Chulainn that he was jeered at in the camp since he was beardless and goodly warriors did not oppose him, only mere boys. It were better for him to put on a beard of blackberry juice. So this he did in order to seek combat with a grown man, that is, with Lóch. Then Cú Chulainn took a handful of grass and chanted a spell over it and they all thought that he had a beard.

‘Yes,’ said the women, ‘Cú Chulainn is bearded. It is fitting that a warrior should fight with him.’ This they said in order to goad Lóch.

‘I shall not fight with him until the end of seven days from today,’ said Lóch.

‘It is not right for us to leave him unattacked for that length of time,’ said Medb. ‘Let us send a band of warriors to seek him out every night in the hope of catching him unawares.’

It was done thus. Every night a band of warriors would go looking for him and he used to kill them all. These are the names of those that fell there: seven called Conall, seven called Óengus, seven called Úargus, seven called Celtre, eight called Fiac, ten called Ailill, ten called Delbaeth, ten called Tasach. Those were his deeds during that week at Áth nGrencha.

Medb sought counsel as to what she would do against Cú Chulainn, for she was sorely perturbed by the number of her army that was slain by him. The plan she decided on was to send brave and arrogant men to attack him all together when he should come to a rendez-vous with her to parley with her. For she had made a tryst with Cú Chulainn for the next day to make a mock peace with him and so capture him. She sent a messenger to him asking him to come and meet her, and stipulated that he should come unarmed for she herself would come to him accompanied only by her women attendants.

The messenger, Traigthrén, went to where Cú Chulainn was and gave him Medb’s message.

Cú Chulainn promised that he would do as she asked.

‘How do you intend to go and meet Medb tomorrow, Cú Chulainn,’ asked Láeg.

‘As Medb asked me,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘Many are Medb’s treacherous deeds,’ said the charioteer. ‘I fear that she has help behind the scenes.’

‘What should we do then?’ said he.

‘Gird your sword at your waist,’ said the charioteer, ‘so that you may not be taken unawares. For if a warrior is without his weapons, he has no right to his honour-price, but in that case he is entitled only to the legal due of one who does not bear arms.’

‘Let it be done so then,’ said Cú Chulainn.

The meeting was in Ard Aignech, which is today called Fochaird. Then Medb came to the meeting and she set in ambush for Cú Chulainn fourteen men, the most valorous of her own household. These are they: two called Glas Sinna, sons of Briccride, two called Ardán, sons of Licc, two called Glas Ogna, sons of Crond, Drúcht and Delt and Dathen, Téa and Tascur and Tualang, Taur and Glese. Then Cú Chulainn came to meet her. The men rose up to attack him and all together they threw fourteen spears at him. Cú Chulainn took shelter from them and not a spear touched his skin or surface. Then he attacked them and killed the fourteen men. Those are the fourteen men of Fochaird, and they are (also) the men of Crónech for they were killed in Crónech at Fochaird.

Of this deed Cú Chulainn said, Splendid is my heroic deed. I strike fearsome blows against a brilliant spectral army. I wage battle against many hosts to destroy valiant warriors together with Ailill and Medb … There comes treachery, coldly impetuous, to strike against valiant warriors who take wise well-judged counsel from one who can well advise them to perform heroic deeds.

So it was from that exploit that Focherd remained as the name of the place, that is, fó cerd, good was the feat of arms which Cú Chulainn performed there.

Then Cú Chulainn came and found them pitching camp and he killed two men called Daigre, two called Ánle and four Dúngais Imlich among them.

So Medb began to incite Lóch. ‘It is a great shame for you,’ said she, ‘that the man who killed your brother should be destroying our army and that you do not go to do battle with him. For we are sure that a sharp, boastful lad like yonder fellow will not stand out against the rage and fury of such as you, and anyway it was the same fostermother and teacher who taught you both the arts of war.’

So Lóch, since he saw that Cú Chulainn had a beard, came to attack him to avenge his brother’s death. ‘Come to the upper ford,’ said Lóch. ‘We shall not meet in the polluted ford where Long fell.’

When Cú Chulainn came to the ford, the men drove the cattle across.

‘There will be lack of water here today,’ said Gabrán, the poet. Hence the names Áth Darteisc and Tír Mór Darteisc ever since for that place.

Then when the combatants met on the ford and began to fight and to strike one another and when each began to belabour the other, the eel twined itself in three coils round Cú Chulainn’s feet so that he fell prostrate athwart the ford. Lóch attacked him with the sword until the ford was blood-red with his gore.

‘That is indeed a wretched performance in the presence of the enemy!’ said Fergus. ‘Let one of you taunt the man, my men,’ said he to his people, ‘lest he fall in vain.’

Bricriu Nemthenga mac Carbada rose up and began to incite Cú Chulainn. ‘Your strength is exhausted,’ said he, ‘if a puny opponent overthrows you now that the Ulstermen are on their way to you, recovered from their torpor. It is hard for you to undertake a hero’s deed in the presence of the men of Ireland and to ward off a formidable opponent with your weapons in that way.’

Whereupon Cú Chulainn arose and struck the eel and its ribs were broken within it, and the cattle rushed eastwards over the army, carrying off the tents on their horns, so great was the thunder-feat of the two warriors in the ford. The she-wolf attacked him and drove the cattle on him westwards. He threw a stone from his sling and her eye broke in her head. Then she went in the guise of a red hornless heifer and the cattle stampeeded into the streams and fords.

Cú Chulainn said then: ‘I cannot see the fords for the streams.’ He cast a stone at the red hornless heifer and her leg broke. Thereupon Cú Chulainn chanted:

1. I am here all alone, guarding the flocks. I neither hold them back nor let them go. In the cold hours I stand alone to oppose many peoples.

2. Let some one tell Conchobar that it is time for him to come to my aid. The sons of Mágu have carried off their cows and shared them out amongst them.

3. One man alone may be defended but a single log will not catch fire. If there were two or three, then their firebrands would blaze up.

4. My enemies have almost overcome me, so many single combats have I fought. I cannot now wage battle against splendid warriors as I stand here alone.

Then it was that Cú Chulainn did against the Mórrígan the three things that he had threatened her with in the Táin Bó Regamna.

And he overcame Lóch in the ford with the gáe bolga which the charioteer threw to him downstream. He attacked him with it and it entered his body through the anus, for Lóch had a hornskin when he was fighting with an opponent.

‘Retreat a step from me,’ said Lóch.

Cú Chulainn did so, so that it was on the other side (of the ford) that Lóch fell. Hence the place-name Áth Traiged in Tír Mór.

Then the terms of fair play were violated against Cú Chulainn on that day when five men came simultaneously to attack him, namely, two called Crúaid, two called Calad and one named Derothor. Single-handed Cú Chulainn slew them. The place is called Cóicsius Focherda and Cóicer Óengoirt. Or else it is because Cú Chulainn was fifteen days in Focherd that the name Cóicsius Focherda comes in the Tain. Cú Chulainn pelted them (with sling-stones) from Delga so that no living creature, neither man nor beast, could get past him to the south between Delga and the sea.

The Healing of the Mórrígan

While Cú Chulainn lay thus in great weariness, the Mórrígan came to him in the guise of an old crone, one-eyed and half-blind and engaged in milking a cow with three teats. He asked her for a drink. She gave him the milk of one teat.

‘She who gave it will at once be whole,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘The blessing of gods and of non-gods be on you!’ —The magicians were their gods but the husbandmen were their non- gods.— Thereupon her head was made whole.

Then she gave him the milk of the second teat, and her eye was healed. She gave him the milk of the third teat, and her leg was cured.

—And it is suggested that on each occasion he said: ‘The judgment of blessing be on you!’— ‘But you told me,’ said the Mórrígan, ‘that I should never get healing from you.’

‘Had I known that it was you,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘I should never have healed you.’

—In another version the name of this tale in the Táin is Ríamdrong Con Culainn for Tarthesc.—

Then Fergus demanded of his sureties that Cú Chulainn should get fair play.

So they came to oppose him in single combat, and he killed the five men of Cend Coriss or of Dún Chind Coross which is now called Delgu Murthemne.

Then Cú Chulainn killed Fota in his field; Bó Mailce on his ford; Salach in his marsh, Muinne in his stronghold; Lúar in Lethbera and Fer Toíthle in Toíthle. Wherever any one of those men fell their names have remained for ever in those districts.

Cú Chulainn also killed Traig and Dorna and Derna, Col and Mebal and Eraise at Méthe and Cethe on this side of Áth Tíre Móir. These were three druids and their wives.

Then Medb sent out a hundred men of her household to kill Cú Chulainn but he slew them all at Áth Chéit Chúile.

Whereupon Medb said: ‘Indeed we deem it a crime that our people should be slain!’ Whence the place-names Glais Chró and Cuillenn Cind Dúin and Áth Chéit Chúle.

The Scythed Chariot and Breslech Mór Maige Muirthemne

Then the four provinces of Ireland pitched their camp at the place called Breslech Mór in Mag Muirthemne. They sent their share of the cattle and booty on ahead southwards to Clithar Bó Ulad.

Cú Chulainn took up position at the mound in Lerga close beside them, and his charioteer, Láeg mac Ríangabra, kindled a fire for him in the evening of that night. Cú Chulainn saw afar off, over the heads of the four provinces of Ireland, the fiery glitter of the bright gold weapons at the setting of the sun in the clouds of evening. Anger and rage filled him when he saw the host, because of the multitude of his foes and the great number of his enemies. He seized his two spears and his shield and his sword. He shook his shield and brandished his spears and waved his sword, and he uttered a hero’s shout deep in his throat. And the goblins and sprites and spectres of the glen and demons of the air gave answer for terror of the shout that he had uttered.

And Némain, the war goddess, attacked the host, and the four provinces of Ireland made a clamour of arms round the points of their own spears and weapons so that a hundred warriors among them fell dead of fright and terror in the middle of the encampment on that night.

As Láeg was there he saw a single man coming straight towards him from the north-east across the encampment of the men of Ireland. ‘A single man approaches us now, little Cú,’ said Láeg.

‘What manner of man is there?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘A man fair and tall, with a great head of curly yellow hair. He has a green mantle wrapped about him and a brooch of white silver in the mantle over his breast. Neat to his white skin he wears a tunic of royal satin with red-gold insertion reaching to his knees. He carries a black shield with a hard boss of white-bronze. In his hands, a five-pointed spear and next to it a forked javelin. Wonderful is the play and sport and diversion that he makes (with these weapons). But none accosts him and he accosts none as if no one could see him.’

‘That is true, lad,’ said he. ‘That is one of my friends from the fairy mounds come to commiserate with me, for they know of my sore distress as I stand now alone against the four great provinces of Ireland on the Foray of Cúailnge.’

It was indeed as Cú Chulainn said. When the warrior reached the spot where Cú Chulainn was he spoke to him and commiserated with him. ‘Bravo, Cú Chulainn,’ said he.

‘That is not much indeed,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘I shall help you,’ said the warrior.

‘Who are you?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘I am your father, Lug mac Ethlend, from the fairy mounds.’

‘My wounds are indeed grievous. It were time that I should be healed.’

‘Sleep now for a little while, Cú Chulainn,’ said the warrior, ‘your heavy slumber at the mound in Lerga for three days and three nights, and during that time I shall fight against the hosts.’ Then he chanted a low melody to him which lulled him to sleep until Lug saw that every wound he bore was quite healed. Then Lug spoke:

The Incantation of Lug

‘Arise, O son of mighty Ulster now that your wounds are healed … Help from the fairy mound will set you free … A single lad is on his guard … Strike … and I shall strike with you. They have no strong length of life, so wreak your furious anger mightily on your vile(?) enemies. Mount your safe chariot, so then arise.’

For three days and three nights Cú Chulainn slept. It was right that the length of his sleep should correspond to the greatness of his weariness. From the Monday after Samain until the Wednesday after the festival of Spring Cú Chulainn had not slept except when he dozed for a little while after midday, leaning against his spear with his head resting on his clenched fist and his fist holding his spear and his spear on his knee, but he kept striking and cutting down, slaying and killing the four great provinces of Ireland during all that time. Then the warrior from the fairy mound put plants and healing herbs and a curing charm in the wounds and cuts, in the gashes and many injuries of Cú Chulaihn so that he recovered during his sleep without his perceiving it at all.

It was at this time that the youths came southwards from Emain Macha, thrice fifty of the kings’ sons of Ulster led by Fallamain, the son of Conchobar. Thrice they gave battle to the host and three times their own number fell by them, but the youths fell too, all except Fallamain mac Conchobair. Fallamain vowed that he would never go back to Emain until he carried off Ailill’s head with its golden diadem.

No easy task was it that faced him. For the two sons of Beithe mac Báin, the sons of Ailill’s fostermother and fosterfather, came up with him and wounded him so that he fell dead at their hands. That is the Death of the Youths from Ulster and of Fallamain mac Conchobair.

Cú Chulainn, however, lay in a deep sleep at the mound in Lerga until the end of three days and three nights. Then he rose up from his sleep and passed his hand over his face and blushed crimson from head to foot. His spirits were as high as if he were going to an assembly or a march or a tryst or a feast or to one of the great assemblies of Ireland. ‘How long have I been asleep now, O warrior?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘Three days and three nights,’ answered the warrior.

‘Woe is me then!’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘Why is that?’ asked the warrior.

‘Because the hosts have been left unattacked for that length of time,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘They have not indeed,’ said the warrior.

‘Why, how was that?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘The youths came south from Emain Macha, thrice fifty of the kings’ sons of Ulster, led by Fallamain mac Conchobair and during the three days and three nights that you were asleep, they fought three times with the hosts, and three times their own number fell by them and the youths themselves fell, all except Fallamain mac Conchobair. Fallamain swore that he would carry off Ailill’s head, but that proved no easy task for he was killed himself.’

‘Alas that I was not in my full strength, for had I been, the youths would not have fallen as they did, nor would Fallamain have fallen.’

‘Fight on, little Cú, it is no reproach to your honour, no disgrace to your valour.’

‘Stay here with us tonight, O warrior,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘that together we may take vengeance on the host for the death of the boys.’

‘Indeed, I shall not stay,’ said the warrior, ‘for though a man do many valorous and heroic deeds in your company, the fame and glory of them will redound not on him but on you. Therefore, I shall not stay. But exert your valour, yourself alone, on the hosts, for not with them lies any power over your life at this time.’

‘What of the scythed chariot, my friend Láeg?’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘Can you yoke it and have you its equipment? If you can yoke it and have its equipment, then do so. But if you have not its equipment, do not yoke it.’

Then the charioteer arose and put on his warlike outfit for chariot-driving. Of this outfit which he donned was his smooth tunic of skins, which was light and airy, supple and filmy, stitched and of deerskin, which did not hinder the movement of his arms outside.

Over that he put on his overmantle black as raven’s feathers. Simon Magus had made it for Darius King of the Romans, and Darius had given it to Conchobar and Conchobar had given it to Cú Chulainn who gave it to his charioteer.

This charioteer now put on his helmet, crested, flat- surfaced, rectangular with variety of every colour and form, and reaching past the middle of his shoulders. This was an adornment to him and was not an encumbrance. His hand brought to his brow the circlet, red-yellow like a red- gold plate of refined gold smelted over the edge of an anvil, which was a sign of his charioteer status to distinguish him from his master.

In his right hand he took the long spancel of his horses and his ornamented goad. In his left he grasped the thongs to check his horses, that is, the reins of his horses which controlled his driving.

Then he put on his horses their iron inlaid armour, covering them from forehead to forehand and set with little spears and sharp points and lances and hard points, and every wheel of the chariot was closely studded with points, and every corner and edge, every end and front of the chariot lacerated as it passed.

Then he cast a protective spell over his horses and over his companion, so that they were not visible to anyone in the camp, yet everyone in the camp was visible to them. It was right that he should cast this spell, for on that day the charioteer had three great gifts of charioteering, to wit, léim dar boilg, foscul ndírich and imorchor ndelind.

Then the champion and warrior, the marshalled fence of battle of all the men of earth who was Cú Chulainn, put on his battle-array of fighting and contest and strife. Of that battle-array which he put on were the twenty-seven shirts, waxed, board-like, compact, which used to be bound with strings and ropes and thongs next to his fair body that his mind and understanding might not be deranged whenever his rage should come upon him. Outside these he put on his hero’s battle-girdle of hard leather, tough and tanned, made from the choicest part of seven yearling ox-hides which covered him from the thin part of his side to the thick part of his armpit. He wore it to repel spears and points and darts and lances and arrows, for they used to glance from it as if they had struck on stone or rock or horn. Then he put on his apron of filmy silk with its border of variegated white gold against the soft lower part of his body. Outside his apron of filmy silk he put on his dark apron of pliable brown leather made from the choicest part of four yearling ox-hides with his battle-girdle of cows’ hides about it.

Then the royal hero took up his weapons of battle and contest and strife. Of these weapons were his eight small swords together with his ivory- hilted bright-faced sword. He took his eight little spears with his five-pronged spear. He took his eight little javelins with his ivory-handled javelin. He took his eight little darts together with his deil chliss. He took his eight shields together with his curved dark-red shield into the boss of which a show boar would fit, with its sharp, keen razor-like rim all around it, so sharp and keen and razor-like that it would cut a hair against the current. Whenever the warrior did the ‘edge-feat’ with it, he would slash alike with shield or spear or sword.

Then he put on his head his crested war-helmet of battle and strife and conflict. From it was uttered the shout of a hundred warriors with a long-drawn-out cry from every corner and angle of it. For there used to cry from it alike goblins and sprites, spirits of the glen and demons of the air before him and above him and around him wherever he went, prophesying the shedding of the blood of warriors and champions.

He cast around him his protective cloak made of raiment from Tír Tairngire, brought to him from his teacher of wizardry.

Then a great distortion came upon Cú Chulainn so that he became horrible, many-shaped, strange and unrecognizable. All the flesh of his body quivered like a tree in a current or like a bulrush in a stream, every limb and every joint, every end and every member of him from head to foot. He performed a wild feat of contortion with his body inside his skin. His feet and his shins and his knees came to the back; his heels and his calves and his hams came to the front. The sinews of his calves came on to the front of his shins, and each huge round knot of them was as big as a warrior’s fist. The sinews of his head were stretched to the nape of his neck and every huge immeasurable, vast, incalulable round ball of them was as big as the head of a month-old child. Then his face became a red hollow (?). He sucked one of his eyes into his head so deep that a wild crane could hardly have reached it to pluck it out from the back of his skull on to his cheek. The other eye sprang out on to his cheek. His mouth was twisted back fearsomely. He drew back his cheek from his jawbone until his inward parts were visible. His lungs and his liver fluttered in his mouth and his throat. His upper palate clashed against the lower in a mighty pincer-like movement(?) and every stream of fiery flakes which came into his mouth from his throat was as wide as a ram’s skin. The loud beating of his heart against his ribs was heard like the baying of a bloodhound … or like a lion attacking bears.

The torches of the war-goddess, virulent rain-clouds and sparks of blazing fire, were seen in the air over his head with the seething of fierce rage that rose in him. His hair curled about his head like branches of red hawthorn used to re-fence a gap in a hedge. If a noble apple-tree weighed down with fruit had been shaken about his hair, scarcely one apple would have reached the ground through it, but an apple would have stayed impaled on each separate hair because of the fierce bristling of his hair above his head. The hero’s light rose from his forehead, as long and as thick as a hero’s fist and it was as long as his nose, and he was filled with rage as he wielded the shields and urged on the charioteer and cast sling-stones at the host. As high, as thick, as strong, as powerful and as long as the mast of a great ship was the straight stream of dark blood which rose up from the very top of his head and dissolved into a dark magical mist like the smoke of a palace when a king comes to be waited on in the evening of a winter’s day.

After being thus distorted, the hero Cú Chulainn sprang into his scythed chariot, with its iron points, its thin sharp edges, its hooks and its steel points, with its nails which were on the shafts and thongs and loops and fastenings in that chariot.

Thus was the chariot: it had a framework of narrow and compact opening, high enough for great feats, sword-straight, worthy of a hero. In it would fit eight sets of royal weapons, and it moved as swiftly as a swallow or as the wind or as a deer across the level plain. It was drawn by two swift horses, fierce and furious, with small round pointed heads, with pricked ears, with broad hoofs, with roan breast, steady, splendid, easily harnessed to the beautiful shafts(?) of Cú Chulainn’s chariots. One of these horses was lithe(?) and swift-leaping, eager for battle, arched of neck, with great hoofs which scattered the sods of the earth. The other horse had a curling mane, and narrow, slender feet and heels.

Then Cú Chulainn performed the thunderfeat of a hundred and the thunderfeat of two hundred, the thunderfeat of three hundred and the thunderfeat of four hundred. And at the thunderfeat of five hundred he ceased for he thought that that was a sufficient number to fall by him in his first attack and in his first contest of battle against the four provinces of Ireland.

And in that manner he came forth to attack his enemies and drove his chariot in a wide circuit outside the four great provinces of Ireland. And he drove his chariot furiously so that the iron wheels sank deep into the ground casting up earth sufficient to provide fort and fortress, for there arose on the outside as high as the iron wheels dykes and boulders and rocks and flagstones and gravel from the ground. He made this warlike encirclement of the four great provinces of Ireland so that they might not flee from him nor disperse around him until he pressed them close to take vengeance on them for the deaths of the youths of Ulster. And he came across into the middle of their ranks and three times he threw up great ramparts of his enemies’ corpses outside around the host. And he made upon them the attack of a foe upon his foes so that they fell, sole of foot to sole of foot, and headless neck to headless neck, such was the density of the carnage. Three times again he encircled them in this way leaving a layer of six corpses around them, that is, the soles of three men to the necks of three men, all around the encampment.

So that the name of this tale in the Táin is Sesrech Breslige, the Sixfold Slaughter. It is one of the three slaughters in which the victims cannot be numbered, the three being Sesrech Breslige and Imshlige Glennamnach and the battle at Gáirech and Irgáirech. But on this occasion hound and horse and man suffered alike.

—Other versions say that Lug mac Eithlend fought beside Cú Chulainn in the battle of Sesrech Breslige.

Their number is not known nor is it possible to count how many of the common soldiery fell there, but their leaders alone have been reckoned. Here follow their names: two men called Crúaid, two called Calad, two called Cír, two called Cíar, two called Ecell, three called Crom, three called Caurath, three called Combirge, four called Feochar, four called Furachar, four called Cass, four called Fota, five called Caurath, five called Cerman, five called Cobthach, six called Saxan, six called Dách, six called Daíre, seven called Rochaid, seven called Rónán, seven called Rúrthech, eight called Rochlad, eight called Rochtad, eight called Rindach, eight called Cairpre, eight called Mulach, nine called Daigith, nine called Dáire, nine called Dámach, ten called Fiac, ten called Fíacha, ten called Fedelmid.

Seven score and ten kings did Cú Chulainn slay in the battle of Breslech Mór in Mag Muirthemne, and a countless number besides of hounds and horses, of women and boys and children, and of the common folk. For not one man in three of the men of Ireland escaped without his thigh-bone or the side of his head or one eye being broken or without being marked for life. Then Cú Chulainn, after he had fought that battle against them, came from them with no wound or gash inflicted upon himself or his charioteer or on either of his horses.

The Description of Cú Chulainn

Cú Chulainn came on the morrow to survey the host and to display his gentle and beautiful form to women and girls and maidens, to poets and men of art, for he held not as honourable or dignified the dark magical appearance in which he had appeared to them the previous night. So for that reason he now came on this day to display his beautiful fair appearance. Beautiful indeed was the youth who thus came to display his form to the hosts, namely, Cú Chulainn mac Súaltaim. He seemed to have three kinds of hair: dark next to his skin, blood-red in the middle and hair like a crown of gold covering them outside. Fair was the arrangement of that hair with three coils in the hollow in the nape of his neck, and like gold thread was each fine hair, looseflowing, bright-golden, excellent, long-tressed, splendid and of beautiful colour, which fell back over his shoulders. A hundred bright crimson ringlets of flaming red-gold encircled his neck.

Around his head a hundred strings interspersed with carbunclegems. Four shades (?) in each of his cheeks, a yellow shade and a green, a blue shade and a purple. Seven brilliant gem-like pupils in each of his noble eyes. Seven toes on each of his feet; seven fingers on each of his hands with the grasp of a hawk’s claws and the grip of a hedghog’s claws in each separate toe and finger.

So on that day he donned his festive apparel, namely, a fair mantle, well- fitting, bright purple, fringed, five-folded. A white brooch of silver inset with inlaid gold over his white breast as it were a bright lantern that men’s eyes could not look at by reason of its brilliance and splendour. Next to his skin he wore a tunic of silky satin reaching to the top of his dark apron, dark- red, soldierly, of royal satin. He carried a dark-red purple shield with five concentric circles of gold and a rim of white bronze. At his girdle hung, ready for action, a golden-hilted, ornamented sword with great knobs of red gold at its end. In the chariot beside him was a long shining-edged spear together with a sharp attacking javelin with rivets of burning gold. In one hand he held nine heads, in the other ten, and these he brandished at the hosts. Those were the trophies of one night’s fighting by Cú Chulainn.

Then the women of Connacht climbed up on the hosts and the women of Munster climbed on men’s shoulders that they might behold the appearance of Cú Chulainn.

But Medb hid her face and dared not show her countenance, but through fear of Cú Chulainn she sheltered under a cover of shields.

That is why Dubthach Dóel Ulad said (these verses):

1. If this is the distorted one, men’s corpses will lie here and cries will be heard around the courts. There will be tales in the lands(?).

2. Headstones will be erected over graves. More and more kings will be slain. Not well do ye fight on the battle-field against that champion.

3. I see how he drives around with eight severed heads on the cushions of his chariot. I see the shattered spoils he brings and ten heads as trophies.

4. I see how your woman-folk raise their heads above the battle (to see him), but I see that your great queen does not seek to come to the fight.

5. Were I your counseller, then warriors would lie in ambush all around him so that they might cut short his life, if this is the distorted. one.

Then Fergus chanted these verses:

1. Take Dubthach Déoltengaid away. Drag him to the rear of the army. He has done nought of good since he slew the maidens (in Ulster).

2. He performed a wicked and ill-omened deed when he killed Fíacha, the son of Conchobar. Nor was the slaying of Coirpre, son of Fedelmid, any less wicked.

3. Dubthach, the son of Lugaid mac Casruba, does not contend for the lordship of Ulster, but this is how he treats them; those not killed he sets at loggerheads.

4. The Ulster exiles will grieve if their beardless lad is slain. If the Ulster army come upon you, they will turn back the herds.

5. The debility of the Ulstermen will be greately prolonged before they finally recover.

6. Messengers will bring great tidings. Great queens will be there. Men’s wounded bodies will be mangled and many slaughtered.

7. Corpses will be trampled underfoot. Vultures will feast. Shields will lie flat on the battle fields. Marauders will find shelter.

8. Warriors’ blood will be spilt on the ground by this army of curs in human shape. If they get there, the exiles will penetrate far into Ulster. He cannot heed the prophecy of what lies before you. Take Dubthach Dóeltenga away.

9. Thereupon Fergus hurled Dubthach away from him and he landed flat on his face outside those who stood there.

Then Ailill was heard saying: ‘O Fergus, do not fight against the women and cattle of Ulster. I can see by their mountain passes that many will be killed there. Strike even though they will be struck down only one by one. He slays them in the ford every day.’

Then Medb was heard: ‘O Ailill, arise with war-bands … (Your) sons will kill in passes(?) and on fords, in great sandy places and in dark pools. And Fergus the brave and the exiled warriors will be victorious. After the battle there will be restitution …’

Then Fergus spoke: ‘Do not listen to the foolish counsels of a woman. Hear them not…’

Then Gabrán the poet spoke: ‘Speak no words … do not earn hatred.’

‘Refuse not your opponent. Come to meet him at the ford,’ said Fergus.

‘Hear Ailill!’ said Medb. Ailill was heard speaking: ‘Fergus knows …’

Then Fergus was heard: ‘O Medb, do not send the great heroes of your mighty exiles…’

The Mis-throw at Belach Eóin

Fíacha Fíaldána Dimraith came to have speech with the son of his mother’s sister, whose name was Maine Andóe. Dócha mac Mágach came with Maine Andóe and Dubthach Dóel Ulad came with Fíacha Fíaldána Dimraith. Dócha cast a spear at Fíacha and it went into Dubthach. Then Dubthach cast a spear at Maine and it went into Dócha. The mothers of Dubthach and Dócha were also two sisters. Hence the name Imroll Belaig Eúin, the Miscast at Belach Eúin.

—Or, according to another version, the origin of the name Imroll Belaig Eúin is as follows:

The hosts came to Belach Eóin. Both armies halted there. Diarmait mac Conchobair came from the north from Ulster. ‘Send a messenger,’ said Diarmait, ‘asking Maine to come with one man to parley with me, and I shall go with one man to meet him.’

Then they met.

‘I have come from Conchobar,’ said Diarmait, ‘to ask you to tell Medb and Ailill that they must let all the cattle (they have taken) go and their depredations will be overlooked. And let the bull from the west be brought hither to the bull (Donn Cúailnge) that they may encounter each other, for so Medb has promised.’

‘I shall go and tell them,’ said Maine. So he gave the message to Medb and Ailill. ‘These terms cannot be got from Medb,’ said Maine.

‘Well then, let us exchange weapons,’ said Diarmait, ‘if you prefer.’

‘I am willing,’ said Maine. Each of them cast a spear at the other and both of them died, so that Imroll Belaig Eóin is the name of that place.

The army rushed upon the opposing force. Three score of them fell on each side. Hence the name Ard in Dírma.

The Death of Taman the Jester

Ailill’s people put his king’s crown on Taman the Jester. Ailill himself did not venture to wear it. Cú Chulainn cast a stone at him at the place called Áth Tamuin and smashed his head. Whence the names Áth Tamuin and Tuga im Thamun.

The Death of Óengus mac Óenláime

Then Óengus mac Óenláime Gaibe, a bold warrior of the Ulstermen, turned back the whole army at Moda Loga (which is the same name as Lugmod) as far as Áth Da Fherta. He did not allow them to go farther and he pelted them with stones. Learned men say that he would have driven them on before him to be put to the sword at Emain Macha if only they had encountered him in single combat. But they did not grant him fair play. They killed him as he fought against odds.

The Meeting of Fergus and Cú Chulainn

‘Let one of you come to meet me at Áth Da Fherta,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘It will not be I!’

‘It will not be I!’ cried one and all from the place where they were. ‘No scapegoat is owed by my people, and even if he were, it is not I who would go in his stead as a victim.’

Then Fergus was begged to go against him. But he refused to encounter his foster-son, Cú Chulainn. He was plied with wine then until he was greatly intoxicated, and again he was asked to go and fight. So then he went forth since they were so earnestly importuning him.

Then Cú Chulainn said ‘It is with (a feeling of) security you come against me, master Fergus, seeing that you have no sword in your scabbard.’ —For, as we have already told, Ailill had stolen it from the scabbard.—

‘I care not indeed,’ said Fergus. ‘Even if there were a sword in it, it would not be wielded against you. Retreat a step from me, Cú Chulainn.’

‘You in turn will retreat before me,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘Even so indeed,’ answered Fergus.

Then Cú Chulainn retreated before Fergus as far as Grellach Dolluid so that on the day of the great battle Fergus might retreat before him. Afterwards Cú Chulainn dismounted (from his chariot) in Grellach Dolluid.

‘Go after him, Fergus!’ they all cried.

‘Nay,’ said Fergus. ‘Until my turn come round I shall not go, for it is no easy task for me. That man is too lively for me.’

They went on then and pitched camp in Crích Rois.

Ferchú Loingsech, who had been exiled by Ailill, heard of this and came to encounter Cú Chulainn. Thirteen men was the number of his force. Cú Chulainn killed them at the place called Cingit Ferchon. Their thirteen headstones mark the spot.

The Fight with Mand

Medb sent Mand Muresci, the son of Dáire of the Domnannaig, to fight against Cú Chulainn. Mand was own brother to Damán, the father of Fer Diad. This Mand was a violent fellow, excessive in eating and sleeping. He was scurrilous and foul-spoken like Dubthach Dóel Ulad. He was strong and active and mighty of limb like Munremar mac Errcind. He was a fierce champion like Triscod, the strong man of Conchobar’s household. ‘I shall go forth unarmed and crush him in my bare hands, for I scorn to use weapons against a beardless whippersnapper.’ So Mand went to attack Cú Chulainn who, with his charioteer, was on the plain keeping a look-out for the host.

‘A man comes towards us,’ said Láeg to Cú Chulainn.

‘What manner of man?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘A dark, strong, fierce man who comes unarmed.’

‘Let him go past,’ said Cú Chulainn. Thereupon Mand came to them.

‘I have come to fight against you,’ said Mand.

Then they fell to wrestling for a long time and thrice did Mand throw Cú Chulainn, so that the charioteer urged him on, saying: ‘If you were striving for the hero’s portion in Emain,’ said Láeg, ‘you would be powerful over the warriors there.’

So then his hero’s rage and his warrior’s fury arose in Cú Chulainn, and he dashed Mand against the pillarstone and shattered him into fragments. Hence the name Mag Mandachta, that is, Mand Échta, which means the death of Mand was there.

The next day Medb sent twenty-nine men against him to Cú Chulainn’s bog. Fuiliarn is the name of the bog which is on this side of Áth Fhir Diad. These men were Gaile Dáne and his twenty-seven sons and his sister’s son, Glas mac Delgna.

At once they cast their twenty-nine spears at Cú Chulainn. Then as they all reached for their swords, Fíacha mac Fir Fhebe came after them out of the encampment. He leapt from his chariot when he saw all their hands raised against Cú Chulainn, and he struck off their twenty-nine forearms.

Then said Cú Chulainn ‘What you have done is timely help.’

‘Even this little,’ said Fíacha, ‘is in breach of our covenant for us Ulstermen. If any one of them reach the encampment (to tell of it), our whole division will be put to the sword.’

‘I swear my people’s oath,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘that now that I have drawn my breath, not one of those men shall get there alive.’

Thereupon Cú Chulainn killed the twenty-nine men, with the two sons of Ficce helping him in the killing. These were two brave warriors of Ulster who had come to exert their might against the host. That was their exploit on the Foray until they came with Cú Chulainn to the great battle. In the stone in the middle of the ford there is still the mark of the boss of their (twenty-nine) shields and of their fists and knees. Their twenty-nine headstones were erected there.

The Fight of Fer Diad and Cú Chulainn

Then they debated among themselves as to which man would be capable of repelling Cú Chulainn. The four provinces of Ireland named and confirmed and decided whom they should send to the ford to meet Cú Chulainn. They all declared that it was the hornskinned man from Irrus Domnann, the one whose attack cannot be endured, the battle-stone of doom, Cú Chulainn’s own dear fosterbrother. Cú Chulainn possessed no feat that Fer Diad had not, except only the feat of the gáe bulga. And they thought that Fer Diad could avoid even that and protect himself from it, for he had a horn-skin which weapons and swords could not pierce.

Medb sent messengers for Fer Diad, but he did not come with those messengers. Then Medb sent to fetch him poets and artists and satirists who might satirise him and disgrace him and put him to shame, so that he would find no resting- place in the world until he should come to the tent of Medb and Ailill on the Foray.

So for fear that he should be put to shame by them Fer Diad came with those messengers.

Finnabair, the daughter of Medb and Ailill was placed at his side. It was she who handed Fer Diad every goblet and cup; it was she who gave him three kisses with every one of those cups; it was she who gave him fragrant apples over the bosom of her tunic. She kept saying that Fer Diad was her beloved, her chosen lover from among all the men of the world.

When Fer Diad was sated and cheerful and merry, Medb said ‘Well now, Fer Diad, do you know why you have been summoned to this tent?’

‘I know not indeed,’ said Fer Diad, ‘except that the nobles of the men of Ireland are here, so why should it be less fitting for me to be here than any other nobleman?’

‘That is not why, indeed,’ said Medb, ‘but (you have been summoned for us) to give you a chariot worth thrice seven cumala, the equipment of twelve men, the equivalent of Mag Muirthemne in the arable land of Mag nAí, permission to remain at all times in Crúachu with wine poured for you there, and your descendants and your race to be free for ever from tax or tribute, and my leaf-shaped brooch of gold in which there are ten score ounces and ten score half-ounces and ten score crosachs and ten score quarters bestowed on you, and Finnabair, my daughter and Ailill’s, as your wedded wife, and my own intimate friendship. And in addition to that, if you require it, you will get the gods as guarantee.’

‘Those gifts are great,’ said they all.

‘That is true,’ said Fer Diad. ‘They are indeed great. But great though they be, Medb, you will keep them yourself if I am to go and fight with my foster-brother.’

‘O my men,’ said Medb, intending to stir up strife and dissension and speaking as if she had not heard Fer Diad at all, ‘what Cú Chulainn said is true.’

‘What did he say, Medb?’ asked Fer Diad.

‘He said, my friend, that he thought you should fall by his choicest feat of arms in the province to which he would go.’

‘It was not right for him to say that for he never found weakness or cowardice in me, day or night. I swear by my people’s god that I shall be the first man to come tomorrow morning to the ford of combat.’

‘A blessing on you!’ said Medb. ‘I prefer that rather than finding weakness or cowardice in you. Every man has kindly feeling for his own people. So is it any more fitting for him to work for Ulster’s weal since his mother was of Ulster, than for you to seek the good of Connacht, for you are the son of a Connacht king?’

Even as they bound their covenants and made this compact, they made a song there:

1. You shall have a reward of many bracelets, and a share of plain and forest, together with freedom for your posterity from today until doomsday. O Fer Diad mac Damáin, you shall receive beyond all expectation. It is right for you to accept what all others accept.

2. I shall not accept anything without surety for no warrior without skill in casting am I. It will be an oppressive task for me tomorrow. The exertion will be hard for me. A Hound called the Hound of Culann, it will not be easy to resist him. Hard the task, great the disaster.

3. What avails it for you to delay? Bind it as it may please you by the right hand of kings or princes who will go surety for you … You shall have all that you ask, for it is certain that you will kill him who will come to encounter you.

4. I shall not consent unless I get six sureties—let it not be less— before performing my exploits in the presence of the army. Were I to have my wish … I shall go to fight with brave Cú Chulainn.

5. O Medb great in boastfulness! The beauty of a bridegroom does not touch you. I am certain that you are master in Crúachu of the mounds. Loud your voice, great your fierce strength. Bring me satin richly variegated. Give me your gold and your silver in the amount that they were offered to me.

6. Take landowner or reaver, take the bardic folk as sureties. You will certainly have them. Take Morand as security if you wish for fulfilment (of my promises). Take Cairbre Nia Manand, and take our two sons.

7. I shall take those sureties as guarantees, and I shall sing a requiem for brave Cú Chulainn.

8. You are the heroic leader to whom I shall give my circular brooch. You shall have until Sunday, no longer shall the respite be. O strong and famous warrior, all the finest treasures on earth shall thus be given to you. You shall have them all.

9. Finnabair of the champions, the queen of the west of Inis Elga, when the Hound of the Smith has been killed, you shall have, O Fer Diad.

A wonderful warrior of the Ulstermen, Fergus mac Róig, was present when they made that compact.

Fergus came to his tent. ‘Woe is me for the deed that will be done tomorrow morning!’

‘What deed is that?’ asked those in the tent.

‘The killing of my noble foster-son, Cú Chulainn.’

‘Why, who makes such a boast?’

‘His own dear foster-brother, Fer Diad mac Damáin. Why do ye not take my blessing and one of you go with a friendly warning to Cú Chulainn in the hope that he might not come to the ford tomorrow morning.’

‘We swear,’ said they, ‘that even if you yourself were at the ford, we would not go there to you.’ ‘Well, driver,’ said Fergus, ‘harness our horses and yoke the chariot.’

The charioteer arose and harnessed the horses and yoked the chariot. They came forward to the ford of combat where Cú Chulainn was.

‘A single chariot is coming towards us, little Cú,’ said Láeg. For the charioteer had his back turned to his master.—He used to win every second game of draughts and chess from his master. Apart from that he acted as sentinel and watchman on the four airts of Ireland.

‘What manner of chariot?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘A chariot like a great palace, with yoke of solid gold and a strong panel of copper, with its shafts of bronze, its frame with narrow compact opening, high and sword-straight, fit for a hero, drawn by two black horses, active, spirited, vigorous, easily yoked, … A single royal, wide-eyed warrior is driven in the chariot. He has a thick, forked beard reaching down past the soft lower part of his navel. It would protect fifty warriors on a day of storm and rain if they were under the deep shelter of the hero’s beard. He carries a curved variegated shield with white shoulder piece and three beautiful concentric circles. A litter-bed for four bands of ten men would fit upon the hide which stretches across the broad circumference of the warrior’s shield. He has a long, hard-edged, broad, red sword in a sheath with interlaced design of bright silver … Over the chariot he holds a strong, three ridged spear with rings and bands of pure white silver.’

‘It is not hard to recognize him,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘That is my master Fergus, coming to give me a friendly warning against all the four provinces of Ireland.’

Fergus arrived and descended from his chariot. Cú Chulainn bade him welcome. ‘Your arrival is welcome, master Fergus,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘I trust that welcome,’ said Fergus.

‘You may well trust it,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘If a flock of birds fly across the plain, you shall have a wild goose and a half: or if fish come to the estuaries, you shall have a salmon and a half, or else a handful of watercress, a handful of laver and a handful of seaweed, and after that a drink of cold sandy water.’

‘That is a meal fit for an outlaw,’ said Fergus.

‘That is so. I have an outlaw’s portion,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘for from the Monday after Samain until now I have not spent a night entertained as guest, but have been strongly holding back the men of Ireland on the Foray of Cúailnge.’

‘If we had come for hospitality,’ said Fergus, ‘we should be all the better pleased to get it, but that is not why we have come.’

‘Why then have you come?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘To tell you that a warrior will come to fight and do combat with you tomorrow morning,’ said Fergus.

‘Let us know who it is and hear it from you,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘It is your own foster-brother, Fer Diad mac Damáin,’

‘I vow that he is not the one we would prefer to meet,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘not through fear of him indeed, but rather because of our great love for him.’

‘It is right to fear him,’ said Fergus, ‘for he has a horn-skin when he fights with an opponent, and neither weapons nor sharp points can pierce it.’

‘Do not say that,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘for I swear the oath of my people that his every joint and limb will bend beneath my swordpoint as pliantly as a rush in mid-stream, if he once appear before me on the ford.’

As they spoke thus, they made a lay:

1 O Cú Chulainn—clear covenant—I see that it is time for you to rise. Fer Diad mac Damáin of the ruddy countenance comes here to meet you in his wrath.

2. I am here strongly holding back the men of Ireland—no easy task. I do not retreat one step to avoid encounter with a single opponent.

3. It is not that I attribute cowardice to you, O famed Cú Chulainn, but Fer Diad of the many followers has a hornskin against which no fight or combat can prevail.

4. When I and Fer Diad the valorous meet at the ford, it will not be a fight without fierceness. Our sword-fight will be wrathful.

5. Strong is his hand which wreaks his anger with his hard red sword. There is the strength of a hundred in his body; brave is the hero. The point of weapons wounds him not, the edge of weapons cuts him not.

6. Hold your peace! Do not argue the matter, O Fergus of the mighty weapons. Over every land and territory there will be no fight against overwhelming odds for me.

7. O Cú Chulainn of the red sword, I should prefer above any reward that you were the one to take the spoils of proud Fer Diad eastwards.

8. I vow clearly, though I am not given to vaunting, that I shall be the one to triumph over the son of Damán mac Dáire.

9. It was I who, in requital for the wrong done me by the Ulsterman, collected and brought these forces to the east. With me the heroes and the warriors came from their own lands.

10. Were it not that Conchobar lies in his debility, our meeting would indeed be hard. Medb of Mag in Scáil has never come on a more uproarious march.

11. A greater deed now awaits your hand-to fight with Fer Diad mac Damáin. Have with you, O Cú Chulainn, weapons harsh and hard and famed in song.

After that, Cú Chulainn asked: ‘Why have you come, master Fergus?’

‘That is my message,’ said Fergus.

‘It is a happy augury,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘that it was not someone else from among the men of Ireland who brought that message. But unless all the four provinces of Ireland join together (to attack me), I think nothing of a warning against the coming of a single warrior.’

Thereafter Fergus came back to his tent.

Concerning Cú Chulainn

‘What will you do tonight?’ asked Láeg.

‘What indeed?’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘Fer Diad will come against you freshly beautified, washed and bathed, with hair plaited and beard shorn, and the four provinces of Ireland will come with him to watch the fight. I should like you to go to where you will get the same adorning, to the spot where Emer Fholtchaín is, to Cairthenn Clúana Da Dam in Slíab Fuait.’

So on that night Cú Chulainn came to that place and spent the night with his own wife. His doings apart from that are not recorded here now, but those of Fer Diad.

Fer Diad came to his tent. Sullen and dispirited were those in Fer Diad’s tent that night. They felt certain that when the two world champions met, they would both fall, or else that the result would be the fall of their own lord. For it was no easy matter to encounter Cú Chulainn on the Foray.

That night great anxieties preyed upon Fer Diad’s mind and kept him awake. One great anxiety was the fear that he would lose all the treasures and the maid offered to him for engaging in single combat. For if he did not fight that one man, he must fight with six warriors on the next day. But there weighed upon him a greater anxiety than all that: he was sure that if he once appeared before Cú Chulainn on the ford, he would no longer have power over his own body or soul.

And Fer Diad arose early on the morrow. ‘My lad,’ said he, ‘harness our horses and yoke the chariot.’

‘On my word,’ said the charioteer, ‘it is no more advisable for us to go on this expedition than not to go at all.’

As Fer Diad spoke to the charioteer, he made this little song to urge him on:

1. Let us go to this encounter, to contend with this man, until we reach that ford above which the war-goddess will shriek. Let us go to meet Cú Chulainn, to wound his slender body, so that a spear-point may pierce him and he may die thereof.

2. It were better for us to stay here. The threats ye will exchange will not be mild. There will be one to whom sorrow will come. Your fight will be short. An encounter with a fosterling of the Ulstermen is one from which harm will come. It will long be remembered. Woe to him who goes on that course!

3. What you say is wrong, for diffidence does not become a warrior. You must not show timidity. We shall not stay here for you. Be silent, lad! We shall presently be brave, for stoutness of heart is better than cowardice. Let us go to the encounter.

The charioteer harnessed the horses and prepared the chariot, and they drove forward out of the camp.

‘My lad,’ said Fer Diad, ‘it is not right for us to go without bidding farewell to the men of Ireland. Turn back the horses and chariot to face the men of Ireland.’

Three times the charioteer turned horses and chariot to face the men of Ireland.

Medb was urinating on the floor of the tent. ‘Is Ailill asleep now?’ asked Medb.

‘No indeed,’ said Ailill. ‘Do you hear your new son-in-law bidding you farewell?’

‘Is that what he is doing?’ asked Ailill.

‘It is indeed,’ said Medb. ‘But I swear my people’s oath that he who is so bidding you farewell will not return to you on his own feet.’

‘Because of what we have gained by this marriage,’ said Ailill, ‘we care not if both of them fall, provided that Cú Chulainn is killed by him. But indeed we should be the better pleased if Fer Diad escaped.’

Fer Diad came forward to the ford of combat. ‘Look and see, lad, if Cú Chulainn is at the ford.’ said Fer Diad.

‘He is not,’ said the charioteer.

‘Look closely for us,’ said Fer Diad.

‘Cú Chulainn is no small hidden trifle, wherever he might be.’ said the charioteer.

‘That is so, driver. Until today Cú Chulainn never heard of a brave warrior or a noble opposing him on the Foray, and when he did hear of one, he went from the ford.’

‘It is shameful to revile him in his absence, for do you remember how ye both fought against Germán Garbglas above the shores of the Tyrrhene Sea and you left your sword with the enemy hosts, and how Cú Chulainn slew a hundred warriors to get it back for you, and how he gave it to you? And do you remember where we were that night?’

‘I do not know,’ said Fer Diad.

‘We were in the house of Scáthach’s steward,’ said the charioteer, ‘and you were the first of us to go eagerly and proudly into the house. The churlish fellow struck you in the small of your back with the three-pronged fork and pitched you out the door. Cú Chulainn came in and struck the fellow with his sword and clove him in twain. As long as ye remained in that stead, I acted as your steward. If it were that day now, you would not say that you were a better warrior than Cú Chulainn.’

‘You have done wrong (not to speak before this), driver,’ said Fer Diad, ‘for if you had told me that at first, I should not have come to the fight. Why do you not pull the shafts of the chariot under my side and the skin- coverings beneath my head that I may sleep a while?’

‘Alas!’ said the charioteer, ‘such a sleep is the sleep of a doomed one faced by stag and hounds.’

‘Why then, driver, are you not capable of keeping watch for me?’

‘I am,’ said the driver, ‘and unless they come out of the clouds and the air to attack you, none shall come from east or from west to fight with you without due warning.’

The shafts of his chariot were pulled beneath his side, and his skin-coverings placed under his head, and yet he slept not at all.

Now as regards Cú Chulainn ‘Good, my friend Láeg, harness the horses and prepare the chariot. If Fer Diad is awaiting us, he will deem it long.’

The charioteer arose. He harnessed the horses and he yoked the chariot. Cú Chulainn mounted the chariot and they drove forward towards the ford.

As for Fer Diad’s charioteer, he was not long on the watch when he heard the rumble of a chariot approaching them. As he awoke his master, he made this lay:

1. I hear the sound of a chariot with fair yoke of silver. (I perceive) the form of a man of great size, rising above the front of the strong chariot.

Past Broinfeirste Broine they advance along the road, past the side of Baile in Bile. Victorious is their triumph.

2. A plundering Hound drives, a bright chariot-fighter harnesses, a noble hawk lashes his steeds towards the south. I am certain that he will come … He will give us battle.

3. Woe to him who is on the hill awaiting the worthy Hound. Last year I foretold that he would come at some time, the Hound of Emain Macha, the Hound with beauty of every colour, the Hound of spoils, the Hound of battle. I hear him and he hears(us).

A description of Cú Chulainn’s chariot, one of the three principal chariots in story-telling, on the Foray of Cúailnge:

‘How does Cú Chulainn look to you?’ said Fer Diad to his charioteer.

‘I see,’ he answered, ‘a beautiful roomy chariot of white crystal, with solid gold yoke, with great sides of copper, with shafts of bronze, with lungeta of white gold, with framework of narrow compact opening and fair awning, a framework in which heroic feats are displayed and which would hold seven sets of weapons fit for princes. Beautiful is the seat for its lord which that chariot contains, the chariot of Cú Chulainn which travels with the swiftness of a swallow or a great deer hastening across a plain on high ground, such is the speed and swiftness with which they drive for it is towards us they travel. That chariot is drawn by two horses with small round heads, round-eyed, prick-eared, broad-hoofed, redchested, steady, splendid, easily harnessed … One of these horses is strong, swift-jumping, battlesome, with great hoofs and skittish … The other horse has curling mane, narrow slender feet, small heels, … The chariot has two dark black wheels and there is a chariotpole of bronze with enamel of beautiful colour. There are two ornamented golden bridles.’

‘In the chief place in that chariot is a man with long curling hair. He wears a dark purple mantle and in his hand he grasps a broadheaded spear, bloodstained, fiery, flaming. It seems as if he has three heads of hair, to wit, dark hair next to the skin of his head, blood-red hair in the middle and the third head of hair covering him like a crown of gold. Beautifully is that hair arranged, with three coils flowing down over his shoulders. Like golden thread whose colour has been hammered out on an anvil or like the yellow of bees in the sunshine of a summer day seems to me the gleam of each separate hair. Seven toes on each of his feet; seven fingers on each of his hands.

A warrior’s grasp in each of his hands (gloss).

In his eyes the blazing of a huge fire. His horses’ hoofs maintain a steady pace.’

‘In front of him is a charioteer fully worthy of his master. He has curling jet-black hair, a great head of hair. He wears a fullskirted hooded cape with an opening at his elbows and a light-grey mantle. In his hand he holds a beautiful golden horsewhip

In his hand a goad of white silver (alternative reading incorporated in text)

with which he goads the horses along whatever road the valorous warrior

He is his friend (gloss, incorporated in text)

in the chariot travels…’

And Fer Diad said to his charioteer: ‘Arise, lad,’ said Fer Diad. ‘Too highly do you extol that man. Prepare the weapons for our encounter with him at the ford.’

‘If I were to turn my face in the direction to which my back is now turned, I think that the shafts of the chariot would pierce the nape of my neck.’

‘O lad,’ said Fer Diad, ‘too highly do you extol Cú Chulainn, for he has not given you a reward for your praise.’ And as he described him, he said

1. It is time now for help for this is no deed of friendship (? ). Be silent. Do not praise him for he is no overhanging doom. If you see the hero of Cúailnge with his proud feats, then he shall be dealt with by us. Since it is for reward, he shall soon be destroyed.

2. If I see the hero of Cúailnge with his proud feats, he does not flee from us but towards us he comes. Though skilful, he is not grudging. For his excellence we praise him. He runs and not slowly but like the swift thunderbolt.

3. So greatly have you praised him that it is almost ground for a quarrel. Why have you chosen him (for praise) since he came forth from his dwelling? Now they are challenging him and attacking him, and only cowardly churls come to attack him.

Not long afterwards they met in the middle of the ford, and Fer Diad said to Cú Chulainn ‘Where do you come from, Cúa?’

For Cúa is the word for squinting in old Irish and Cú Chulainn had seven pupils in his royal eyes, two of which were asquint. But this was more an adornment than a disfigurement to Cú Chulainn, and if he had had a greater bodily blemish, Fer Diad would undoubtedly have taunted him with that. And as Fer Diad proclaimed this, he made a lay and Cú Chulainn made answer until the lay was ended.

1. Whence do you come, O Cúa, to fight with fresh strength? Your flesh will be blood-red above the steam of your horses. Woe to him who comes as you do, for it will be as vain as the kindling of a fire with one stick of firewood. You will be in need of healing if you reach your home again.

2. I have come, a wild boar of troops and herds, before warriors, before battalions, before hundreds, to thrust you beneath the waters of the pool. In anger against you and to prove you in a many-sided encounter, so that harm may come to you as you defend your life.

3. How shall we meet? Shall we groan over corpses as we meet at the ford? Shall it be with strong spear-points or with hard swords that you will be slain before your hosts if your time has come?

4. Before sunset, before nightfall, if you are in straits … When you meet with Boirche, the battle will be bloody. The Ulstermen are calling you. They have taken you unawares(?) Evil will be the sight for them. They will be utterly defeated.

5. You have come to the gap of danger. The end of your life is at hand. Sharp weapons will be wielded on you. It will be no gentle purpose. A great champion will slay (you). Two shall meet in conflict. You shall not be the leader of even three men from now until doomsday.

6. When we were with Scáthach, by dint of our wonted valour we would fare forth together and traverse every land. You were my loved comrade, my kith and kin. Never found I one dearer to me. Sad will be your death.

7. Leave off your warning. You are the most boastful man on earth. You shall have neither reward nor remission for you are no outstanding hero. Well I know that you are but a nervous lad, you with the heart of a fluttering bird, without valour, without vigour.

8. Too much do you neglect your honour that we may not do battle, but before the cock crows your head will be impaled on a spit. O Cú Chulainn of Cúailnge, frenzy and madness have seized you. All evil shall come to you from us, for yours is the guilt.

Then Cú Chulainn asked his charioteer to urge him on when he was overcome and to praise him when he was victorious fighting against his opponent.

So his charioteer said to him ‘Your opponent goes over you as a tail goes over a cat. He belabours you as flag-heads(?) are beaten in a pond. He chastises you as a fond woman chastises her son.’

Then they betook themselves to the ‘ford-feat,’ and did all that Scáthach had taught both of them. They performed wonderful feats. After that Cú Chulainn leapt on to Fer Diad’s shield, and Fer Diad cast him off three times into the ford, so that the charioteer kept on inciting him once more. Cú Chulainn swelled and grew big as a bladder does when inflated. His size increased so that he was bigger than Fer Diad.

‘Look out for the gaí bulga!’ cried the charioteer and cast it to him downstream. Cú Chulainn caught it between his toes and cast it at Fer Diad into his anus. It was as a single barb it entered but it became twenty-four (in Fer Diad’s body). Thereupon Fer Diad lowered his shield. Cú Chulainn struck him with the spear above the shield, and it broke his ribs and pierced Fer Diad’s heart.

1. Strong is the spear-shaft cast by your right hand. My ribs like spoils are broken; my heart is gore. Well did I fight, but I have fallen, O Cúa!

2. Alas, O noble warrior! O brave Fer Diad! O strong and beautiful smiter, your arm was victorious.

3. Our friendship was fair, O delight of my eyes! Your shield had a golden rim. Your sword was beautiful.

4. Your ring of white silver on your noble hand. Your chess-set of great worth. Your cheeks were rosy and beautiful.

5. Your curling yellow hair was thick—a fair jewel. Your girdle, supple and ornamented, you wore around your side.

6. Alas! my loved one, that you should fall at the hand of Cú Chulainn! Your shield which you wore against force afforded you no protection.

7. Our fight … our sorrow, the din of our battle. Fine was the great champion. Every army was defeated and trampled underfoot. Alas! O noble warrior, Fer Diad!

1. All was play and pleasure until I met with Fer Diad in the ford. Alas for the noble champion laid low there at the ford.

2. All was play and sport until I met with Fer Diad at the ford. I thought that beloved Fer Diad would live after me for ever.

While the enemy hosts were going south from Áth Fhit Diad, Cú Chulainn lay there wounded until Senoll Úathach came to him ahead of the others and Senoll was there with the two Meic Fhice. They brought Cú Chulainn back to the streams of Conaille Muirthemne to heal and bathe his wounds therein. These are the names of those rivers: Sás, Buan Bithshlán, Finnglas, Gleóir, Bedg, Tadg, Talaméd, Rind, Bir, Breinide, Cumang, Cellend, Gaenemain, Dichu, Muach, Miliuc, Den, Delt, Dubglaise. While Cú Chulainn went to bathe in those rivers, the army went south past him and made their encampment at Imorach Smiromrach. Mac Roth left the army and went north to watch out for the men of Ulster, and he came to Slíab Fúait to find out if he might see anyone pursuing them. He told them that he saw only one chariot.

The Chief Episodes of the Táin

The Hard Fight of Cethern mac Fintain, the Tooth-fight of Fintan, the Red Shame of Mend, the Bloodless Fight of Rochad, the Humorous Fight of Iliach, the Missile-throwing of the Charioteers, the Trance of Aimirgin, the Repeated Warning of Súaltaim, the

Mustering of the Ulstermen, the Trance of Dubthach, the Trance of Cormac Con Longes, the Array of the Companies, the Final Decision in Battle, the Fight of the Bulls, the Adventures of Dub Cúailnge on the Foray.

The Hard Fight of Cethern

‘I see a chariot coming across the plain from the north today,’ said Mac Roth, ‘and (in the chariot) a grey-haired man, unarmed except for a silver spike which he holds in his hand. It seems as if the mist of May surrounds the chariot. With the spike he pricks both charioteer and horses, for he thinks he will scarcely reach the host alive. Before him runs a brindled hunting-dog.’

‘Who is that, Fergus?’ asked Ailill. ‘Is it likely to be Conchobar or Celtchair?’

‘It is not likely,’ said Fergus. ‘But I think it might be Cethern, the generous, red-sworded son of Fintan.’ And so indeed it was.

Then Cethern attacked them throughout the encampment and killed many. And he himself was grievously wounded and came from the fighting to Cú Chulainn, with his entrails lying about his feet. Cú Chulainn had compassion on him for his wounding.

‘Get me a physician,’ said Cethern to Cú Chulainn. A litter-bed of fresh rushes with a pillow on it was prepared for him. Then Cú Chulainn sent Láeg to Fiacha mac Fir Fhebe in the encampment of the banished Ulstermen to seek physicians, and said that he would kill them all even if they were to take refuge underground in the encampment unless they came to him to cure Cethern. The physicians found this no pleasant prospect for there was none in the camp whom Cethern would not wound. However the physicians came forth to see Cethern. The first physician who came to him examined him.

‘You will not live,’ said he. ‘Neither will you,’ said Cethern, and struck him a blow with his fist which caused his brains to gush out over his ears. In the same way he killed fifty physicians, or he killed fifteen of them. The last man received only a glancing blow which caused him to swoon. He was later rescued by Cú Chulainn. They sent messengers then to Fíngin, the seer-physician, Conchobar’s own physician, asking him to come and examine Cú Chulainn and Cethern.

‘It is not right for you,’ said Cú Chulainn to Cethern, ‘to kill the physicians. It will not be possible to get any (more) of them to come to you.’

‘It was not right for them to give me a bad prognosis.’ For each physician who examined him used to say that he would not live, that he was not curable, so then Cethern used to strike him with his fist.

They saw Fíngin’s chariot approaching, for he had been told that Cú Chulainn and Cethern were in distress. Cú Chulainn went to meet him.

‘Examine Cethern for us,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘but do so from a distance, for he has killed fifteen of their physicians.’

Fíngin came to Cethern. He examined him from afar off.

‘Examine me,’ said Cethern. ‘This first thrust that I received I find painful.’

‘Those are wounds inflicted by a proud and foolish woman,’ said Fíngin.

‘It is likely that it is so,’ said Cethern. ‘There came to me a tall beautiful woman with pale, tender face and long cheeks. She had long fair hair and two golden birds on her shoulder. She wore a dark purple hooded mantle. On her back she carried a shield five hands in breadth and overlaid with gold. In her hand a javelin, keen, sharp-edged and light. A sword with pointed hilt across her shoulders. Great was her beauty. She it was who first came to me and wounded me.’

‘Aye indeed,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘That was Medb from Crúachu.’

‘These are slight wounds inflicted unwillingly by a kinsman. They will not prove fatal,’ said the physician.

‘That is so,’ said Cethern. ‘A warrior came to me. He carried a curved shield with scalloped rim. In his hand a spear with bent point, across his shoulders an ivory-hilted sword. He had a crest of hair and wore a brown cloak in which was a silver pin wrapped about him. He got a slight wound from me.’

‘I know him,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘That was Illann, the son of Fergus mac Róig.’

‘This is the attack of two warriors,’ said the physician.

‘That is true,’ said Cethern. ‘Two men came to me. They bore long shields, each with two hard chains of silver and a silver boss. They had two five-pronged spears round which was a silver ring. They had thick heads of hair and each man wore a necklet of silver.’

‘I know them,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘Those were Oll and Oichne, the two foster-sons of Ailill and Medb. They never go to an assembly but that they are sure to kill someone. It was they who wounded you.’

‘Two other warriors came to me,’ said Cethern. ‘They had splendid bright equipment and they themselves were manly.’

‘I know them,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘Those were Bun and Mecon of the king’s household.’

‘These wounds are grave,’ said the physician. ‘They have gone right through your heart and pierced it tranversely. I cannot undertake to heal them. Yet I have such skill that they may not prove fatal.’

‘This is the bloody onset of the two sons of the King of Caill,’ said the physician.

‘That is true,’ said Cethern. ‘There came to me two grey-haired warriors, each carrying a wooden vessel on his back. Indeed,’ said Cethern, ‘this spear pierced one of them.’

‘I know them,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘They were noble warriors from Medb’s great household. They were Bróen and Láiréne, the two sons of three lights, the two sons of the King of Caill.’

‘This is the attack of three warriors,’ said Fíngin, the physician.

‘That is true,’ said he. ‘There came to me three men of equal size, linked together with a chain of bronze … ’

‘Those were the three warriors of Banba, followers of Cú Raí mac Dáire.’

‘This is the onset of three champions,’ said Fíngin.

‘That is true,’ said he. ‘Three champions came to me bearing the equipment of warriors. Each had a silver chain around his neck and carried a handful of javelins. Each man of them thrust a spear into me, and I thrust this spear into each of them.’

‘Those were three of the warriors of Irúath,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘For their fierceness they were chosen to kill you,’ said the physician. ‘Indeed they have severed the sinews of your heart within you so that it rolls about in you like a ball of thread in an empty bag.’

‘I cannot cure (you) (?),’ said Fíngin. ‘This is the attack of three bloody-minded men,’ said Fíngin.

‘That is so,’ said Cethern. ‘Three tall stout men came to me. They were inciting me even before they reached me. They had three grey heads of hair.’

‘Those were the three stewards of Medb and Ailill, Scenb and Rand and Fodail,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘These are three hostile blows,’ said Fíngin

‘True,’ said Cethern. ‘Three warriors came to me. Each had a head of thick black hair and wore a vari-coloured cape. They carried in their hands three iron clubs.’

‘Those were the three called Fráech Baíscne, the three tableservants of Medb,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘This is the attempt of two brothers,’ said Fíngin.

‘That is true,’ said Cethern. ‘There came to me two choice warriors. They wore dark-grey mantles and carried curved shields with scalloped rim. Each had in his hand a broad shining spear on a slender shaft.’

‘I know them,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘They were Cormac Colomon ind Ríg, and Cormac Maíle Ogath.’

‘Numerous indeed are the wounds they both inflicted on you,’ said the physician. ‘They have pierced your throat and their spears moved about within you.’

‘These are the wounds inflicted by two brothers,’ said the physician.

‘That is likely,’ said Cethern. ‘Two warriors came to me. One had curling yellow hair, the other curling brown hair. They bore white shields ornamented with animal designs in gold. Each had a white-hilted sword across his shoulder. They wore hooded tunics with red insertion.’

‘I know them,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘Those were Maine Aithremail and Maine Máithremail.’ ‘These are the thrusts delivered by father and son,’ said the physician.

‘That is so,’ said Cethern. ‘There came to me two huge men with shining eyes, wearing golden diadems on their heads. Each man had at his waist a golden- hilted sword. Scabbards reaching to the haft of each sword and a ring of variegated gold around each.’

‘I know them,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘That was Ailill with his son, Maine Condasgeb Uile.’

‘What prognosis do you give me, master Fíngin?’ asked Cethern.

‘In truth,’ said Fíngin, ‘you should not exchange your grown cows for yearlings now. As long as your attackers were numbered only in twos and threes, it was easy to cure you. But when you bear wounds inflicted by many, you are destined to die in any case,’ With that Fíngin turned the chariot away from him.

‘You pronounce judgment on me like the rest,’ (said Cethern). So he struck Fíngin a blow of his fist so that he fell across the shafts of the chariot and the whole chariot resounded.

Then said Cú Chulainn ‘That is a wicked kick of yours for an old man (?).’ Hence is still the name Ú;achtar Lúa in Crích Rois.

‘You should have attacked enemies rather than physicians,’ said Cú Chulainn.

Then the physician Fíngin offered Cethern a choice: either to lie sick for a year and then survive, or straightaway to have sufficient strength for three days and three nights to attack his enemies. The latter is what Cethern chose.

Then Cú Chulainn asked for marrow for the physician to cure Cethern. He made a marrow-mash from the bones of the cattle he encountered. Hence the name Smirommair in Crích Rois. After absorbing the marrow, Cethern slept for a day and a night.

‘I have no ribs,’ complained Cethern. ‘Put the ribs of the chariot frame in me.’

‘You shall have that,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘If I had my own weapons,’ said Cethern, ‘the deeds I should perform would be remembered for ever.’

‘What I see now seems fine,’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘What do you see?’ asked Cethern.

‘I think it is the chariot of your wife Find Bee, the daughter of Eochu, coming towards us.’

They saw the woman bringing Cethern’s weapons in the chariot. Cethern seized his weapons and attacked the host then with the framework of his chariot bound to his belly to give him more strength.

That physician, who had escaped from Cethern and lain unconscious among the corpses of the other physicians now carried a warning of Cethern’s arrival into the encampment. Then through fear of Cethern, Ailill’s crown was put upon the pillar-stone.

Cethern rushed at the pillar-stone and drove his sword through it and his fist after the sword. Hence the place-name Lia Toll in Crích Rois. ‘This is a trick!’ he cried. ‘I shall not cease to attack you until I see this diadem of Ailill on one of you.’ Then for a day and a night he attacked them, until Maine put the diadem on his head and came forward in his chariot. Cethern threw after Maine his shield which split him and his charioteer and went right through the horses into the ground. Then the host hemmed Cethern in on all sides and he attacked them and fell dead among them so doing.

The Tooth-Fight of Fintan

Fintan came then to avenge his son’s death on them. Thrice fifty armed men was the number of his company. They had two spear-heads on each shaft and they were wrapt in mantles. Fintan fought seven battles with the enemy and none of his men escaped, only he himself and his son. Then through fear of Fintan his son was separated from him and was rescued by Ailill under a shelter of shields on condition that Fintan should not attack them until he came with Conchobar to the great battle. So Fintan made a truce with them for delivering his son to him.

The Red Shame of Mend

Then there came to them Mend mac Sálchada with a band of thirty armed men. Twelve of them fell at Mend’s hand and twelve of his own people fell too. Mend himself was grievously wounded while his men were red with blood. Hence the name Ruadrucca Mind, the Red Shame of Mend. Afterwards they evacuated the encampment for Mend and he killed no more of them save only the twelve. He was told that no guilt attached to them for they had not gone near his dwelling by the Boyne in Coirenna. For in fact it was no disgrace to yield the encampment to him until he should come with Conchobar to the great battle.

The Bloodless Fight of Rochad

Then there came to them Rochad Rigderg mac Faithemain of Ulster with thirty armed men. He took up his position on a hillock near them, and his arrival was announced in the encampment. Then Finnabair said that he was her first love.

‘If you have loved him,’ said Ailill and Medb, ‘crave a truce of him until such time as he comes with Conchobar to the great battle, and spend tomorrow night with him.’

All this was done, though it was not easy to get him to come. Rochad’s tent was pitched for him at the place called Finnabair, and he spent the night with the girl.

This was told to the seven kings from Munster. One of them said: ‘I was promised this girl on the surety of fifteen men, in requital for coming on this hosting.’

All seven of them confessed that the same bargain had been made with each of them. So they went to take revenge for it on the sons of Ailill in Glenn Domain where they were guarding the rear of the army.

Medb rushed to the rescue. So did the division of the Leinstermen. So too Ailill and Fergus. Seven hundred fell there in the battle of Glenn Domain. That is Bángleó Rochada and Imshlige Glenndomnach. Finnabair heard of this, namely, that seven hundred men had died because of her. She fell dead there of shame. Hence the place-name Finnabair Sléibe.

The Humorous Fight of Iliach

There came then to them at Áth Feidle Iliach, the grandfather of Lóegaire Búadach who was son of Connad Buide meic Iliach. Iliach was being cared for with filial piety by his grandson in Ráith Immail. He announced to the host that they would die at his hand in revenge.

So he came in this wise: in his shaky, worn-out chariot, without rugs or covering, drawn by two old sorrel nags. And he filled his chariot with stones as high as the skin-coverings. He kept striking all those who came to gaze at him, stark-naked as he was, long- membered, with the clapar down through the frame of the chariot. Then the host noticed in what manner he came and they mocked the naked man. Dócha mac Mágach checked the jeering of the rabble. And for that Iliach told Dócha that at the day’s end he, Dócha, should take Iliach’s sword and strike his head off, provided only that Iliach had exerted all his strength against the host. At that point Iliach noticed the marrow-mash. He was told that it had been made from the bones of the cows of Ulster. So then he made another marrow-mash from the bones of the men of Connacht beside it, so that the two marrow-mashes are there together. Then in the evening Dócha struck off Iliach’s head and carried it to his grandson. He made peace with him and Láegaire kept Iliach’s sword.

That is Mellgleó Iiach, (so called) because the host laughed at him.

The Missile-throwing of the Charioteers

The army came to Tailtiu then. The charioteers of Ulster, in number thrice fifty, attacked them. Three times their own number fell by the charioteers, and they themselves fell.

Roí Arad is the name of the spot where they fell together with their tackle on the Foray.

The Trance of Aimirgin

This then is the trance of Aimirgin in Tailtiu. In his trance Aimirgin pelted them so that no man could be found to raise his head in Tailtiu. Then came Cú Raí mac Dáire to the host to fight against Cú Chulainn. He was told how Cú Chulainn had opposed the men of Ireland single-handed during the three months of winter. Cú Raí thought it did not befit a man to attack one stabbed and wounded, for Cú Chulainn had been wounded and lost much blood. So then Cú Raí hurled stones directly against Aimirgin, instead of Cú Chulainn, and the stones collided in the air. Cú Raí asked Aimirgin to let the cattle go past Tailtiu. Aimirgin permitted it. However, it was not to be wondered at that they were carried off with difficulty. Cú Raí promised Aimirgin that he would not remain with the host from that time on. So it was done. Cú Raí went away from the host at once. When Aimirgin saw that they challenged him by turning the left board of their chariots to Tailtiu and Ráith Airthir, he began once more to pelt them.

This is one of the three (slaughters) which cannot be counted, namely, the great number of them that he killed. And his son Conall Cernach remained by him, furnishing him with stones and darts.

The Repeated Warning of Súaltaim

While these events which we have related were taking place, Súaltaim from Ráith Súaltaim in Mag Muirthemne heard how his son had been harassed by the twleve sons of Gaile Dána and his sister’s son. Then said Súaltaim:

‘Is it the sky that cracks, or the sea that overflows its bounderies, or the earth that splits, or is it the loud cry of my son fighting against odds?’ Then he went to his son.

But Cú Chulainn was not pleased that he should come to him, for though he was wounded, Súaltaim would not be strong enough to avenge him.

‘Go to the men of Ulster,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘and let them give battle to the warriors at once. If they do not, vengeance will never be taken on them.’

Then his father saw that there was not on Cú Chulainn’s body a spot which the tip of a rush could cover which was not pierced, and even his left hand which the shield protected bore fifty wounds.

Súaltaim came to Emain and called out to the men of Ulster ‘Men are slain, women carried off, cattle driven away!’ His first shout was from the side of the court, his second from the ramparts of the royal residence, his third from the Mound of the Hostages in Emain.

No one answered, for it was tabu for the Ulstermen that any of them should speak before Conchobar, and Conchobar, spoke only before the three druids.

‘Who carries them off? Who drives them away? Who slays them?’ asked the druid.

‘Ailill mac Máta slays them, carries them off, drives them away, with the guidance of Fergus mac Róig,’ said Súaltaim. ‘Your people have been harassed as far as Dún Sobairche. Their cows, their women-folk and their cattle have been carried off. Cú Chulainn has not let them come into Mag Muirthemne and Crích Rois during the three months of winter. Bent hoops (of wood) hold his mantle (from touching him). Dry wisps plug his wounds. He has been wounded and bled profusely (?).’

‘It were right,’ said the druid, ‘that one who so incited the king should die.’

‘It is right that he should,’ said Conchobar.

‘It is right,’ said the Ulstermen.

‘What Súaltaim says is true,’ said Conchobar. ‘From the Monday on the eve of Samain until the Monday on the eve of Spring we have been ravaged.’

Thereupon Súaltaim leapt forth, unsatisfied with the answer he had got, and he fell on to his shield and the scalloped rim of the shield cut off his head. The horse brought his head on the shield back into Emain, and the head uttered the same words.—Though others say that he had been asleep on the stone and on waking had fallen from it on to his shield.

‘Too loud was that shout indeed,’ said Conchobar. ‘(I swear by) the sea before them, the sky above them, the earth beneath them that I shall restore every cow to its byre and every woman and boy to their own homes after victory in battle.’

Then Conchobar laid an injunction on his son Findchad Fer Bend.—He was so called because he bore horns of silver.

The Muster of the Ulstermen

‘Arise, O Findchad! I send you to Dedad in his inlet, to Leamain, to Fallach, to Illann mac Fergusa, to Gabar, to Dorlunsa, to Imchlár, to Feidlimid Cilair Cétaig, to Fáeladán, to Rochaid mac Faithemain at Rigdonn, to Lugaid, to Lugda, to Cathbath in his inlet, to the three Cairpres, to Aela, to Láeg at his causeway, to Geimen in his valley, to Senoll Úathach at Diabul Arda, to Cethern mac Fintain at Carlag, to Torathor, to Mulaig in his fortress, to the royal poet Aimirgin, to the Úlathadach Fodoblaid, to the Mórrigan at Dún Sobairche, to Ieth, to Roth, to Fiachna at his mound, to Dam Dremed, to Andiaraid, to Maine mac Braitharge, to Dam Derg, to Mod, to Maithes, to Irmaithes, to Corp Cliath, to Gabarleig in Líne, to Eochaid Sainmech in Saimne, to Eochaid Lathach at Latharna, to Uma mac Remarbisi in Fedan, to Muinremur mac Gerrgind, to Senlobair at Canainn Gall, to Follamain, to Lugaid rí Fer mBolc, to Laige Líne, to Búaidgalach, to Ambúach, to Fergna, to Barrene, to Áine, to Errgi Echbél at his hill, to Celtchar mac Cuithechair in Lethglais, to Láegaire Milbél at Breo Láegairi, to the three sons of Dromscalt mac Dregamm, to Drenda, to Drendas, to Cimb, to Cimling, to Cimmene, to Fána Caba, to Fachtna mac Senchath in his rath, to Senchaid at Senchairthe, to Briccir, to Bricirne, to Breic, to Buan, to Bairech, to Óengus mac Leiti, to Fergus mac Leiti, to Óengus Fer mBolg, to Bruachur, to Alamiach the warrior at Slánge, to the three sons of Fiachna in Cúailnge, to Conall Cernach in Midlúachair, to Connad mac Morna in Callainn, to Cú Chulainn mac Súaltaim in Muirthemne, to Aimirgin at Eas Rúaid, to Lóeg, to Léiri, to Menn mac Salcholca at Coirenna, to Cú Rí mac Armargin in his rath, to Óengus Fer Berm Umai, to Ogma Grianainech, to Brecc, to Eo mac Oircne, to Toillchenn to Saithe, to Mogoll Echbél in Magna, to Conla Sáeb, to Carba, to Láegaire Buadach in Immail, to Alile Amargine in Tailtiu, to Furbaide Fer Benn, to Seil, to Manes, to Cuscraid Menn Macha, to Fíngin at Finngabra, to Cremath, to Blae Fichit, to Blae Brugaich, to Fesair, to Eógan mac Durthacht in Fernmag, to Ord, to Seirid, to Serthe, to Oblán, to Cuilén, to Curether at Liana, to Eithbenne, to Fernél, to Finnchath at Slíab Betha, to Talgobain at Bernas, to Menn mac Fer Calca, of Maig Dula, to Íroll, to Bláirige at Tibraite mac Ailchatha, to Ialla Ingraimme of Mag Dobla, to Ros mac Ailchatha, to Mane mac Cruinn, to Nindich mac Cruinn, to Dipsemilid, to Mál mac Rochraidi, to Muinne mac Munremair, to Fiatach Fer nDohre mac Dubthaig, to Muirne Menn.’

It was not difficult, however, for Findchad to deliver that summons, for all of the province of Conchobar, every lord among them, was awaiting Conchobar. All those who were east or north or west of Emain came now to Emain Macha.

When they had assembled they heard that Conchobar had recovered from his debility in Emain. They went on past Emain to the south in pursuit of the (enemy) host. The first stage of their journey was from Emain to Iraird Cuillenn.

‘What are you waiting for here?’ asked Conchobar.

‘We are waiting for your sons,’ said the host.

‘They have gone with a company of soldiers to Tara to seek Erc, the son of Cairbre Nia Fer and of Feidelm Noíchride. We shall not leave this spot, until the two companies come to join us.’

‘I shall not wait, indeed,’ said Conchobar, ‘until the men of Ireland learn that I have recovered from the debility in which I have been.’

So Conchobar and Celtchair went off with thrice fifty chariot fighters, and brought back eight score (enemy) heads from Áth Airthir Mide. Hence the name Áth Féne. These men had been there keeping guard against Conchobar’s army. Their share of the booty was eight score women. Their heads were brought there and Conchobar and Celtchair sent them to the encampment.

Then Celtchair said to Conchobar: ‘Ramparts with bloodstained sides and a valorous king … with spoils of war … On Conchobar’s behalf we prepare for battle. His warriors rouse themselves. Battle will be fought(?) at Gáirech and Irgáirech,’ said he.

—Or it may have been Cúscraid Menn Macha, the son of Conchobar, who chanted this song of exhortation on the night before the great battle, after Láegaire Buadach had chanted his song ‘Arise, kings of Macha. Be on your guard etc.’, and it may have been sung in the eastern encampment. That was the night when Dubthach Dóel Mad saw a vision in which the army stood at Gáirech and Irgáirech, and in his trance he spoke:

The Vision of Dubthach

‘A wonderful morning for a battle, a wonderful time when armies will be thrown into confusion, kings will be overthrown, men’s necks will be broken and the sand will be red with blood. Three armies will be overcome in the wake of the army led by Conchobar.

They will defend their womenfolk. Their herds will come on the morning after. Heroes will be slain. Hounds will be checked. Horses will be destroyed … from the assemblies of great tribes.’ Thereupon he awoke from his trance. The war-goddess attacked the host. A hundred of them fell dead. When they fell silent(?) they heard Cormac Con Longes once more—Or it may have been Ailill mac Máta chanting in the encampment in the west.

The Trance of Ailill

‘Great is the truce, the truce of Cuillenn. Great the parleys, the parleys of Delend. Great the cavalcades (?), the cavalcades of Asal. Great the afflictions, the afflictions of Túath Bressi.’

The March of the Companies

Now while these prophetic visions were happening the men of Connacht, on the advice of Ailill and Medb and Fergus, decided to send messengers to see if the men of Ulster had reached the plain.

Then said Ailill: ‘Go, Mac Roth, and find out for us if those men are in this plain of Meath where we now are, I have carried off their cattle and their prey. They will give me battle if they so wish. But if they have not reached the plain, I shall not await them here any longer.’

So Mac Roth went to reconnoitre the plain. He returned again to Ailill and Medb and Fergus. The first time Mac Roth gazed into the distance around Slíab Fúait, he saw that all the wild beasts had come out of the wood into the whole plain. ‘The second time I looked out over the plain,’ said Mac Roth, ‘I saw that a dense mist had filled the glens and valleys, so that the hills between them rose up like islands in lakes. Then I saw sparks of fire flashing in that dense mist, and I seemed to see the variegation of every colour in the world. Then I saw the lightning and I heard the din and the thunder, and I felt a great wind which almost blew the hair from my head and threw me on my back, and yet the wind that day was not strong.’

‘What was that, Fergus?’ said Ailill. ‘Identify it.’

‘It is not hard for me to recognize what it is,’ said Fergus. ‘Those are the men of Ulster now recovered from their debility. It was they who rushed into the wood. It was the multitiude, the greatness and the violence of the warriors that shook the wood. It is from them the wild beasts fled into the plain. The dense mist you saw which filled the valleys was the breath of those champions which filled the glens and made the hills to rise among them like islands in lakes. The lightning and the flashes of fire and the varied colours that you saw, Mac Roth’, said Fergus, ‘were the eyes of the warriors flashing in their heads like sparks of fire. The thunder and the din and the great uproar that you heard, that was the whistling of swords and ivory-hilted rapiers, the clatter of weapons, the creaking of chariots, the hoof-beats of the horses, the might of the chariot- fighters, the loud roaring of the warriors, the shouts of the soldiers, the ardour and anger and fierceness of the heroes as they rushed in fury to battle. So great is their anger and excitement that they think they will never arrive.’

‘We shall await them,’ said Ailill. ‘We have warriors to encounter them.’

‘You will need them,’ said Fergus. ‘For not in all Ireland nor in the western world from Greece and Scythia westwards to the Orkneys and the Pillars of Hercules and to Tor Breogain (Corunna) and the Islands of Gades (Cadiz), will anyone be found who can withstand the men of Ulster when they are in their rage and anger.’

After that Mac Roth went once more to survey the march of the men of Ulster and came to their encampment in Slemain Mide. He came back to Ailill and Medb and Fergus, and gave them a detailed description, and describing them he spoke as follows: ‘There came on to the hill at Slemain Mide,’ said Mac Roth, ‘a great company, fierce, powerful, proud. I think that it numbered three thousand. At once they cast off their garments and dug up a turfy mound as a seat for their leader. A warrior, fair, slender, tall, pleasant, led that company. Fairest in form among kings was he. He had yellow hair, curled, well-arranged, trimmed and wavy, which reached to the hollow between his shoulders. He wore a purple mantle wrapped about him with a beautful brooch of red gold in the mantle over his breast. He had shining, beautiful eyes. His countenance was crimson and comely, narrow below, broad above. He had a forked beard, very curly, golden-yellow. He wore a white hooded tunic with red insertion. Across his shoulders he had a gold-hilted sword, and he carried a white shield with animal designs in gold. In his hand he held a broad shining spear on a slender shaft. His array was the finest of all the princes of the world, alike as regards followers and fierceness and beauty, equipment and garments, as regards terror and battle and triumph, prowess and fearsomeness and dignity.’

‘There came too another company,’ said Mac Roth. ‘They were almost the same as the other in numbers and arrangement and equipment, in dreadfulness and fearsomeness. A fair heroic warrior in the van of that company. A green cloak wrapped about him and a golden brooch on his shoulder. He had yellow curling hair. He carried an ivory-hilted sword at his left side. He wore a bordered(?) tunic reaching to his knee. He carried a smiting shield with scalloped rim. In his hand a spear like a palace torch with a silver band around it which runs now back from shaft to spearhead, now down again to the grip. That company took up position on the left hand of the leader of the first band. And the position they took was with knee to ground and shield-rim held to chin. It seemed to me that the tall haughty warrior who led that band stammered in his speech.’

‘There came yet another band,’ said Mac Roth. ‘It looked to be more than three thousand. A valiant man, handsome and broad headed, was in the van. He had brown curling hair and a long, forked, fine-haired beard. A dark-grey fringed cloak was wrapped about him, with a leaf-shaped brooch of white gold over his breast. He wore a white hooded tunic reaching to his knee. He carried a variegated shield with animal designs. A sword of bright silver with rounded hilt at his waist, and a five-pronged spear in his hand. He sat down in front of the leader of the first company.’

‘Who were those, Fergus?’ asked Ailill.

‘We know those companies indeed,’ said Fergus. ‘It was Conchobar, the king of a province in Ireland, who sat down on the mound of turf. It was Sencha mac Ailella, the eloquent speaker of Ulster, who sat down in front of Conchobar. It was Cúscraid Menn Macha, Conchobar’s son, who sat at his father’s hand. That spear which Cúscraid has is wont to behave thus before victory; at no other time does the ring run (up and down). Those who came there were goodly men to inflict wounds in the attack of every conflict,’ added Fergus.

‘They will find men to answer them here,’ said Medb.

‘I swear by my people’s god,’ said Fergus, ‘that until now there has not been born in Ireland an army which could ever check the Ulstermen.’

‘There came still another company,’ said Mac Roth, ‘in number more than three thousand. In the van was a tall, valiant warrior, hideous, fearsome, swarthy and with fiery countenance. He had dark brown hair which lay smooth and fine over his forehead. He carried a curved shield with scalloped rim. In his hand he had a five-pronged spear and with it a pronged javelin. He bore across his back a bloodstained sword. Around him was wrapped a purple mantle with a golden brooch on his shoulder. He wore a white hooded tunic reaching to his knee.’

‘Who was that, Fergus?’ asked Ailill.

‘He who came there is the starting of strife, a warrior for conflict, the doom of enemies, to wit, Eógan mac Durrthacht, King of Farney,’ said Fergus.

‘Another great, haughty band came on to the hill in Slemain Mide,’ said Mac Roth. ‘They cast off their garments. In truth they marched valiantly to the hill. Great the horror and vast the fear they brought with them. Terrible the clatter of arms they made as they marched. In the van of the company a man, bigheaded, valiant, heroic, fierce and hideous. He had fine grizzled hair and great yellow eyes. A yellow mantle with a white border wrapped around him. Outside this he carried a smiting shield with scalloped rim. In his hand he held a spear, broad-bladed and longheaded with a drop of blood on its shaft, and a similar spear with the blood of enemies along its edge. A great smiting sword across his shoulders.’

‘Who was that, Fergus?’ asked Ailill.

‘The warrior who came there shuns not battle nor conflict nor contest. It was Lóegaire Búadach mac Connaid meic Iliach from Immail in the north,’ said Fergus.

‘Another great company came to the hill in Slemain Mide,’ said Mac Roth. ‘A handsome warrior, thick-necked, corpulent, led that company. He had black curling hair and he was swarthy-faced with ruddy cheeks. Shining grey eyes in his head. He wore a duncoloured mantle of curly wool in which was a brooch of white silver. He carried a black shield with boss of bronze, and in his hand he held a shimmering perforated(?) spear. He wore a plaited tunic with red insertion. Outside his garments he carried an ivoryhilted sword.’

‘Who was that, Fergus?’ asked Ailill.

‘He who came is the stirring up of strife. He is the stormy wave which overwhelms streamlets. He is the man of three shouts. He is the threatening doom of enemies,’ said Fergus. ‘That was Munremur mac Gerrcind from Modorn in the north.’

‘There came still another great company to the hill in Slemain Mide,’ said Mac Roth. ‘A company beautiful and splendid in numbers and arrangement and equipment. Proudly they made for the hill. The clatter of arms they made as they advanced shook the whole army. A handsome and noble warrior led that company. Most beautiful of men was his appearance, alike for hair and eyes and skin, alike for equipment and appearance, and voice and fairness, for dignity, size and honour, for arms and excellence and for garments and weapons and proportion, for worth and wisdom and lineage.’

‘That is his (exact) description,’ said Fergus. ‘That handsome man Feidlimid who came there is the brilliance of fire, the proud hero, the stormy wave which engulfs, the force, which cannot be endured, with victories in other lands after he has slaughtered his enemies (at home). That was Feidlimid Cilair Cétaig.’

‘There came still another band to the hill in Slemain Mide,’ said Mac Roth, ‘no fewer than three thousand in number. In the front of the band a tall, valiant warrior, of dusky complexion, well-proportioned … He had black curling hair, round eyes, dull and haughty in his head. He was a strong, bull- like, rough man. He wore a grey mantle with a silver pin on his shoulder, and a white hooded tunic was wrapped around him. He carried a sword on his thigh and bore a red shield with a boss of hard silver. In his hand was a broad-bladed spear with three rivets.’

‘Who was that, Fergus?’ asked Ailill. ‘He who came there is the fierce ardour of anger, the one who dares(?) every conflict, who wins every battle. That was Connad mac Mornai from Callann,’ said Fergus.

‘There came still another company to the hill in Slemain Mide,’ said Mac Roth. ‘In size it appears an army. Not often is found a hero finer in form and equipment and garments than the leader in the van of that company. He had trimmed auburn hair. His face was comely, ruddy, well-proportioned, a face narrow below and broad above. His lips were red and thin, his teeth shining and pearl-like, his voice loud and clear. His was the most beautiful of the forms of men. He wore a purple mantle wrapped around him with a brooch inlaid with gold over his white breast. On his left side, a curved shield with animal emblems in many colours and a boss of silver. In his hand a long spear with shining edge and a sharp, aggressive dagger. On his back a sword with golden hilt. A tunic, hooded and with red insertion, wrapped about him.’

‘Who was that, Fergus?’ asked Ailill.

‘We know him indeed,’ said Fergus. ‘He who came there is indeed a worthy adversary, he is the dividing of a combat, he is the fierce ardour of a blood- hound. That was Rochaid mac Faithemain from Brig Dumae, your son-in-law, he who wedded your daughter Finnabair.’

‘There came still another company to the hill in Slemain Mide,’ said Mac Roth. ‘A warrior brawny-legged, thick-thighed and tall in the forefront of that company. Each of his limbs was almost as thick as a man. In truth he was every inch a man,’ said he. ‘He had black hair and a ruddy, scarred countenance. A noble eye of many colours in his head. A splendid, eager man was he thus with fearsomeness and horror. He had wonderful equipment in clothes and weapons and raiment and splendour and attire … with the triumphant exploits of a warrior, with splendid deeds, with eager pride, avoiding equal combat to vanquish overwhelming numbers, with fierce anger towards enemies, attacking many enemy lands without protection (?). In truth the company came boldly to Slemain Mide.’

‘He had(?) valour and prowess indeed,’ said Fergus, ‘he had(?) hot- bloodedness and violence, strength and diginity in the armies and troops. It was my own foster-brother, Fergus mac Leiti, King of Líne, the point of perfection in battle in the north of Ireland.’

‘There came another great, haughty company to the hill in Slemain Mide,’ said Mac Roth. ‘They wore wonderful garments. A handsome, noble warrior in the van. He had every endowment of beauty in hair and eyes and fairness, in size and demeanour and proportion. He carried a shield made of five concentric circles of gold. He wore a green mantle wrapped about him with a golden brooch in the mantle above his shoulder, and a white hooded tunic. A spear like the turret of a royal palace in his hand, a gold-hilted sword across his shoulders.’

‘Fierce is the anger of the victorious hero who came there,’ said Fergus. ‘That was Amorgene mac Eccetsalaig from Búas in the north.’

‘There came another company on to the hill in Slemain Mide,’ said Mac Roth, ‘in size like the overwhelming sea, in brightness like fire, in fierceness like a lion, in numbers a battalion, in greatness like a cliff, in strength like a rock, in combativeness like doom, in violence like thunder. A coarse-visaged, fearsome warrior in the forefront of that company, big-bellied, thick-lipped, big-nosed, redlimbed, with coarse grizzled hair. He wore a striped cloak pinned with an iron stake, and carried a curved shield with scalloped rim. He wore a rough plaited tunic and in his hand he held a great grey spear with thirty rivets. Across his shoulders he carried a sword tempered seven times by fire. All the army rose up to meet him and the host was thrown into confusion as he went towards the hill.’

‘He who came there is the leader of battle,’ said Fergus. ‘He is a worthy adversary. He is a hero in prowess. He is (like) a stormy wave which overwhelms. He is (like) the sea pouring across boundaries. That was Celtchair mac Cuithechair from Dún Lethglaise in the north.’

‘There came still another company to the hill in Slemain Mide,’ said Mac Roth. ‘A warrior, altogether fair led them. Fair in all points was he, hair and eyebrows and beard and clothing. He carried a shield with golden boss and a sword with ivory hilt. In his hand he had a great perforated spear. Bravely did the troop advance.’

‘Splendid indeed is the strong-smiting hero who came there,’ said Fergus, ‘the valiant warrior who performs great deeds against enemies and destroys men! That was Feradach Find Fechtnach from Nemed Sléibe Fúait in the north.’

‘There came still another company to the hill in Slemain Mide,’ said Mac Roth. ‘A fearsome warrior in front of that company, bigbellied, thick-lipped. His lips were as thick as those of a horse. He had brown curling hair, bright cheeks too, and a broad head and long arms. A black swinging mantle around him with a round brooch of bronze over his shoulder. A grey shield across his left side. A great spear with neck-rings in his right hand, a long sword across his shoulders.’

‘He who came is (like) a lion fiercely combative with bloodstained paws,’ said Fergus. ‘He is the warlike, valorous hero of heroic deeds. He is (like) a fiery, unendurable blast of heat across the land. That was Eirrge Echbél from Brí Eirrge in the north,’ said Fergus.

‘There came still another company to the hill in Slemain Mide,’ said Mac Roth, ‘led by two fair, youthful warriors, both alike. They had yellow hair. They carried two white shields with animal designs in silver. A slight difference of age between them. Together they raised and set down their feet; it is not their wont for one to lift his foot before the other.’

‘Who are those, Fergus?’ asked Ailill.

‘Those are two warriors, two bright flames, two points of perfection in battle, two heroes, two combative chiefs, two dragons, two fiery ones, two champions, two fighters, two scions, two bold ones, the two beloved by the Ulstermen around their king. They are Fiachna and Fíacha, two sons of Conchobar mac Nesa, the two loved ones of the north of Ireland.’

‘There came still another company to the hill in Slemain Mide,’ said Mac Roth. ‘At their head three noble, fiery swarthy-faced warriors. They had three heads of long yellow hair. Three mantles of the same colour wrapped about them with three golden brooches above their shoulders. They wore three … tunics with red insertion. They carried three similar shields, with golden-hilted swords across their shoulders and broad shining spears in their right hands. There was a slight difference of age between them.’

‘Those are the three great champions of Cuib, the three valorous ones of Midlúachair, the three chiefs of Roth, the three veterans of Airther Fúata;’ said Fergus. ‘Those are the three sons of Fiachna who have come in purusit of the Bull, to wit, Rus and Dáire and Imchad,’ said Fergus.

‘There came still another company to the hill in Slemain Mide,’ said Mac Roth. ‘A fine and fierce man in the forefront. Red eyes full of courage in his head. A vari-coloured mantle around him in which was a circular brooch of silver. He carried a grey shield on his left side, a sword with silver hilt on his thigh, and in his avenging right hand a splendid spear with sharp points (?). He wore a white hooded tunic reaching to his knee. Around him was a company bloodstained and wounded, and he too was covered with blood and wounds.’

‘That,’ said Fergus, ‘is the bold and ruthless one. He is the daring one (?)who rends. He is the boar(?) of battle. He is the mad bull. He is the victorious one from Baile, the valorous one from Bernas, the champion of Colptha, the protector of the north of Ireland, namely, Menn mac Sálchada from Coranna. It is to take vengeance on you for their wounds that that man has come.’

‘There came still another company to the hill in Slemain Mide,’ said Mac Roth, ‘and they were heroic and eager. At their head a tall, sallow-faced, long-cheeked warrior. He had brown, bushy hair. He wore a red mantle of fine wool and a golden brooch in the mantle over his shoulder. He wore a fine tunic. On his left side he had a splendid sword with bright silver hilt. He carried a red shield and in his hand he held a broad shining spear on a beautiful shaft (?) of ash.’

‘It was the man of three stout blows who came there,’ said Fergus, ‘the man of three roads, the man of three paths, the man of three highways, the man of three triumphs, the man of three battle-cries who is victorious over foes in other lands. That was Fergna mae Findchoíme from Coronn.’

‘There came still another company to the hill in Slemain Mide,’ said Mac Roth. ‘It appeared greater than three thousand in number. A handsome, fair- breasted warrior in the van of that company. He was like Ailill yonder in size and dignity, in dress and equipment. He wore a golden diadem on his head. A beautiful cloak was wrapped around him with a golden brooch in the cloak over his breast. He wore a tunic with red insertion. He carried a smiting shield with golden rims and in his hand a spear like the turret of a palace. Across his shoulders he had a goldhilted sword.’

‘The man who came there is (like) the sea inundating rivers,’ said Fergus. ‘It is the fierce ardour of a warrior. His rage against his foes cannot be borne. That was Furbaide Fer Benn.’

‘There came still another company to the hill in Slemain Mide, heroic, countless in number,’ said Mac Roth. ‘They wore strange garments unlike those of the other companies. Glorious were their weapons and their equipment and their raiment as they came. In this company was a great, proud army led by a little freckled lad. His form was the most beautiful of all men’s forms. In his hand a white-bossed, gold-studded shield with rim of gold. He held a light sharp spear which shimmered. He was wrapped in a purple, fringed mantle, with a silver brooch in the mantle over his breast. He wore a white hooded tunic with red insertion and carried outside his garments a golden-hilted sword.’ Thereupon Fergus fell silent.

‘Indeed I know not,’ said Fergus, ‘anyone like that little lad among the Ulstermen, but in fact I should think it likely that those might be the men of Tara with the fine, noble lad who is Erc, the son of Cairpre Nia Fer and of Conchobar’s daughter … Without asking permission of his father, that boy has come to the assistance of his grandfather. It is because of that lad that you will be defeated in battle. He will experience neither dread nor fear as he makes for you in the middle of your own army. Bravely will the warriors of Ulster roar as they hew down the army before them, rushing to rescue their beloved lad. They will all feel the ties of kinship when they see the boy in that great conflict. Like the baying of a blood-hound will be heard the sound of Conchobar’s sword as he comes to the boy’s rescue. Cú Chulainn will cast up three ramparts of (dead) men around the battle as he rushes towards that little lad. Mindful of their kinship with the boy, the warriors of Ulster will attack the vast (enemy) host.’

‘I find it tedious,’ said Mac Roth, ‘to recount all that I saw, but I have come at any rate to bring you tidings.’

‘You have (indeed) brought (tidings),’ said Fergus.

‘Conall Cernach, however, did not come with his great company,’ said Mac Roth, ‘nor did the three sons of Conchobar with their three divisions. Nor did Cú Chulainn come for he has been wounded fighting against odds. Except only that a single chariot-warrior who came there is probably he.’

‘The chariot was drawn by two strong-haunched steeds, with flowing tail and broad hoofs, broad in back and thin in flank, with head held high and arched neck, with thin mouth and flaring nostrils. Two black, firm(?) wheels, smooth easily-running rims, framework high and creaking and a green ornamented awning. There was a warrior, broad, ruddy-faced, in that chariot. He had a curly jet- black head of hair reaching to the hollow between his shoulders. He wore a red girded mantle. In each hand he carried four daggers and at his left side a gold- hilted sword. He had both shield and spear. He wore twenty-four shirts tied wth cords and ropes. In front of him was a charioteer whose back was turned to the horses and who held the reins between his fingers in front of him. A chess-board spread between the two, half the chessmen of yellow gold, the other half of white gold. His thighs rested on another boardgame, a búanbach. He cast nine feats aloft (?).’

‘Who were those, Fergus?’ asked Ailill.

‘Easy to tell,’ said Fergus. ‘Those were Cú Chulainn the son of Súaltaim from the fairy mounds and Lóeg mac Riangabra, Cú Chulainn’s charioteer.’

‘Many hundreds indeed and many thousands,’ said Mac Roth, ‘came to this encampment of the Ulstermen. Many heroes and champions and warriors raced their horses to the assembly. Many more companies who had not arrived at the encampment when I (first) came were coming there now. But indeed wherever my eye fell on hill or height in all the space visible to me between Áth Fhir Diad and Slemain Mide, I saw nothing save men and horses.’

‘It was indeed a brave(?) company that you saw,’ said Fergus.

Then Conchobar and his army went and made camp beside the others. He asked Ailill for a truce until sunrise on the morrow, and Ailill guaranteed it on behalf of the men of Ireland and the exiled Ulstermen while Conchobar guaranteed it for the men, of Ulster. The men of Ireland’s tents were pitched, and before sunset there was scarcely a bare patch of earth between them and the encampment of the Ulstermen.

Then the Mórrígan spoke in the dusk between the two encampments, saying ‘Ravens gnaw the necks of men. Blood flows. Battle is fought … Hail to the men of Ulster! Woe to the Érainn! Woe to the men of Ulster! Hail to the Érainn!’ These were the words she whispered to the Érainn : ‘Woe to the men of Ulster for they have not won(?) the battle.’

Cú Chulainn was beside them in Fedain Collna. Food was brought to him from the hospitallers that night. They used to go and converse with him by day. He killed no one north of Áth Fhir Diad.

‘See a little flock coming from the western encampment to the encampment in the east,’ said the charioteer to Cú Chulainn, ‘and see a band of youths come to meet them.’

‘Those youths will meet and the flock will go across the plain. He who will not accept quarter will go to help the youths.’

It happened afterwards as Cú Chulainn had said. ‘How do the youth of Ulster fight the battle?’

‘Bravely,’ said the charioteer.

‘It were right that they should fall in rescuing their flock,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘And now?’

‘The beardless young warriors are fighting now,’ said the charioteer.

‘Has a bright cloud come across the sun yet?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘No indeed,’ said the charioteer.

‘Alas that I have not the strength to go to them!’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘There is fighting here already today,’ said the charioteer at sunrise. ‘It is proud folk who are now fighting the battle, but there are no leaders for they are still asleep.’

It was at sunrise that Fachtna spoke. —Or (according to another account) Conchobar chanted these words in his trance: ‘Arise, O valiant kings of Macha, generous people! Sharpen your swords. Fight the battle. Dig a trench. Strike your shields. Men’s hands are weary. Their flocks are loud voiced … They all fight with one another … Sorrow will fill the heart of their queen so that the grassy sod on which they might strike, and on which they might go should be covered with blood. Arise, kings of Macha.’

‘Who has chanted these words?’ asked they all.

‘Conchobar mac Nesa,’ they answered.

‘Or Fachtna chanted them. —Sleep on, sleep on but set your sentinels.’

Láegaire Búadach was heard speaking: ‘Arise, kings of Macha. Strike your kine with the sword. Protect your booty … He will smite all the world on the plain of Gáirech.’

‘Who has chanted that?’they all asked.

‘Láegaire Búadach mac Connaid Buidi meic Iliach. Sleep on, sleep on but set your sentinels.’

‘Wait on a while,’ said Conchobar, ‘until the sun has risen well above the glens and mounds of Ireland.’

When Cú Chulainn saw the chiefs from the east putting on their diadems and coming to the rescue of the troops, he told his charioteer to arouse the men of Ulster.

The charioteer spoke. —Or else it was the poet Amargin mac Eicit who spoke: ‘Arise, valiant kings of Macha! A generous people. The wargoddess desires the kine of Immail. The blood from men’s hearts spreads around … None like Cú Chulainn was found. Arise!’

‘I have aroused them,’ said the charioteer. ‘They have come into battle stark-naked except for their weapons. He whose tent-opening faces east, has (in his eagerness) come out westwards through the tent.’

‘That is speedy help in time of need,’ said Cú Chulainn.

The doings of the men of Ulster are not described for a while. But as for the men of Ireland, Badb and Bé Néit and Némain shrieked above them that night in Gáirech and Irgáirech so that a hundred of their warriors died of terror. That was not the most peaceful night for them.

The Muster of the Men of Ireland

That night before the battle Ailill mac Máta chanted these words: ‘Arise, O Traigthrén! I send you to the three Conaires from Slíab Mis, the three Lesfinds from Lúachair; the three Meid Corpthe Loste, the three called Bodar from the river Búas, the three called Bodb from the river Búaidnech, the three called Búageltach from the river Barrow, the three Muiredachs from Mairge, the three Láegaires from Lee Derg, the three Suibnes from the river Suir, the three Échtachs from Áine, the three Doíl Eirrig, the three called Damach from Loch Derg, the three Bratrúaid from Lough Ree, the three Mielleths from Lough Erne, the three called Bresal Bodgna, the three Amalgaids from Mag nAí, the three Fiachras from Fid Némain, the three Nechtans from Mag Muirisce, the three Mac Amras from Es Rúaid, the three Ruirechs from Crúacha Aigle, the three called Bruchar from Glais Febrat, the three Conalls from Collamair, the three called Fiac from Finnabair, the three Cairbres of Clíu, the three called Mane Milscoth, the three Descertachs of Dromm Fornochta, the three Fintans from Femen, the three Rathachs from Mag Raigne, the three Eterscéls of Etarbán, the three Guaires of Fid Gaible, the three Aeds from Mag nAidne, the three Mongachs of Mitain, the three Dúadaid Áine, the three Gairb Glunnaidi, the three Deiscirt Uaga, the three Lethluind Linti, the three Coinchind Shile, the three Dauich of Líamain, the three Celtchair of Umall, the three Coscrachs of Clothra, the three Barrchais from Eille, the three Dáires from Tipra Find, the three Arts from Ard Ladrann, the three Muiredachs from Mag Femin, the three Congbaidi of Cliu, the three Morda Mosad, the three Roir of Ros Buite, the three Ánrad of Tráig Thuirbe, the three Eterscéls of Tara, the three Galgaidi Goain, the three Feradaig Fholtchais, the three Feidmnig Rotail, the three Scáil Sobail, the three Ailill Uaiti, the three Gortaig Granaisc, the three Mesaig Maethla, the three Uilleith of Ard Airthir, the three called Corb from Clár, the three called Art from Ard, the three called Foimdech from Irrus, the three Illands of Ireland, the three Sochaide from Shannon, the three Brónachs from Bethra, the three Mongachs from Mag Mucruma, the three Mochmaidne from Mag nAí, the three called Tigemmas from Túath Ambrais, the three Échtachs from Finnabair, the three Cormacs of Uiscre, the three called Odar from Buaile, the three Ruis Ruscae, the three Ferad Find, the three Athchuirp Tulcha, the three Tuathail Tanni, the three Maccáech Femrag, the three Láegaires from Berramain, the three Fidaig Saigthi, the three called Cormac Cúanach, the three called Cairbre Luingi, the three called Odar Conchobair, the three Glais meic Cathbad, the three Duib Drúad, the three Airrig Cluichiur, the three Laitne Luiged, the three called Conchobar Collsen, the three Elair Deiuais, the three Fiadail Duinergin (?), the three Airig Inse Uan, the three Níths from Áth Craibe, the three called Óengus Uisce, the three Fiach Fema nImbais, the three called Dom, the three Bailcbroindi from Móenmag, the three Cais Cuile, the three called Trén from Mag Éle, the three called Sruthmar from Mag nOchtair, the three called Glonnmar from Mag Lethan, the three called Dornmar from Mag nUisci, the three Glaisderg from Tethba, the three Tigirn Taince from Tiprait Talindi.’

These triads made up what was called the Ferchuitred of the men of Ireland, not counting those of them whom Cú Chulainn had previously killed.

Tidings of Cú Chulainn are now told: ‘Look for us, my friend Láeg, and see how are the men of Ulster fighting now.’

‘Bravely (they fight),’ answered the charioteer, ‘If I were to go today in my chariot and Óen, the charioteer of Conall Cernach, in his chariot and if we were to travel from one wing (of the army) to the other, no hoof of horse or wheel of chariot would go through (to the ground).’

‘The makings of a great fight are there,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘Let nothing be done in the battle,’ said he to his charioteer, ‘that I shall not hear an account of from you.’

‘That will be so insofar as I can do it,’ said the charioteer. ‘Now as for the warriors from the west, they make a breach eastwards through the battle- line. The same number of warriors from the east breach the battle-line westwards.’

‘Alas that I am not healed,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘or my breach too would be clearly seen there like that of all the others.’

Then came the ferchuitred, the triads of that second mustering. When the warriors came afterwards to the battle at Gáirech and Irgáirech, there also arrived the nine chariots of the warriors from Irúath. In front of them were three men on foot who travelled no more slowly than the chariots. Medb allowed them into battle only to drag Ailill out of the conflict if the enemy defeated him, or to kill Conchobar if it were he who was overcome.

Then his charioteer told Cú Chulainn that Ailill and Medb were begging Fergus to go into battle. They said that it was not wrong of him to do so for they had shown him great generosity in his exile.

‘If I had my own sword,’ said Fergus, ‘men’s heads cut off by me would be as numerous on their shields as hailstones in a swamp to which the king’s horses come when they have travelled swiftly into the land.’ Then Fergus swore this oath: ‘I swear my people’s oath that I would strike men’s jawbones from their necks, men’s necks from shoulders, men’s shoulders from elbows, men’s elbows from forearms, men’s forearms and their fists, men’s fists and their fingers, men’s fingers and their nails, men’s nails and the crowns of their heads, men’s crowns and their trunks, men’s trunks and their thighs, men’s thighs and their knees, men’s knees and their calves, men’s calves and their feet, men’s feet and their toes, men’s toes and their nails. Their headless necks would sound in the air(?) like a bee flying to and fro on a day of fine weather.’

Then said Ailill to his charioteer: ‘Bring me the sword that cuts (men’s) flesh. I swear the oath of my people that, if its condition be worse with you today than on the day I gave it to you on the hillside in the territory of Ulster, even though the men of Ireland were protecting you against me, they would not save you.’

Then his sword was given to Fergus and Ailill said: ‘Take your sword. Though you may smite Ireland, a great warrior of her sons will fight at Gáirech … For honour’s sake do not wreak your fierce anger on us in the presence of the chariot-fighters of Ulster…’

‘Welcome, O hard blade, the sword of Leite! … My sword shall not inflict slaughter on you. I am a proud leader as I stand before the men of Ireland.’

‘A pity that you should fall on a crowded(?) field of battle!’ said Fergus to Ailill.

That night Badb and Bé Néit and Mémain shrieked above them at Gáirech and Irgáirech so that a hundred of their warriors fell dead of fright. That was not the most peaceful night for them.

Then Fergus seized his weapons and turned towards the fighting, and holding his sword in both hands he cleared a passage for a hundred through the line of battle. Medb too, took up her weapons and rushed into battle. Thrice she was victorious until a phalanx of spears turned her back.

‘I wonder,’ said Conchobar to his people, ‘who is it who is victorious in the fight against us in the north. Do ye stay here in the battle until I go against him.’

‘We shall hold the spot where we now stand,’ said the warriors, ‘but unless the ground quakes beneath us or the heavens fall down on us, we shall not flee from here.’

Then Conchobar went to meet Fergus. He raised against him his shield, the Óchaín, which had four golden points and four coverings of gold.

Fergus struck three blows on it but not even the rim of the shield above his head touched Conchobar. ‘Who of the men of Ulster raises the shield (against me)?’ asked Fergus.

‘One who is better (than you),’ said Conchobar. ‘One who drove you into exile to dwell with wolves and foxes, one who today will hold you at bay in the presence of the men of Ireland by dint of his own prowess.’

Thereupon Fergus, holding the sword in both hands, aimed a vengeful blow at Conchobar, and the point of the sword touched the ground behind him (as he swung it back). Cormac Con Loinges laid hands on him and grasped him by the arm.

‘That is harsh yet not harsh, friend Fergus,’ said Cormac. ‘That is cautious yet not over-cautious, friend Fergus. Friendship proves hostile. Behold your enemies, your friends have been destroyed. Wicked are these blows that you strike, friend Fergus.’

‘Tell me,’ said Fergus, ‘whom shall I strike?’

‘Strike the three hills above them. Turn your hand and strike on all sides of you. Heed them not (?). Remember the honour of the Ulstermen which has not been lost. It will not be lost unless it be through your fault today.’

‘Go in some other direction, Conchobar,’ said Cormac to his father. ‘This man will no longer wreak his fierce anger here on the men of Ulster.’

Fergus turned away. With his sword he slew a hundred warriors among the Ulstermen in his first onslaught, until he came face to face with Conall Cernach.

‘Too great is that force which you exert against (your own) people and race, following a wanton woman as you do,’ said Conall Cernach.

‘What shall I do, O warrior?’ asked Fergus.

‘Strike the hills beyond them and the trees about them,’ said Conall Cernach.

Then Fergus smote the hills and with three blows struck off the (tops of the) three hills in Meath (now called) Máela Midi, the flattopped hills of Meath.

Cú Chulainn heard the blows which Fergus had struck on the hills, or (those he had struck) on the shield of Conchobar. ‘Who strikes those great strong blows in the distance?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘Blood seals up the heart. Anger destroys the world. Quickly it loosens the dressings of my wounds.’

Láeg answered saying: ‘The finest of men strikes them, Fergus mac Róig, the dauntless. The (coming of the) hero Fergus mac Róig means wounds and increase of slaughter. The sword was hidden in the chariot-pole so that the cavalcade of my master Conchobar did not arrive at the great battle.’

Then said Cú Chulainn: ‘Quickly unfasten the hoops over my wounds. Men are covered in blood. Swords will be wielded. Men’s lives will be ended.’ Thereupon the dry wisps which plugged his wounds sprang out of him (and rose up) as high as a lark soars in the air, and the wooden hoops (túaga) sprang from him as far as Mag Túag in Connacht. They flew out of him in all directions. His wounds took violent effect on him and he struck the heads of the two handmaidens one against the other so that each of them was grey with the brains of the other.

—These handmaidens had been sent by Medb to pretend to lament over him so that his wounds might break out afresh and to tell him that the Ulstermen had been defeated and that Fergus had fallen opposing them because Cú Chulainn had been unable to join the battle. —

Then Cú Chulainn was distorted (with rage). The twenty-seven shirts which he used to wear going into battle, tied to him with ropes and cords, were now brought to him, and he took on his back his chariot with its framework and two wheels and went round the battle towards Fergus.

‘Turn hither, master Fergus!’ cried Cú Chulainn, but (though he said this) three times Fergus did not answer. ‘I swear by the god by whom Ulstermen swear,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘that I shall drub you as flax-heads(?) are beaten in a pool. I shall go over you as a tail goes over a cat. I shall smite you as a fond woman smites her son.’

‘Who among the men of Ireland speaks to me thus?’ said Fergus.

‘Cú Chulainn mac Suáltaim, the son of Conchobar’s sister,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘and hold back from me now.’

‘I have promised to do that,’ said Fergus.

‘Begone then,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘I agree,’ said Fergus, ‘for you refused to encounter me when you were pierced with wounds.’

So at that juncture Fergus and his division of three thousand went away. The men of Leinster and the men of Munster went away too, and nine divisions, those of Medb and of Ailill and of their seven sons, were left in the battle. It was midday when Cú Chulainn came to the battle. When the sun was sinking behind the trees in the wood, he overcame the last of the bands, and of the chariot there remained only a handful of the ribs of the framework and a handful of the shafts round the wheel.

Then Cú Chulainn overtook Medb going from the battle-field.

‘Spare me!’ cried Medb.

‘If I were to kill you, it would be only right for me,’ said Cú Chulainn. But he spared her life then because he used not to kill women. He convoyed them west to Áth Lúain and across the ford too. He struck three blows of his sword upon the flagstone in Áth Luain. They (i.e. the hills) are called Máelana Áth Lúain.

Now when they were finally routed Medb said to Fergus: ‘Men and lesser men(?) meet here today, Fergus.’

‘That is what usually happens,’ said Fergus, ‘to a herd of horses led by a mare. Their substance is taken and carried off and guarded as they follow a women who has misled them.’

In the morning after the battle the bull was taken away, and he met the bull Finnbennach in combat in the place now called Tarbga in Mag nAí.—Tarbga means Bull-sorrow or Bull-battle.—Roí Dedond was the former name of that hill. Everyone who had survived the battle now did nothing except to watch the two bulls fighting. Bricriu Nemthenga had been in the west convalescing after Fergus had fractured his skull with the chessmen. He came now with all the rest to watch the bulls’ fight. In their violent struggle the two bulls trampled on Bricriu and so he died.

That is the tragical death of Bricriu.

The Donn Cúailnge’s foot was impaled on the horn of the other bull. For a day and a night he did not draw his foot away, until Fergus urged him on and struck his hide with a rod.

‘It was bad luck,’ said Fergus, ‘that the belligerent old calf that was brought here and because of whom many now lie dead should dishonour his clan and lineage.’

Thereupon Donn Cúailnge drew back his foot. His leg broke and his opponent’s horn sprang out on to the mountain beside him. So Slíab nAdarca was afterwards the name of that place.

He carried off the Finnbennach then for a day and a night’s journey and plunged into the lake beside Cruachu, and he came out of it with the loin and shoulder blade and liver of his opponent on his horns.

The hosts advanced then with intent to kill him, but Fergus did not allow it and insisted that he should go wherever he pleased. So then the bull made for his own land. As he came he drank a draught in Finnleithe and left there the shoulder-blade of his opponent. That land was afterwards called Finnleithe. He drank another draught at Áth Lúain and left the other bull’s loin there. Hence the name Áth Lúain. At Iraird Cuillinn he bellowed so loudly that he was heard throughout the province. He drank again in Troma. There the liver of his opponent fell from his horns. Hence the name Troma. He went then to the place called Étan Tairb and rested his forehead against the hill at Áth Dá Fherta. Hence the name Étan Tairb in Mag Muirthemne. Thereafter he travelled along Slige Midlúachra to Cuib—it was in Cuib he used to abide with the dry cows of Dáire—and there he pawed up the earth. Hence the place-name Gort mBúraig. Then he went on and died in Druim Tairb between Ulster and Uí Echach. That place is called Druim Tairb.

Ailill and Medb made peace with the Ulstermen and Cú Chulainn. For seven years after that no one was killed between them in Ireland. Finnabair remained with Cú Chulainn and the men of Connacht returned to their own land, while the Ulstermen went in triumph to Emain Macha.

Finit. Amen.

Tain from the Book of Leinster

Táin Bó Cúalnge from the Book of Leinster

ONCE upon a time it befell Ailill and Medb that, when their royal bed had been prepared for them in Ráth Crúachain in Connacht, they spoke together as they lay on their pillow.

‘In truth, woman’ said Ailill, ‘she is a well-off woman who is the wife of a nobleman’.

‘She is indeed’ said the woman. ‘Why do you think so?’

‘I think so’ said Ailill, ‘because you are better off today than when I married you’.

‘I was well-off before marrying you’, said Medb.

‘It was wealth that we had not heard of and did not know of’, said Ailill, ‘but you were a woman of property and foes from lands next to you were carrying off spoils and booty from you’.

‘Not so was I’, said Medb, ‘but my father was in the high-kingship of Ireland, namely Eochu Feidlech mac Find meic Findomain meic Findeoin meic Findguill meic Rotha meic Rigeoin meic Blathachta meic Beothechta meic Enna Agnig meic Óengusa Turbig. He had six daughters: Derbriu, Ethne and Ele, Clothru, Mugain and Medb. I was the noblest and worthiest of them. I was the most generous of them in bounty and the bestowal of gifts. I was best of them in battle and fight and combat. I had fifteen hundred royal mercenaries of the sons of strangers exiled from their own land and as many of the sons of native freemen within the province. And there were ten men for each mercenary of these, and nine men for every mercenary and eight men for every mercenary, and seven for every mercenary, and six for every mercenary, and five for every mercenary, and four for every mercenary and three for every mercenary and two for every mercenary and one mercenary for every mercenary. I had these as my standing household’ said Medb, ‘and for that reason my father gave me one of the provinces of Ireland, namely, the province of Crúachu. Whence I am called Medb Chrúachna. Messengers came from Find mac Rosa Rúaid, the King of Leinster, to sue for me, and from Cairbre Nia Fer mac Rosa, the King of Tara, and they came from Conchobor mac Fachtna, the King of Ulster, and they came from Eochu Bec. But I consented not, for I demanded a strange bride- gift such as no woman before me had asked of a man of the men of Ireland, to wit, a husband without meanness, without jealousy, without fear. If my husband should be mean, it would not be fitting for us to be together, for I am generous in largesse and the bestowal of gifts and it would be a reproach for my husband that I should be better than he in generosity, but it would be no reproach if we were equally generous provided that both of us were generous. If my husband were timorous, neither would it be fitting for us to be together, for single-handed I am victorious in battles and contests and combats, and it would be a reproach to my husband that his wife should be more courageous than he, but it is no reproach if they are equally courageous provided that both are courageous. If the man with whom I should be were jealous, neither would it be fitting, for I was never without one lover quickly succeeding another. (lit. without a man in the shadow of another.)

Now such a husband have I got, even you, Ailill mac Rosa Rúaid of Leinster. You are not niggardly, you are not jealous, you are not inactive. I gave you a contract and a bride-price as befits a woman, namely, the raiment of twelve men, a chariot worth thrice seven cumala (female slaves), the breadth of your face in red gold, the weight of your left arm in white bronze. Whoever brings shame and annoyance and confusion on you, you have no claim for compensation of for honour-price for it except what claim I have’ said Medb, ‘for you are a man dependent on a woman’s marriage-portion’.

‘Not so was I’ said Ailill, ‘but I had two brothers, one of them reigning over Tara, the other over Leinster, namely, Find over Leinster and Cairbre over Tara. I left the rule to them because of their seniority but they were no better in bounty and the bestowal of gifts than me. And I heard of no province in Ireland dependent on a woman except this province alone, so I came and assumed the kingship here in virtue of my mother’s rights for Máta Muirisc the daughter of Mága was my mother. And what better queen could I have than you, for you are the daughter of the high-king of Ireland’.

‘Nevertheless’ said Medb, ‘my property is greater than yours’.

‘I marvel at that’ said Ailill, ‘for there is none who has greater possessions and riches and wealth than I, and I know that there is not’.

There were brought to them what was least valuable among their possessions that they might know which of them had more goods and riches and wealth. There were brought to them their wooden cups and their vats and their iron vessels, their cans, their washing-basins and their tubs. There were brought to them their rings and their bracelets and their thumb-rings, their treasures of gold and their garments, as well purple as blue and black and green, yellow and vari-coloured and grey, dun and chequered and striped. Their great flocks of sheep were brought from fields and lawns and open plains. They were counted and reckoned and it was recognised that they were equal, of the same size and of the same number.

But among Medb’s sheep there was a splendid ram which was the equivalent of a cumal in value, and among Ailill’s sheep was a ram corresponding to him. From grazing lands and paddocks were brought their horses and steeds. In Medb’s horse-herd there was a splendid horse which might be valued at a cumal. Ailill had a horse to match him. Then their great herds of swine were brought from woods and sloping glens and solitary places. They were counted and reckoned and recognised. Medb had a special boar and Ailill had another. Then their herds of cows, their cattle and their droves were brought to them from the woods and waste places of the province. They were counted and reckoned and recognised, and they were of equal size and equal number.

But among Ailill’s cows there was a special bull. He had been a calf of one of Medb’s cows, and his name was Findbennach. But he deemed it unworthy of him to be counted as a woman’s property, so he went and took his place among the king’s cows. It was to Medb as if she owned not a penny of possessions since she had not a bull as great as that among her kine.

Then Mac Roth the herald was summoned to Medb and she asked him to find out where in any province of the provinces of Ireland there might be a bull such as he.

‘I know indeed’ said Mac Roth ‘where there is a bull even better and more excellent than he, in the province of Ulster in the cantred of Cúailnge in the house of Dáire mac Fiachna. Donn Cúailnge is his name’.

‘Go you there, Mac Roth, and ask of Dáire for me a year’s loan of Donn Cúailnge. At the year’s end he will get the fee for the bull’s loan, namely, fifty heifers, and Donn Cúailnge himself returned. And take another offer with you, Mac Roth: if the people of that land and country object to giving that precious possession, Donn Cúailnge, let Dáire himself come with his bull and he shall have the extent of his own lands in the level plain of Mag Aí and a chariot worth thrice seven cumala, and he shall have my own intimate friendship’.

Thereupon the messengers proceeded to the house of Dáire mac Fiachna. The number of Mac Roth’s embassy was nine messengers. Then Mac Roth was welcomed in the house of Dáire. That was but right for Mac Roth was the chief herald of all. Dáire asked Mac Roth what was the cause of his journey and why he had come. The herald told why he had come and related the contention between Medb and Ailill.

‘And it is to ask for a loan of the Donn Cúailnge to match the Findbennach that I have come’ said he, ‘and you shall get the fee for his loan, namely, fifty heifers and the return of Donn Cúailnge himself. And there is somewhat besides: come yourself with your bull and you shall get an area equal to your own lands in the level plain of Mag Aí and a chariot worth thrice seven cumala and Medb’s intimate friendship to boot’.

Dáire was well pleased with that and in his pleasure he shook himself so that the seams of the flock-beds beneath him burst asunder, and he said: ‘By the truth of my conscience, even it the Ulstermen object, this precious possession, Donn Cúailnge, will now be taken to Ailill and Medb in the land of Connacht’.

Mac Roth was pleased to hear what Mac Fiachna said.

Then they were attended to and straw and fresh rushes were strewn underfoot for them. The choicest food was served to them and a drinking feast provided until they were merry. And a conversation took place between two of the messengers. ‘In sooth’ said one messenger, ‘generous is the man in whose house we are’.

‘Generous indeed’ said the other.

‘Is there among the Ulstermen any who is more generous than he?’ said the first messenger.

‘There is indeed’ said the second. ‘More generous is Conchobor whose vassal Dáire is, for though all Ulstermen should rally round Conchobor, it were no shame for them’.

‘A great act of generosity it is indeed for Dáire to have given to us nine messengers that which it would have been the work of the four great provinces of Ireland to carry of from the land of Ulster, namely, Donn Cúailnge’.

Then a third messenger joined their conversation. ‘And what are ye saying?’ he asked. ‘Yon messenger says that the man in whose house we are is a generous man. He is generous indeed, says another.

Is there any among the Ulsterman who is more generous then he? asks the first messenger.

There is indeed, says the second. Conchobor, whose vassal Dáire is, is more generous, and if all Ulstermen adhered to him it was indeed no shame for them. It was generous of Dáire to give to us nine messengers what only the four great provinces of Ireland could carry off from the land of Ulster’.

‘I should like to see a gush of blood and gore from the mouth from which that talk comes, for if the bull were not given willingly, he would be given perforce’.

Then Dáire mac Fiachna’s butler came into the house with a man carrying liquor and another carrying meat, and he heard what the messengers said. He flew into a passion and laid down the meat and drink for them, and he did not invite them to consume it, neither did he tell them not to consume it. Thereafter he went to the house where Dáire mac Fiachna was and said: ‘Was it you who gave that excellent treasure, the Donn Cúailnge, to the messengers?’

‘It was I indeed’, said Dáire.

‘Where he was given may there be no proper rule, for what they say is true, that if you do not give him of your own free will, you will give him by force by reason of the armies of Ailill and Medb and the guidance of Fergus mac Róig’.

‘I swear by the gods whom I worship unless they take him thus by force, they shall not take him by fair means’. They spend the night thus until morning. Early on the morrow the messengers arose and went into the house where Dáire was.

‘Guide us, noble sir, to the spot where Donn Cúailnge is’.

‘Not so indeed’ said Dáire, ‘but if it were my custom to deal treacherously with messengers or travellers of voyagers not one of you should escape alive’.

‘What is this?’ said Mac Roth.

‘There is great cause for it’ said Dáire. ‘Ye said that if I did not give the bull willingly, then I should give him under compulsion by reason of the army of Ailill and Medb and the sure guidance of Fergus’.

‘Nay’ said Mac Roth, ‘whatever messengers might say as a result of indulging in your meat and drink, it should not be heeded or noticed nor accounted as a reproach to Ailill and Medb’.

‘Yet I shall not give my bull, Mac Roth, on this occasion’.

Thus, the messengers went on their way back and reached Ráth Crúachan in Connacht. Medb asked tidings of them. Mac Roth told her that they had not brought back his bull from Dáire.

‘What was the cause of that?’ asked Medb.

Mac Roth told her the reason for it.

‘There is no necessity to “smooth the knots”, Mac Roth, for it was certain’,( it was known) said Medb, ‘that he would not be given freely if he were not given by force, and he shall so be given’.

Messengers went from Medb to the Maines to bid them come to Crúachu, the seven Maines with their seven divisions of three thousand, namely, Maine Máithremail, Maine Aithremail, Maine Condagaib Uile, Maine Mingor, Maine Mórgor and Maine Conda Mó Epert.

Other messengers went to the sons of Mágu, namely Cet mac Mágach, Anlúan mac Mágach, Mac Corb mac Mágach, Baiscell mac Mágach, En mac Mágach, Dóche mac Mágach and Scannal mac Mágach. These arrived, in number three thousand armed men.

Other messengers went from them to Cormac Cond Longas mac Conchobuir and to Fergus mac Róig, and they too came, in number three thousand.

The first band of all had shorn heads of hair. Green cloaks about them with silver brooches in them. Next to their skin they wore shirts of gold thread with red insertions of red gold. They carried swords with white grips and handles of silver. ‘Is that Cormac yonder?’ they all asked.

‘It is not indeed’ said Medb.

The second band had newly shorn heads of hair. They wore grey cloaks and pure white shirts next to their skins. They carried swords with round guards of gold and silver handles. ‘Is that Cormac yonder?’ they all asked.

‘It is not he indeed’ said Medb.

The last band had flowing hair, fair-yellow, golden, streaming manes. They wore purple embroidered cloaks with golden inset brooches over their breasts. They had smooth, long, silken shirts reaching to their insteps. All together they would lift their feet and set them down again. ‘Is that Cormac yonder?’ they all asked.

‘It is he indeed’ said Medb.

That night they pitched their camp and stronghold and there was a dense mass of smoke and fire from their camp-fires between the four fords of Aí, Áth Moga, Áth m-Bercna, Áth Slissen and Áth Coltna. And they stayed for a full fortnight in Ráth Crúachan of Connacht drinking and feasting and merrymaking so that presently their journey and hosting should be the lighter for them.

And then Medb bade her charioteer harness her horses for her that she might go to speak with her druid to seek foreknowledge and prophecy from him.

When Medb came to where her druid was, she asked foreknowledge and prophecy of him. ‘There are many who part here today from comrades and friends’ said Medb, ‘from land and territory, from father and mother, and if not all return safe and sound, it is on me their grumbles and their curses will fall. Yet none goes forth and none stays here who is any dearer to us than we ourselves. And find out for us whether we shall come back or not’.

And the druid said: ‘Whoever comes or comes not back, you yourself will come’.

The driver turned the chariot and Medb came back. She saw something that she deemed wonderful, namely, a woman coming towards her by the shaft of the chariot. The girl was weaving a fringe, holding a weaver’s beam of white bronze in her right hand with seven strips of red gold on its points(?). She wore a spotted, green-speckled cloak, with a round, heavy-headed brooch in the cloak above her breast. She had a crimson, rich-blooded (fair-faced,) countenance, a bright, laughing eye, thin, red lips. She had shining pearly teeth; you would have thought they were showers of fair pearls which were displayed in her head. Like new partaing (red cloth, Parthian leather?) were her lips. The sweet sound of her voice and speech was as melodious as the strings of harps plucked by the hands of masters. As white as snow falling in one night was the lustre of her skin and body shining through her garments. She had long and very white feet with pink, even, round and sharp nails. She had long, fair-yellow, golden hair; three tresses of her hair wound round her head, another tress falling behind which touched the calves of her legs.

Medb gazed at her. ‘And what are you doing here now, girl?’ said Medb.

‘I am promoting your interest and your prosperity, gathering and mustering the four great provinces of Ireland with you to go into Ulster for Táin Bó Cúailnge’.

‘Why do you do that for me?’ said Medb.

‘I have good reason to do so. I am a bondmaid of your people’.

‘Who of my people are you?’ said Medb.

‘That is not hard to tell. I am Feidelm the prophetess from Síd Chrúachna’.

‘Well then, Feidelm Prophetess, how do you see our army?’

‘I see red on them. I see crimson’.

‘Conchobor is suffering in his debility in Emain’ said Medb. ‘My messengers have gone to him. There is nothing we fear from the Ulstermen. But tell the truth, Feidelm. O Feidelm Prophetess, how do you see our army?’

‘I see red on them. I see crimson’.

‘Cuscraid Mend Macha mac Conchobuir is in Inis Cuscraid in his debility. My messengers have gone to him. There is nothing we fear from the Ulstermen. But speak truth, Feidelm. O Feidelm Prophetess, how do you see our army?’

‘I see red upon them. I see crimson’.

‘Eogan mac Durthacht is at Ráth Airthir in his debility. My messengers have gone to him. There is nothing we fear from the Ulstermen. But speak truth to us, Feidelm. O Feidelm Prophetess, how do you see our army?’

‘I see red on them. I see crimson’.

‘Celtchair mac Cuthechair is in his fortress in his debility. My messengers have reached him. There is nothing we fear from the Ulstermen. But speak truth, Feidelm. O Feidelm Prophetess, how do you see our army?’

‘I see red on them. I see crimson’.

‘I care not for your reasoning, for when the men of Ireland gather in one place, among them will be strife and battle and broils and affrays, in dispute as to who shall lead the van or bring up the rear or first cross ford or river or first kill swine or cow or stag or game. But speak truth to us, Feidelm. O Feidelm Prophetess, how do you see our army?’

‘I see red on them, I see crimson’.

And Feidelm began to prophesy and foretell Cú Chulainn to the men of Ireland, and she chanted a lay:

Feidelm.

1] I see a fair man who will perform weapon-feats, with many a wound in his fair flesh. The hero’s light is on his brow, his forehead is the meeting-place of many virtues.

2] Seven gems of a hero are in his eyes. His spear heads are unsheathed. He wears a red mantle with clasps.

His face is the fairest. He amazes womenfolk, a young lad of handsome countenance; yet in battle he shows a dragon’s form.

3] Like is his prowess to that of Cú Chulainn of Muirtheimne. I know not who is the Cú Chulainn from Murtheimne, but this I know, that this army will be bloodstained from him.

4] Four sword lets of wonderful feats he has in each hand. He will manage to ply them on the host. Each weapon has its own special use.

5] When he carries his ga bulga as well as his sword and spear, this man wrapped in a red mantle sets his foot on every battle-field.

6] His two spears across the wheel-rim of his battle chariot. High above valour (?) is the distorted one. So he has hitherto appeared to me, but I am sure that he would change his appearance.

7] He has moved forward to the battle. If he is not warded off, there will be destruction. It is he who seeks you in combat. Cú Chulainn mac Sualtaim.

8] He will lay low your entire army, and he will slaughter you in dense crowds. Ye shall leave with him all your heads. The prophetess Feidelm conceals it not.

9] Blood will flow from heroes’ bodies. Long will it be remembered. Men’s bodies will be hacked, women will lament, through the Hound of the Smith that I see.

Thus far the prophecy and augury, and the prelude to the tale, the basis of its invention and composition, and the pillow-talk held by Ailill and Medb in Crúachu.

This is the route of the Táin and the beginning of the hosting together with the names of the roads on which the men of the four great provinces of Ireland travelled into the land of Ulster:

To Mag Cruinn, by way of Tuaim Móna, by Turloch Teóra Crích, by Cúl Sílinne, by Dubfid, by Badbna, by Coltan, across the river Shannon, by Glúine Gabur, by Mag Trega, by northern Tethba, by southern Tethba, by Cúil, by Ochain, by Uata northwards, by Tiarthechta eastwards, by Ord, by Slass, across the river Inneoin, by Carn, across Meath, by Ortrach, by Findglassa Asail, by Drong, by Delt, by Duelt, by Deland, by Selach, by Slabra, by Slechta which was cleared by swords for Medb and Ailill’s passage, by cuil Siblinne, by Dub, by Ochan, by Catha, by Cromma, by Tromma, by Fodromma, by Sláine by Gort Sláine, by Druimm Licci, by Áth n-Gabla, by Ardachad, by Feoraind, by Findabair, by Aisse, by Airne, by Aurthaile, by Druimm Salaind, by Druimm Caín, by Druimm Caimthechta, by Druimm mac n-Dega, by Eódond Bec, by Eódond Mór, by Meide in Togmaill, by Meide ind Eoin, by Baile, by Aile, by Dall Scena, by Ball Scena, by Ros Mór, by Scúap, by Timscúap, by Cend Ferna, by Ammag, by Fid Mór in Crannach Cúailnge, by Druimm Caín to Slige Midlúachra.

After the first day’s march on which the hosts went, they spent that night in Cúil Silinne and Ailill mac Rosa’s tent was pitched for him. The tent of Fergus mac Róich was on his right hand. Cormac Cond Longas mac Conchobuir was beside Fergus. Íth mac Etgaíth was next, then Fiachu mac Fir Aba, then Goibnend mac Lurgnig. Such was the placing of Ailill’s tent on his right during that hosting, and thus were the thirty hundred men of Ulster at his right hand so that the confidential talk and discourse and the choicest portions of food and drink might be nearer to them. Medb Chrúachan was on Ailill’s left with Findabair beside her. Then came Flidais Fholtchaín, the wife of Ailill Find, who had slept with Fergus on Táin Bó Cúailnge, and it was she who every seventh night on that hosting quenched with milk the thirst of all the men of Ireland, king and queen and prince, poet and learner.

Medb was the last of the hosts that day for she had been seeking foreknowledge and prophecy and tidings, that she might learn who was loath and who was eager to go on the expedition. Medb did not permit her chariot to be let down or her horses to be unyoked until she had made a circuit of the encampment.

Then Medb’s horses were unyoked and her chariots were let down and she sat beside Ailill mac Mágach. And Ailill asked Medb to find out who was eager and who reluctant or loath to go on the hosting.

‘It is useless for any to set out on it except for the one band namely, the division of the Gailioin’ said Medb.

‘What good service do they do that they are praised above all others?’ said Ailill.

‘There is reason to praise them’ said Medb. ‘When the others began to pitch their camp, these had already finished making their bothies and open tents. When the others had finished their bothies and open tents, these had finished preparing food and drink. When the others had finished preparing food and drink, these had finished eating their meal. When the others had finished their meal, these were asleep. Even as their slaves and servants surpassed the slaves and servants of the men of Ireland, so their warriors and champions will surpass those of the men of Ireland on this occasion on the hosting’.

‘All the better do we deem that’ said Ailill, ‘for it is with us they march and it is for us they fight’.

‘It is not with us they will go nor for us they will fight’.

‘Let them stay at home then’ said Ailill.

‘They shall not stay’ said Medb.

‘What shall they do then’ said Findabair, ‘if they do not go forth nor yet stay at home?’

‘Death and destruction and slaughter I desire for them’ said Medb.

‘Woe betide him who speaks thus’ said Ailill, ‘because of their having pitched their tents and set up their stronghold quickly and promptly’.

‘By the truth of my conscience’ said Fergus, ‘only he who inflicts death on me shall inflict death on those men’.

‘Not to me should you say that, Fergus’, said Medb, ‘for my army is numerous enough to slay and kill you with the thirty hundred Leinstermen surrounding you. For I have the seven Maines with their seven divisions of thirty hundred and the sons of Mága with their division and Ailill with his division, and I myself have my household guard. Our numbers are sufficient to slay and kill you with the division of the Leinstermen around you’.

‘It is not fitting to speak thus to me’ said Fergus, ‘for I have here the seven underkings of the Munstermen with their seven divisions. Here too is a division of the best among the noble warriors of Ulster. Here are the finest of the noble warriors of the men of Ireland, the division of the Gailioin. I myself am bond and surety and guarantee for them since they came from their own lands, and me shall they uphold in this day of battle. Furthermore’ said Fergus, ‘those men shall not be

[gap: text untranslated/extent: 8 words]

I shall disperse yon division of the Gailioin amongst the men of Ireland so that not five of them shall be together in one place’.

‘I care not’ said Medb, ‘in what way they are, provided only that they are not in the close battle array in which they now are’.

Then Fergus dispersed that division among the men of Ireland so that no five men of them were together in one spot.

Thereafter the hosts set out upon their march. It was difficult for them to attend to that mighty army, which set forth on that journey, with the many tribes and the many families and the many thousands whom they brought with them that they might see each other and know each other and that each might be with his familiars and his friends and his kin on the hosting. They said too in what manner it was fitting to go on that hosting. They said that they should go thus: with every troop around their king, with every band around their leader, every group around their chief, and every king and royal heir of the men of Ireland on his own mound apart. They discussed too who ought to guide them between the two provinces, and they said that it should be Fergus, because the hosting was a hostile hosting for him, for he had been seven years in the kingship of Ulster, and when the sons of Usnech had been slain in despite of his guarantee and surety, he had come from there, ‘and he has been seventeen years in exile and in enmity away from Ulster’. Therefore it would be fitting that he should go before all to guide them. Then Fergus went before all to guide them, but a feeling of affection for the Ulsterman seized him and he led the troops astray to the north and to the south, and messengers went from him with warnings to the Ulstermen and he began to delay and hold back the army. Medb perceived this, and she reproached him and chanted the lay:

Medb

O Fergus, what do we say of this? What manner of path is this which we go? Past every tribe we wander north and south.

Fergus

O Medb, why are you perturbed? This is not anything which resembles treachery. O woman, the land I traverse belongs to the men of Ulster.

Medb

Ailill, the splendid, with his army, fears that you will betray him. Hitherto you have not given your mind to leading us on the right path.

Fergus

Not to the disadvantage of the host did I go on each wandering road in turn, but to try and avoid thereafter Cú Chulainn mac Sualtaim.

Medb

It is wrong of you to betray our host, O Fergus mac Rosa Rúaid, for much wealth did you get here in your exile, O Fergus.

‘I shall not be in front of the army any longer.’ said Fergus, ‘but seek some one else to lead them’. Yet Fergus took his position in the van of the army.

The four great provinces of Ireland were on Cúil Silinne that night. A sharp premonition of the arrival of Cú Chula inn came to Fergus and he told the men of Ireland to be on their guard, for there would come upon them he who was the slashing lion and the doom of enemies and the foe of armies, the supporting leader and the slaughtering of a great host, the hand bestowing gifts and the flaming torch, to wit, Cú Chulainn the son of Sualtaim. And Fergus was thus prophesying the coming of Cú Chulainn, and he made the lay and Medb answered him:

Fergus

It is well for you to keep watch and ward with many weapons and many warriors. He whom we fear will come, the great and valiant one form Muirtheimne.

Medb

Kindly is that of you—a counsel of battle—O valiant Mac Róig. Men and arms I have here on the spot to answer Cú Chulainn.

Fergus

Men and arms are expended in the fray, O Medb from Mag Aí, against the rider of Liath Macha, every night and every day.

Medb

I have here in reserve warriors to fight and to plunder, thirty hundred hostage chiefs, the warriors of the Gailioin.

Warriors from fair Crúachu, heroes from clear- robed Lúachair, four provinces of fair Gaels—all these will defend me from that one man.

Fergus

He who has troops in Bairrche and Banna will draw blood across the shafts of spears. Into the mire and sand he will cast that division of the Gailioin.

As swift as the swallow and as speedy as the harsh wind—thus is my fair dear Cú in mutual slaughter above the breath of his foes.

Medb

O Fergus, famed in song, let this message go from you to Cú Chulainn, that it were prudent for him to be silent for he shall be harshly checked in Crúachu.

Fergus

Valiantly will men be despoiled in the land of Badb’s daughter. The Hound of the Smith—with shedding of gore—will overthrow companies of goodly heroes(?).

After that lay: the army of the four great provinces of Ireland came eastwards over Móin Coltna that day and there met them eight score deer. The army spread out and surrounded them and killed them so that none escaped. Yet though the division of the Gailioin were dispersed, only five deer fell to the men of Ireland. The one division of the Gailioin carried of the rest of the eight score deer.

It was on the same day that Cú Chulainn mac Sualtaim and Sualtach Sídech, his father, arrived and their horses grazed around the pillar-stone at Ard Cuillenn. Sualtaim’s steeds cropped the grass down to the soil north of the pillar-stone, Cú Chulainn’s steeds cropped the grass down to the soil and the bedrock to the south of the pillar-stone.

‘Well, father Sualtaim’ said Cú Chulainn ‘I have a premonition that the army is at hand, so go for me with warnings to the Ulstermen that they stay not on the open plains but go to the woods and waste places and deep valleys of the province to evade the men of Ireland’.

‘And you, my fosterling, what will you do?’

‘I must go southwards to Tara to keep a tryst with the handmaiden of Feidilmid Noíchruthach with my own surety until morning’.

‘Woe to him who goes thus’, said Sualtaim ‘and leaves the Ulstermen to be trampled underfoot by their enemies and by outlanders for the sake of going to a tryst with any women’.

‘I must go however, for unless I do, men’s contracts will be falsified and women’s words be verified’.

Sualtaim went with warnings to the Ulstermen.

Cú Chulainn went into the wood and cut a prime oak sapling, whole and entire, with one stroke and, standing on one leg and using but one hand and one eye, he twisted it into a ring and put an ogam inscription on the peg of the ring and put the ring around the narrow part of the standing-stone at Ard Cuillenn. He forced the ring down until it reached the thick part of the stone.

After that Cú Chulainn went to his tryst.

As for the men of Ireland, they came to the pillar-stone at Ard Cuillenn and began to survey the unknown province of Ulster. Now two men of Medb’s household were always in the van at every encampment and hosting, at every ford and every river and every pass. And this they did so that no stain might come to the princes’ garments in the crowd or crush of host or army. These were the two sons of Nera mac Nuatair meic Tacáin, the two sons of the steward of Crúachu. Err and Innell were their names, and Fráech and Fochnam the names of their charioteers.

The nobles of Ireland came to the pillar stone and began to survey the grazing which the horses had made around the stone and to gaze at the barbaric ring which the royal hero had left around the stone. And Ailill took the ring in his hand and gave it to Fergus and Fergus read out the ogam inscription that was in the peg of the ring and told the men of Ireland what the inscription meant.

And as he began to tell them he made the lay:

Fergus

1] This is a ring. What is its meaning for us? What is its secret message? And how many put it here? Was it one man oft many?

2] If ye go past it tonight and do not stay in camp beside it, the Hound who mangles all flesh will come upon you. Shame to you if ye flout it.

3] If ye go on your way from it, it brings ruin on the host. Find out, O druids, why the ring was made.

4] It was the swift cutting(?) of a hero. A hero cast it. It is a snare for enemies. One man—the sustainer of lords, a man of battle (?)—cast it there with one hand.

5] It gave a pledge (?) with the harsh rage of the Smith’s Hound from the Cráebrúad. It is a champion’s bond, not the bond of a madman. That is the inscription on the ring.

6] Its object is to cause anxiety to the four provinces of Ireland—and many combats. That is all I know of the reason why the ring was made.

After that lay: Fergus said: ‘I swear to you that if ye flout that ring and the royal hero who it and do not spend a night here in encampment until one of you make a similar ring, standing on one foot and using one eye and one hand as he did, even though that hero be hidden underground or in a locked house, he will slay and wound you before the hour of rising on the morrow, if ye flout it’.

‘It is not that indeed that we would wish’ said Medb, ‘that anyone should wound us or shed our blood after we have come to this unknown province, the province of Ulster. More pleasing to us that we should wound another and spill his blood’.

‘We shall not set this ring at naught’ said Ailill, ‘and we shall not flout the royal hero who wrought it, but we shall take shelter in this great wood in the south until morning. Let our encampment be made there’. Then the hosts advanced and with their swords they hewed down the wood to make a path for their chariots, so that Slechta is still the name of that spot where is Partraige Beca south-west of Cenannas na Ríg near Cúil Sibrilli.

Heavy snow fell on them that night. So deep it was that it reached to the shoulders of men, to the flanks of horses and to the shafts of chariots, so that the provinces of Ireland were all one level plain with the snow. but not tents or bothies or pavilions were set up that night. No preparation of food or drink was made. No meal or repast was consumed. None of the men of Ireland knew whether it was friend or foe who was next to him until the bright hour of sunrise on the morrow. It is certain that the men of Ireland had never experienced a night in encampment which held more discomfort and hardship for them than that night at Cúil Sibrilli. The four great provinces of Ireland came forth early on the morrow with the rising of the sun across the glistening snow, and they went forward from that district to another.

As for Cú Chulainn, however, he did not rise early until he ate a repast and meal and washed and bathed on that day. He told his charioteer to harness the horses and yoke his chariot. The charioteer harnessed the horses and yoked the chariot, and Cú Chulainn went into his chariot and they followed the track of the army. They found the trail of the men of Ireland going past them from one district to another.

‘Alas, my friend Láeg’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘would that we had not gone to our tryst with a woman last night. The least that one who is guarding a border can do is to give a warning cry or shout or alarm or tell who goes the road. We failed to announce it. The men of Ireland have gone past us into Ulster’.

‘I foretold for you, Cú Chulainn’ said Láeg, ‘that if you went to your tryst, such a disgrace would come upon you’.

‘Go, Láeg, I pray you, on the track of the army and make an estimate of them, and find out for us in what number the men of Ireland went past us’.

Láeg came to the track of the host and came in front of the track and to one side of it and went to the rear of it.

‘You are confused in your reckoning, my friend Láeg’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘I am indeed’ said Láeg.

‘Come into the chariot and I shall make an estimate of them’.

The charioteer came into the chariot. Cú Chulainn went on the track of the host and made an estimate of their numbers and came to one side and went to the rear.

‘You are confused in your reckoning, little Cú’ said Láeg.

‘I am not’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘for I know in what number the hosts went past us, namely, eighteen divisions, but the eighteenth division was dispersed among the men of Ireland’.—Now Cú Chulainn possessed many and various gifts: the gift of beauty, the gift of form, the gift of build, the gift of swimming, the gift of horsemanship, the gift of playing fidchell, the gift of playing brandub, the gift of battle, the gift of fighting, the gift of conflict, the gift of sight, the gift of speech, the gift of counsel, the gift of fowling(?), the gift of laying waste (?), the gift of plundering in a strange border.

‘Good, my friend Láeg, harness the chariot for us and ply the goad for us on the horses. Drive on the chariot and turn your left-hand board to the hosts to see can we overtake them in the van or in the rear or in the middle. For I shall not live if a friend or foe among the men of Ireland fall not by my hand tonight’.

Then the charioteer plied the goad on the horses. He turned his left board to the hosts and came to Taurloch Caille Móre north of Cnogba na Ríg which is called Áth n-Gabla. Then Cú Chulainn went into the wood and descended from his chariot and cut a forked pole of four prongs, whole and entire, with one stroke. He pointed it and charred it and put an ogam inscription on its side and cast it out of the back of his chariot from the tip of one hand so that two thirds of it went into the ground and but one third of it was above ground.

Then it was that the two lads mentioned, the two sons of Nera mac Nuatair meic Tacáin, came upon him engaged in that task, and they vied with one another as to which of them would first wound him and first behead him.

Cú Chulainn attacked them and cut off their four heads from them and from their charioteer and impaled a head of each man of them on a prong of the pole. And Cú Chulainn sent the horses of that band back by the same road to meet the men of Ireland, with their reins lying loose and the headless trunks red with gore and the bodies of the warriors dripping blood down on to the framework of the chariots. For he did not deem it honourable or seemly to take the horses or garments or arms from the bodies of those he killed.

Then the hosts saw the horses of the band who had gone in advance of them and the headless bodies and the corpses of the warriors dripping blood down on the framework of the chariots. The van of the army waited for the rear, and all were thrown into panic.

Medb and Fergus and the Maines and the sons of Mágu came up. For this is how Medb was wont to travel; with nine chariots for herself alone, two chariots before her, two behind, two on each side and her chariot between them in the very middle. And the reason she used to do that was so that the clods of earth cast up by the horses’ hooves or the foam dripping from the bridle-bits or the dust raised by the mighty army might not reach her and that no darkening might come to the golden diadem of the queen.

‘What is this?’ said Medb.

‘Not hard to say’ they all answered. ‘These are the horses of the band that went in advance of us and their headless bodies in their chariots’.

They held counsel, and they decided that was the track of a multitude and the approach of a great army and that it was the men of Ulster who came to them thus. And this is what they decided on: to send Cormac Conn Longes to find out who was at the ford, for it the Ulstermen were there, they would not kill the son of their own king. Then Cormac Conn Longes mac Conchobuir came with thirty hundred armed men to find out who was at the ford. And when he got there he saw only the forked pole in the middle of the ford with four heads on it dripping blood down the stem of the pole into the current of the stream and the hoof-marks of the two horses, and the track of a single charioteer and of a single warrior leading eastwards out of the ford.

The nobles of Ireland came to the ford and they all fell to examining the forked pole. They marvelled and wondered who had wrought the slaughter. ‘What name have ye for this ford until now, Fergus?’ said Ailill. ‘Áth n-Grena’ said Fergus, ‘and Áth n-Gabla shall be its name forever now from this forked pole’.

And he recited the lay:

Fergus

1] Áth n-Grena will change its name because of the deed performed by the strong, fierce Hound. There is here a four- pronged forked branch to bring fear on the men of Ireland.

2] On two if its prongs are the heads of Fraech and Fochnam—presage of battle! On its other two points are the heads of Err and Innell.

3] What inscription is that on its side? Tell us, O druids fair. And who wrote that inscription on it? How many drove it into the ground?

4] Yon forked branch with fearful strength that you see there, O Fergus, one man cut-and hail to him! with one perfect stroke of his sword.

5] He pointed it and swung it back behind him—no easy exploit—and then flung it down that one of you might pluck it out of the ground.

6] Áth n-Grena was its name hitherto. All will remember it. Ath n-Gabla will be its name forever from that forked branch which you see in the ford.

After the lay: Ailill said: ‘I marvel and wonder, Fergus, who would have cut the forked pole and slain so swiftly the four who went before us’.

‘Rather should you marvel and wonder at him who cut, whole and entire, the forked pole that you see with one stroke, who sharpened and pointed it and made a cast of it from the back of his chariot with the tip of one hand so that it went two third of its length into the ground and only one third is above it, and no hole was dug for it with his sword but it was driven in through the stony ground. It is tabu for the men of Ireland to go into the bed of this ford until one of you pluck out the pole with the tip of one hand even as he drove it in just now’.

‘You are of our army, Fergus’ said Medb, ‘so bring us the forked pole from the bed of the ford’.

‘Let me have a chariot’ said Fergus. A chariot was brought to Fergus, and he gave a tug to the forked pole and made fragments and small pieces of the chariot. ‘Let a chariot be brought to me’ said Fergus again. A chariot is brought to Fergus and he gave a strong pull to the forked pole and made fragments and small pieces of the chariot. ‘Bring me a chariot’. said Fergus. He tugged the pole with all his strength and shattered the chariot into pieces. As for the seventeen chariots of the Connachtmen, Fergus broke them all to fragments and small pieces and yet he could not draw the pole from the bed of the ford.

‘Give over, Fergus’ said Medb, ‘do not break any more of my people’s chariots, for had you not been on this hosting now, we should already have reached the Ulstermen and had our share of booty and herds. We know why you are acting thus: it is to hold back and delay the host until such time as the Ulstermen recover from their debility and give us battle, the battle of the Táin’.

‘Let a chariot be brought to me at once’ said Fergus. Then his own chariot was brought to Fergus, and Fergus gave a strong wrench to the forked pole and neither wheel nor pole nor shaft of the chariot creaked or groaned. As was the strength and bravery with which it was driven in by him who had driven it in, so was the might and valour with which the warrior drew it out—Fergus, the gap-breaker of a hundred, the sledge hammer of smiting, the destructive stone of enemies, the leader of resistance, the enemy of multitudes, the destroyer of a mighty army, the blazing torch, the commander of a great battle. He drew it up with the tip of one hand until it reached the top of his shoulder and he put the forked pole in Ailill’s hand. And Ailill looked at it.

‘The fork seems all the more perfect to me’ said Ailill, ‘in that it is a single cutting I see on it from top to bottom’.

‘All the more perfect indeed’ said Fergus, and he began to praise the forked pole and made this lay about it:

Fergus

1] Here is the famous forked pole beside which harsh Cú Chulainn stood, and on which he left—to spite some one of you—the four heads of strangers.

2] It is certain that he would not retreat from the forked pole at the approach of one man, strong and fierce. Though the bright Hound has left it, blood remains on its hard bark.

3] Woe to him who will go eastward on the hosting to seek the cruel Donn Cúailnge. Heroes will be cut in pieces by the baneful sword of Cú Chulainn.

4] No easy gain will be his strong bull for whom a fight will be fought with keen weapons. When every skull has been tormented, all the tribes of Ireland will weep.

5] I have no more to say concerning the son of Deichtire, but men and women shall hear of this pole as it now stands.

After that lay: Ailill said: ‘Let us pitch our tents and pavilions, and let us prepare food and drink and let us make music and melody and let us eat and take food, for it is unlikely that the men of Ireland ever at any time experienced a night of encampment that held more hardship and distress for them than last night’. Their encampments were set up and their tents pitched. Food and drink was prepared by them, music and melody played, and they ate a meal.

And Ailill asked Fergus a question: ‘I marvel and wonder as to who would come to us on the marches and slay so swiftly the four who went in advance. Is it likely that Conchobor mac Fachtna Fáthaig the high king of Ulster would come to us?’

‘It is not likely indeed’ said Fergus, ‘for it is lamentable to revile him in his absence. There is nothing that he would not pledge for his honour’s sake. For if it were he who had come, armies and hosts and the pick of the men of Ireland (Ulster,) who are with him would have come too, and even though the men of Ireland and the men of Scotland, the Britons and the Saxons were opposed to him in one place and one meeting and one muster, in one camp and on one hill, he would give them all battle, it is he who would win victory and it is not he who would be routed’.

‘Tell me, then, who was likely to have come to us? Was it perhaps Cuscraid Mend Macha mac Conchobuir from Inis Cuscraid?’

‘It was not likely’ said Fergus, son of the high king. ‘There is nothing he would not stake for the sake of his honour, for if it were he who came, the sons of kings and royal princes who are with him in mercenary service would also come, and if there were before him in one spot and one Ireland and the men of Scotland, the Britons and the Saxons, he would give them all battle, it is he who would be victorious and it is not he who would be routed’.

‘Tell me, then, would Eogan mac Durthacht the King of Fernmag come to us?’

‘It was not likely indeed for if it were he who came, the steady men of Fernmag would come with him and he would give battle etc’.

‘Tell me then who was likely to come to us. Was it Celchair mac Uthechair?’

‘It was not likely indeed. It is shameful to revile him in his absence. He is the destructive stone of his enemies in the province, he is leader of resistance to all, he is the Ulstermen’s doorway of battle, and if there were before him in one spot ut ante together with all the men of Ireland from west to east and from south to north, he would give them battle, he would be victorious and not he would be routed’.

‘Tell me, then, who would be likely to have come to us?’

‘Nay who but the little lad, my fosterson and the fosterson of Conchobor. Cú Chulainn na Cerdda the Hound of Culann the Smith he is called’.

‘Yes indeed’ said Ailill. ‘I have heard you speak of that little lad once upon a time in Crúachu. What is the age of that boy now?’

‘It is not his age that is most troublesome indeed’ said Fergus, ‘for the deeds of that boy were those of a man when he was younger than he is now’.

‘How so?’ said Medb. ‘Is there among the Ulstermen now his equal in age who is more redoubtable than he?’

‘We do not find there a wolf more bloodthirsty nor a hero more fierce nor any of his contemporaries who could equal the third or the fourth part of Cú Chulainn’s warlike deeds. You do not find there’ said Fergus, ‘a hero his equal nor a sledge-hammer of smiting nor doom of hosts nor a contest of valour who would be of more worth than Cú Chulainn. You do not find there one that could equal his age and his growth, his size and his splendour, his fearsomeness and his eloquence, his harshness, his feats of arms and his valour, his bearing, his attack and his assault, his destructiveness, his troublesomeness and his tumultuousness, his quickness, his speed and his violence, and his swift victory with the feat of nine men on each pointed weapon following above him’.

‘We make but little account of him’ said Medb. ‘He has but one body. He shuns wounding who evades capture. His age is reckoned as but that of a nubile girl nor will that youthful beardless sprite ye speak of hold out against resolute men’.

‘We do not say so’ said Fergus, ‘for the deeds of that little boy were those of a man when he was younger than he now is’.

Here begin the youthful deeds of Cú Chulainn

Fergus

‘For this boy was reared in the house of his father and mother at Airgdig in Mag Muirtheimne, and the stories of the youths of Emain were told to him. For this is how Conchobor spends his time of kingship since he assumed sovereignty: as soon as he arises, settling the cares and business of the province, thereafter dividing the day into three, the first third of the day spent watching the youths playing games and hurling, the second third spent in playing brandub and fidchell and the last third spent in consuming food and drink until sleep comes on them all, while minstrels and musicians are meanwhile lulling him to sleep. Though I am banished from him, I swear’ said Fergus, ‘that there is not in Ireland or in Scotland a warrior the counterpart of Conchobor.’

The stories about the youths and boys in Emain were told to that lad, and the little lad asked his mother if he might go to play to the playing-field at Emain,

‘It is too soon for you, my son’ said his mother, ‘until there go with you a champion of the champions of Ulster or some of the attendants of Conchobor to ensure your safety and protection from the youths.’

‘I think it long to wait for that, mother’ said the little boy, ‘and I shall not wait for it, but show me in what place lies Emain.’

‘Far away from you is the spot where it lies’ said his mother. ‘Slíab Fúait is between you and Emain.’

‘I shall make a guess at it then’ said he.

The boy went forth and took his playthings. He took his hurleystick of bronze and his silver ball; he took his little javelin for casting and his toy spear with its end sharpened by fire, and he began to shorten the journey by playing with them. He would strike his ball with the stick and drive it a long way from him. Then with a second stroke he would throw his stick so that he might drive it a distance no less than the first. He would throw his javelin and he would cast his spear and would make a playful rush after them. Then he would catch his hurley-stick and his ball and his javelin, and before the end of his spear had reached the ground he would catch its tip aloft in the air.

He went on to the place of assembly in Emain where the youths were. There were thrice fifty youths led by Follomain mac Conchobuir at their games on the green of Emain. The little boy went on to the playing-field into their midst and caught the ball between his two legs when they cast it nor did he let it go higher than the top of his knee nor go lower than his ankle, and he pressed it and held it close between his two legs, and not one of the youths managed to get a grasp or a stroke or a blow or a shot at it. And he carried the ball away from them over the goal.

Then they all gazed at him. They wondered and marvelled.

‘Well, boys’ said Follomain mac Conchobuir, ‘attack yon fellow, all of you, and let him meet death at my hands, for it is tabu for you that a youth should join your game without ensuring his protection from you. Attack him all together, for we know that he is the son of an Ulster chieftain, and let them not make it a habit to join your games without putting themselves under your protection and safeguard.’

Then they all attacked him together. They cast their thrice fifty hurley-sticks at the boy’s head. He lifted up his single play-thing stick and warded off the thrice fifty sticks. Then they cast the thrice fifty balls at the little boy. He raised his arms and his wrists and his palms and warded off the thrice fifty balls. They threw at him the thrice fifty toy spears with sharpened butt. The boy lifted up his toy wooden shield and warded off the thrice fifty spears. Then he attacked them. He threw fifty kings’ sons of them to the ground beneath him.

‘Five of them’ said Fergus, ‘went between me and Conchobor in the spot where we were playing chess on the chess-board Cendchaem on the mound of Emain. The little boy pursued them to cut them down. Conchobor seized the little lad by the arms.’

‘Nay, lad, I see that you do not deal gently with the youths.’

‘I have good reason for that’ said the boy. ‘Though I came from distant lands, I did not get the honour due to a guest from the youths on my arrival.’

‘Why, who are you?’ asked Conchobor.

‘I am little Setanta mac Sualtaim, the son of Deichtire your sister, and not through you did I expect to be thus aggrieved.’

‘Why, my lad’ said Conchobor, ‘do you not know of the prohibition that the youths have, and that it is tabu for them that a boy should come to them from outside and not first claim their protection?’

‘I did not know’ said the little boy, ‘and if I had known, I should have been on my guard against them.’

‘Well, lads’ said Conchobor, ‘undertake the protection of the little boy.’

‘We grant it indeed’ say they.

The little boy placed himself under the protection of the youths. Then they loosed hands from him but once more he attacked them. He threw fifty kings’ sons to the ground beneath him. Their fathers thought that he had killed them but it was not so, he had merely terrified them with his many and violent blows.

‘Nay’ said Conchobor. ‘Why do you still attack them?’

‘I swear by my gods that until they in their turn all come under my protection and guarantee as I have done with them, I shall not lift my hands from them until I bring them all low.’

‘Well, little lad, take on you the protection of the youths.’

‘I grant it’ said the little boy. Then the youths placed themselves under his protection and guarantee.

‘A little boy who did that deed’ said Fergus, ‘at the end of five years after his birth and overthrew the sons of champions and warriors in front of their own fort and encampment, there were no need of wonder or surprise that he should come to the marches and cut a four-pronged pole and kill one man or two men or three or four when his seventeen years are accomplished on Táin Bó Cúailnge’.

Then said Cormac Cond Longas, the son of Conchobor: ‘The year after that that little boy did a second deed’.

‘What deed was that?’ asked Ailill.

Cormac Cond Longas

Culand the smith dwelt in Ulster. He prepared a feast for Conchobor and went to Emain to invite him. He told him to come with only a small number unless he could bring a few genuine guests, for neither land nor domain had he but only his sledge- hammers and his anvils, his fists and his tongs. Conchobor said he would bring with him to Culand only a small number.

Culand came on to his fort to prepare food and drink. Conchobor remained in Emain until it was time to disperse when day drew to a close. The king put on his light travelling garb and went to bid farewell to the youths.

Conchobor went to the playing-field and saw something that astonished him: thrice fifty boys at one end of the field and a single boy at the other end, and the single boy winning victory in taking the goal and in hurling from the thrice fifty youths. When they played the hole- game—a game which was played on the green of Emain—and when it was their turn to cast the ball and his to defend, he would catch the thrice fifty balls outside the hole and none would go past him into the hole. When it was their turn to keep goal and his to hurl, he would put the thrice fifty balls unerringly into the hole. When they played at pulling off each others’s clothes, he would tear their thrice fifty mantles off them and all of them together were unable to take even the brooch out of his cloak. When they wrestled, he would throw the same thrice fifty to the ground beneath him and a sufficient number of them to hold him could not get to him. Chonchobor began to examine the little boy.

‘Ah, my warriors’ said Conchobor, ‘happy is the land from which came the little boy ye see, if his manly deeds were to be like his boyish exploits.’

‘It is not fitting to speak thus’ said Fergus, ‘for as the little boy grows, so also will his deeds of manhood increase with him.’

‘Let the little boy be summoned to us that he may go with us to share the feast to which we are going.’ The little boy was summoned to Conchobor.

‘Well my lad.’ said Conchobor, ‘come with us to enjoy the feast to which we are going.’

‘I shall not go indeed’ said the little boy.

‘Why so?’ asked Conchobor. ‘Because the youths have not yet had enough of play and games and I shall not go from them until they have had their fill of play.’

‘It is too long for us to wait for you, little lad, and we shall not.’

‘Go on ahead’ said the little boy, ‘and I shall go after you.’

‘You do not know the way at all, little boy’ said Chonchobor. ‘I shall follow the trail of the company and the horses and the chariots.’

Then Conchobor came to the house of Culand the smith. The king was served, and they were honoured according to rank and profession and rights and nobility and accomplishments. Reeds and fresh rushes were strewn beneath them. They began to drink and make merry.

Culand asked Conchobor: ‘Good now, O King, have you appointed anyone to follow you tonight to this stronghold?’

‘I have not’ said Chonchobor for he did not remember the little boy he had appointed to come after him. ‘Why so?’ asked Conchobor. ‘I have a good bloodhound and when his dogchain is taken off no traveller or wayfarer dares come into the same canton as he, and he recognises no one but myself. His strength is such that he can do the work of a hundred’. Then said Conchobor. ‘Let the bloodhound be loosed for us that he may guard the canton.’

His dog-chain was loosed from the bloodhound and he made a swift circuit of the canton and he came to the mound where he was wont to be while guarding the dwelling, and he lay there with his head on his paws. And wild, savage and here, rough, surly and battlesome was he who lay there.

As for the youths, they remained in Emain until it was time for them disperse. They went each of them to the house of his father and mother, or of his fostermother and fosterfather.

But the little boy went on the track of the company until he reached the house of Culand the smith. He began to shorten the way as he went with his playthings. When he reached the green before the stronghold where Culand and Conchobor were, he threw away all his playthings in front of him except his ball alone.

The bloodhound perceived the little boy and bayed at him, and the baying of the bloodhound was heard throughout all the countryside. And it was not a sharing out for a feast the hound was minded to make of the boy, but rather to swallow him entire past the wall of his chest and the breadth of his throat and the midriff of his breast.

The boy had no means of defence, but he made a cast of the ball and it went through the gaping mouth of the bloodhound and carried all his entrails out through the back way, and the boy then seized him by two legs and dashed him against the standing-stone so that he was scattered into pieces on the ground.

Conchobor had heard the baying of the hound. ‘Alas, my warriors’ said Conchobor, ‘would that we had not come to enjoy this feast.’

‘Why so?’ asked they all.

‘The little boy who arranged to come after me, my sister’s son, Setanta mac Sualtaim, has been killed by the hound.’

All the famous Ulstermen rose with one accord. Though the gateway of the dwelling was wide open, they all went to meet him out over the palisades of the stronghold.

Though all reached him quickly, quickest was Fergus and he lifted the little boy from the ground on to his shoulder and brought him into the presence of Conchobor.

And Culand came forth and saw his bloodhound lying in scattered pieces. His heart beat against his breast. He went across into the stronghold then. ‘I welcome your arrival, little boy’ said Culand, ‘for the sake of your mother and your father, but I do not welcome your arrival for your own sake.’

‘Why are you angry, with the boy?’ asked Conchobor. ‘Would that you had not come to consume my drink and eat my food, for my substance now is substance wasted, my livelihood a lost livelihood. Good was the servant you have taken from me. He used to guard my herds and flocks and cattle for me.’

‘Be not angry at all, master Culand’said the little boy, ‘for I shall deliver a true judgment in this matter.’

‘What judgment would you deliver on it, my lad?’ said Conchobor.

‘If there is a whelp of that hound’s breeding in Ireland, he will be reared by me until he be fit for action like his sire. I shall myself be the hound to protect Culand’s flocks and cattle and land during that time.’

‘A good judgement you have given, little boy.’ said Conchobor.

‘I would not have given a better myself.’ said Cathbad. ‘Why shall you not be called Cú Chulainn Culand’s Hound because of this?’

‘Nay’ said the little boy, ‘I prefer my own name, Setanta mac Sualtaim.’

‘Do not say that, lad’ said Cathbad, ‘for the men of Ireland and of Scotland shall hear of that name, and that name shall be ever on the lips of the men of Ireland and of Scotland.’

‘I am willing that it shall be my name’ said the boy. Hence the famous name of Cú Chulainn clung to him since he killed the hound of Culand the smith.

‘A little boy who performed that exploit’ said Cormac Cond Longas, ‘six years after his birth, who killed the bloodhound with which hosts and armies dared not be in the same canton, there were no need to wonder or marvel that he should come to the marches and cut a four-pronged pole and kill one man or two or three or four, now that his seventeen years are completed on Táin Bó Cúailnge’.

‘The little boy performed a third exploit in the following year again’ said Fiachu mac Fir Aba. ‘What exploit did he perform?’ asked Ailill.

Fiachu mac Fir Aba

Cathbad the druid was teaching his pupils to the north-east of Emain, and eight pupils of the class of druidic learning were with him. One of them asked his teacher what omen and presage was for that day, whether it was good or whether it was ill.

Then said Cathbad that a boy who should take up arms on that day would be splendid and famous but would be shortlived and transient.

Cú Chulainn heard that as he was playing south-west of Emain, and he threw aside all his playthings and went to Conchobor’s sleeping chamber. ‘All good attend you, O king of the warriors’ said the little boy. —That is the speech of a person making a request of someone.—

‘What do you ask for, little lad?’ said Conchobor.

‘I wish to take arms’ said the little boy.

‘Who has advised you, lad?’ said Conchobor.

‘Cathbad the druid’ said the little boy.

‘He would not deceive you, lad’ said Conchobor. Conchobor gave him two spears and a sword and a shield. The little boy shook and brandished the arms and shattered them into small pieces. Conchobor gave him two other spears and a shield and a sword. He shook and brandished, flourished and waved them, and shattered them into small pieces. As for the fourteen suits of arms which Conchobor had in Emain for the youths and boys—for to whichever one of them should take arms Conchobor would give equipment of battle and the youth would have victory in his valour thereafter—that little boy made fragments and small pieces of them all.

‘Indeed, these weapons are not good, father Conchobor’ said the little boy, ‘none of them suits me.’

Conchobor gave him his own two spears and his shield and his sword. He shook and brandished and flourished and waved them so that the point of spears and sword touched the butt, and yet he did not break the weapons and they withstood him. ‘These weapons are good indeed’ said the little boy, ‘they are suited to me. I salute the king whose weapons and equipment these are. I salute the land from which he came.’

Then Cathbad the druid came into the tent and spoke. ‘Is yon boy taking arms?’ said Cathbad. ‘He is indeed’ said Conchobor.

‘Not by your mother’s son would I wish arms to be taken today’ said Cathbad.

‘Why is that? Is it not you who advised him?’ said Conchobor.

‘Not I indeed’ said Cathbad.

‘What mean you, you distorted sprite’ said Conchobor, ‘have you deceived me?’

‘Do not be angry, father Conchobor’ said the little boy, ‘for it is he who advised me, for his pupil asked him what omen was for the day and he said that a boy who took arms on this day would be splendid and renowned but short-lived and transient.’

‘I spoke truth’ said Cathbad. ‘You will be splendid and renowned but short- lived and transient.’

‘It is a wonderful thing if I am but one day and one night in the world provided that my fame and my deeds live after me.’

‘Come, little lad, mount the chariot now for it is the same good omen for you.’

He mounted the chariot, and the first chariot he mounted, he shook and swayed around him and shattered it to pieces. He mounted the second chariot and shattered it to pieces in the same way. He made fragments of the third chariot also. As for the seventeen chariots which Conchobor had in Emain to serve the youths and boys, the little lad shattered them all to pieces and they withstood him not. ‘These chariots are not good, father Conchobor’ said the little boy, ‘none of these suits me.’

‘Where is Ibar mac Riangabra?’ asked Conchobor.

‘Here’ answered Ibar.

‘Harness my own two horses for yon boy and yoke my chariot.’

The charioteer harnessed the horses and yoked the chariot. Then the little boy mounted the chariot. He rocked the chariot around him and it withstood him and did not break.

‘This chariot is good indeed’ said the little boy, ‘and it is my fitting chariot.’

‘Well, little boy’ said Ibar, ‘let the horses go to their pasture now.’

‘It is too soon yet, Ibar’ said the little boy. ‘Come on around Emain now for to-day is the first day I took arms, that it may be a triumph of valour for me.’ They drove thrice around Emain.

‘Let the horses go to their pasture now, little boy’ said Ibar.

‘It is too soon yet, Ibar’ said the little boy. ‘Come on so that the boys may wish me well, for to-day is the first day I took arms.’ They went forward to the place where the boys were.

‘Is yon lad taking arms?’ they asked,

‘Yes indeed.’

‘May it be for victory and first- wounding and triumph, but we deem it too soon that you took arms because you part from us in our games.’

‘I shall not part from you at all, but it is with a good omen I took arms to- day.’

‘Let the horses go to their pasture now, little boy’ said Ibar.

‘It is still too soon, Ibar’ said the little boy. ‘And this great road which goes past us, where does it lead?’ said the little boy.

‘Why do you bother about it?’ said Ibar. ‘You are an importunate fellow, I see, little lad’ said Ibar.

‘I wish, fellow, to ask about the chief roads of the province. How far does it go?’

‘It goes to Áth na Foraire on Slíab Fúait’ said Ibar.

‘Do you know why it is called Áth na Foraire?’

‘I do indeed’ said Ibar. ‘A goodly warrior of the Ulstermen is always there, keeping watch and ward so that no warriors or strangers come to Ulster to challenge them to battle and so that he may be the champion to give battle on behalf of the whole province. And if poets leave Ulstermen and the province unsatisfied, that he may be the one to give them treasures and valuables for the honour of the province. If poets come into the land, that he may be the man who will be their surety until they reach Conchobor’s couch and that their poems and songs may be the first to be recited in Emain on their arrival.’

‘Do you know who is at that ford to-day?’

‘I do indeed’ said Ibar, ‘Conall Cernach mac Amargin, the heroic and triumphant, the finest of the warriors of Ireland’ said Ibar. ‘Go on, fellow, that we may reach the ford.’

They drove forward in front of the ford where Conall was.

‘Is yon boy taking arms?’ asked Conall. ‘He is indeed’ said Ibar.

‘May that be for victory and first-wounding and triumph.’ said Conall, ‘but we deem it too soon for you to take arms because you are not yet fit for action if he that should come hither needed protection, for you would be complete surety for all the Ulstermen, and the nobles of the province would rise up at your summons.’

‘What are you doing here, master Conall?’ said the little boy.

‘I am keeping watch and ward for the province here, lad’ said Conall.

‘Go home now, master Conall’ said the boy, ‘and let me keep watch for the province here.’

‘Nay, little boy’ said Conall. ‘You are not yet fit to meet a goodly warrior.’

‘Then I shall meanwhile go on southwards’ said the boy, ‘to Fertais Locha Echtrand to see if I might redden my hands in the blood of a friend or an enemy to-day.’

‘I shall go with you to protect you, lad’ said Conall. ‘that you may not go alone to the marches.’

‘Nay’ said the boy.

‘I shall indeed go with you’ said Conall, ‘for the Ulstermen will censure me if I let you go alone to the marches.’

His horses are harnessed for Conall and his chariot yoked, and he went to protect the boy. When Conall came abreast of him, the boy was certain that if the chance of performing a great deed were to come his way, Conall would not let him do it. He took from the ground a stone which filled his fist. He made a cast at the yoke of Conall’s chariot and broke it in two so that Conall fell through the chariot on to the ground and his shoulder was dislocated.

‘What is this, boy?’ said Conall.

‘It was I who cast a shot to see it my marksmanship was straight and in what way I shoot, and to see if I am the makings of a good fighter.’

‘A bane on your shot and a bane on yourself! Even if you leave your head with your enemies now, I shall not go with you to guard you any more.’

‘That is exactly what I asked you’ said he, ‘for it is tabu for you Ulstermen to proceed on your way despite an insecure chariot.’

Conall came back again northwards to Áth na Foraire.

As for the little boy, he went south to Fertais Locha Echtrand. He was there until the close of day.

‘If we might venture to say so, little lad’ said Ibar, ‘we would deem it time to go now to Emain, for already for some time the serving of meat and drink and the sharing out has been made in Emain. You have your appointed place there between Conchobor’s knees every day you come there while my place is merely among the messengers and jesters of Conchobor’s household. I think it time for me to go and scramble for a place with them.’

‘Then harness the horses for us.’

The charioteer harnesses the horses and the boy mounted the chariot. ‘Well, Ibar, what mound is that mound up there now?’

‘That is Slíab Moduirn’ said Ibar.

‘And what is that white cairn on the top of the mountain?’

‘That is Findcharn Slebe Moduirn’ said Ibar.

‘Yon cairn is pleasant’ said the little boy.

‘It is pleasant indeed’ said Ibar.

‘Come on, fellow, to that cairn.’

‘Well, you are an importunate boy’ said Ibar, ‘but this is my first expedition with you. It will be my last expedition for ever if once I reach Emain.’

However they went to the summit of the hill.

‘Well now, Ibar’ said the boy, ‘teach me all the places of Ulster on every side for I do not know my way at all about the territory of Conchobor.’

The driver pointed out to him all the places of Ulster all around him. He told him the names of the hills and plains and mounds of the province on every side. He pointed out the plains and strongholds and renowned places of the province.

‘Well now, Ibar’ said the little boy, ‘what plain is that to the south of us which is full of retreats and corners and nooks and glens?’

‘That is Mag m-Breg’ said Ibar.

‘Show me the buildings and renowned places of that plain.’

The driver showed him Temair and Tailtiu, Cleitech and Cnogba and Brug Meic in Óc and the fortress of the sons of Nechta Scene.

‘Are not these the sons of Nechta who boast that the number of Ulstermen alive is not greater than the number of those Ulstermen who have fallen at their hands?’

‘They are indeed’ said the driver.

‘Come on to the stronghold of the sons of Nechta’ said the little lad.

‘Woe to him who says that!’ said Ibar. ‘We know that it is a very foolish thing to say that. Whoever goes there’ said Ibar, ‘it will not be I.’

‘You shall go there alive or dead’ said the boy.

‘Alive I shall go south’ said Ibar, ‘but dead I know I shall be left at the stronghold of Nechta’s sons.’

They went on to the stronghold and the boy leapt from the chariot on to the green. Thus was the green before the stronghold: there was a pillar-stone on it and around the stone an iron ring, a ring of heroic deeds, with an ogam inscription on its peg. And thus ran the inscription: if any man came on that green and if he were a warrior bearing arms, it was tabu for him to leave the green without challenging to single combat. The little boy read out the inscription and put his two arms around the stone, that is, the stone and its ring, and he pitched it into the pool and the water closed over it.

‘It seems to us’ said Ibar, ‘that that is no better than that it should remain where it was, and we know that you will find on this green what you are looking for now, namely, symptoms of death and dissolution.’

‘Well now, Ibar, settle the coverings and rugs of the chariot for me that I may sleep for a little while.’

‘Woe to him who says that’ said the driver ‘for this is a land of enemies and not a green for pleasure.’ The driver arranged the rugs and skin-coverings of the chariot. The little boy fell asleep on the green.

Then there came on to the green one of the sons of Nechta, Foíll mac Nechtain. ‘Do not unharness the horses, driver’ said Fóill.

‘I do not attempt it at all’ said Ibar, ‘their traces and reins are still in my hand.’

‘Whose are these horses?’ said Fóill.

‘Conchobor’s two horses’ said the driver, ‘the two piebald-headed ones.’

‘I recognise them as such, and what brought the horses here to the border of the marches?’

‘A youthful lad of ours who took up arms’ said the driver. ‘He came to the edge of the marches to display his form.’

‘May that not be for victory or triumph’ said Fóill. ‘Had I known that he was old enough to fight, his dead body would have returned north to Emain and he would not have returned alive.’

‘He is not old enough to fight indeed’ said Ibar, ‘and it is not meet even to say so to him. He is in but the seventh year from his birth.’

The little boy raised his head from the ground and passed his hand over his face, and he blushed crimson from head to foot. ‘I am indeed capable of action’ said the little boy.

‘It pleases me better than that you should say that you are not.’

‘It will please you still better if only we meet on the ford, but go and fetch your weapons for I see that you have come in cowardly fashion, unarmed, and I do not wound charioteers or messengers or those unarmed.’

The fellow hastened to fetch his weapon.

‘It behoves you to act warily with yon man, little lad’ said Ibar.

‘Why is that?’ said the boy.

‘The man you see is Fóill mac Nechtain. No points nor weapons nor sharp edges harm him.’

‘Not to me should you say that, Ibar’ said the boy. ‘I shall take in hand for him my deil cliss, that is, the round ball of refined iron, and it will land on the flat of his shield and the flat of his forehead and carry out through the back of his head a portion of brain equal to the iron ball, and he will be holed like a sieve so that the light of the air will be visible through his head.’

Fóill mac Nechtain came forth. Cú Chulainn took in hand for him the deil cliss, and hurled it so that it landed on the flat of his shield and the flat of his forehead and took the ball’s equivalent of his brains through the back of his head, and he was holed like a sieve so that the light of the air was visible through his head. And Cú Chulainn struck off his head from his neck.

The second son, Túachall mac Nechtain, came forth on the green. ‘I see you would boast of that deed’ said Túachall.

‘Indeed, I think it no cause for boasting to slay one warrior.’

‘You will not boast of that now for you will fall by my hand.’

‘Go and fetch your weapons for you have come in cowardly fashion, unarmed.’ The fellow hastened to fetch his weapons.

‘You should have a care for yon fellow, little lad’ said Ibar.

‘Why so?’ said the boy.

‘The man you see is Túachall mac Nechtain. Unless you get him with the first blow or the first cast or the first touch, you will never do so, so skilfully and craftily does he move around the points of the weapons.’

‘Not to me should that be said, Ibar’ said the boy. ‘I shall take in hand the great spear of Conchobor, the venomous lance. It will land on the shield over his breast, and having pierced his heart, it will crush through a rib in the side that is farther from me. It will be the cast of an outlaw not the blow of a freeman. From me he shall not get until the day of doom any place where he may be cured or tended.’

Túachall mac Nechtain came out on the green, and the boy threw Conchobor’s spear at him and it went through the shield over his breast and crushed through a rib in the side farther from Cú Chulainn after piercing his heart in his chest. Cú Chulainn struck off his head before it reached the ground.

Then came forth the youngest of the sons, Faindle mac Nechtain, on to the green. ‘Foolish were they who fought with you here.’

‘Why is that?’ said the boy. ‘Come away down to the pool where your foot will not touch bottom.’

Faindle hastened on to the pool.

‘You should have a care for yon fellow, little lad’ said Ibar.

‘Why so?’ said the boy.

‘The man you see is Faindle mac Nechtain, and he is so called because he travels over water like a swallow or squirrel. The swimmers of the world cannot cope with him.’

‘Not to me should that be said, Ibar’ said the boy. ‘You know our river Calland in Emain. When the youths surround it to play their games on it and when the pool is not safe, I carry a boy over it on each of my two palms and a boy on each of my two shoulders and I myself do not wet even my ankles as I carry them.’

They met upon the water and the boy clasped his arms around Faindle and held him until the water came up flush with him, and he dealt him a violent blow with Conchobor’s sword and struck his head from his trunk, letting the body go with the current and taking with him the head.

Then they went into the stronghold and pillaged the fort and fired it so that its buildings were level with its outer walls.

They turned about on their way to Slíab Fúait and took with them the three heads of the sons of Nechta.

They saw in front of them a herd of wild deer. ‘What are these numerous fierce cattle, Ibar?’ said the boy. ‘Are they tame or are they deer?’

‘They are deer indeed’ said Ibar. ‘That is a herd of wild deer which frequent the recesses of Slíab Fúait.’

‘Ply the goad on the horses for us, that we may catch some of them.’ The charioteer plied the goad on the horses. The king’s fat horses could not keep up with the deer. The boy dismounted and caught two swift, strong stags. He tied them to the shafts and ropes and thongs of the chariot.

They went forward to the mound of Emain.

They saw a flock of white swans fly past them.

‘What kind of birds are those, Ibar?’ said the boy. ‘Are they tame or just birds?’

‘Just birds’ said Ibar. ‘They are a flock of swans which come in from the crags and rocks and islands of the ocean to feed on the plains and level spots of Ireland.’

‘Which would be the more wonderful, to bring them alive to Emain or to bring them dead, Ibar?’ said the boy.

‘More wonderful indeed to bring them alive’ said Ibar, ‘For not everyone can catch the living birds.’

Then the boy cast a small stone at them. He brought down eight of the birds. Then he cast a big stone and brought down sixteen of the birds. ‘Bring hither the birds, Ibar’ said the boy.

‘I am in a predicament’ said Ibar.

‘How is that?’ said the boy.

‘I have good reason to say so. If I move from where I am, the iron wheels of the chariot will cut me down, so fierce and so powerful (?) and so strong is the pace of the horses. If I stir at all, the stags’ antlers will pierce and gore me.’

‘Ah, no true warrior are you, Ibar’ said the boy, ‘for with the look that I shall give the horses, they will not break their straight course, and with the look that I shall give the deer, they will bow their heads in awe and fear of me, and it will not matter to you even if you stepped across their antlers.’

Then Ibar tied the birds to the shafts and cords and thongs and strings and ropes of the chariot.

They went forward and came to Emain.

Then Leborcham perceived them. She was the daughter of Aí and Adarc. ‘A single chariot-warrior is here’ said Leborcham, ‘and terribly he comes. He has in the chariot the bloody heads of his enemies. There are beautiful, pure-white birds held (?) by him in the chariot. He has wild, untamed deer bound and tied and fettered. If he be not met tonight, the warriors of Ulster will fall at his hand.’

‘We know that chariot-warrior’ said Conchobor. ‘It is the little boy, my sister’s son, who went to the marches and shed blood there, but he has not had his fill of combat, and if he be not met, all the warriors of Emain will fall by his hand.’

And the plan they devised was this: to send the women- folk out to meet the boy, thrice fifty women, that is, ten and seven score women, all stark naked, led by their chieftainess, Scannlach, to expose all their nakedness and shame to him. All the young women came forth and discovered all their nakedness and shame to him. The boy hid his face from them and laid his countenance against the chariot that he might not see the women’s nakedness.

Then the boy was lifted out of the chariot. He was placed in three vats of cold water to quench the ardour of his wrath. The first vat into which the boy was put burst its staves and hoops like the breaking of a nutshell about him. As for the second vat, the water would seethe several hand-breadths high in it. As for the third vat, the water grew hot in it so that one man might endure it while another would not. Thereupon the boy’s wrath abated, and his garments were put on him. His comely appearance was restored, and he blushed crimson from head to foot. He had seven toes on each of his feet and seven fingers on each of his hands. He had seven pupils in each of his royal eyes and seven gems sparkling in each pupil. Four dimples in each cheek, a blue dimple, a purple, a green, and a yellow. Fifty tresses of hair he had between one ear and the other, bright yellow like the top of a birch-tree or like brooches of pale gold shining in the sun. He had a high crest of hair, bright, fair, as if a cow had licked it. He wore a green mantle in which was a silver pin, and a tunic of thread of gold.

The boy was placed between Conchobor’s knees and the king began to stroke his hair.

A little lad who did those deeds when he was seven years old, who overcame the champions and warriors by whom two thirds of the men of Ulster had fallen and had been unavenged until this boy arose, there were no need to wonder or marvel that he should come to the marches and kill one man or two or three or four when his seventeen years were completed at the time of the Cattle-raid of Cúailnge.

Thus, far then is some account of the youthful deeds of Cú Chulainn on the Cattle-raid of Cúailnge, together with the prologue of the tale and an account of the route and march of the host out of Crúachu.

The story proper is what follows now.

The four great provinces of Ireland came the next day eastwards over Cruinn, that is, the mountain called Cruinn. Cú Chulainn went ahead of them. He met the charioteer of Órlám, the son of Ailill and Medb who was at Tamlachta Órláim to the north of Dísert Lochad, cutting chariot poles from a holly-tree in the wood. ‘Well, Láeg’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘boldly do the Ulstermen behave if it is they who are thus cutting down the wood in front of the men of Ireland. And do you stay here for a little while until I find out who is cutting down the wood in this manner’. Then Cú Chulainn went on and came upon the charioteer.

‘What are you doing here, lad?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘I am cutting the chariot poles from a holly-tree here’ said the driver, ‘for our chariots broke yesterday hunting that famous deer, Cú Chulainn. And by your valour, warrior, come to my help, lest that famous Cú Chulainn come upon me’.

‘Take your choice, lad’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘either to gather the poles or to strip them’.

‘I shall gather them for it is easier’. Cú Chulainn began to strip the poles, and he would draw them between his toes and between his fingers against their bends and knots until he made them smooth and polished and slippery and trimmed. He would make them so smooth that a fly could not stay on them by the time he cast them from him.

Then the charioteer looks at him. ‘Indeed, it seems to me that it was not a labour befitting you that I imposed on you. Who are you?’ asked the driver.

‘I am the famous Cú Chulainn of whom you spoke just now’.

‘Woe is me!’ cried the charioteer, ‘for that am I done for’.

‘I shall not slay you, lad’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘for I do not wound charioteers or messengers or men unarmed. And where is your master anyway?’

‘Over yonder on the mound’ said the charioteer.

‘Go to him and warn him to be on his guard, for if we meet, he will fall at my hands’.

Then the charioteer went to his master, and swiftly as the charioteer went, more swiftly still went Cú Chulainn and struck off Órlám’s head. And he raised the head aloft and displayed it to the men of Ireland.

Then came the three Meic Árach on to the ford at Ard Ciannacht to meet with Cú Chulainn. Lon and Ualu and Díliu were their names; Mes Lir and Mes Laig and Mes Lethair were the names of their charioteers. They came to encounter Cú Chulainn because they deemed excessive what he had done against them the previous day, namely, killing the two sons of Nera mac Nuatair meic Thacáin at Áth Gabla and killing Órlám, the son of Ailill and Medb, as well and displaying his head to the men of Ireland.

They came then that they might kill Cú Chulainn in the same way and bear away his head as a trophy.

They went to the wood and cut three rods of white hazel to put in the hands of their charioteers so that all six of them together might fight with Cú Chulainn.

Cú Chulainn attacked them and cut off their six heads. Thus fell Meic Árach by the hand of Cú Chulainn.

There came also Lethan on to his ford on the Níth in the district of Conaille Muirtheimne, to fight with Cú Chulainn. He attacked him on the ford. Áth Carpait was the name of the ford where they reached it, for their chariots had been broken in the fighting at the ford. Mulchi fell on the hill between the two fords, whence it is still called Gúalu Mulchi.

Then Cú Chulainn and Lethan met, and Lethan fell by the hand of Cú Chulainn who cut off his head from his trunk on the ford, but he left it with it, that is, he left his head with his body. Whence the name of the ford ever since is Áth Lethan in the district of Conaille Muirtheimne.

Then came the harpers of Caínbile from Ess Ruaid to entertain them. The men of Ireland thought that they had come from the Ulstermen to spy on them, so the hosts hunted them vigorously for a long distance until they escaped from them, transformed into wild deer, at the standing-stones at Lia Mór. For though they were called the harpers of Caínbile, they were men of great knowledge and prophecy and magic.

Then Cú Chulainn vowed that wherever he saw Medb, he would cast a stone at her and it would not go far from the side of her head. It happened as he said. Where he saw Medb to the west of the ford, he cast a stone from his sling at her and killed the pet bird on her shoulder. Medb went eastwards over the ford, and he cast another stone from his sling at her east of the ford and killed the pet marten which was on her shoulder. Whence the names of those places are still Meide in Togmaill and Meíde ind Eóin, and Áth Srethe is the name of the ford across which Cú Chulainn cast the stone from his sling.

The four great provinces of Ireland came on the morrow and began to ravage Mag m-Breg and Mag Muirtheimne. And there came to Fergus, Cú Chulainn’s fosterfather, a keen premonition of the arrival of Cú Chulainn, and he told the men of Ireland to be on their guard that night for Cú Chulainn would come upon them. And he praised him here again, as we have written above, and chanted a lay:

Fergus

Cú Chulainn of Cúailnge will come upon you in advance of the heroes of Cráebrúad. Men will be bloodily wounded because of the harrying of Mag Muirtheimne.

For Cú Chulainn went a longer journey than this, as far as the mountains of Armenia. He waged combat beyond his wont. He slaughtered the Amazons.

More difficult was it for him to drive the sons of Nechta from their couches and to slay with one hand the hound of the smith—valorous deed!

I have no more to say concerning Deichtere’s son. I swear that, in truth, though you reach him not, he will come to you.

After that lay: On the same day, the Donn Cúailnge came to Crích Mairgín and with him fifty heifers, and he pawed up the earth, that is, he cast the turf over him with his heels.

On the same day, the Morrígu daughter of Ernmas came from the fairy-mounds and sat on the pillar-stone in Temair Cúailnge, warning the Donn Cúailnge against the men of Ireland. She began to speak to him and she said: ‘Good now, O pitiful one, Donn Cúailnge, be on your guard, for the men of Ireland will come upon you and will carry you off to their encampment unless you take heed’. And she began to warn him thus and spoke these words aloud: ‘Nach fitir’ etc.[gap: untranslated rhetoric/extent: 6 lines]

Then Donn Cúailnge came and advanced into Glenn na Samaisce in Slíab Culind with fifty of his heifers.

Here are some of the virtues of the Donn Cúailnge: He would bull fifty heifers every day. These would calve before the same hour on the following day, and those of them that did not calve would burst with the calves because they could not endure the begetting of the Donn Cúailnge. It was one of the virtues of the Donn Cúailnge that fifty youths used to play games every evening on his back. Another of his virtues was that he used to protect a hundred warriors from heat and cold in his shadow and shelter. It was one of his virtues that no spectre or sprite or spirit of the glen dared to come into one and the same canton as he. It was one of his virtues that each evening as he came to his byre and his shed and his haggard, he used to make a musical lowing which was enough melody and delight for a man in the north and in the south and in the middle of the district of Cúailnge.

Those are some of the virtues of Donn Cúailnge.

Then on the morrow the hosts came into the rocks and dunes (?) of Conaille Muithemne. And Medb ordered that a shelter of shields should be placed over her lest Cú Chulainn should make a cast at her from hills or heights or mounds. However, on that day Cú Chulainn did not succeed in wounding or attacking the men or Ireland in the rocks and dunes of Conaille Muirthemne.

The men of the four great provinces of Ireland spent that night in Rede Loche in Cúailnge and pitched their camps there.

Medb told a handmaid of her household to go to the river and fetch her water for drinking and washing. Loche was the maid’s name. Then Loche came, wearing the golden diadem of the queen on her head and accompanied by fifty women. And Cú Chulainn cast a stone at her from his sling and broke in three the golden diadem and killed the girl on the plain where she was. Whence is the name Rede Loche in Cúailnge. For Cú Chulainn had thought, for want of knowledge and information, that it was Medb who was there.

On the morrow the hosts went as far as the river Glais Cruind, and they tried to cross the Glaise but failed to do so. Clúain Carpat is the name of the first place where they reached it, and that spot is called Clúain Carpat because the Glaise carried a hundred of their chariots away to the sea. Medb asked of her people that a warrior from amongst them should go and test the depth of the river.

A great and valiant warrior of Medb’s household called Úalu, rose up and took on his back a huge rock, and he came to test the depth of the stream. And the river Glais swept him back, dead and lifeless, with his stone on his back.

Medb ordered him to be brought up out of the river and his grave dug and his stone raised. Whence the name Lia Úaland in the district of Cúailnge.

Cú Chulainn kept very close to the hosts that day, inviting them to fight and do combat, and killed a hundred of their warriors, including Róen and Roí, the two historians of the Foray.

Medb ordered her people to go and fight and do combat with Cú Chulainn.

‘It will not be I’ and ‘It will not be I’, said one and all from the place where they were. ‘No captive is due from my people. Even if he were, it is not I who would go to oppose Cú Chulainn, for it is no easy task to encounter him’.

The hosts proceeded along the side of the river Glaise since they were unable to cross it, and they reached the spot where the Glaise rises in the mountain. If they wished, they could have gone between the Glaise and the mountain, but Medb did not permit it but ordered them to dig and hack a path for her through the mountain, so that it might be a reproach and disgrace to the Ulstermen. Since then Bernais Tána Bó Cúailnge is the name of that place, for afterwards the drove of cattle was taken through it.

The men of the four great provinces of Ireland encamped that night at Belat Aileáin. Until then its name was Belat Aileáin, but from that time its name was Glenn Táil, because of the great amount of milk which the herds and cattle yielded there to the men of Ireland. And Líasa Líac is another name for that place. It is so called because it was there that the men of Ireland built byres and enclosures for their herds and their cattle.

The men of the four great provinces of Ireland came on as far as Sechair. Sechair was the name of the river until then but Glas Gatlaig is its name ever since. It is so called because the men of Ireland brought their herds and cattle across it tied with withes and ropes, and when they had crossed, the hosts let their withes and ropes drift down the stream. Hence the name of Glas Gatlaig.

That night the men of the four great provinces of Ireland came and encamped in Druim En in the district of Conaille Muirthemne, and Cú Chulainn took up his position close beside them at Ferta in Lerga. And that night Cú Chulainn waved and brandished and shook his weapons so that a hundred warriors among the host died of fright and fear and dread of Cú Chulainn.

Medb told Fiachu mac Fir Aba of the Ulstermen to go and parley with Cú Chulainn and to offer him terms.

‘What terms would be offered him?’ asked Fiachu mac Fir Aba.

‘Not hard to say’ answered Medb. ‘He shall be compensated for the damage done to Ulstermen that he may be paid as the men of Ireland best adjudge. He shall have entertainment at all times in Crúachu and wine and mead shall be served to him, and he shall come into my service and into the service of Ailill for that is more advantageous for him than to be in the service of the petty lord with whom he now is’.—And that is the most scornful and insulting speech that was made on the Foray of Cúailnge, namely, to call Conchobor, the finest king of a province in Ireland, a petty lord.

Then came Fiachu mac Fir Aba to parley with Cú Chulainn. Cú Chulainn welcomed him.

‘I trust that welcome’.

‘You may well trust it’.

‘To parley with you have I come from Medb’.

‘What terms did you bring?’

‘Compensation shall be made to you for the damage done to the Ulstermen that you may be paid as the men of Ireland best adjudge. You shall have entertainment in Crúachu and be served with wine and mead. And you shall enter the service of Ailill and of Medb, for that is more advantageous for you than to be in the service of the petty lord with whom you now are’.

‘No, indeed’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘I would not exchange my mother’s brother for another king’.

‘Come early tomorrow to Glenn Fochaíne to a meeting with Medb and Fergus’.

Then early on the morrow Cú Chulainn came to Glenn Fochaíne. Medb and Fergus came there too to meet him, and Medb gazed at Cú Chulainn, and in her own mind she belittled him for he seemed to her no more than a boy.

‘Is that the famous Cú Chulainn of whom you speak, Fergus?’ asked Medb. And Medb began to speak to Fergus and made the lay:

Medb

1] If that is the fair Hound of whom ye Ulstermen speak, no man who faces hardship but can ward him off from the men of Ireland.

Fergus

2] Though young the Hound you see there who rides over Mag Muirthemne, no man who places foot on earth but he will repel in single combat.

Medb

3] Let terms be taken from us to the warrior. He is mad if he violates them. He shall have half his cows and half his womenfolk, and let him change his way of fighting.

Fergus

4] I wish that the Hound from great Muirthemne be not defeated by you. I know that if it be he, he fears no fierce or famous deed of arms.

‘Speak you to Cú Chulainn, Fergus’ said Medb. ‘Nay’, said Fergus, ‘rather speak to him yourself, for ye are not far apart in this glen, Glenn Fochaíre’. And Medb began to address Cú Chulainn and chanted a lay:

Medb

1] O Cú Chulainn renowned in song, ward off from us your sling. Your fierce famed fighting has overcome us and confused us.

Cú Chulainn

O Medb from Múr mac Mágach, I am no inglorious coward. As long as I live I shall not yield to you the driving of the herd of Cúailnge.

Medb

3] If you would accept from us, O triumphant Hound of Cúailnge, half your cows and half your womenfolk, you will get them from us through fear of you.”

Cú Chulainn

4] Since I, by virtue of those I have slain, am the veteran who guards Ulster, I shall accept no terms until am given every milch cow, every women of the Gael.

Medb

5] Too greatly do you boast, after slaughtering our nobles, that we should keep guard on the best of our steeds, the best of our possessions, all because of one man.

Cú Chulainn

6] O daughter of Eochu Find Fáil, I am no good in such a contention. Though I am a warrior—clear omen!—my counsels are few.

Medb

7] No reproach to you is what you say, many-retinued son of Deichtere. The terms are such as will bring fame to you, O triumphant Cú Chulainn.

After that lay: Cú Chulainn accepted none of the terms that Medb asked of him. In that manner they parted in the glen and each side withdrew equally angry.

The men of the four great provinces of Ireland encamped for three days and three nights at Druim En in Conaille Muirthemne. But neither huts nor tents were set up, nor was meal or repast eaten by them and no music or melody was played by them during those three nights. And every night until the bright hour of sunrise on the morrow, Cú Chulainn used to kill a hundred of their warriors.

‘Not long will our hosts last in this manner’ said Medb, ‘if Cú Chulainn kill a hundred of our men every night. Why do we not offer him terms and why do we not parley with him?’

‘What terms are those?’ asked Ailill.

‘Let him be offered those of the cattle that have milk and those of the captives who are base-born, and let him cease to ply his sling on the men of Ireland and let him allow the hosts at least to sleep’.

‘Who will go with those terms?’ asked Ailill.

‘Who else but Mac Roth, the messenger’ said Medb.

‘I shall not go indeed’ said Mac Roth, ‘for I do not know the way and I do not know where Cú Chulainn is’.

‘Ask Fergus’ said Medb, ‘it is likely that he knows’.

‘I do not know’ said Fergus, ‘but I should think that he might be between Fochaín and the sea, exposing himself to wind and sun after his sleeplessness last night when single-handed he slew and demolished the host’. It was as Fergus had said.

Heavy snow fell that night so that all the provinces of Ireland were one white expanse. And Cú Chulainn cast off the twenty-seven shirts, waxed and hard as boards, which used to be bound to his skin with ropes and cords so that his sense might not be deranged when his fit of fury came upon him. The snow melted for thirty feet around him on all sides, so great was the ardour of the warrior and so hot the body of Cú Chulainn, and the charioteer could not remain near him because of the greatness of the fury and ardour of the warrior and because of the heat of his body.

‘A single warrior comes towards us, little Cú’ said Láeg.

‘What kind of warrior?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘A dark-haired, handsome, broad-faced fellow. A fine brown cloak about him, a bronze pin in his cloak. A strong, plaited shirt next to his skin. Two shoes between his feet and the ground. He carries a staff of white hazel in one hand and in the other a one-edged sword with guards of ivory’.

‘Well, driver’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘those are the tokens of a messenger. That is one of the messengers of Ireland coming to speak and parley with me’.

Then Mac Roth arrived at the spot where Láeg was. ‘Whose vassal are you, fellow?’ asked Mac Roth.

‘I am vassal to the warrior up yonder’ said the driver.

Mac Roth came to the spot where Cú Chulainn was. ‘Whose vassal are you, warrior?,’ asked Mac Roth.

‘I am the vassal of Conchobor mac Fachtna Fáthaig’.

‘Have you no information more exact than that?’

‘That is enough for now’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘Find out for me where I might find that famous Cú Chulainn whom the men of Ireland are hunting now on this hosting’.

‘What would you say to him that you would not say to me?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘I have come from Ailill and Medb to parley with him and to offer him terms and peace’.

‘What terms have you brought him?’

‘All that are milch of the kine, all that are base-born among the captives, on condition that he cease to ply his sling against the hosts, for not pleasant is the thunder feat he performs against them every evening’.

‘Even if he whom you seek were at hand, he would not accept the proposals you ask. For the Ulstermen, if they have no dry cows, will kill their milch cows for companies and satirists and guests, for the sake of their honour, and they will take their low-born women to bed and thus there will arise in the land of Ulster a progeny which is base on the side of the mothers’.

Mac Roth went back. ‘Did you not find him?’ asked Medb.

‘I found a surly, angry, fearsome, fierce fellow between Fochaín and the sea. I do not know if he is the famed Cú Chulainn’.

‘Did he accept those terms?’

‘He did not indeed’. And Mac Roth told them the reason why he did not accept.

‘It was Cú Chulainn to who you spoke’ said Fergus.

‘Let other terms be taken to him’ said Medb.

‘What terms?’ asked Ailill.

‘All the dry kine of the herds, all the noble among the captives, and let him cease to ply his sling on the hosts for not pleasant is the thunder feat he performs against them every evening’.

‘Who will go with those terms?’

‘Who but Mac Roth’.

‘I shall indeed go’ said Mac Roth, ‘for now I know the way’. Mac Roth came to speak to Cú Chulainn. ‘I have come now to speak with you for I know that you are the famous Cú Chulainn’.

‘What terms did you bring with you then?’

‘All the dry kine in the herd, all the nobly-born among the captives, and cease to ply your sling against the men of Ireland and let them sleep, for not pleasant is the thunder feat you perform against them every evening’.

‘I shall not accept those terms, for the Ulstermen will kill their dry kine for the sake of their honour, for Ulstermen are generous, and Ulstermen will be left without any dry cattle or any milch cattle. They will set their free-born women to work at querns and kneading troughs and bring them into slavery and servile work. I do not wish to leave after me in Ulster the reproach of having made slaves and bondwomen of the daughters of the kings and royal leaders of Ulster’.

‘Are there any terms at all that you accept now?’

‘There are indeed’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘Do you tell me terms then?’ asked Mac Roth.

‘I vow’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘that it is not I who will tell them to you’.

‘Who then?’ asked Mac Roth.

‘If you have within the camp’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘some one who should know my terms, let him tell you, and if you have not, let no one come any more to me offering terms or peace, for whoever so comes, that will be the length of his life’.

Mac Roth went back and Medb asked him for news.

‘Did you find him?’ said Medb.

‘I did indeed’ said Mac Roth.

‘Did he accept?’ asked Medb.

‘He did not’ said Mac Roth.

‘Are there any terms which he accepts?’

‘There are, he says’.

‘Did he make known those terms to you?’

‘What he said’ answered Mac Roth, ‘was that it will not be he who will tell you them’.

‘Who then?’ asked Medb.

‘But if there is among us one who should know the terms he asks, let him tell me, and if there is not, let no one ever again come near him. But there is one thing I assert’ said Mac Roth, ‘even if you were to give me the kingship of Ireland I myself shall not go to tell them to him’.

Then Medb gazed at Fergus. ‘What terms does yonder man demand, Fergus?’ said Medb.

‘I see no advantage at all for you in the terms he asks’ said Fergus.

‘What terms are those?’ said Medb.

‘That one man from the men of Ireland should fight him every day. While that man is being killed, the army to be permitted to continue their march. Then when he has killed that man, another warrior to be sent to him at the ford or else the men of Ireland to remain in camp there until the bright hour of sunrise on the morrow. And further, Cú Chulainn to be fed and clothed by you as long as the Foray lasts’.

‘By my conscience’ said Ailill, ‘those are grievous terms’.

‘What he asks is good’ said Medb, ‘and he shall get those terms, for we deem it preferable to lose one warrior every day rather than a hundred warriors every night’.

‘Who will go and tell those terms to Cú Chulainn?’

‘Who but Fergus’ said Medb.

‘No’ said Fergus.

‘Why not?’ asked Ailill. ‘Let pledges and covenants, bonds and guarantees be given for abiding by those terms and for fulfilling them to Cú Chulainn’.

‘I agree to that’ said Medb, and Fergus bound them to security in the same way.

Fergus’s horses were harnessed and his chariot yoked, and his two horses were harnessed for Etarcumul son of Fid and of Lethrinn, a stripling of the household of Medb and Ailill.

‘Where are you going?’ asked Fergus.

‘We are going with you’ said Etarcumul, ‘to see the form and appearance of Cú Chulainn and to gaze upon him’.

‘If you were to follow my counsel’ said Fergus, ‘you would not come at all’.

‘Why so?’

‘Because of your haughtiness and your arrogance, and also because of the fierceness and the valour and the savageness of the lad against whom you go, for I think that there will be strife between you before ye part’.

‘Will you not be able to make intervention between us?’ said Etarcumul.

‘I shall’ said Fergus, ‘if only you yourself will not seek contention and strife.

‘I shall never seek that’.

Then they went forward to Cú Chulainn where he was between Fochaín and the sea, playing búanbach with his charioteer. And no one came into the plain unnoticed by Láeg and yet he used to win every second game of búanbach from Cú Chulainn.

‘A single warrior comes towards us, little Cú’ said Láeg.

‘What manner of warrior is he?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘It seems to me that the chariot of the warrior is as big as one of the greatest mountains on a vast plain. It seems to me that the curly, thick, fair- yellow, golden hair hanging loose around his head is as great as the foliage of one of the tall trees which stand on the green before a great fort. He wears a purple, fringed mantle wrapped around him with a golden, inlaid brooch in it. A broad, grey spear flashing in his hand. A bossed, scalloped shield over him with a boss of red gold. A long sword, as long as a ship’s rudder, firmly fixed and resting on the two thighs of the great, proud warrior who is within the chariot’.

‘Welcome is the arrival to us of this guest’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘We know that man. It is my master Fergus who comes’.

‘I see another chariot-warrior coming towards us also. With much skill and beauty and splendour do his horses advance’.

‘That is one of the youths of the men of Ireland, friend Láeg’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘To see my form and appearance that man comes, for I am renowned among them within their encampment’.

Fergus arrived and sprang from the chariot, and Cú Chulainn bade him welcome. ‘I trust that welcome’ said Fergus.

‘You may well trust, it’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘for if a flock of birds pass over the plain, you shall have one wild goose and the half of another. If fish swim into the estuaries, you shall have a salmon with the half of another. You shall have a handful of watercress and a handful of sea-weed and a handful of water parsnip. If you must fight or do battle I shall go to the ford on your behalf and you shall be watched over and guarded while you sleep and rest’.

‘Well indeed, we know what provisions for hospitality you have now on the Foray of Cúailnge. But the condition that you asked of the men of Ireland, namely, single combat, you shall have it. I came to bind you to that, so undertake to fulfil it’.

‘I agree indeed, master Fergus’ said Cú Chulainn. And he delayed no longer than that conversing lest the men of Ireland should say that Fergus was betraying them to his fosterling. His two horses were harnessed for Fergus and his chariot was yoked, and he went back.

Etarcumul remained behind him gazing at Cú Chulainn for a long while.

‘What are you staring at, lad?’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘I am staring at you’ said Etarcumul.

‘You have not far to look indeed’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘You redden your eye with that. But if only you knew it, the little creature you are looking at, namely, myself, is wrathful. And how do you find me as you look at me?’

‘I think you are fine indeed. You are a comely, splendid, handsome youth with brilliant, numerous, various feats of arms. But as for reckoning you among goodly heroes or warriors or champions or sledge-hammers of smiting, we do not do so nor count you at all’.

‘You know that it is a guarantee for you that you came out of the camp under the protection of my master, Fergus. But I swear by the gods whom I worship that but for Fergus’s protection, only your shattered bones and your cloven joints would return to the camp’.

‘Nay, do not threaten me any longer thus, for as for the condition you asked of the men of Ireland, namely, single combat, none other of the men of Ireland than I shall come to attack you tomorrow’.

‘Come on, then, and however early you come, you will find me here. I shall not flee from you’.

Etarcumul went back and began to converse with his charioteer. ‘I must needs fight with Cú Chulainn tomorrow, driver’ said Etarcumul.

‘You have promised it indeed’ said the charioteer, ‘but I know not if you will fulfil your promise’.

‘Which is better, to do so tomorrow or at once tonight?’

‘It is my conviction’ said the driver, ‘that though doing it tomorrow means no victory, yet still less is to be gained by doing it tonight, for for destruction is nearer tonight’.

‘Turn the chariot back again for me, driver, for I swear by the gods whom I worship never to retreat until I carry off as a trophy the head of yon little deer, Cú Chulainn’.

The charioteer turned the chariot again towards the ford. They turned the left board of the chariot towards the company as they made for the ford.

Láeg noticed that. ‘The last chariot- fighter who was here a while ago, little Cú’ said Láeg.

‘What of him?’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘He turned his left board towards us as he made for the ford’.

‘That is Etarcumul, driver, seeking combat of me. And I did not welcome him because of the guarantee of my fosterfather under which he came out of the camp, and not because I wish to protect him. Bring my weapon to the ford for me, driver. I do not deem it honourable that he should reach the ford before me’.

Then Cú Chulainn went to the ford and unsheathed his sword over his fair shoulder and was ready to meet Etarcumul at the ford.

Etarcumul arrived also.

‘What are you seeking, lad?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘I seek combat with you’ said Etarcumul.

‘If you would take my advice, you would not come at all’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘I say so because of the guarantee of Fergus under which you came out of the encampment and not at all because I wish to protect you’. Then Cú Chulainn gave a flow (of urine?)(fotalbeim) and cut away the sod from beneath the sole of his foot so that he (Etarcumul) was cast prostrate with the sod on his belly.

If Cú Chulainn had so wished, he could have cut him in two. ‘Begone now for I have given you warning’.

‘I shall not go until we meet again’. said Etarcumul.

Cú Chulainn gave him an edge-blow (fáebarbeim). He sheared his hair from him, from poll to forehead and from ear to ear as if it had been shaved with a keen, light razor. He drew not a drop of blood. ‘Begone now’. said Cú Chulainn, ‘for I have drawn ridicule on you’.

‘I shall not go until we meet again, until I carry off your head and spoils and triumph over you or until you carry off my head and spoils and triumph over me’.

‘The last thing you say is what will happen, and I shall carry off your head and spoils and I shall triumph over you’. Cú Chulainn dealt him a blow (múadalbeim) on the crown of his head which split him to his navel. He gave him a second blow crosswise so that the three sections into which his body was cut fell at one and the same time to the ground. Thus perished Etarcumul, son of Fid and Leithrinn.

Fergus did not know that this fight had taken place. That was but natural, for sitting and rising, journeying or marching, in battle or fight or combat, Fergus never looked behind him lest anyone should say that it was out of fearfulness he looked back, but he was wont to gaze at what was before him and on a level with him. Etarcumul’s charioteer came abreast of Fergus. ‘Where is your master, driver?’ asked Fergus.

‘He fell on the ford just now by the hand of Cú Chulainn’ said the driver.

‘It was not right’ said Fergus, ‘for that distorted sprite Cúlainn to outrage me concerning him who came there under my protection. Turn the chariot for us, driver’ said Fergus, ‘that we may go and speak with Cú Chulainn’.

Then the charioteer turned the chariot. They went off towards the ford.

‘Why did you violate my pledge, you distorted sprite’ said Fergus, ‘concerning him who came under my safeguard and protection?’

‘By the nurture and care you gave me, tell me which you would prefer, that he should triumph over me or that I should triumph over him. Moreover, enquire of his driver which of us was at fault against each other’.

‘I prefer what you have done. A blessing on the hand that struck him!’

Then two withes were tied round Etarcumul’s ankles and he was dragged along behind his horses and his chariot. At every rough rock he met, his lungs and liver were left behind on the stones and rocks (?). Wherever it was smooth for him, his scattered joints came together around the horses. Thus, he was dragged across the camp to the door of the tent of Ailill and Medb.

‘Here is your youth for you’ said Fergus, ‘for every restoration has its fitting restitution’.

Medb came out to the door of her tent and raised her voice aloud. ‘We thought indeed’ said Medb, ‘that great was the ardour and wrath of this young hound when he went forth from the camp in the morning. We thought that the guarantee under which he went, the guarantee of Fergus was not that of a coward’.

‘What has crazed the peasant-woman?’ said Fergus. ‘Is it right for the common cur to seek out the bloodhound whom the warriors of the four great provinces of Ireland dare not approach or withstand? Even I myself would be glad to escape whole from him’.

Thus fell Etarcumul.

That is the story of the Encounter of Etarcumul and Cú Chulainn.

Then there rose up a great and valiant warrior of Medb’s household, called Nath Crantail, and he came to attack Cú Chulainn. He scorned to bring with him any arms except thrice nine spits of holly which were sharpened, charred and pointed by fire.

And Cú Chulainn was on the pond before him.—And as for the pond, it was not safe but there were nine spits fixed in it, and Cú Chulainn used not to miss a single spit of them.—Then Nath Crantail cast a spit at Cú Chulainn. Cú Chulainn stepped on to the upper point of the spit which Nath Crantail had cast. Nath Crantail cast a second spit. He cast a third spit and Cú Chulainn stepped from the tip of the second spit on to the tip of the last spit.

Then the flock of birds flew out of the plain. Cú Chulainn pursued them as swift as any bird, that they might not escape him but might leave him that evening’s meal. For what sufficed and served Cú Chulainn on the Foray of Cúailnge was fish and fowl and venison.

However, Nath Crantail was sure that Cú Chulainn fled in defeat from him, so he went forward to the door of the tent of Medb and Ailill and lifted up his voice: ‘This famous Cú Chulainn of whom ye speak’ said Nath Crantail, ‘has fled in rout before me just now’.

‘We knew’ said Medb, ‘that that would happen, and that if only goodly heroes and warriors came to meet him, the young and beardless sprite would not withstand resolute men. For when a goodly warrior came to him, he did not hold out against him but was routed by him’.

Fergus heard that and he was greatly grieved that any man should taunt Cú Chulainn with having fled. And Fergus told Fiachu mac Fir Aba to go and speak with Cú Chulainn. ‘And tell him that it was seemly for him to attack the hosts as long as he performed deeds of valour upon them but that it were fitter for him to hide himself rather than to flee before a single warrior from among them’.

Then Fiachu came to speak with Cú Chulainn.

Cú Chulainn bade him welcome.

‘I trust that welcome, but I have come to speak to you from your fosterfather Fergus. He said that it was seemly for you to attack the hosts as long as you did deeds of valour but that it were more fitting for you to hide yourself than to flee before a single man of their warriors’.

‘Why, who among you boasts of that?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘Nath Crantail’ said Fiachu.

‘Why, do you not know, you and Fergus and the nobles of Ulster, that I do not wound charioteers or messengers or folk unarmed? No weapons had Nath Crantail, only a wooden spit, and I would not wound him until he had a weapon. Tell him to come to me here early in the morning tomorrow and I shall not flee from him’.

It seemed long to Nath Crantail until it was bright day for him to attack Cú Chulainn. Early on the morrow he came to attack him.

Cú Chulainn rose early on that day, and a fit of rage came on him, and he angrily cast a fold of his cloak around him so that it wrapped itself round the pillarstone, and he dragged the pillarstone out of the ground between himself and his cloak. And he knew nothing of this because of the greatness of his rage, and he became distorted.

Then came Nath Crantail and said: ‘Where is this Cú Chulainn?’

‘Over yonder’ said Cormac Cond Longas mac Conchobuir.

‘That is not how he appeared to me yesterday’ said Nath Crantail.

‘Then repel yon warrior’ said Cormac ‘and it is the same as if you repelled Cú Chulainn’.

Then Nath Crantail came and cast his sword at Cú Chulainn, and it struck the pillarstone which was between Cú Chulainn and his cloak, and the sword broke on the pillarstone. Cú Chulainn jumped from the ground to the top of the boss of Nath Crantail’s shield and dealt him a return blow past the top of the shield and cut off his head from his trunk. Quickly he raised his hand again and dealt him another blow on the top of the trunk and cut him into two severed parts down to the ground. Thus fell Nath Crantail by the hand of Cú Chulainn.

Thereafter Cú Chulainn said: ‘If Nath Crantail has fallen, there will be increase of strife. Alas that battle cannot now be given to Medb with a third of the host!’

After that Medb with a third of the army of the men of Ireland proceeded as far north as Dún Sobairche and Cú Chulainn followed her closely that day. And Medb went to Cuib ahead of Cú Chulainn. And after he had gone northwards Cú Chulainn killed Fer Taidle, whence the place-name Taidle, and he killed the sons of Búachaill, whence the name Carn Mac m-Búachalla, and he killed Lúasce in Leitre whence Leitre Lúasce. He killed Bó Bulge in his swamp, from which comes the name Grellach Bó Bulge. He killed Muirthemne on his hill whence the name Delga Muirthemne.

After that Cú Chulainn came southwards again to protect and guard his own land and territory, for it was dearer to him than the land and territory of any other.

Then there met him Fir Crandce, the two Artines and the two sons of Lecc and the two sons of Durcride, and the two sons of Gabal, and Drúcht and Delt and Dathen, Te and Tualang and Turscur, Tore Glaisse and Glas and Glaisne—these are the same as the twenty Fir Fochard. Cú Chulainn overtook them as they were pitching their camp ahead of the rest and they fell by him.

Then there met Cú Chulainn Buide mac Báin Blai from the land of Ailill and Medb, one of Medb’s household. Twenty-four warriors was the number of his company. Each man wore a mantle wrapped around him.

Donn Cúailnge was driven hastily and forcibly in front of them after he had been brought from Glenn na Samaisce in Slíab Culind together with fifty of his heifers.

‘Whence do ye bring the drove?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘From yonder mountain’ said Buide.

‘What is your own name?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘One who loves you not, who fears you not’ said Buide. ‘I am Buide mac Báin Blai from the land of Ailill and Medb’.

‘Here is this little spear for you’ said Cú Chulainn. And he cast the spear at him. The spear landed in the shield above his breast and crushed three ribs in the farther side after piercing his heart, and Buide mac Báin Blai fell. Hence the name Áth m-Buide in Crích Rois ever since.

While they were thus engaged exchanging the two short spears—for not at once did they finish—the Donn Cúailnge was carried off hastily and forcibly from them to the encampment as any cow might be taken.

That was the greatest reproach and grief and madness that was inflicted on Cú Chulainn in this hosting.

As for Medb, every ford at which she stopped is called Áth Medbe. Every place where she erected her tent is called Pupall Medba, and every spot where she planted her horse- whip is called Bile Medba.

On this expedition Medb gave battle to Findmór the wife of Celtchair in front of Dún Sobairche, and she slew Findmór and ravaged Dún Sobairche.

After a fortnight the men of the four great provinces of Ireland came to the encampment together with Medb and Ailill and the men who were bringing the bull. But the bull’s herdsman did not allow them to carry off Donn Cúailnge, so despite him they urged on both bull and heifers by beating their shields with sticks, and drove them into a narrow pass, and the cattle trampled the body of the herdsman thirty feet into the ground and made small fragments of his body. Forgemen was his name. Bás Forgaimin is the name of that tale in the Foray of Cúailnge.

When the men of Ireland reached one spot, together with Medb and Ailill and the men who were bringing the bull to the camp, they all said that Cú Chulainn would be no more valiant than anyone else but for the strange feat he possessed, the javelin of Cú Chulainn.

Then the men of Ireland sent Redg, Medb’s satirist, to ask for the javelin. Redg asked for the javelin and Cú Chulainn did not give it at once to him, that is, he was reluctant to give it. Redg threatened to deprive Cú Chulainn of his honour. Then Cú Chulainn cast the javelin after him and it lighted on the hollow at the back of his head and passed through his mouth out on to the ground, and he managed to speak only the word: ‘Quickly did we get this treasure’ when his soul parted from his body on the ford. And since then that ford is called Áth Solomshet. And the bronze from the spear landed on the stream, whence is the name Umanshruth ever since.

The men of Ireland debated as to which of them should attack Cú Chulainn, and they all agreed that Cúr mac Da Lóth would be the right man to attack him. For such was Cúr that it was not pleasant to be his bedfellow or to be intimate with him, and they said that if it were Cúr who fell, it would mean a lightening of oppression for the hosts, and that if it were Cú Chulainn, it would be still better.

Cúr was summoned to Medb’s tent. ‘What do they want of me?’ asked Cúr.

‘To attack Cú Chulainn’ said Medb.

‘Ye think little of our valour, ye think it wonderful, when ye match me with a tender stripling such as he! Had I myself known why I was summoned. I should not have come for that. I should think it enough that a lad of his own age from among my household should go to oppose him on the ford’.

‘Nay, it is foolish (?) to say that’ said Cormac Cond Longas mac Conchobuir. ‘It would be a fine thing for you yourself were Cú Chulainn to fall by you’.

‘Make ye ready a journey for me in the early morning tomorrow for I am glad to go. It is not the killing of yonder deer, Cú Chulainn, that will cause you any delay’.

Early on the morrow, then, Cúr mac Da Lóth arose. A cartload of arms was brought by him to attack Cú Chulainn and he began to try and kill him. Early on that day Cú Chulainn betook himself to his feats.

These are all their names:

Uballchless, fóenchless, cless cletínech, tetchless, corpchless, cless cait, ích n-errid, cor n-delend, leim dar neim, filliud eirred náir, gai bulga, baí brassi, rothchless, cles for análaib, brúud gine, sían curad, beim co fommus, táthbeim, reim fri fogaist, dírgud cretti fora rind, fornaidm níad.

It is impossible to translate most of these with any certainty as to the meaning.

Cú Chulainn used to practice each of these feats early every morning, in one hand, as swiftly as a cat makes for cream (?), that he might not forget or disremember them. Mac Da Lóth remained for a third of the day behind the boss of his shield, endeavouring to wound Cú Chulainn.

Then said Láeg to Cú Chulainn: ‘Good now, little Cú, answer the warrior who seeks to kill you’.

Then Cú Chulainn looked at him and raised up and cast aloft the eight balls, and he made a cast of the ninth ball at Cúr mac Da Lóth so that it landed on the flat of his shield and the flat of his forehead and took a portion of brain the size of the ball out through the back of his head. Thus, Cúr mac Da Lóth fell by the hand of Cú Chulainn.

‘If your securities and guarantees now bind you’ said Fergus, ‘send another warrior to meet yon man at the ford, or else remain here in your camp until the bright hour of sunrise tomorrow, for Cúr mac Da Lóth has fallen’.

‘Considering why we have come’ said Medb, ‘it is all the same to us if we remain in the same tents’. They remained in that encampment until there had fallen Cúr mac Da Lóth and Lath mac Da Bro and Srub Daire mac Fedaig and Mac Teora n-Aignech. Those men fell by Cú Chulainn in single combat. But it is tedious to relate the prowess of each man separately.

Then Cú Chulainn said to Láeg, his charioteer: ‘Go, friend Láeg, to the encampment of the men of Ireland and take a greeting from me to my friends and my fosterbrothers and my coevals. Take a greeting to Fer Diad mac Damáin and to Fer Det mac Damáin and to Bress mac Firb, to Lugaid mac Nóis and to Lugaid mac Solamaig, to Fer Báeth mac Báetáin and to Fer Báeth mac Fir Bend. And take a special greeting to my fosterbrother Lugaid mac Nóis, for he is the only man who keeps faith and friendship with me now on the hosting, and give him a blessing that he may tell you who comes to attack me tomorrow’.

Then Láeg went forward to the encampment of the men of Ireland and took a greeting to the friends and fosterbrothers of Cú Chulainn, and he went too into the tent of Lugaid mac Nóis.

Lugaid bade him welcome.

‘I trust that welcome’ said Láeg.

‘You may do so’ said Lugaid. ‘I have come from Cú Chulainn to speak with you’ said Láeg, ‘and he has sent you a true and sincere greeting and wishes you to tell me who comes to attack Cú Chulainn to-day’.

‘The curse of his intimacy and familiarity and friendship on him who comes! It is his very own fosterbrother, Fer Báeth mac Fir Bend. He was taken just now into Medb’s tent. The girl Findabair was placed at his side. She it is who pours goblets for him. She it is who kisses him at every drink. She it is who serves him his meal. Not for all and sundry does Medb intend the liquor which is served to Fer Báeth, for only fifty wagon-loads of it were brought to the camp’.

Then Láeg went back to Cú Chulainn, crestfallen, sad, joyless and mournful.

‘Crestfallen, sad, joyless and mournful my friend Láeg comes to me’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘It means that one of my fosterbrothers comes to attack me.’— For Cú Chulainn disliked more that a warrior of the same training as himself should come to him rather than some other warrior.—‘Good now, friend Láeg’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘who comes to attack me to-day?’

‘The curse of his intimacy and brotherhood, of his familiarity and friendship be upon him! It is your very fosterbrother, Fer Báeth mac Fir Bend. He was taken just now into Medb’s tent. The girl was placed at his side, and it is she who pours goblets for him. it is she who kisses him with every drink, it is she who serves his meal. Not for all and sundry does Medb intend the liquor which is served to Fer Báeth. Only fifty wagon-loads of it were brought to the camp’.

Fer Báeth waited not until morning but went at once to renounce his friendship with Cú Chulainn. Cú Chulainn adjured him by their friendship and intimacy and brotherhood, but Fer Báeth did not consent to relinquish the combat. Cú Chulainn left him in anger, and trampled a sharp shoot of holly into the sole of his foot so that it injured alike flesh and bone and skin. Cú Chulainn tore out the holly shoot by the roots and cast it over his shoulder after Fer Báeth, and he cared not whether it reached him or not. The holly shoot hit Fer Báeth in the depression at the nape of his neck and went out through his mouth on to the ground, and thus Fer Báeth died.

‘That was indeed a good cast (forcherd), little Cú’ said Fiacha mac Fir Aba. For he considered it a good cast to kill the warrior with the holly shoot. Whence is still the name Focherd Muirtheimne for the spot where they were.

‘Go, friend Láeg’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘and speak with Lugaid in the camp of the men of Ireland, and find out whether anything has happened to Fer Báeth or not and ask him who will come against me tomorrow’.

Láeg goes forward to Lugaid’s tent.

Lugaid welcomed him.

‘I trust that welcome’ said Láeg.

‘You may trust it’ said Lugaid. ‘I have come to speak with you on behalf of your fosterbrother that you may tell me if Fer Báeth reached the camp’.

‘He did’ said Lugaid, ‘and a blessing on the hand that smote him for he fell dead in the glen a short time ago’.

‘Tell me who will come tomorrow to fight against Cú Chulainn’.

‘They are asking a brother of mine to oppose him, a foolish youth, proud and arrogant, but a strong smiter and a victorious fighter. And the reason he is sent to fight him is that he may fall by Cú Chulainn and that I might then go to avenge his death on Cú Chulainn, but I shall never do that. Láiríne mac Í Blaitmic is my brother’s name. I shall go to speak with Cú Chulainn about that’ said Lugaid. His two horses were harnessed for Lugaid and his chariot was yoked to them. He came to meet Cú Chulainn and a conversation took place between them. Then said Lugaid: ‘They are urging a brother of mine to come and fight with you, a foolish youth, rough, uncouth, but strong and stubborn, and he is sent to fight you so that when he falls by you, I may go to avenge his death on you, but I shall never do so. And by the friendship that is between us both, do not kill my brother. Yet I swear, that even if you all but kill him. I grant you leave to do so, for it is in despite of me that he goes against you’.

Then Cú Chulainn went back and Lugaid went to the camp.

Then Láiríne mac Nóis was summoned to the tent of Ailill and Medb and Finnabair was placed beside him. It was she who used to serve him goblets and she who used to kiss him at every drink and she who used to hand him his food.

‘Not to all and sundry does Medb give the liquor that is served to Fer Báeth or to Láiríne’ said Finnabair. ‘She brought only fifty wagon-loads of it to the camp’.

‘Whom do you mean?’ asked Ailill.

‘I mean that man yonder’ said she.

‘Who is he?’ asked Ailill. ‘Often you paid attention to something that was not certain. It were more fitting for you to bestow attention on the couple who are best in wealth and honour and dignity of all those in Ireland, namely, Finnabair and Láiríne mac Nóis’.

‘That is how I see them’ said Ailill.

Then in his joy Láiríne flung himself about so that the seams of the flockbeds under him burst and the green before the camp was strewn with their feathers.

Láiríne longed for the full light of day that he might attack Cú Chulainn. He came in the early morning on the morrow and brought with him a wagon-load of weapons, and he came on to the ford to encounter Cú Chulainn. The mighty warriors in the camp did not think it worth their while to go and watch Láiríne’s fight, but the women and boys and girls scoffed and jeered at his fight.

Cú Chulainn came to the ford to encounter Láiríne, but he scorned to bring any weapons and came unarmed to meet him. He struck all Láiríne’s weapons out of his hand as one might deprive a little boy of his playthings. Then Cú Chulainn ground and squeezed in between his hands, chastised him and clasped him, crushed him and shook him and forced all his excrement out of him until a mist arose on all sides in the place where he was. And after that he cast him from him, from the bed of the ford across the camp to the entrance of his brother’s tent. However, Láiríne never after rose without complaint and he never ate without pain, and from that time forth he was never without abdominal weakness and constriction of the chest and cramps and diarrhoea. He was indeed the only man who survived battle with Cú Chulainn on the Foray of Cúailnge. Yet the after-effects of those complaints affected him so that he died later.

That is the Fight of Láiríne on the Foray of Cúailnge.

Then Lóch Mór mac Mo Febis was summoned to the tent of Ailill and Medb.

‘What would ye with me?’ asked Lóch.

‘That you should fight with Cú Chulainn’ answered Medb.

‘I shall not go on such an errand for I deem it no honour to attack a youthful, beardless stripling, and I do not intend that as an insult to him, but I have the man to attack him, namely, Long mac Emonis, and he will accept reward from you’.

Long was summoned to the tent of Ailill and Medb, and Medb promised him great rewards, to wit, the clothing of twelve men in garments of every colour, a chariot worth four times seven cumala (female slaves), Finnabair as his wedded wife, and entertainment at all times in Crúachu with wine served to him.

Then Long came to meet Cú Chulainn and Cú Chulainn killed him.

Medb told her women-folk to go and speak to Cú Chulainn and tell him to put on a false beard of blackberry juice. The women came forward towards Cú Chulainn and told him to put on a false beard. ‘For no great warrior in the camp thinks it worth his while to go and fight with you while you are beardless’.

After that Cú Chulainn put on a beard of blackberry juice and came on to the hillock above the men of Ireland and displayed that beard to all of them in general.

Lóch mac Mo Febis saw this and said. ‘That is a beard on Cú Chulainn’.

‘That is what I see’ said Medb. She promised the same rewards to Lóch for checking Cú Chulainn.

‘I shall go and attack him’ said Lóch.

Lóch came to attack Cú Chulainn and they met on the ford where Long had fallen. ‘Come forward to the upper ford’ said Lóch. ‘for we shall not fight on this one’. For he held unclean the ford at which his brother had fallen. Then they met on the upper ford.

It was at that time that the Morrígan daughter of Ernmas from the fairy-mounds came to destroy Cú Chulainn, for she had vowed on the Foray of Regamain that she would come and destroy Cú Chulainn when he was fighting with a mighty warrior on the Foray of Cúailnge. So the Morrígan came there in the guise of a white, red-eared heifer accompanied by fifty heifers, each pair linked together with a chain of white bronze.

The womenfolk put Cú Chulainn under tabus and prohibitions not to let the Morrígan go from him without checking and destroying her. Cú Chulainn made a cast at the Morrígan and shattered one of her eyes. Then the Morrígan appeared in the form of a slippery, black eel swimming downstream, and went into the pool and coiled herself around Cú Chulainn’s legs. While Cú Chulainn was disentangling himself from her, Lóch dealt him a wound crosswise through his chest. Then the Morrígan came in the guise of a shaggy, russet-coloured she-wolf. While Cú Chulainn was warding her off, Lóch wounded him. Thereupon Cú Chulainn was filled with rage and wounded Lóch with the ga bulga and pierced his heart in his breast.

‘Grant me a favour now, Cú Chulainn’ said Lóch.

‘What favour do you ask?’

‘No favour of quarter do I ask nor do I make a cowardly request’ said Lóch. ‘Retreat a step from me so that I may fall facing the east and not to the west towards the men of Ireland, lest one of them say that I fled in rout before you, for I have fallen by the ga bulga’.

‘I shall retreat’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘for it is a warrior’s request you make’. And Cú Chulainn retreated a step from him. Hence the ford has since then been known as Áth Traiged at the end of Tír Mór.

Cú Chulainn was seized by great depression that day for that he fought single-handed on the Foray of Cúailnge. And he ordered his charioteer Láeg to go to the men of Ulster and bid them come to defend their cattle. And great dejection and weariness took possession of Cú Chulainn

And he uttered these verses:

Cú Chulainn

1] Go forth from me, O Láeg. Let the hosts be roused. Tell them for me in strong Emain that each day in battle I am weary, and I am wounded and bloody.

2] My right side and my left—hard to appraise either of them. It was no physician’s hand which smote them [gap: text untranslated/extent: 1 line].

3] Tell noble Conchobor that I am weary, wounded sore in my side. Greatly has Dechtire’s dear son, he of many retinues, changed in appearance.

4] I am here all alone guarding the flocks, not only do I not let them not go, but neither can I hold them. In evil plight I am and not in good, as I stand alone at many fords.

5] A drop of blood drips from my weapon. I am sorely wounded. No friend comes to me in alliance or to help, my only friend is my charioteer.

6] If but few sing here for me, a single horn rejoices not. But if many horns make music, then the sound is sweeter.

7] This is a proverb known to many generations: a single log does not flame. But if there were two or three, their firebrands would blaze.

8] A single log is not easily burnt unless you get another to kindle it. One man alone is treacherously dealt with. A single millstone is ineffective.

9] Have you not heard at every time that one man alone is treacherously dealt with? I speak truth. But what cannot be endured is the harrying of a great army.

10] However few the band, care is spent on them. The provision for an army is not cooked on a single fork—that is a similitude for it.

11] I am alone before the host at the ford by the end of Tír Mór. I was outnumbered when attacked by Lóch together with Bodb, according to the prophecies of Táin Bó Regomna.

12] Lóch has mangled my hips; the shaggy, russet she-wolf has bitten me. Lóch has wounded my liver; the eel has overthrown me.

13] With my spearlet I warded off the she-wolf and destroyed her eye. I broke her legs at the beginning of this mortal combat.

14] Láeg sent Aífe’s spear downstream, a swift (?) cast. I threw the strong, sharp spear by which Lóch mac Emonis perished.

15] Why do not the Ulstermen give battle to Ailill and the daughter of Eochu? While I am here in sorrow, wounded and bloody as I am.

16] Tell the great Ulstermen to come and guard their drove. The sons of Mága have carried off their cows and divided them out amongst them.

17] I pledge a pledge which holds, and has been fulfilled. I pledge by the honour of the Hound, that not one shall come to me as I stand alone.

18] But vultures are joyful in the camp of Ailill and Medb. Sad are the cries [gap: text untranslated/extent: 1 word] at their shout on Mag Muirthemne.

19] Conchobor comes not forth until his numbers be sufficient. While thus he is not joyful, it is harder to reckon his anger.

That is the Fight of Lóch Mór mac Mo Femis with Cú Chulainn on the Foray of Cúailnge.

Then Medb sent forth six together to attack Cú Chulainn, to wit, Traig and Dorn and Dernu, Col and Accuis and Eraíse, three druids and three druidesses. Cú Chulainn attacked them and they fell by him. Since the terms of fair play and single combat had been broken against Cú Chulainn, he took his sling and began to shoot at the host that day northwards from Delga. Though the men of Ireland were numerous that day, not one of them could turn southwards, neither hound nor horse nor man.

Then came the Morrígu, daughter of Ernmas, from the elf-mounds in the guise of an old woman and in Cú Chulainn’s presence she milked a cow with three teats. The reason she came thus was to be succoured by Cú Chulainn, for no one whom Cú Chulainn had wounded ever recovered until he himself had aided in his cure. Maddened by thirst, Cú Chulainn asked her for milk. She gave him the milk of one teat.

‘May this be swiftly wholeness for me’.

The one eye of the queen which had been wounded was cured. Cú Chulainn asked her for the milk of another teat. She gave it to him.

‘Swiftly may she be cured who gave it’. He asked for the third drink and she gave him the milk of the third teat.

‘The blessing of gods and non-gods be on you, woman’.—The magicians were their gods and the husbandmen were their non-gods.—And the queen was made whole.

Then Medb sent a hundred men together to assail Cú Chulainn. Cú Chulainn attacked them all and they fell by his hand. ‘It is a hateful thing for us that our people should be slaughtered thus’ said Medb.

‘That was not the first hateful thing that came to us from that man’ said Ailill. Hence Cuillend Cind Dúne is still the name of the place where they were then and Áth Cró is the name of the ford by which they were, and rightly so because of the great amount of their blood and gore which flowed with the current of the river.

Breslech Maige Muirthemne

The four provinces of Ireland pitched their camp at the place called Breslech Mór in Mag Muirtheimne. They sent their share of the cattle and booty on ahead southwards to Clithar Bó Ulad. Cú Chulainn took his post at Ferta I l- Lergaib close beside them, and his charioteer, Lóeg mac Riangabra, kindled a fire for him on the evening of that night.

Cú Chulainn saw far off, over the heads of the four great provinces of Ireland, the fiery glitter of the bright gold weapons at the setting of the sun in the clouds of evening. Anger and rage filled him when he saw the host, because of the multitude of his foes and the great number of his enemies. He seized his two spears and his shield and his sword. He shook his shield and brandished his spears and waved his sword, and he uttered a hero’s shout from his throat. And the goblins and sprites and spectres of the glen and demons of the air gave answer for terror of the shout that he had uttered, and Nemain, the war goddess, brought confusion on the host. The four provinces of Ireland made a clangour of arms around the points of their own spears and weapons, and a hundred warriors of them fell dead that night of terror and fright in the middle of the encampment.

As Lóeg was there, he saw something: a single man coming straight towards him from the north-east across the camp of the four great provinces. ‘A single man approaches now, little Cú’ said Lóeg.

‘What manner of man is there?’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘An easy question: a man fair and tall, with his hair cut broad, curly, yellow hair. He has a green mantle wrapped about him with a brooch of white silver in the mantle above his breast. He wears a tunic of royal satin with red insertion of red gold next to his white skin and reaching to his knees. he carries a black shield with a hard boss of white bronze. In his hand a five-pointed spear and beside it a forked javelin. Wonderful is the play and sport and diversion he makes with these weapons. But none accosts him and he accosts none, as if no one in the camp of the four great provinces of Ireland saw him’.

‘That is true, my fosterling’ said he. ‘That is one of my friends from the fairy mounds coming to commiserate with me for they know of my sore distress as I stand alone now against the four great provinces of Ireland on the Foray of Cúailnge’.

It was indeed as Cú Chulainn said. When the warrior came to where Cú Chulainn was, he spoke to him and commiserated with him. ‘Sleep now for a little while, Cú Chulainn’ said the warrior, ‘your heavy slumber at the Ferta in Lerga till the end of three days and three nights, and for that space of time I shall fight against the hosts’.

Then Cú Chulainn slept his deep slumber at the Ferta in Lerga till the end of three days and three nights. It was right that the length of the sleep should correspond to the greatness of his weariness, for from the Monday before Samain exactly until the Wednesday after the festival of spring Cú Chulainn had not slept in that time, except when he dozed for a little while leaning against his spear after midday, with his head on his clenched fist and his clenched fist about his spear and his spear resting on his knee, but he was striking and cutting down and slaying and killing the four great provinces of Ireland during that time. Then the warrior put plants from the síd and healing herbs and a curing charm into the wounds and cuts and gashes and many injuries of Cú Chulainn so that Cú Chulainn recovered in his sleep without his perceiving it at all.

It was at this time that the youths came southwards from Emain Macha, thrice fifty of the kings’ sons of Ulster together with Follomain mac Conchobuir, and they gave battle thrice to the hosts and three times their own number fell by them, but the youths fell too, all except Follomain mac Conchobuir. Follomain vowed that he would never go back to Emain until he should take with him Ailill’s head and the golden diadem that was on it. That was no easy thing for him for the two sons of Beithe mac Báin, the two sons of Ailill’s fostermother and fosterfather, came up with him and wounded him so that he fell by them. That is the Death of the Youths from Ulster and of Follomain mac Conchobuir.

Cú Chulainn however was in his deep sleep at Ferta in Lerga till the end of three days and three nights. He arose then from his sleep and passed his hand over his face and he blushed crimson from head to foot, and his spirit was strengthened as if he were going to an assembly or a march or a tryst or a feast or to one of the chief assemblies of Ireland.

‘How long have I been now in this sleep, warrior? Woe is me!’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘Why is that?’ said the warrior.

‘Because the hosts have been left without attack for that space of time’. said Cú Chulainn.

‘They have not so been left indeed’ said the warrior.

‘Tell me, who has attacked them?’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘The youths came from the north, from Emain Macha, thrice fifty of the kings’ sons of Ulster led by Follomain mac Conchobuir, and thrice they gave battle to the hosts in the space of the three days and three nights when you were asleep, and three times their own number fell by them and all the youths fell too except for Follomain mac Conchobuir. Follomain vowed etc’.

‘Alas that I was not in my full strength, for had I been, the youths would not have fallen as they did nor would Follomain have fallen’.

‘Strive on, little Hound, it is no reproach to your honour and no disgrace to your valour’.

‘Stay here for us tonight, O warrior’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘that we may together avenge the youths on the hosts’.

‘I shall not stay indeed’ said the warrior, ‘for though a man does many valourous and heroic deeds in your company, not he but you will have the fame or the reputation of them. Therefore I shall not stay, but exert your valour, yourself alone, on the hosts for not with them lies any power over your life at this time’.

‘The scythed chariot, my friend Lóeg’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘can you yoke it? If you can yoke it and have its equipment, then yoke it, but if you have not its equipment, do not yoke it’.

Then the charioteer arose and put on his hero’s outfit for chariot-driving. Of the outfit for chariot-driving which he put on was his smooth tunic of skins, which was light and airy, supple and of fine texture, stitched and of deerskin, which did not hinder the movements of his arms outside. Over that he put on his outer mantle black as raven’s feathers.—Simon Magus had made it for the King of the Romans, and Darius gave it to Conchobor and Conchobor gave it to Cú Chulainn who gave it to his charioteer. The same charioteer now put on his helmet, crested, flat-surfaced, four-cornered, with variety of every colour and form, and reaching past the middle of his shoulders. This was an adornment to him and was not an encumbrance. His hand brought to his brow the circlet of red-yellow like a red-gold plate of refined gold smelted over the edge of an anvil, as a sign of his charioteering, to distinguish him from his master. In his right hand he took the long spancel of his horses and his ornamented goad. In his left he grasped the thongs to check his horses, that is, the reins of his horses, to control his driving.

Then he put on his horses the iron inlaid breastplates which covered them from forehead to forehand, set with little spears and sharp points and lances and hard points, so that every wheel of the chariot was closely studded with points and every corner and edge, every end and front of that chariot lacerated in its passage. Then he cast a spell of protection over his horses and over his companion so that they were not visible to anyone in the camp, yet everyone in the camp was visible to them. It was right that he should cast this spell, for on that day the charioteer had three great gifts of charioteering, to wit, leim dar boilg, foscul n-díriuch and immorchor n-delind.

Then the champion and warrior, the marshalled fence of battle of all the men of earth who was Cú Chulainn, put on his battle-array of fighting and contest and strife which he put on were the twenty-seven tunics worn next to his skin, waxed, board- like, compact, which were bound with strings and ropes and thongs close to his fair skin, that his mind and understanding might not be deranged when his rage should come upon him. Over that outside he put his hero’s battle-girdle of hard leather, tough and tanned, made from the best part of seven ox-hides of yearlings, which covered him from the thin part of his side to the thick part of his arm-pit; he used to wear it to repel spears and points and darts and lances and arrows, for they glanced from it as it they had struck against stone or rock or horn. Then he put on his apron of filmy silk with its border of variegated white gold, against the soft lower part of his body. Outside his apron of filmy silk he put on his dark apron of pliable brown leather made from the choicest part of four yearling ox-hides with his battle-girdle of cows’ skin about it. Then the royal hero took up his weapons of battle and contest and strife. Of these weapons of battle were these: he took his ivory-hilted, bright-faced sword with his eight little swords; he took his five-pronged spear with his eight little spears; he took his javelin with his eight little javelins; he took his deil chliss with his eight little darts. He took his eight shields with his curved, dark-red shield into the boss of which a show-boar could fit, with its very sharp, razor-like, keen rim all around it which would cut a hair against the stream, so sharp and razor-like and keen it was. When the warrior did the “edge-feat” with it, he would cut alike with his shield or his spear or his sword. Then he put on his head his crested war- helmet of battle and strife and conflict, from which was uttered the shout of a hundred warriors with a long-drawn-out cry from every corner and angle of it. For there used to cry from it alike goblins and sprites, spirits of the glen and demons of the air, before him and above him and around him, wherever he went, prophesying the shedding of the blood of warriors and champions. There was cast over him his protective dress of raiment from Tír Tairngire brought to him from Manannán mac Lir, from the King of Tír na Sorcha.

Then his first distortion came upon Cú Chulainn so that he became horrible, many-shaped, strange and unrecognisable. His haunches shook about him like a tree in a current or a bulrush against a stream, every limb and every joint, every end and every member of him from head to foot. He performed a wild feat of contortion with his body inside his skin. His feet and his shins and his knees came to the back; his heels and his calves and his hams came to the front. The sinews of his calves came on the front of his shins and each huge, round knot of them was as big as a warrior’s fist. The sinews of his head were stretched to the nape of his neck and every huge, immeasurable, vast, incalculable round ball of them was as big as the head of a month-old child.

Then his face became a red hollow (?). He sucked one of his eyes into his head so that a wild crane could hardly have reached it to pluck it out from the back of his skull on to the middle of his cheek. The other eye sprang out on to his cheek. His mouth was twisted back fearsomely. He drew the cheek back from the jawbone until his inner gullet was Seen. His lungs and his liver fluttered in his mouth and his throat. He struck a lion’s blow with the upper palate on its fellow so that every stream of fiery flakes which came into his mouth from his throat was as large as the skin of a three-year-old sheep. The loud beating of his heart against his ribs was heard like the baying of a bloodhound [gap: two words untranslated/extent: 2 words] or like a lion attacking bears. The torches of the war-goddess, the virulent rain-clouds, the sparks of blazing fire were seen in the clouds and in the air above his head with the seething of fierce rage that rose above him. His hair curled about his head like branches of red hawthorn used to re-fence the gap in a hedge. Though a noble apple-tree weighed down with fruit had been shaken about his hair, scarcely one apple would have reached the ground through it but an apple would have stayed impaled on each single hair because of the fierce bristling of his hair above him. The hero’s light rose from his forehead so that it was as long and as thick as a hero’s whetstone. As high, as thick, as strong, as powerful and as long as the mast of a great ship was the straight stream of dark blood which rose up from the very top of his head and became a dark magical mist like the smoke of a palace when a king comes to be attended to in the evening of a wintry day.

After Cú Chulainn had been thus distorted, the hero sprang into his scythed chariot with its iron points, its thin sharp edges, its hooks, its steel points, with its sharp spikes of a hero, its arrangement for opening, with its nails that were on the shafts and thongs and loops and fastenings in that chariot.

Then he performs the thunder-feat of a hundred and the thunder-feat of two hundred and the thunder-feat of three hundred and the thunder-feat of four hundred, and he stopped at the thunder-feat of five hundred for he thought that at least that number should fall by him in his first attack and in his first contest of battle against the four provinces of Ireland. And he came forth in this manner to attack his enemies, and took his chariot in a wide circuit outside the four great provinces of Ireland. And he drove the chariot heavily. The iron wheels of the chariot sank deep into the ground so that the manner in which they sank into the ground left furrows sufficient to provide fort and fortress, for there arose on the outside as high as the iron wheels dikes and boulders and rocks and flagstones and gravel from the ground. The reason why he made this warlike encircling of the four great provinces of Ireland was that they might not flee from him and that they might not disperse around him until he took revenge on them by thus pressing them (?) for the wrong done to the youths of Ulster. And he came across into the middle of the ranks and threw up great ramparts of his enemies’ corpses outside around the host. And he made the attack of a foe upon foes among them so that they fell, sole of foot to sole of foot, and headless neck to headless neck, such was the density of their corpses. Thrice again he went around them in this way so that he left a layer of six around them, that is the soles of three men to the necks of three men, all around the encampment. So that the name of this tale in the Táin is Sesrech Breslige, and it is one of the three slaughters which cannot be numbered in the Foray, the three being Sesrech Breslige and Imslige Glennamnach and the battle at Gáirech and Irgáirech, except that on this occasion hound and horse and man suffered alike. Others say that Lug mac Eithlend fought along with Cú Chulainn at Sesrech Breslige.

Their number is not known nor is it possible to count how many fell there of the common soldiery, but their chiefs alone have been counted. Here follow their names: Two men called Cruaid, two called Calad, two called Cír, two called Cíar, two called Eicell, three called Cromm, three called Cur, three called Combirge, four called Feochar, four called Furachar, four called Cas; four called Fota, five called Caur, five called Cerman, five called Cobthach, six called Saxan, six called Dauith, six called Dáire, seven called Rochaid, seven called Rónán, seven called Rurthech, eight called Rochlad, eight called Rochtad, eight called Rinnach, eight called Mulach, nine called Daigith, nine called Dáire, nine called Damach, ten called Fiac, ten called Fiacha, ten called Feidlimid. Ten and six score kings did Cú Chulainn slay in the Breslech Mór in Mag Muirtheimne, and a countless number besides of hounds and horses and women and boys and children and the common folk. For not one man in three of the men of Ireland escaped without his thigh-bone or the side of his head or one eye being broken or without being marked for life.

Cú Chulainn came on the morrow to survey the host and to display his gentle, beautiful appearance to women and girls and maidens, to poets and men of art, for he held not as honour or dignity the dark form of wizardry in which he had appeared to them the previous night. Therefore, he came on that day to display his gentle, beautiful appearance.

Beautiful indeed was the youth who came thus to display his form to the hosts, Cú Chulainn mac Sualtaim. Three kinds of hair he had, dark next to the skin, blood-red in the middle and hair like a crown of red-gold covering them. Fair was the arrangement of that hair with three coils in the hollow at the back of his head, and like gold thread was every fine hair, loose-flowing, golden and excellent, long- tressed, distinguished and of beautiful colour, as it fell back over his shoulders. A hundred bright crimson twists of red-gold red-flaming about his neck. A hundred strings with mixed carbuncles around his head. Four dimples in each of his two cheeks, a yellow dimple and a green, a blue dimple and a purple. Seven gems of brilliance of an eye in each of his royal eyes. Seven toes on each of his feet, seven fingers on each of his hands, with the grasp of a hawk’s claws and the grip of a hedgehog’s claws in every separate on of them.

Then he puts on his dress for assembly that day. Of that raiment was a fair mantle, well-fitting, purple, fringed, five- folded. A white brooch of white silver inset with inlaid gold over his white breast, as it were a bright lantern that men’s eyes could not look at for its brilliance and splendour. A tunic of silk next to his skin, bordered with edges and braidings and fringes of gold and of silver and of white bronze, reaching to the top of his dark apron, dark-red, soldierly, of royal satin. A splendid dark-purple shield he bore with a rim of pure white silver around it. He wore a golden-hilted ornamented sword at his left side. In the chariot beside him was a long grey-edged spear together with a sharp attacking dagger, with splendid thongs and rivets of white bronze. He held nine heads in one hand and ten in the other, and these he brandished at the hosts in token of his valour and prowess. Medb hid her face beneath a shelter of shields lest Cú Chulainn should cast at her on that day.

Then the women begged the men of Ireland to lift them up on platforms of shields above the warriors’ shoulders that they might see Cú Chulainn’s appearance. For they wondered at the beautiful, gentle appearance they beheld on him that day compared with the dark buffoon-like shape of magic that had been seen on him the night before.

Then Dubthach Dáel Ulad was seized with envy and spite and great jealousy concerning his wife, and he advised the hosts to betray and abandon Cú Chulainn, that is, to lay an ambush around him on every side that he might be killed by them. And he spoke these words:

Dubthach Dáel Ulad

1] If this is the distorted one, there will be corpses of men because of him, there will be cries around courts. Men’s feet will be [gap: text untranslated/extent: 1 word] ravens shall eat ravens’ food.

2] Stones shall be erected over graves because of him. There will be increase of kingly slaughter. Unlucky are ye that battle with the wild one reached you on the slope.

3] I see the wild one’s form. Nine heads he carries among his cushions

“among his cushions”, translating LU.

I see the shattered spoils he brings, and ten heads as treasured triumph.

4] I see how your womenfolk raise their heads above the battle. I see your great queen who comes not to the fight.

5] If I were your counsellor, warriors would be in ambush on all sides that they might shorten his life, if this is the distorted one.

Fergus mac Fóig heard this, and it grieved him that Dubthach should advise the hosts to betray Cú Chulainn. And he gave Dubthach a strong and violent kick so that he fell on his face outside the group. And Fergus brought up against him all the wrongs and injustice and treachery and evil deeds that he had ever at any time done to the men of Ulster. And he spoke these words then:

Fergus

If it is Dubthach Dóeltenga, he draws back in the rear of the host. He has done nothing good since he slaughtered the womenfolk.

He performed an infamous and terrible deed of violence—the slaying of Fiacha mac Conchobuir. Nor was fairer another deed that was heard of him—the slaying of Cairbre mac Fedlimthe.

It is not for the lordship of Ulster that the son of Lugaid mac Casruba contends. This is how he treats men: those he cannot kill he sets at loggerheads.

Ulster’s exiles do not wish that their beardless boy should be killed. If the men of Ulster come to you, they will turn back your herds.

All your cattle will be driven afar before the Ulstermen if they rise from their sickness. There will be deeds of violence—mighty tales— and queens will be tearful.

Men’s corpses will be trampled underfoot. Men’s feet will be in ravens’ abode (?). Shields will lie flat on the slopes. Furious deeds will increase.

I see that your womenfolk have raised their heads above the battle. I see your great queen—she comes not to the combat.

The unvalorous son of Lugaid will not do any brave or generous deed. No king will see lances redden if this is Dubthach Dóeltenga.

Thus far the Scythed Chariot.

Then a bold warrior of the Ulstermen called Óengus mac Óenláime Gábe came up with the hosts, and he drove them before him from Moda Loga, which is now called Lugmud, to Áth Da Fhert on Slíab Fúait. Learned men say that if they had come to Óengus mac Óenláimne Gábe in single combat, they would have fallen by his hand. However, that it is not what they did, but an ambush was made around him on every side and he fell by them at Áth Da Fhert on Slíab Fúait.

Here now is the tale Imroll Belaig Eóin

Then came to them Fiacha Fíaldána of the Ulstermen to have speech with the son of his mother’s sister, namely, Mane Andóe of the Connachtmen, and he came accompanied by Dubthach Dóel Ulad. Mane Andóe moreover came accompanied by Dóche mac Mágach. When Dóche mac Mágach saw Fiacha Fíaldána, he cast a spear at him straightaway and it went through his own friend Dubthach Dóel Ulad. Fiacha cast a spear at Dócha mac Mágach and it went through his own kinsman Maine Andóe of the Connachtmen. Then said the men of Ireland: ‘A badly aimed cast’ said they, ‘was what befell the men, each of them wounding his own friend and relation’. So that is the miscast at Belach Eóin. And another name for it is Another Miscast at Belach Eóin.

Here now is the tale Tuige im Thamon

Then the men of Ireland told Tamon the jester to put on Ailill’s garments and his golden crown and to go on the ford in front of them. So, he put on Ailill’s garments and his golden crown and came on the ford in front of them.

The men of Ireland began to scoff and shout and jeer at him. ‘It is the covering of a stump (tamon) for you, Tamon the jester’ said they, ‘to put on you Ailill’s garments and his golden crown’.

So that story is called Tuige in Thamon, the Covering of a Stump. Cú Chulainn saw Tamon, and it seemed to him, in his ignorance and want of information, that it was Ailill himself who was there, and he cast a stone at him from his sling and killed him on the ford where he was.

So that the place is Áth Tamuin and the story is called Tuige im Thamon.

The four great provinces of Ireland encamped at the pillar- stone in Crích Roiss that night. Then Medb asked the men of Ireland for one of them to fight and do battle with Cú Chulainn on the morrow.

Every man of them kept saying: ‘It will not be I who go’.

‘It will not be I who leave my place. No captive is owing from my people’.

Then Medb asked Fergus to go to fight with and encounter Cú Chulainn, since she was unable to get the men of Ireland to do so.

‘It would not be fitting for me’ said Fergus. ‘to encounter a young and beardless lad, my own fosterling’. However, when Medb begged Fergus so urgently, he was unable not to undertake the fight. They remained there that night. Fergus rose early on the morrow and came forward to the ford of combat where Cú Chulainn was. Cú Chulainn saw him coming towards him.

‘With weak security does my master Fergus come to me. He has no sword in the sheath of the great scabbard’. Cú Chulainn spoke truly.—A year before these event Ailill had come upon Fergus together with Medb on the hillside in Crúachu with his sword on the hill beside him, and Ailill had snatched the sword from its sheath and put a wooden sword in its place, and he swore that he would not give him back the sword until he gave it on the day of the great battle.—

‘I care not at all, my fosterling’ said Fergus, ‘for even if there were a sword in it, it would not reach you and would not be wielded against you. But for the sake of the honour and nurture I and the Ulstermen and Conchobor gave you, flee before me to-day in the presence of the men of Ireland’.

‘I am loath to do that’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘to flee before one man on the Foray of Cúailnge’.

‘You need not shrink from doing so’ said Fergus, ‘for I shall flee before you when you shall be covered with wounds and blood and pierced with stabs in the battle of the Táin, and when I alone shall flee, then all the men of Ireland will flee’.

So eager was Cú Chulainn to do whatever was for Ulster’s weal that his chariot was brought to him and he mounted it and fled in rout from the men of Ireland. The men of Ireland saw that.

‘He has fled from you! He has fled from you, Fergus!’ said all.

‘Pursue him, pursue him, Fergus’ said Medb, ‘let him not escape from you’.

‘Not so indeed’, said Fergus, ‘I shall not pursue him any farther, for though ye may belittle that flight I put him to, yet of all who encountered him on the Foray of Cúailnge not one man of the men of Ireland did as much. So I shall not meet that man again until the men of Ireland meet him in turn in single combat’.

That is called the Encounter of Fergus.

Here now is the story Cinnit Ferchon.

Ferchú Loingsech was of the Connachtmen. He was engaged in fighting and harassing Ailill and Medb. From the day these assumed rule, he came not to their encampment on expedition or hosting, in straits or need or hardship, but spent his time plundering and pillaging their borders and lands behind their backs. At that time he happened to be in the eastern part of Mag n-Aí. Twelve men was the number of his band. He was told that one man had been holding back and checking the four great provinces of Ireland from the Monday at the beginning of Samain until the beginning of spring, slaying one man of their number at a ford every day and a hundred warriors every night. Ferchú took counsel with his men. ‘What better plan could we carry out’ said he, ‘than to go and attack yonder man who is checking and holding back the four great provinces of Ireland and to bring back with us his head in triumph to Ailill and Medb. Though we have done many wrongs and injuries to Ailill and to Medb, we shall obtain peace thereby if that man fall by us’. That is the plan they decided on. And they came forward to the place where Cú Chulainn was, and when they came, they did not grant him fair play or single combat but all twelve of them attacked him straightaway. However, Cú Chulainn fell upon them and forthwith struck off their twelve heads. And he planted twelve stones for them in the ground and put a head of each one of them on its stone and also put Ferchú Loingsech’s head on its stone. So that the spot where Ferchú Loingsech left his head is called Cinnit Ferchon that is, Cennáit Ferchon the Headplace of Ferchú.

Then the men of Ireland debated as to whom they should send to fight and do combat with Cú Chulainn at the hour of early morning on the morrow. They all agreed that it should be Calatín Dána with his twenty-seven sons and his grandson Glas mac Delga.

Now there was poison on each man of them and poison on each weapon that they carried; none of them ever missed a throw, and anyone whom one of them wounded, if he died not at once, would die before the end of nine days. Great rewards were promised them for this fight and they undertook to engage in it.

This agreement was made in the presence of Fergus but he was unable to dispute it; for they said that they counted it as single combat that Calatín Dána and his twenty-seven sons and his grandson Glas mac Delga should all engage in the fight, for they asserted that his son was but one of his limbs and one of his parts and that the issue of his own body belonged to Calatín Dána.

Fergus came forward to his tent and followers and heaved a sigh of weariness. ‘We are sad for the deed to be done to- morrow’ said Fergus.

‘What deed is that?’ asked his followers.

‘The killing of Cú Chulainn’ said he.

‘Alas!’ said they, ‘who kills him?’

‘Calatín Dána’ said he, ‘with his twenty-seven sons and his grandson Glas mac Delga. There is poison on every man of them and poison on each of their weapons, and there is none whom one of them wounds but dies before the end of nine days if he do not die at once. And there is not man who should go to witness the encounter for me and bring me news if Cú Chulainn should be killed, to whom I would not give my blessing and my gear’.

‘I shall go there’ said Fiachu mac Fir Aba.

They remained there that night. Early on the morrow Calatín Dána arose with his twenty-seven sons and his grandson Glas mac Delga, and they advanced to where Cú Chulainn was, and Fiachu mac Fir Aba came too. And when Calatín reached the spot where Cú Chulainn was, they cast at him at once their twenty- nine spears nor did a single spear miss its aim and go past Cú Chulainn.

Cú Chulainn performed the “edge-feat” with his shield and all the spears sank half their length into the shield. Not only was that not a misthrow for them but yet not a spear wounded him or drew blood. Then Cú Chulainn drew his sword from its warlike scabbard to lop off the weapons and so to lessen the weight of his shield. While he was so doing, they went towards him and all together they smote his head with their twenty-nine clenched right fists. They belaboured him and forced his head down so that his face and countenance met the gravel and sand of the ford.

Cú Chulainn uttered his hero’s cry and the shout of one outnumbered and no Ulsterman alive of those who were awake but heard him.

Then Fiachu mac Fir Aba came towards him and saw how matters were, and he was filled with emotion on seeing a man of his own folk in danger. He drew his sword from its warlike scabbard and dealt a blow which lopped off their twenty-nine fists at one stroke and they all fell backwards; so intense was their effort, so tight their grip.

Cú Chulainn raised his head and drew his breath and gave a sight of weariness, and then he saw the man who had come to his help. ‘It is timely aid, my fosterbrother’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘Though it be timely aid for you, it will not be so for us, for though you think little of the blow I struck, yet if it be discovered, the three thousand men of the finest of Clann Rudraige that we number in the camp of the men of Ireland will be put to the sword’.

‘I swear’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘now that I have raised my head and drawn my breath, that unless you yourself make it known, not one of those yonder shall tell of it henceforth’. Then Cú Chulainn fell upon them and began to strike them and to cut them down, and he scattered them around him in small pieces and divided quarters, east and west throughout the ford.

One of them, Glas mac Delga, escaped by taking to his heels while Cú Chulainn was beheading the rest, and Cú Chulainn rushed after him, and Glas came round the tent of Ailill and Medb and only managed to say ‘fiach, fiach’ when Cú Chulainn struck him a blow and cut off his head.

‘They made quick work of yon man’ said Medb. ‘What debt did he speak of, Fergus?’

‘I do not know’ said Fergus, ‘unless perhaps some one in the camp owed him debts and they were on his mind. However’ said Fergus, ‘it is a debt of flesh and blood for him. I swear indeed’ said Fergus, ‘that now all his debts have been paid in full to him’.

Thus fell at Cú Chulainn hands Calatín Dána and his twenty-seven sons and his grandson Glas mac Derga. And there still remains in the bed of the ford the stone around which they fought and struggled and on it the mark of their sword hilts and of their knees and elbows and of the hafts of their spears. And the name of the ford is Fuil Iairn to the west of Áth Fhir Diad. It is called Fuil Iairn because swords were bloodstained there.

Thus far the Encounter with the Sons of Calatín.

The Encounter with Fer Diad

Then the men of Ireland considered what man should be sent to fight with Cú Chulainn in the hour of early morning on the morrow. They all said that it should be Fer Diad mac Damáin meic Dáire, the brave warrior from Fir Domnand. For similar and equal was their power of fighting and combat. With the same fostermothers, Scáthach and Úathach and Aífe, had they learnt the arts of valour and arms, and neither of them had any advantage over the other save that Cú Chulainn possessed the feat of the ga bulga. However, to counterbalance this Fer Diad had a horn-skin when fighting with a warrior on the ford.

Then messengers and envoys were sent for Fer Diad. Fer Diad refused and denied and again refused those messengers and he did not come with them, for he knew what they wanted of him, which was, to fight with his friend and companion and fosterbrother, Cú Chulainn mac Sualtaim, and so he came not with them.

Then Medb sent the druids and satirists and harsh bands for Fer Diad that they might make against him three satires to stay him and three lampoons, and that they might raise on his face three blisters, shame, blemish and disgrace, so that he might die before the end of nine days if he did not succumb at once, unless he came with the messengers. For the sake of his honour Fer Diad came with them, for he deemed it better to fall by shafts of valour and prowess and bravery than by the shafts of satire and reviling and reproach. And when he arrived, he was greeted with honour and served, and pleasant-tasting, intoxicating liquor was poured out for him until he was intoxicated and merry. And great rewards were promised him for engaging in that fight, namely, a chariot worth four times seven cumala (female slaves), the equipment of twelve men in garments of every colour, the equal of his own domains in the arable land of Mag n-Aí, freedom from tax and tribute, from encampment and expedition and exaction for his son and his grandson and his great-grandson to the end of time, Findabair as his wedded wife, and in addition the golden brooch in Medb’s mantle.

As Medb made these promises, she spoke the following words and Fer Diad answered her:

Medb

You shall have a reward of many bracelets and your share of plain and forest together with freedom for your posterity from to-day for ever, O Fer Diad mac Damáin. You shall have beyond all expectation (?). Why should you not accept what others accept?

Fer Diad

I shall not accept it without surety, for no warrior without skill in casting am I. It will be an oppressive task for me to-morrow, great will be the exertion. A Hound called also of Culann, hard is the task, it is not easy to resist him. Great will be the disaster.

Medb

You shall have warriors as guarantee. You shall not go to assemblies. Into your hand shall be given fine steeds and their bridles. O valourous Fer Diad, since you are a fearless man, you shall be my confidant before all others and free of all tribute.

Fer Diad

I shall not go without sureties to engage in the battle of the ford. Its memory will live on till doomsday in full vigour and strength. I shall not accept guarantees other than sun and moon, sea and land [gap: text untranslated/extent: 6 words].

Medb

What avails you to delay it? Bind it, as may please you, by the right hand of kings and princes who will go surety for you [gap: text untranslated/extent: 4 words]. You shall have all that you ask, for it is certain that you will kill the man who comes to encounter you.

Fer Diad

Without six sureties—let it not be less— I shall not accept these conditions before performing my exploits there where there are hosts. Were I to have my wish, I shall decide, though I am not equal, to fight with brave Cú Chulainn.

Medb

Domnall or Cairbre or bright Niamán of plundering, even the bardic folk, you will have as sureties however. Take Morand as a security, if you wish for its fulfilment, take gentle Cairbre Manand and take our two sons.

Fer Diad

O Medb, great in boastfulness! the beauty of a bridegroom does not touch you. You are assuredly the master in Crúachu of the mounds. Loud your voice, great your fierce strength. Bring me satin richly variegated, give me your gold and your silver, for you have offered them to me.

Medb

Are you not the chief hero to whom I shall give my circular brooch? From to-day until Sunday, no longer shall the respite be. O strong and famous warrior, all the finest treasures on earth shall thus be given to you, you shall have them all.

Finnabair of the champion, the queen of the West of Inis Elga, when the hound of the Smith has been slain, you shall have, O Fer Diad.

Then Medb took sureties from Fer Diad that he should fight with six heroes on the morrow, or if he deemed it preferable, fight with Cú Chulainn alone. And Fer Diad took sureties from her, as he believed, that she should send those six heroes to fulfil the conditions that had been promised to him if Cú Chulainn were to fall at his hands.

Then his horses were harnessed for Fergus and his chariot yoked and he came forward to where Cú Chulainn was that he might tell him how matters were. Cú Chulainn made him welcome. ‘Welcome is your coming, my master Fergus’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘I deem that welcome trustworthy, my fosterling’ said Fergus.

‘But the reason I have come is to tell you who comes to meet you and fight with you at the hour of early morning tomorrow’.

‘Let us hear it from you then’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘Your own friend and companion and fosterbrother, the man who is your equal in feats of arms and prowess and great deeds, Fer Diad mac Damáin meic Dáire, the brave warrior of Fir Domnand’.

‘By my conscience’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘it is not to encounter him we wish any friend of ours to come’.

‘That is why’ said Fergus, ‘you should be on your guard against him and prepare for him, for not like the rest who encountered you and fought with you on the Foray of Cúailnge at this time is Fer Diad mac Damáin meic Dáire’

‘I have been here, however’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘checking and holding back the four great provinces of Ireland from the Monday at the beginning of Samain until the beginning of spring, and in all that time I have not gone a step in retreat before a single man. Still less shall I retreat, I think, before this man’. And as Fergus spoke thus putting him on his guard, he said these words an Cú Chulainn answered him:

Fergus

O Cú Chulainn—clear covenant— I see that it is time for you to rise. Fer Diad mac Demáin of the ruddy countenance comes here to meet you in his wrath.

Cú Chulainn

I am here—no easy task—strongly holding back the men of Ireland. I never retreated a step to avoid encounter with a single opponent.

Fergus

Fierce is the man who wreaks his anger with his blood- red sword. Fer Diad of the many followers has a horn-skin against which no fight or combat can prevail.

Cú Chulainn

Be silent, argue not this matter, O Fergus of the mighty weapons. Over every land and territory, there is not fight against odds for me.

Fergus

Fierce is the man—scores of deeds of valour—it is not easy to overcome him. there is the strength of a hundred in his body, brave is the hero. The points of weapons pierce him not, the edge of weapons cuts him not.

Cú Chulainn

If I and Fer Diad of well-known valour were to meet at a ford, it would not be a fight without fierceness (?); our sword- fight would be wrathful.

Fergus

I should prefer above reward, O Cú Chulainn of the red sword, that you should be the one to take the spoils of proud Fer Diad eastwards.

Cú Chulainn

I vow and promise, though I am not good in vaunting, that I shall be the one to triumph over the son of Damán mac Dáre.

Fergus

It was I who, in requital for the wrong done me by Ulstermen, collected the forces from the east. With me their heroes and warriors came from their own lands.

Cú Chulainn

Were Conchobor not in his debility, the meeting would be hard. Medb of Mag in Scáil has never come on a more uproarious march.

Fergus

A greater deed now awaits your hand—the fight with Fer Diad mac Damáin. Have with you O Cú Chulainn, a weapon harsh and hard and famed in son.

Fergus came forward to the encampment. Fer Diad went to his tent and his followers and told them how Medb had obtained from him a covenant whereby he would fight and encounter six heroes on the morrow or else fight and encounter Cú Chulainn alone if he should prefer. He told them too that he had obtained from Medb a covenant whereby she should send the same six heroes to fulfil the promises that had been made to him if Cú Chulainn should fall by him.

That night the men in Fer Diad’s tent were not cheerful, tranquil, joyful or merry, but they were sad, sorrowful and downhearted. For they knew that when the two heroes, the two battle-breaches of a hundred, encountered each other, one of them would fall or both would fall, and if it were one of them, they believed that it would be their own lord, for no easy matter was it to fight and encounter Cú Chulainn on the Foray of Cúailnge.

Fer Diad slept heavily at the beginning of the night and when the end of the night was come, his sleep departed from him and his drunkenness left him, and anxiety concerning the fight preyed upon him. He ordered his charioteer to harness his horses and to yoke his chariot.

The charioteer began to dissuade him. ‘It were better for you to stay here than to go there’ said the driver.

‘Hold your peace, lad’ said Fer Diad. And as he spoke, he said these words and the servant answered him:

Fer Diad

Let us go to this encounter to contend with this man, until we reach the ford above which the war-goddess will shriek. Let us go to meet Cú Chulainn, to wound him through his slender body, that a spear-point may pierce him so that he may die thereof.

Charioteer

It were better for you to stay here. No smooth speech will ye exchange. There will be one to whom sorrow will come. Your fight will be short. An encounter with a noble of the Ulstermen is one from which harm will come. Long will it be remembered. Woe to him who goes on that course!

Fer Diad

Not right is what you say, for diffidence is not the business of a warrior and we must not show timidity. We shall not stay here for you. Be silent, lad. We shall presently be brave. Better is stoutness than cowardice. Let us go to the encounter.

Fer Diad’s horses were harnessed and his chariot was yoked, and he came forward to the ford of combat though as yet day with its full brightness had not come.

‘Well, lad’ said Fer Diad, ‘spread the coverings and rugs of my chariot beneath me that I may sleep a heavy fit of slumber here, for I did not sleep during the last part of the night with anxiety about the fight’. The servant unharnessed the horses and unyoked the chariot, and Fer Diad slept his heavy fit of slumber on it.

As for Cú Chulainn now, he rose not until day had dawned on him with its full brightness lest the men of Ireland should say that it was fear or cowardice that caused him to do so if he rose early. But when day came with its full brightness, he bade his charioteer harness his horses and yoke his chariot.

‘Good my lad’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘harness our horses for us and yoke our chariot, for an early riser is the warrior appointed to meet us, namely, Fer Diad mac Damáin meic Dáire’.

‘The horses are harnessed; the chariot is yoked. Mount the chariot then. There is no reproach to your valour’.

Then Cú Chulainn mac Sualtaim mounted his chariot, the blow-dealing, feat-performing, battle-winning, red-sworded hero, and around him shrieked goblins and sprites and fiends of the glen and demons of the air, for the Túatha De Danand used to raise a cry about him so that the fear and terror and horror and fright that he inspired might be all the greater in every battle and field of conflict and in every encounter to which he went.

Not long was Fer Diad’s charioteer there when he heard something: a noise and a clamour and an uproar, a tumult and thunder, a din and a great sound, namely, the clash of shields, the rattle of spears, the mighty blows of swords, the loud noise of helmet, the clang of breastplate, the friction of weapons, the violence of feats of arms, the straining of ropes, the rumble of wheels and the creaking of the chariot, the hoof-beats of the horses and the deep voice of the hero and warrior as he came to the ford to meet him.

The servant came and laid his hand upon his master. ‘Well, Fer Diad’ said the servant, ‘arise for they are coming to you at the ford’. And the servant spoke these words:

Charioteer

I hear the sound of a chariot with fair yoke of silver; I perceive the form of a man of great size rising above the front of the strong chariot. Past Bregros and past Braine they advance along the road, past the tree-stump at Baile in Bile, victorious is their triumph.

A clever Hound drives, a bright chariot-fighter harnesses, a noble hawk lashes his steeds towards the south. Blood-stained is the Hound. It is sure that he will come to us. We know—let there not be silence about it—that he comes to give us battle.

Woe to him who is on the hill awaiting the worthy Hound. Last year I foretold that he would come at some time, the Hound of Emain Macha, the Hound with shape of every colour, the Hound of spoils, the Hound of battle. I hear him and he hears us.

‘Well, lad’ said Fer Diad, ‘why have you praised that man ever since you left your house? It is almost a cause of strife that you should have praised him so highly. But Ailill and Medb have prophesied to me that that man would fall by me, and since is for reward, he shall be destroyed shortly by me. And now it is time for help’. And he spoke these words and the servant answered him:

Fer Diad

It is time now for help. Be silent, do not praise him. It was no deed of friendship, for he is not doom over the brink (?). If you see the hero of Cúailnge with his proud feats, since it is for reward, he shall soon be destroyed.

Charioteer

If I see the hero of Cúailnge with his proud feats, he does not flee from us but towards us he comes. Though skilful, he is not grudging. He runs and not slowly, like water from a high cliff or like a swift thunderbolt.

Fer Diad

So much have you praised him that it is almost a cause of a quarrel. Why have you chosen him since you came forth from your house? Now they appear, now they are challenging him. None come to attack him save cowardly churls.

Not long was Fer Diad’s charioteer there when he saw something: a beautiful, five-edged, four-wheeled chariot approaching with strength and swiftness and skill, with a green awning, with a framework of narrow compact opening, in which feats were exhibited, a framework tall as a sword-blade, fit for heroic deeds, behind two horses, swift, high-springing, big eared, beautiful, bounding, with flaring nostrils, with broad chests, with lively heart, high-groined, wide-hoofed, slender-legged, mighty and violent. In one shaft of the chariot was a grey horse, broad-thighed, small stepping, long-maned. In the other shaft a black horse, flowing maned, swift-coursing, broad-backed. Like a hawk to its prey (?) on a day of harsh wind, or like a gust of the stormy spring wind on a March day across a plain, or like a furious stag newly roused by hounds in the first chase—so were the two horses of Cú Chulainn in the chariot, as if they were on a bright, fiery flagstone, so that they shook the earth and made it tremble with the speed of their course.

Cú Chulainn arrived at the ford.

Fer Diad remained on the southern side of the ford, Cú Chulainn stayed on the northern side. Fer Diad made Cú Chulainn welcome.

‘Welcome is your coming Cú Chulainn’ said Fer Diad.

‘Until now I trusted that welcome’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘but today I trust it no more. And Fer Diad’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘it were fitter that I should welcome you rather than that you should welcome me, for it is you who have come to the country and province in which I dwell, and it was not right for you to come and fight with me, rather should I have gone to fight with you, for driven before you are my womenfolk and youths and boys, my horses and steeds, my droves and flocks and herds’.

‘O Cú Chulainn’ said Fer Diad, ‘what caused you to come and fight with me? For when we were with Scáthach and Úathach and Aífe, you were to me a serving-man who used to prepare my spears and dress my couch’.

‘That is true indeed’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘because of my youth and lack of age I used to act thus for you. But that is not how I am today indeed for there is not in the world a warrior whom I shall not drive off’.

And then each of them reproached the other bitterly as they renounced their friendship, and Fer Diad spoke these words and Cú Chulainn answered him:

Fer Diad

What has led you, little Hound, to fight with a strong champion? Your flesh (?) will be blood-red above the steam of your horses. Woe to him who comes as you do! It will be as vain as the kindling of a fire from a single stick of firewood. If you reach your home, you will be in need of healing.

Cú Chulainn

I have come, a wild boar of the herd, before warriors, before troops, before hundreds, to thrust you beneath the waters of the pool. In anger against you and to prove you in a many- sided encounter so that harm may come to you as you defend your life.

Fer Diad

There is here on who will crush you. It is I who will slay you, for it is I who can. The defeat of their hero in the presence of the Ulstermen, may it long be remembered, may it be to them loss.

Cú Chulainn

How shall we meet? Shall we groan over corpses? On what pool shall we fight as we meet on the ford? Shall it be with hard swords or with strong spear-points that you will be slain before your hosts if the time has come?

Fer Diad

Before sunset, before night, if you are in straits, you attack. When you fight at Bairche, the battle will not be bloodless. The Ulstermen are calling you. A cancer (?) has attacked them. Evil will be the sight for them. They will be utterly defeated.

Cú Chulainn

You have come to the gap of danger. The end of your life is at hand. Sharp weapons will be wielded on you, it will be no gentle purpose. It will be a great champion who will slay you. We two shall meet. You shall not be the leader of three men from now until Doomsday.

Fer Diad

Leave off your warning. You are the most boastful man on earth. You shall have neither reward nor remission for you are no hero overtopping others. I it is who know you, you with the heart of a bird. You are but a nervous lad without valour or force.

Cú Chulainn

When we were with Scáthach, by dint of our usual valour we would fare forth together and traverse every land. You were my loved comrade, my kin and kindred. Never found I one dearer. Sad will be your death.

Fer Diad

Too much you neglect your honour that we may not do battle, but before the cock crows, your head will be impaled on a spit. O Cú Chulainn of Cúailnge, frenzy and madness have seized you. All evil shall come to you from us for yours is the guilt.

‘Well, Fer Diad’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘it was not right for you to come and fight with me by reason of the strife and dissension stirred up by Ailill and Medb, and all who came thus got neither success or profit but they fell by me, and neither shall you have success or profit from it and you will fall at my hands’. As he spoke, he said these words and Fer Diad hearkened to him:

Cú Chulainn

Do not draw near me, O valiant warrior, Fer Diad son of Damán. You will fare the worse for it. It will bring sorrow to many.

By just truth, come not near me, for I am the one destined to bring you to your grave. Why was not my prowess directed solely against you?

Let not many feats overcome (?) you, though you the hornskinned are bloodstained. The maid of whom you boast will not be yours, O son of Damán.

Findabair, the daughter of Medb, though great her beauty, that maid though fair, you shall not wed.

Findabair, the king’s daughter, when the truth of the matter is told, she played many men false, she destroyed such as you.

Break not unknowing your oath to me. Break not compact, break not friendship. Break not word and promise. Come not towards me, O valiant warrior.

To fifty warriors the maid was pledged—a wise pledge indeed. Their death came through me, from me they got only justice dealt by a spear.

Though fierce and proud was Fer Báeth with his household of goodly warriors, yet I soon quelled his pride and slew him with one cast.

Bitter was the lessening of Srubdaire’s valiant deeds, Srubdaire who was the darling of a hundred women. Once his renown was great but neither gold nor fine raiment saved him.

If it were to me that she had been affianced, the woman in whom all the fair province delights, I would not wound your breast, in the south or in the north, in the west or in the east.

‘Fer Diad’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘that is why it was not right for you to come and fight with me. For when we were with Scáthach and Úathach and Aífe, we used to go together into every battle and field of contest, into every fight and combat, into every wood and wasteland, every secret place and hidden spot’. And as he spoke he said these words:

Cú Chulainn

We were loving friends. We were comrades in the wood. We were men who shared a bed. We would sleep a deep sleep after our weary fights in many strange lands. Together we would ride and range through every wood when we were taught by Scáthach.

Fer Diad

‘O accomplished Cú Chulainn’ said Fer Diad, ‘we have learnt the same art. They have overcome the bonds of friendship. Your wounds have been paid for. Remember not our fosterage together. O Hound, it is of not avail to you’.

‘Too long have we been like this now’ said Fer Diad, ‘and what weapons shall we use today, Cú Chulainn?’

‘Yours is the choice of weapons until night today’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘for you were the first to reach the ford’.

‘Do you remember at all’ said Fer Diad, ‘the choice feats of arms which we practised with Scáthach and Úathach and Aífe?’

‘I remember them indeed’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘If you do, let us have recourse to them’.

They had recourse to their choicest feats of arms. They put on two shields marked with emblems and took their eight ocharcles and their eight javelins and their eight ivory-hilted blades and their eight battle-darts. These would fly from them and to them like bees on a fine day. They cast no weapon which found not its aim. Each of them began to cast these weapons at the other from the twilight of early morning until the middle of the day, and they blunted their many weapons against the curved surfaces and bosses of the shields. Despite the excellence of the casting, the defence was so good that neither of them wounded or drew blood from the other during that time.

‘Let us lay aside these weapons now, Cú Chulainn’ said Fer Diad, ‘since not by them comes the decision between us’.

‘Let us do so indeed if the time has come’ said Cú Chulainn. They ceased then and gave their weapons into the hands of their charioteers.

‘What weapons shall we use now, Cú Chulainn?’ said Fer Diad.

‘Yours is the choice of weapons until night’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘since you were the first to reach the ford’.

‘Let us take then’ said Fer Diad, ‘to our polished, sharpened, hard, smooth spears with their thongs of hard flax’.

‘Let us do so indeed’ said Cú Chulainn.

Then they took on them two hard, equally strong shields and they had recourse to the polished, sharpened, hard, smooth spears with their thongs of hard flax. Each of them fell to casting the spears at the other from the middle of the day till the evening. Despite the excellence of the defence, so good was their mutual casting that during that time each of them bled and reddened and wounded the other.

‘Let us cease from this now, Cú Chulainn’ said Fer Diad.

‘Let us do so indeed if the time has come’ said Cú Chulainn. They ceased then and gave their weapons into the hands of their charioteers.

Then each of them went towards the other and put an arm around the other’s neck and kissed him thrice. That night their horses were in one paddock and their charioteers at one fire, and their charioteers made litter-beds of fresh rushers for them and on them pillows for wounded men. Then came folk of healing and curing to heal and cure them, and they put herbs and healing plants and a curing charm into their wounds and cuts, their gashes and many stabs. Of every herb and healing plant and curing charm which was applied to the wounds and cuts, the gashes and many stabs of Cú Chulainn, an equal amount was sent westwards by him across the ford to Fer Diad lest the men of Ireland should say, if Fer Diad fell by him, that it was because of the advantage Cú Chulainn had over him in healing. Of every food and every palatable, pleasant, strong drink which was brought from the men of Ireland to Fer Diad, an equal portion was sent northwards from him across the ford to Cú Chulainn, for the purveyors of food to Fer Diad were more numerous than those of Cú Chulainn. All the men of Ireland were purveyors of food to Fer Diad that he might ward off Cú Chulainn from them. The men of Bregia were purveyors to Cú Chulainn. They used to come to him daily, that is, every night.

They remained there that night. They arose early on the morrow and came forward to the ford of combat.

‘What weapons shall we use today, Fer Diad?’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘Yours is the choice of weapons until night’ said Fer Diad, ‘since I had choice of weapons on the day that is past’.

‘Let us then’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘take to our great long spears today, for we think that thrusting with the spears today will bring us nearer to a decisive victory than the casting of missiles did yesterday. Let our horses be harnessed for us and our chariots yoked that we may fight from our horses and chariots today’.

‘Let us do so indeed’ said Fer Diad. Then they put on two broad, strong shields that day. They had recourse to the great long spears that day. Each of them began to pierce and wound, to overthrow (?) and cast each other down (?) from the twilight of early morning until sunset. If it were usual for birds in flight to pass through men’s bodies, they would have gone through their bodies that day and carried lumps of flesh and blood through their wounds and cuts into the clouds and the air outside. And when evening came their horses were weary and their charioteers tired, and the heroes and champions themselves were weary too.

‘Let us cease from this now, Fer Diad’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘for our horses are weary and our charioteers are tired, and when they are weary, why should we also not be weary?’ And as he spoke he said these words:

Cú Chulainn

We are not bound to endure the swaying of the chariots, said he, straining against giants. Let their spancels be put on the horses, for the noise of battle is over.

‘Let us cease indeed if the time for it has come’ said Fer Diad.

They ceased. They gave over their weapons into the hands of their charioteers. Each of them came towards the other. Each put an arm around the others’s neck and kissed him thrice. That night their horses were in one paddock, their charioteers at one fire. Their charioteers made for them litter-beds of fresh rushers with the pillows of wounded men on them. Physicians and doctors came to examine and watch them and to attend on them that night for, because of the dreadfulness of their wounds and gashes, of their cuts and many stabs, all they could do for them was to apply spells and incantations and charms to them to staunch the bleeding and haemorrhage and to keep the dressings in place. Of all the spells and incantations and charms which were applied to the wounds and gashes of Cú Chulainn, and equal portion was sent by him westwards across the ford to Fer Diad. Of all the food and palatable, pleasant, strong drink which was brought from the men of Ireland to Fer Diad, an equal amount was sent by him northwards across the ford to Cú Chulainn. For Fer Diad’s purveyors of food were more numerous than those of Cú Chulainn as all the men of Ireland were purveyors of food to Fer Diad for warding off Cú Chulainn from them, but only the men of Bregia were purveyors of food to Cú Chulainn. They used to come and converse with him daily, that is, every night.

They remained there that night. They rose early on the morrow and came forward to the ford of combat. Cú Chulainn saw that Fer Diad had an ill and gloomy appearance on that day. ‘Your appearance is not good today, Fer Diad’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘Your hair has grown dark today and your eye dull, and you are changed from your usual form and figure’.

‘Not because I fear or dread you am I thus today however’ said Fer Diad, ‘for there is not in Ireland today a warrior I shall not repel’.

And Cú Chulainn was lamenting and pitying him, and he spoke these words and Fer Diad answered:

Cú Chulainn

O Fer Diad, if this is you, sure I am that you are one utterly doomed, that you should come at a woman’s behest to fight with your fosterbrother.

Fer Diad

O Cú Chulainn—wise fulfilment—O great hero, great warrior! A man must make this journey to the sod whereon is his grave.

Cú Chulainn

Findabair the daughter of Medb, however beautiful her form, was given to you not for love of you but to prove your noble might.

Fer Diad

My might is long since proven, O Hound of the gentle rule. None braver has been heard of or found until today.

Cú Chulainn

You are the cause of all that happens, O son of Damán mac Dáire, that you should come at woman’s behest to cross swords with your fosterbrother.

Fer Diad

Should I part from you without a fight, O gentle Hound, though we are fosterbrothers, my word and my name would be held in ill esteem by Ailill and Medb of Crúachu.

Cú Chulainn

He has not yet put food to his lips nor has he yet been born of king or bright queen for whom I would consent to do you harm.

Fer Diad

O Cú Chulainn—many deeds of valour—not you but Medb betrayed us. You will have victory and fame. Not on you is our guilt.

Cú Chulainn

My brave heart is a clot of blood. My life has almost left me. No equal fight do I deem it to encounter you, Fer Diad.

‘However much you belittle me today’ said Fer Diad, ‘what weapons shall we use?’

‘You have the choice of weapons until night today’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘for it was I who chose them yesterday’.

‘Let us then’ said Fer Diad, ‘take our heavy, hardsmiting swords today, for we think that the mutual striking with swords today will bring us nearer to a decisive victory than did the thrusting with spears yesterday’.

‘Let us do so indeed’ said Cú Chulainn.

Then they took up two great, long shields that day. They wielded their heavy, hard-smiting swords. Each of them began to smite and hew, to slaughter and slay each other, and every portion and piece that each hacked from the shoulders and thighs and shoulder-blades of the other was as big as the head of a month-old child. Each of them kept on smiting the other in this way from the twilight of early morning until evening.

‘Let us cease from this now, Cú Chulainn’ said Fer Diad.

‘Let us cease indeed if the time for it has come’ said Cú Chulainn.

So they ceased and gave over their weapons into the hands of their charioteers. Though two cheerful, tranquil, happy and joyful men had met there, their parting that night was the parting of two sad, unhappy, dispirited ones. That night their horses were not in the same paddock nor their charioteers at the same fire.

They remained there that night. Then Fer Diad rose early on the morrow and came alone to the ford of combat, for he knew that this was the decisive day of the fight, and he knew too that one of them would fall in the fight that day or that both would fall. Then before Cú Chulainn came to meet him, he put on his battle equipment. Of that battle equipment was his filmy satin apron with its border of variegated gold which he wore next to his fair skin. Outside that he put on his apron of supple brown leather, and outside that a great stone as big as a millstone, and outside that stone, through fear and dread of the ga bulga that day, he put his strong, deep, iron apron made of smelted iron. On his head he put his crested helmet of battle which was adorned with forty carbuncle-gems, studded with red enamel and crystal and carbuncle and brilliant stones from the eastern world. In his right hand he took his fierce, strong spear. He set at his left side his curved battle-sword with its golden hilt and guards of red gold. On the arching slope of his back he put his huge, enormous fair shield with its fifty bosses into each boss of which a show boar could fit, not to speak of the great central boss of red gold. That day Fer Diad exhibited many and wonderful and brilliant feats of arms which he had not learned from anyone before that, neither from fostermother nor fosterfather, not from Scáthach nor Úathach nor Aífe, but he invented them himself on that day to oppose Cú Chulainn.

Cú Chulainn too came to the ford and he saw the many brilliant, wonderful feats of arms performed by Fer Diad. ‘You see yonder, my friend Láeg, the many brilliant, wonderful feats performed by Fer Diad, and in due course now all those feats will be directed against me. Therefore, if it be I who am defeated this day, you must incite me and revile me and speak evil of me so that my ire and anger shall rise the higher thereby. But if it be I who inflict defeat, you must exhort me and praise me and speak will of me that thereby my courage rise higher’.

‘It shall so be done indeed, little Cú’ said Láeg.

Then Cú Chulainn too put on his battle-equipment and performed that day many brilliant, wonderful feats which he had not learned from any other, not from Scáthach nor from Úathach nor from Aífe.

Fer Diad saw these feats and knew that they would in due course be directed against him. ‘What feat of arms shall we perform today, Fer Diad?’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘Yours is the choice until nightfall’ said Fer Diad.

‘Let us perform the “feat of the ford” then’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘Let us do so indeed’ said Fer Diad. But though he said that, it was the feat he deemed it hardest to encounter for he knew that it was at the “feat of the ford” that Cú Chulainn overthrew every champion and every warrior he encountered. Great was the deed that was done on the ford that day, the two heroes, the two champions and the two chariot-fighters of western Europe, the two bright torches of valour of the Irish, the two bestowers of gifts and rewards and wages in the northwestern world, the two mainstays of the valour of the Irish coming from afar to encounter each other through the sowing of dissension and the stirring up of strife by Ailill and Medb. Each of them began to cast these weapons at each other from the twilight of early morning until midday, and when midday came, the rage of the combatants grew fiercer and they drew closer to each other.

Then for the first time Cú Chulainn sprang from the brink of the ford on to the boss of Fer Diad’s shield, trying to strike his head from above the rim of the shield.

Fer Diad gave the shield a blow with his left elbow and cast Cú Chulainn off like a bird on to the brink of the ford.

Again Cú Chulainn sprang from the brink of the ford on to the boss of Fer Diad’s shield, seeking to strike his head from above the rim of the shield.

Fer Diad gave the shield a blow with his left knee and cast Cú Chulainn off like a child on to the brink of the ford. Láeg noticed what was happening.

‘Alas!’ said Láeg, ‘your opponent has chastised you as a fond mother chastises her child. He had belaboured you as flax (?) is beaten in a pond. He had ground you as a mill grinds malt. He has pierced you as a tool pierces an oak. he has bound you as a twining plant binds trees. He has attacked you as a hawk attacks little birds, so that never again will you have a claim or right or title to valour of feats of arms, you distorted little sprite’ said Láeg.

Then for the third time Cú Chulainn rose up as swift as the wind, as speedy as the swallow, as fierce as the dragon, as strong as the air, and landed on the boss of Fer Diad’s shield, seeking to strike his head from above the rim of the shield. Then the warrior shook the shield and cast off Cú Chulainn into the bed of the ford as if he had never leapt at all (?).

Then occurred Cú Chulainn’s first distortion. He swelled and grew big as a bladder does when inflated and became a fearsome, terrible, many-coloured, strange arch, and the valiant hero towered high above Fer Diad, as big a fomóir or a pirate.

Such was the closeness of their encounter that their heads met above, their feet below and their hands in the middle over the rims and bosses of the shields. Such was the closeness of their encounter that they clove and split their shields from rims to centres. Such was the closeness of their encounter that they caused their spears to bend and turn and yield to pressure from points to rivets. Such was the closeness of their encounter that sprites and goblins and spirits of the glen and demons of the air screamed from the rims of their shields and from the hilts of their swords and from the butt-ends of their spears. Such was the closeness of their encounter that they forced the river from its usual course and extent, and a couch might have been prepared for king or queen on the floor of the ford for not a drop of water remained there except what might drip there with the wrestling and trampling of the two heroes and champions on the floor of the ford. Such was the closeness of their encounter that the horses of the Irish went mad and frenzied and broke their spancels and shackles, their ropes and traces, and women and boys and children and those unfit to fight and the mad among the men of Ireland broke out through the camp south-westwards.

By this time the two combatants were at the edge-feat of swords.

Then Fer Diad caught Cú Chulainn unguarded and dealt him a blow with his ivory-hilted blade which he plunged into Cú Chulainn’s breast.

And Cú Chulainn’s blood dripped into his belt and the ford was red with the blood from the warrior’s body. Cú Chulainn brooked not this wounding for Fer Diad attacked him with a succession of deadly stout blows, and he asked Láeg for the ga bulga.—Such was the nature of the ga bulga: it used to be set downstream and cast from between the toes: it made one wound as it entered a man’s body but it had thirty barbs when one tried to remove it and it was not taken from a man’s body until the flesh was cut away about it.

And when Fer Diad heard the mention of the ga bulga, he thrust down the shield to shelter the lower part of his body. Cú Chulainn cast the fine spear from off the palm of this hand over the rim of the shield and over the breast- piece of the horn-skin so that its farther half was visible after it had pierced Fer Diad’s heart in his breast. Fer Diad thrust up the shield to protect the upper part of his body but that was help that came too late.

The charioteer sent the ga bulga downstream.

Cú Chulainn caught it between his toes and made a cast of it at Fer Diad. And the ga bulga went through the strong, thick apron of smelted iron and broke in three the great stone as big as a millstone and entered Fer Diad’s body through the anus and filled every joint and limb of him with its barbs.

‘That suffices now’ said Fer Diad. ‘I have fallen by that cast. But indeed, strongly do you cast from your right foot. And it was not fitting that I should fall by you’. As he spoke, he uttered these words:

Fer Diad

O Hound of the fair feats, it was not fitting that you should slay me. Yours is the guilt which clung to me. On you my blood was shed.

Doomed men who reach the gap of betrayal do not flourish. Sad is my voice. Alas! heroes (?) have been destroyed.

My ribs like spoils are broken. My heart is gore. Would that I had not fought! I have fallen O Hound.

Then Cú Chulainn hastened towards him and clasped him in his arms and lifted him up with his weapons and armour and equipment and took him northwards across the ford so that his spoils might be to the north of the ford and not to the west with the men of Ireland. Cú Chulainn laid Fer Diad on the ground there and as he stood over Fer Diad a swoon and faintness and weakness came upon him. Láeg saw that and he feared that all the men of Ireland would come and attack Cú Chulainn.

‘Come, little Hound’ said Láeg, ‘arise now for the men of Ireland will come to attack us and it will not be single combat that they will grant us since Fer Diad mac Damáin meic Dáire has fallen at your hands’.

‘What avails it me to arise now, fellow’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘considering the man who has fallen by me’.

As the servant spoke, he said these words and Cú Chulainn answered him:

Charioteer

Arise, O war-hound of Emain. High courage befits you more than ever. You have cast off Fer Diad of the hosts, God’s doom! Your fight was hard.

Cú Chulainn

What avails me high courage? Madness and grief have hemmed me in, after the deed I have done and the body that I have wounded harshly with my sword.

Charioteer

It was not fitting for you to mourn him. Fitter for you to boast in triumph. The strong man armed with spears has left you mournful, wounded, bleeding.

Cú Chulainn

Even had he cut off a leg from me or a hand, I still grieve that Fer Diad who rode on steeds is not living for ever.

Charioteer

The maidens of the Red Branch are better pleased at what has been done, that he should die and you should live, though they do not deem it a small thing that you two should be parted for ever.

Since the day you left Cúailnge in pursuit of the brilliant Medb, all that you have killed of her fighters she deems indeed a famous carnage.

You have not slept peacefully in pursuit of your great herd. Though your company was few, yet many a morning you rose early.

Cú Chulainn began to lament for and commiserate with Fer Diad then and he spoke these words:

‘Alas, Fer Diad, sad for you that you spoke not with one of the company who knew of my great deeds of valour and arms before we met together in conflict!’

‘Sad for you that Láeg mac Riangbra did not put you to shame with counsel about our comradeship!’

‘Sad for you that you did not agree to the clear advice of Fergus!’

‘Sad for you that Conall the fair, triumphant, exultant, victorious Conall, did not help you!’

‘For those men do not follow the messages or desires or sayings or the false promises of the fairhaired women of Connacht. For those men know that there will not be born among the Connachtmen a being to perform deeds equal to yours, in the wielding of shields and bucklers, of spears and swords, in the playing of chess and draughts, in the driving of horses and chariots’.

‘There will not be a hero’s hand to hack warrior’s flesh like that of Fer Diad, the shapely scion. The breach made by the red-mouthed war-goddess will not be dug up (?) for encampments full of shimmering shields. It will not be Crúachain that will contend for or obtain covenants equal to yours till the very end of life now, O red-cheeked son of Damán!’ said Cú Chulainn.

Then Cú Chulainn rose and stood over Fer Diad. ‘Ah Fer Diad’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘greatly did the men of Ireland betray and abandon you when they brought you to fight and do combat with me, for to contend and do battle with me on the Foray of Cúailnge was no easy task’.

As he spoke, he said these words:

Cú Chulainn

O Fer Diad, you have been betrayed. Alas for your last meeting where you have died while I remain! Alas for ever for our long parting!

When we were yonder with Scáthach the victorious, we thought that till great doomsday our friendship would not end.

Dear to me was your splendid blush, dear your perfect and fair form, dear your bright clear eye, dear your bearing and your speech.

There never strode to flesh-rending fight, there never grew wrathful in his manliness, there never held shield upon the wide slope, one like unto you, warlike son of Damán.

I have never met such as you until now, since the only son of Aífe fell; your peer in deeds of battle I found not here, O Fer Diad.

Findabair, the daughter of Medb, though great her beauty, it is as vain to show her now to you, O Fer Diad, as to bind a withe around sand or gravel.

Then Cú Chulainn began to gaze at Fer Diad. ‘Well now, my friend Láeg’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘strip Fer Diad and take off his armour and his clothes that I may see the brooch for the sake of which he did battle’. Láeg came and stripped Fer Diad. He took his armour and clothing from him and Cú Chulainn saw the brooch and began to mourn for Fer Diad and to commiserate him, and he spoke these words:

Cú Chulainn

Alas for the golden brooch

“Alas … brooch”, translating ST

, O Fer Diad of the hosts! O strong and valiant smiter, victorious was your arm.

Your thick yellow hair was curly—a fair jewel. Your girdle, supple and ornamented, was around you until your death.

Our true comradeship was a delight for the eye of a nobleman. Your shield with its golden rim, your chess-board worth much treasure.

That you should fall by my hand I acknowledge was not just. Our fight was not gentle. Alas for the golden brooch!

“Alas … brooch”, translating ST

‘Well, my friend Láeg’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘cut open Fer Diad now and remove the ga bulga for I cannot be without my weapon’. Láeg came and cut open Fer Diad and removed the ga bulga. And Cú Chulainn saw his bloodstained, crimson weapon lying beside Fer Diad and spoke these words:

Cú Chulainn

O Fer Diad, it is sad that I should see you thus, bloodstained yet drained of blood, while I have not as yet cleansed my weapon of its stains and you lie there in a bed of gore.

When we were yonder in the east with Scáthach and with Úathach, there would not be pale lips between us and weapons of battle.

Sharply Scáthach spoke her strong firm command: ‘Go ye all to the swift battle. Germán Garbglas will come.’

I said to Fer Diad and to generous Lugaid and to Fer Báeth the son of fair Báetán that we should go to meet Germán.

We went to the rocks of battle above the sloping shore of Loch Lindfhormait. Four hundred we brought out from the Islands of the Victorious.

When I and valiant Fer Diad stood before the fort of Germán, I killed Rind mac Níuil and he slew Fúad mac Forníuil.

On the battle-field Fer Báeth killed Bláth son of Colba of the red sword, and Lugaid, the stern and swift, slew Mugairne from the Tyrrhene Sea.

After going in I slew four hundred wrathful men. Fer Diad slew Dam Dreimed and Dam Dílend—a stern company.

We laid waste the fort of wise Germán above the wide, many-coloured sea. We brought Germán alive to Scáthach of the broad shield.

Our fostermother imposed on us a pact of friendship and agreement that we should not grow angry with the tribe of fair Elg.

Sad was the battle, that slaughtering battle in which the son of Damán was struck down in weakness. Alas! the friend to whom I served a drink of red blood has fallen.

Had I seen you die amidst the warriors of great Greece, I should not have survived you, we should have died together.

Sad what befalls us, the fosterlings of Scáthach. I am wounded and covered with red gore while you no longer drive chariots.

Sad what befalls us, the fosterlings of Scáthach. I am wounded and covered with red gore while you lie dead.

Sad what befalls us, the fosterlings of Scáthach, you dead. I alive and strong. Valour is an angry combat.

‘Well, O little Cú’ said Láeg, ‘let us leave this ford now. Too long have we been here’. ‘We shall leave it indeed, friend Láeg’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘But to me every battle and contest I have fought seems but play and sport compared with my fight against Fer Diad’. And as he spoke, he said these words:

Cú Chulainn

Game was all and sport was all until it came to my meeting with Fer Diad on the ford. The same instruction we had, the same power of guarantee (?). The same tender foster-mother we had whose name is beyond all others.

All was play and sport compared with my meeting with Fer Diad on the ford. The same nature we had, the same fearsomeness, the same weapons we used to wield. Scáthach once gave two shields to me and to Fer Diad.

All was play and sport compared with my meeting with Fer Diad on the ford. Beloved was he, the golden pillar, whom I laid low on the ford. O strong one of the tribes, you were more valiant than all others.

All was play and sport compared with my meeting with Fer Diad on the ford, the furious, fiery lion, the wave, wild and swelling, like the day of doom.

All was play and sport compared with my meeting with Fer Diad at the ford. I thought that beloved Fer Diad would live after me for ever. Yesterday he was huge as a mountain, today only his shadow remains.

Three uncountable bands there fell by my hand on the Foray. The finest men, the finest cattle and horses I slaughtered on every side.

Though numerous the army which came from stout Crúachu, yet I slew more than a third of them and less than half with the rough plying of my weapons.

There has not come into the centre of battle, nor has Banba ever nurtured, nor has there travelled over land or sea any king’s son more famous than Fer Diad.

Thus far the Tragic Death of Fer Diad.

There came now to help and succour Cú Chulainn a few of the Ulstermen, namely, Senall Uathach and the two Maic Fecce, Muiredach and Cotreb. They took him to the streams and rivers of Conaille Muirthemne to wash and cleanse his wounds and his stabs, his cuts and many sores, against the current of those streams and rivers. For the Túatha De Danann used to put herbs and healing plants and charms on the streams and rivers in Conaille Muirthemne to help and succour Cú Chulainn, so that the streams used to be speckled and green-surfaced from them.

These are the names of the rivers which healed Cú Chulainn:

Sás, Búan, Bithlán, Findglais, Gleóir, Glenamain, Bedg, Tadg, Telameit, Rind, Bir, Brenide, Dichaem, Muach, Miliuc, Cumu[not ]g, Cuilenn, Gainemain, Drong, Delt, Dubglass.

The men of Ireland told Mac Roth, the chief herald, to go to keep watch and ward for them on Slíab Fúait lest the Ulstermen should come upon them unawares. So Mac Roth came to Slíab Fúait. Not long was he there when he saw a single chariot-warrior on Slíab Fúait coming straight towards him from the north. In the chariot was a man, stark-naked, with neither weapon nor garment save only an iron spit in his hand with which he pricked alike his charioteer and his horses, and it seemed to him as if he would never reach the hosts while they were still alive.

Mac Roth brought these tidings to the place where were Ailill and Medb and Fergus with the nobles of the men of Ireland.

Ailill asked news of him on his arrival. ‘Well, Mac Roth’ said Ailill, ‘have you seen any one of the Ulstermen on the track of this host today?’

‘I know not indeed’ said Mac Roth, ‘but I saw a solitary chariot-fighter coming straight across Slíab Fúait. In the chariot there is a man, stark-naked, with no garment or weapon at all except for an iron spit in his hand with which he pricks alike both his charioteer and his horses, for it seemed to him that he would not reach this host in time to find them alive’.

‘Who would you think was yonder, Fergus?’ said Ailill.

‘I think’ said Fergus, ‘that it would be Cethern mac Fintain coming there’. It was true for Fergus that it was Cethern mac Fintain arriving there. Then Cethern mac Fintain reached them, and the fort and encampment was overthrown (?) on them and he wounds them all around him in every direction and on all sides. He too is wounded from all sides and points. Then he came from them, with his entrails and intestines hanging out, to the place where Cú Chulainn was being cured and healed, and he asked Cú Chulainn for a physician to cure and heal him.

‘Well, my friend Láeg’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘go to the encampment of the men of Ireland and tell their physicians to come forth and cure Cethern mac Fintain. I swear that though they be hidden underground or in a locked house I shall inflict death on them before this hour tomorrow if they do not come’.

Láeg came forward to the encampment of the men of Ireland and bade their physicians come forth and cure Cethern mac Fintain. The physicians of the men of Ireland thought it no pleasant task to come and cure one who was to them a foe and an enemy and an outlander, but they feared that Cú Chulainn would inflict death on them if they did not come. So they came. As each man reached him, Cethern mac Fintain would show him his wounds and his gashes, his sores and his bleeding cuts.

To each man who would say: ‘He will not live. He cannot be cured’ Cethern mac Fintain would deal a blow with his right fist in the middle of his forehead and drive his brains out through the orifices of his ears and the joinings of his skull. However, Cethern mac Fintain slew up to fifteen of the physicians of the men of Ireland. As for the fifteenth man, only a glancing blow reached him, but he lay unconscious in a heavy swoon among the corpses of the other physicians for a long time. His name was Ithall, the physician of Ailill and Medb.

Then Cethern mac Fintain asked Cú Chulainn for another physician to heal and cure him.

‘Well now, friend Láeg’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘go for me to Fíngin the seer-physician, the physician of Conchobor at Ferta Fíngin in Lecca Slebe Fúait, and let him come hither heal Cethern mac Fintain’.

Láeg came on to the seer-physician Fíngin at Ferta Fíngin in Lecca Slebe Fuait and told him to come and cure Cethern mac Fintain showed him his wounds and his stabs, his gashes and his bleeding cuts.

‘Examine this wound for me, master Fíngin’ said Cethern. Fíngin examined the wound. ‘This is a slight wound given unwillingly by one of your own blood’ said the physician, ‘and it would not carry you off prematurely’.

‘That is true indeed’ said Cethern. ‘One man came to me there. He had a crest of hair. He wore a blue cloak wrapped around him. A silver brooch in the cloak over his breast. He carried a curved shield with scalloped edge; in his hand a five- pointed spear and beside it a small pronged spear. He dealt this wound and he got a slight wound from me too’.

‘We know that man’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘That was Illand Ilarchless the son of Fergus, and he had no desire that you should fall by his hand but gave that mock-thrust at you lest the men of Ireland should say that he was betraying or abandoning them if he did not give it’.

‘Examine this wound also for me, master Fíngin’, said Cethern. Fíngin examined the wound.

‘This is the deed of a proud woman’ said the physician.

‘That is true indeed’ said Cethern. ‘There came to me there a woman, tall, beautiful, pale and long-faced. She had flowing, golden-yellow hair. She wore a crimson, hooded cloak with a golden brooch over her breast. A straight, ridged spear blazing in her hand. She gave me that wound and she too got a slight wound from me’.

‘We know that woman’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘It was Medb the daughter of Eochu Feidlech, the high-king of Ireland, who came in that wise. She would have deemed it victory and triumph and cause for boasting had you fallen at her hands’.

‘Examine then this wound for me, master Fíngin’ said Cethern.

Fíngin examined the wound.

‘This is the attack of two champions’ said the physician.

‘It is true indeed’ said Cethern. ‘Two men came to me there. They had crests of hair. Two blue cloaks wrapped about them. Silver brooches in the cloaks above their breasts. A necklace of pure white silver round the neck of each of them’.

‘We know those two men’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘They were Oll and Othine, members of the household of Ailill and Medb. They never go into battle that they are not assured of wounding a man. They would deem it victory and triumph and cause for boasting that you should fall at their hands’.

‘Examine this wound for me now, master Fíngin’ said Cethern.

Fíngin examined that wound.

‘Two warriors came to me there of splendid, manly appearance. Each of them thrust a spear in me and I thrust this spear through one of them’.

Fíngin examined that wound.

‘This wound is all black’ said the physician. ‘The spears went through your heart and crossed each other within it and I prophesy no cure here, but I would procure for you some herbs of healing and curing so that the wounds should not carry you off prematurely’.

‘We know these two’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘They were Bun and Mecconn of the household of Ailill and Medb. They desired that you should fall at their hands’.

‘Examine this wound for me now, master Fíngin’ said Cethern.

Fíngin examined the wound.

‘This was the bloody onset of the two sons of the king of Caill’.

‘That is true’ said Cethern. ‘There came to me two warriors, fair-faced, dark- browed, tall, with golden crowns on their heads. Two green mantles wrapped about them. Two brooches of white silver in the mantles over their breasts. Two five-pronged spears in their hands’.

‘Very numerous are the wounds that have inflicted on you’ said the physician. ‘Into your gullet the spears went and their points met within you, nor is it easy to work a cure here’.

‘We know these two’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘They are Bróen and Brudne the sons of three lights, the tow sons of the king of Caill. They would think it victory and triumph and cause for boasting if you should fall by them’.

‘Examine this wound for me, master Fíngin’ said Cethern.

Fíngin examined that wound.

‘This was the attack (?) of two brothers’ said the physician.

‘That is true indeed’ said Cethern. ‘There came to me two choice warriors. They had yellow hair. Dark-grey, fringed cloaks wrapped about them. Leaf-shaped brooches of white bronze in the mantles over their breasts. Broad, shining spears in their hands’.

‘We know those two’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘They are Cormac Coloma Ríg, and Cormac mac Maele Foga of the household of Ailill and Medb. They would have wished you to fall at their hands’.

‘Examine for me this wound, master Fíngin’ said Cethern.

Fíngin examined that wound.

‘This was the attempt of two brothers’ said the physician.

‘It is true indeed’ said Cethern. ‘There came to me two youthful warriors, both alike. One had curling brown hair, the other curling yellow hair. Two green mantles were wrapped around them and two brooches of bright silver were in the mantles over their breasts, Two shirts of smooth, yellow silk next to their skin. Bright-hilted swords at their girdles. Two bright shields they carried, ornamented with animal designs in silver. Two five- pronged spears with rings of pure white silver they bore in their hands’.

‘We know those two’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘They were Maine Máithremail and Maine Aithremail, two sons of Ailill and Medb. They would deem it victory and triumph and cause for boasting if you should fall at their hands’.

‘Examine this wound for me, master Fíngin’ said Cethern.

‘Two warriors came to me there. A brilliant appearance they had and they were tall and manly. They wore strange, foreign clothes. Each of them thrust a spear into me and I thrust a spear into each of them’.

Fingin examined the wound.

‘Severe are the wounds they have inflicted on you’ said the physician. ‘They have severed the sinews of your heart within you so that your heart rolls about in your breast like an apple in movement (?) or like a ball of thread in an empty bag, and there is not a sinew supporting it at all, and I cannot effect a cure here’.

‘We know those two’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘They are two of the warriors of Irúath who were chosen expressly by Ailill and Medb that they might kill you, since not often does anyone survive their attack. For they desired that you should fall at their hands’.

‘Examine this wound for me, master Fíngin’ said Cethern.

Fíngin examined that wound.

‘This was the thrust of a father and son’ said the physician.

‘It is true indeed’ said Cethern. ‘There came to me two tall men, with shining eyes, with golden diadems flashing on their heads. They wore kingly raiment. Gold-hilted, ornamented swords at their girdles with scabbards of pure white silver and rings of variegated gold outside them’.

‘We know those two’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘They were Ailill and his son Maine Condasgeib Uile. They would deem it victory and triumph and cause of congratulation if you had fallen at their hands’.

Thus far the Wounds of Cethern on the Táin.

‘Well then, Fíngin, seer-physician’ said Cethern mac Fintain, ‘what remedy and advice do you give me now?’

‘What I say to you’ said Fíngin the seer-physician, ‘is that you should not exchange your great cows for yearlings this year, for if you do, it is not you who will enjoy them and they will not profit you.’

‘That is the remedy and advice the other physicians gave me, and it is certain that it brought them no advantage or profit but they fell by me, and neither shall it bring advantage or profit to you for you will fall by me’. And Cethern gave him a strong, violent kick so that he landed between the two wheels of the chariot.

‘Wicked is that old man’s (?) kick’ said Cú Chulainn. Whence the name of Úachtar Lúa in Crích Rois from that day until today.

Nevertheless, Fíngin Fáithlíaig gave his choice to Cethern mac Fintain: either a long illness and afterwards help and succour, or else a temporary healing during three days and three nights that he might then exert all his strength against his enemies. Cethern chose a temporary healing of three days and three nights that he might himself exert all his strength against his enemies, for as he said, he would leave behind him no one he would better like to take vengeance for him than himself. So then Fíngin Fáithlíaig asked Cú Chulainn for a marrow-mash to cure and heal Cethern mac Fintain. Cú Chulainn proceeded to the encampment of the men of Ireland and brought from there all he found of their herds and flocks and droves, and made of them a mash, flesh and bones and hides all together. And Cethern was placed in the marrow-mash for the space of three days and three nights, and he began to soak up the marrow-mash which was about him. And the marrow entered into his wounds and gashes, his sores and many stabs. Then after three days and three nights he arose from the marrow-mash, and thus it was that he arose: with the board of his chariot pressed to his belly to prevent his entrails from falling out.

That was the time when his wife Finda daughter of Eochu came from the north, from Dún Da Benn, bringing him his sword. Cethern mac Fintain came towards the men of Ireland. However he gave a warning of his coming to Íthall, the physician of Ailill and Medb. Íthall had lain unconscious in a heavy swoon among the corpses of the other physicians for a long space of time.

‘O men of Ireland’ said the physician, ‘Cethern son of Fintan will come to attack you now that he has been cured and healed by Fíngin Fáithlíaig, so make ready to answer him’.

Then the men of Ireland put Ailill’s garments and his golden crown on the pillar-stone in Crích Rois that Cethern mac Fintain might first wreak his rage on it when he arrived. Cethern saw Ailill’s garments and his golden crown on the pillar-stone, and for want of information he thought that it was Ailill himself who was there. He made a rush at it and drove the sword through the pillar-stone up to its hilt.

‘This is a trick’ said Cethern, ‘and against me it has been played, and I swear that until there be found among you some one to put on that royal dress and golden crown I see yonder, I shall not cease to smite and slaughter them’.

Maine Andóe, the son of Ailill and Medb, heard this, and he put on the royal dress and golden crown and advanced through the midst of the men of Ireland. Cethern pursued him closely and made a cast of his shield at him, and the scalloped edge of the shield cut him in three to the ground together with chariot and charioteer and horses. Then the armies attacked Cethern on both sides and he fell at their hands in the spot where he was.

Those are the tales of Caladgleó Cethirn and Fuile Cethirn.

Here follows Fiacalgleó Fintain.

Fintan was the son of Niall Niamglonnach from Dún Da Benn, and the father of Cethern. And he came to avenge the honour of the Ulstermen and to take revenge for his son’s death on the hosts. Thrice fifty was the number of their band, and they came with two spear-heads on every shaft, a spear-head on the point and a spear-head on the butt, so that they wounded the hosts alike with points and butts. They gave battle three times to the hosts and three times their own number fell by them, and there fell also all the people of Fintan mac Neill except Crimthann the son of Fintan who was saved by Ailill and Medb under a shelter of shields. Then the men of Ireland said that it would be no disgrace to Fintan mac Neill to evacuate the encampment for him and that his son Crimthann should be allowed to go free with him, while the hosts should withdraw a day’s march to the north and he should cease to attack the hosts until such time as he should come to them on the day of the great battle when the four great provinces of Ireland should meet at Gáirech and Ilgáirech in the Foray of Cúailnge, as had been prophesied by the druids of the men of Ireland. Fintan mac Neill agreed to this and his son was set free to him. The encampment was evacuated for him and the hosts retreated a day’s journey northwards again, checking and holding themselves back. And each man of Fintan’s people and each man of the men of Ireland were found with the lips and nose of each of them in the teeth of the other. The men of Ireland noticed this and said: ‘This is the tooth-fight for us, the tooth-fight of Fintan’s people and of Fintan himself’.

So that is Fiacalgleó Fintain.

Here follows Ruadrucce Mind

Mend mac Sálcholgán was from Rena na Bóinne. His force numbered twelve men. They had two spear- heads on each shaft, a spear-head on the point and a spear-head on the butt, so that they wounded the hosts alike with points and butts. They attacked the hosts three times and three times their own number fell by them, and twelve of Mend’s people fell. But Mend himself was wounded grievously so that he was reddened and bloodstained. Then said the men of Ireland: ‘Red is this shame for Mend mac Sálcholgán, that his people should be killed and destroyed and he himself be wounded until he is reddened and bloodstained’.

This is Ruadrucce Mind.

Then the men of Ireland said that it were no disgrace for Mend mac Sálcholgán if the encampment were cleared for him and if the hosts went back a day’s journey to the north again, provided that he should cease to attack the hosts until Conchobor recovered from his debility and gave them battle at Gáirech and Ilgáirech, as the druids and prophets and seers of the men of Ireland had foretold.

Mend mac Sálcholgán agreed that the encampment should be vacated. The hosts withdrew a day’s journey to the north again, checking and staying themselves.

Here follows Airecur n-Arad.

Then the charioteers of the Ulstermen came to them, three fifties in number. They gave battle three times to the host and three times their own number fell by them, and the charioteers fell on the level spot on which they stood.

That is Airecor nArad.

Here follows Bángleó Rochada.

Reochaid mac Faithemain was of the Ulstermen. His force numbered one hundred and fifty, and he took up his position on a hillock opposite the host.

Findabair, the daughter of Ailill and Medb, noticed that, and she said to her mother Medb: ‘I loved yonder warrior long ago and he is my beloved and my chosen wooer’.

‘If you loved him, my daughter, spend tonight with him and ask him for a truce for us with the host until he come to us on the day of the great battle where the four great provinces of Ireland will meet at Gáirech and Ilgáirech at the battle of the Foray of Cúailnge’. Reochaid mac Faithemain agreed to that and the girl spent that night with him.

One of the underkings of Munster who was in the camp heard of this and said to his people: ‘That girl was betrothed to me long ago and that is why I have come now upon this hosting’.

However, as for the seven underkings of Munster, they all said that that was why they had come. ‘Why then’ said they, ‘should we not go to take vengeance for the woman and for our honour on the Maines who are keeping guard in the rear of the host at Imlech in Glendamrach?’

That was the plan they decided upon and they arose with their seven divisions of three thousand.

Then Ailill rose to oppose them with his three thousand.

Medb rose with her three thousand, and the sons of Mágu with their divisions.

The Gaileóin and the Munstermen and the people of Tara rose. Intervention was made between them so that each man sat next to the other and beside his weapons. Yet before the intervention was accomplished, eight hundred valiant men from among them had fallen.

Findabair, the daughter of Ailill and Medb, heard that this number of the men of Ireland had fallen because of her and on account of her, and her heart cracked like a nut in her breast through shame and modesty. Findabair Slebe is the name of the spot where she died.

Then said the men of Ireland: ‘Bloodless is this fight for Reochaid mac Faithemain, since eight hundred valiant soldiers have fallen because of him but he himself has escaped without a wound and without shedding his blood’.

That is Bángleó Rochada.

Mellgleó Illiach.

Íliach was the son of Cas mac Baicc meic Rosa Rúaid meic Rudraige. He was told how the four great provinces of Ireland had been plundering and laying waste Ulster and Pictland from the Monday at the beginning of Samain until the beginning of spring, and he took counsel with his people. ‘What better plan could I devise than to go and attack the men of Ireland and win victory over them and avenge the honour of Ulster? It matters not if I myself fall thereafter’. And that was the plan he decided on. His two old, decrepit, mangy horses which were on the strand beside the fort were harnessed for him, and his old chariot whithout any rugs or covering was yoked to the horses. he took up his rough, dark-coloured, iron shield with the rim of hard silver around it. On his left side he put his rough, heavy-smiting sword with grey guard. He took his two gapped, shaky-headed spears in the chariot beside him. His people filled his chariot around him with stones and rocks and great flagstones. In this wise he came forward towards the men of Ireland with his private parts hanging through the chariot. ‘We should like indeed’ said the men of Ireland, ‘if it were thus that all the Ulstermen came to us’.

Dóche mac Mágach met him and welcomed him. ‘Welcome is your arrival, Íliach’ said Dóche mac Mágach.

‘I trust that welcome’ said Íliach, ‘but come to me presently when my weapons are exhausted and when my valour has diminished so that you may be the one to behead me and not any other man of the men of Ireland. But keep my sword for Láegaire’.

Íliach plied his weapons on the men of Ireland until he had exhausted them, and when his weapons were exhausted, he attacked the men of Ireland with stones and rocks and great flagstones until they too were exhausted, and when they were finished, wherever he could seize one of the men of Ireland, he would crush him swiftly between his arms and his hands and make a marrow-mash of him, flesh and bones, sinews and skin all together. And the two marrow-mashes still remain side by side, the one which Cú Chulainn made from the bones of the Ulstermen’s cattle to cure Cethern mac Fintain and the one which Íliach made from the bones of the men of Ireland. So that all those who fell at the hands of Íliach are called one of the three uncountable slayings of the Táin, and that tale is called Mellgleo n-Íliach.

It was called Mellgleó n-Íliach because he fought his fight with stones and rocks and great flagstones.

Dóche mac Mágach met him. ‘Is not this Íliach?’ said Dóche. ‘It is I indeed’ said Íliach, ‘but come to me now and cut off my head and keep my sword for your friend Láegaire’. Dóche came to him and with a stroke of the sword cut off his head.

Thus far Mellgleó Ílliach.

Oislige Amargin in Tailtiu.

Amairgin was the son of Cas mac Baicc meic Rosa Rúaid meic Rudraige. He overtook the hosts going westwards over Tailtiu and he turned them and drove them northwards over Tailtiu. He lay on his left elbow in Tailtiu and his people furnished him with stones and rocks and great flagstones and he fell to pelting the men of Ireland for three days and three nights.

Concerning Cú Ruí mac Dáire.

Cú Ruí was told that a single man had been holding the four great provinces of Ireland in check from the Monday at the beginning of Samain until the beginning of spring. He was grieved by this and he thought that his people had been without him for too long, so he came forward to do battle and combat with Cú Chulainn.

When he reached the place where Cú Chulainn was, he saw him lying there groaning, wounded and stabbed, and he scorned to do battle or combat with him after Cú Chulainn’s fight with Fer Diad lest Cú Chulainn should die not so much of the wounds and gashes which he would inflict on him as of those which Fer Diad had already inflicted on him.

Nevertheless Cú Chulainn offered to engage in battle with Cú Ruí.

Cú Ruí went forward then to the men of Ireland and when he got there, he saw Amairgin lying on his left elbow to the west of Tailtiu. Cú Ruí came to the north of the men of Ireland. His people furnished him with stones and rocks and great flagstones and he began to hurl them directly against Amargin so that the warlike battle-stones collided in the clouds and in the air over their heads and each stone was shattered into a hundred pieces.

‘By the truth of your valour, Cú Ruí’ said Medb, ‘cease from this stone- throwing, for it is no help to us but a hindrance’.

‘I swear’ said Cú Ruí, ‘that I shall not cease till the day of doom until Amargin cease too’.

‘I shall do so’, said Amargin, ‘and do you undertake not to come again to help and succour the men of Ireland’.

Cú Ruí agreed to that and went away to his own land and his own people.

By this time they had gone westwards past Tailtiu.

‘It was not the agreement I made’ said Amargin, ‘not to cast stones at the host again’. So he came to the west of them and turned them before him to the north-east past Tailtiu and began to pelt them for a long time.

Then said the men of Ireland that it would be no dishonour for Amargin if they vacated the encampment and the hosts went back a day’s journey northwards holding themselves in check, and that Amargin should cease to attack the hosts until he came to them on the day of the great battle where the four great provinces of Ireland would meet at Gáirech and Ilgáirech in the battle of the Foray of Cúailnge. Amargin agreed to that and the hosts withdrew a day’s journey northwards once more.

That is Oislige Amargin in Tailtiu.

The Long Warning of Sultaim.

Sualtaim was the son of Becaltach mac Móraltaig and the father of Cú Chulainn. He was told of the distress of his son fighting against odds with Calatín Dána and his twenty-seven sons and his grandson Glas mac Delga.

‘This is from afar’ said Sualtaim. ‘Is it the sky that cracks or the sea that ebbs or the earth that splits or is it the distress of my son against odds on the Foray of Cúailnge?’ Sualtaim spoke truly indeed, and he went to Cú Chulainn presently though he did not go at once. When Sualtaim came to where Cú Chulainn was, he began to lament and commiserate with him.

Cú Chulainn liked not that Sualtaim should lament and pity him, for he knew that though he was wounded and injured Sualtaim would be no protection to avenge him. For the truth was that Sualtaim was not a coward but neither was he a valiant, fighter but only a middling one.

‘Well now, father Sualtaim’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘go to the Ulstermen in Emain and tell them to go now after their cattle, for I am unable to protect them any longer in the gaps and passes of the land of Conaille Muirthmene. I have stood alone against the four great provinces of Ireland from Monday at the beginning of Samain until the beginning of spring, killing one man at the ford every day and a hundred warriors every night. Fair play is not granted to me nor single combat, and no one comes to help or succour me. Bent hoops of fresh hazel keep my mantle from touching me. Dry wisps of tow are stuffed in my wounds. From the crown of my head to the soles of my feet there is not a hair whereon the point of a needle could rest but has a drop of crimson blood on its very tip, except alone my left hand which is holding my shield, and even that hand has thrice fifty wounds on it. And unless they take vengeance for that at once, they will never do so until the brink of doom’.

Sualtaim set forth on the Líath Macha as his only horse, to take these warnings to the Ulstermen. And when he reached the side of Emain, he spoke these words: ‘Men are slain, women carried off, cattle driven away, O Ulstermen!’

He got not the answer that sufficed him from the Ulstermen, and so he came forward opposite Emain and spoke the same words there: ‘Men are slain, women carried off, cattle driven away, O Ulstermen!’ He got not the answer that sufficed him from the Ulstermen.—This is how it was with the Ulstermen: it was tabu for them to speak before their king and it was tabu for the king to speak before his druids.—Sualtaim came forward then to the stone of the hostages in Emain Macha. He spoke the same words there: ‘Men are killed, women carried off, cattle driven away!’

‘Who kills them and who carries them off and who drives them away?’ said Cathbath the druid.

‘Ailill and Medb have ravaged you’ said Sualtaim. ‘Your women-folk and your sons and your youths have been carried off, your horses and your steeds, your herds and your flocks and your cattle. Cú Chulainn alone is checking and holding back the four great provinces of Ireland in the gaps and passes of Conaille Muirthemne. Fair play is not granted to him nor single combat, and no one comes to aid or succour him. The youth has been wounded, blood has drained from his wounds. Bent hoops of fresh hazel hold his mantle over him. There is not a hair from his head to his feet on which the point of a needle could stand but has a drop of bright red blood on its tip, save only the left hand which holds his shield and even that hand bears thrice fifty wounds. And unless ye avenge this at once, ye will never avenge it until the end of doom and life’.

‘More fitting is death and destruction for the man who so incites the king’ said Cathbath the druid.

‘That is true indeed’ said all the Ulstermen.

Sualtaim went his way in anger and wrath since he got not the answer which sufficed him from the Ulstermen. Then the Líath Macha reared under Sualtaim and came forward opposite Emain, and his own shield turned on Sualtaim and its rim cut off his head. The horse itself turned back again into Emain, with the shield on the horse and the head on the shield.

And Sualtaim’s head spoke the same words. ‘Men are slain, women carried off, cattle driven away, O Ulstermen!’ said the head of Sualtaim.

‘A little too loud is that cry’ said Conchobor, ‘for the sky is above us, the earth beneath us and the sea all around us, but unless the sky with its showers of stars fall upon the surface of the earth or unless the ground burst open in an earthquake, or unless the fish-abounding, blue- bordered sea come over the surface of the earth, I shall bring back every cow to its byre and enclosure, every woman to her own abode and dwelling, after victory in battle and combat and contest’.

Then a messenger of his own household met Conchobor, to wit, Findchad Fer Bend Uma mac Fráechlethain, and Conchobor bade him go and assemble and muster the men of Ulster. And even as he enumerated the quick and the dead for him in the intoxication of his trance and his sickness, he said these words:

‘Arise, O Findchad, I send you forth. It is not desirable to neglect to tell it to the warriors of Ulster. Go from me to Derg to Dedaid in his inlet; to Lemain; to Follach; to Illaind at Gabar; to Dornaill Feic at Imchlár; to Derg Indirg; to Feidilmid Chilair Chetaig at Ellonn; to Rigdonn, to Reochaid; to Lugaid; to Lugdaig; to Cathbath in his inlet; to Cairbre at Ellne; to Láeg at his causeway; to Geimen in his valley; to Senall Úathach at Diabul Arda; to Cethern mac Fintain at Carrlóg; to Tarothor; to Mulach in his fort; to the royal poet Amairgin; to Úathach Bodba; to the Morrígan at Dún Sobairche; to Eit; to Roth; to Fiachna at his mound; to Dam Drend; to Andiaraid; to Maine Macbriathrach; to Dam Derg; to Mod; to Mothus; to Iarmothus; to Corp Cliath; to Gabarlach in Líne; to Eochu Semnech in Semne; to Celtchair mac Cuthechair in Lethglais; to Errge Echbel in Brí Errgi; to Uma mac Femarfessaig in Fedan Cúailnge; to Munremur mac Gerrcind in Moduirn; to Senlabair in Canann Gall; to Follomain; to Lugaid; to Lugaid Líne king of Bolg; to Búadgalach; to Abach; to Áne; to Ániach; to Lóegaire Milbel at his fire (?); to the three sons of Trosgal at Bacc Draigin; to Drend; to Drenda; to Drendus; to Cimm; to Cimbil; to Cimmin at Fán na Coba; to Fachtna mac Sencha in his rath; to Sencha; to Sencháinte; to Briccne; to Briccirne; to Brecc; to Búan; to Barach; to Óengus Bolg; to Óengus mac Lethi; to Allamiach the warrior; to Bruachar in Slánge; to Conall Cernach mac Amargin at Midlúachair; to Cú Chulainn mac Sualtaim in Muirthemne; to Mend mac Sálcholcán at Rena; to the three sons of Fiachna, Ross, Dáire and Imchaid, in Cúailnge; to Connud mac Marna in Callann; to Condraid mac Amargin in his rath; to Amargin in Ess Rúaid; to Láeg at Leire; to Óengus Fer Bend Uma; to Ogma Grianainech at Brecc; to Eo mac Forne; to Tollcend; to Súde at Mag n-Eola and Mag n-Dea; to Conla Sáeb at Úarba; to Lóegaire at Ráith Imbil; to Amargin Iarngiunnaig in Tailtiu; to Furbaide Fer Bend mac Conchobuir at Síl in Mag n-Inis; to Causcraid Mend Macha mac Conchobuir in Macha; to Fíngin at Fíngabor; to Blae Fichet; to Blai Briuga at Fesser; to Eogan mac Durthacht at Fernmag; to Ord at Serthe; to Oblán; to Obail at Culend; to Curethar; to Liana; to Ethbenna; to Fer Nell; to Findchad of Sliab Betha; to Talgoba at Bernas; to Mend mac Fir Chúaland of Mag Dula; to Íroll; to Blárine at Ialla Ilgremma; to Ros mac Ulchrothaig in Mag Nobla; to Ailill Find; to Fethen Bec; to Fethen Mór; to Fergna mac Findchona in Búrach; to Olchar; to Ebadchar; to Uathchar; to Etatchar; to Óengus mac Óenláme Gábe; to Ruadri at Mag Táil; to Beothach; to Briathrach in his rath; to Nárithlaind; to Lothor; to Muridach mac Feicge and Cotreib mac Feicge; to Fintan mac Neill Níamglonnaig in Dún Da Bend; to Feradach Finn Fechtnach in Neimed of Slíab Fúait; to Amargin mac Ecelsalaig Goband by Búas; to Buinne mac Munremair; to Fidach mac Doraire’.

It was not difficult, however, for Findchad to make that muster and assembly which Conchobor had ordered. For those who were east of Emain and west of Emain and north of Emain came forth at once and spent the night at Emain at the behest of their king and the command of their prince, awaiting the recovery of Conchobor. But those who were south of Emain set forth at once on the track of the host along the road beaten out by the hooves of the cattle.

On the first stage of the journey on which the Ulstermen set forth with Conchobor, they spent the night at Irard Cuillend.

‘What do we wait for here, O men?’ said Conchobor.

‘We await your sons’ said they, ‘Fiacha and Fiachna. They have gone from us to fetch Erc, the son of your daughter Fedlimid Nóchruthach and of Cairbre Nia Fer, that he may come to our army at this juncture with his full muster and assembly, his full gathering and levy’.

‘I vow’ said Conchobor, ‘that I shall not await them here any longer until the men of Ireland hear that I have recovered from the weakness and debility in which I was, for the men of Ireland do not know yet if I am still alive’.

Then Conchobor and Celtchair went to Áth n-Irmide with thirty hundred chariot-fighters armed with spears, and there they met eight score big men of the household of Ailill and Medb with eight score captive women. One captive woman held prisoner by each man of them, that was their share of the plunder of Ulster. Conchobor and Celtchair struck off their eight score heads and freed their eight score captives. Áth n-Irmide was the name of that place until then, but it is called Áth Feinne ever since. The reason it is called Áth Feinne is because the warriors of the war-band (fian) from the east and the warriors of the war-band from the west met there in battle and contest on the brink of the ford.

Conchobor and Celtchair came back and spent that night in Irard Cuillend beside the men of Ulster. The trance of Celtchair follows here.

Then Celtchair uttered these words among the Ulstermen in Irard Cuillend that night: ‘Taible lethderg’ [gap: rhetoric untranslated/extent: 6 lines].

In the same night Cormac Cond Longas, the son of Conchobor, spoke these words among the men of Ireland in Slemain Mide: ‘Amra maitne’[gap: rhetoric untranslated/extent: 3 lines].

In the same night Dubthach Dáel Ulad spoke these words among the men of Ireland in Slemain Mide: ‘Móra maitne’[gap: rhetoric untranslated/extent: 5 lines].

Then Dubthach awoke from his sleep and the Nemain brought confusion on the host so that they made a clangour of arms with the points of their spears and their swords, and a hundred warriors of them died on the floor of their encampment through the fearsomeness of the shout they had raised. However that was not the most peaceful night ever experienced by the men of Ireland at any time, because of the prophecies and the predictions and because of the spectres and visions which appeared to them.

Then said Ailill: ‘I have succeeded in laying waste Ulster and the land of the Picts from the Monday at the beginning of Samain until the beginning of spring. We have carried off their women-folk, their sons and their youths, their horses and steeds, their flocks and herds and cattle. We have levelled their hills behind them into lowlands, so that they might be of equal height. Wherefore I shall not wait here for them any longer, but let them give me battle on Mag Aí if it so please them. And yet though we say this, let some one go forth to reconnoitre the broad plain of Meath to see whether the Ulstermen come thither, and if they do, I shall in no wise retreat, for it is not the good custom of a king ever to retreat’.

‘Who should go there?’ said they all.

‘Who but Mac Roth, the chief messenger yonder’.

Mac Roth came forward to reconnoitre the great plain of Meath. Not long was he there when he heard a noise and a tumult and a clamour. It seemed to him almost as if the sky had fallen on to the surface of the earth, or as if the fish-abounding, blue- bordered sea had swept across the face of the world, or as if the earth had split in an earthquake, or as if the trees of the forest had all fallen into each other’s forks and bifurcations and branches.

However the wild beasts were hunted across the plain in such numbers that the surface of the plain of Meath was not visible beneath them.

Mac Roth came to report that to where Ailill was with Medb and Fergus and the nobles of the men of Ireland. He related those tidings to them.

‘What was that, Fergus?’ asked Ailill.

‘Not difficult to tell’ said Fergus. ‘The noise and clamour and tumult that he heard, the din and the thunder and the uproar, were the Ulstermen attacking the wood, the throng of champions and warriors cutting down the trees with their swords in front of their chariots. It was that which hunted the wild beasts across the plain so that the surface of the plain of Meath is not visible beneath them’.

Once more Mac Roth scanned the plain. He saw a great grey mist which filled the void between heaven and earth. He seemed to see islands in lakes above the slopes of the mist. He seemed to see yawning caverns in the forefront of the mist itself. It seemed to him that pure-white linen cloths or sifted snow dropping down appeared to him through a rift in the same mist. He seemed to see a flock of varied, wonderful, numerous birds, or the shimmering of shining stars on a bright, frosty night, or the sparks of a blazing fire. He heard a noise and a tumult, a din and thunder, a clamour and uproar. He came forward to tell those tidings to where were Ailill and Medb and Fergus and the nobles of the men of Ireland. He told them these things.

‘What was that, Fergus,?’ asked Ailill.

‘Not difficult to tell’ said Fergus. ‘The grey mist he saw which filled the void between earth and sky was the expiration of the breath of horses and heroes, and the cloud of dust from the ground and from the roads which rises above them driven by the wind so that it becomes a heavy, deep-grey mist in the clouds and in the air.’

‘The islands in lakes which he saw there, and the tops of hills and mounds rising above the valleys of the mist, were the heads of the heroes and warriors above their chariots and the chariots themselves. The yawning caverns he saw there in the forefront of the same mist were the mouths and nostrils of horses and heroes, exhaling and inhaling the sun and the wind with the swiftness of the host.’

‘The pure-white linen cloths he saw there or the sifted snow dropping down were the foam and froth that the bits of the reins cast from the mouths of the strong, stout steeds with the fierce rush of the host. The flock of varied, wonderful, numerous birds which he saw there was the dust of the ground and the surface of the earth which the horses flung up form their feet and their hooves and which rose above them with the driving of the wind.’

‘The noise and the tumult, the din and the thunder, the clamour and the outcry which he heard there was the shock of shields and the smiting of spears and the loud striking of swords, the clashing of helmets, the clangour of breastplates, the friction of the weapons and the vehemence of the feats of arms, the straining of ropes, the rattle of wheels, the trampling of the horses’ hoofs and the creaking of chariots, and the loud voices of heroes and warriors coming towards us here.’

‘The shimmering of shining stars on a bright night that he saw there, of the sparks of a blazing fire, were the fierce, fearsome eyes of the warriors and heroes from the beautiful, shapely, ornamented helmets, eyes full of the fury and anger with which they came, against which neither equal combat nor overwhelming number prevailed at any time and against which none will ever prevail until the day of doom’.

‘We make little account of it’ said Medb. ‘Goodly warriors and goodly soldiers will be found among us to oppose them’.

‘I do not count on that, Medb’ said Fergus, ‘for I pledge my word that you will not find in Ireland or in Alba a host which could oppose the Ulstermen when once their fits of wrath come upon them’.

Then the four great provinces of Ireland made their encampment at Clártha that night. They left a band to keep watch and guard against the Ulstermen lest they should come upon them unawares.

Then Conchobor and Celtchair set forth with thirty hundred chariot-fighters armed with spears and halted in Slemain Mide in the rear of the host. But though we say “halted” they did not halt completely, but came forward presently to the encampment of Medb and Ailill in an attempt to be the first to shed blood.

Not long was Mac Roth there when he saw something: a great and numerous troop of horsemen coming straight from the north-east to Slemain Mide. He went to where Ailill and Medb and Fergus and the nobles of the men of Ireland.

Ailill asked tidings of him when he arrived. ‘Well now, Mac Roth’ said Ailill, ‘did you see anyone of the Ulstermen on the track of the host today?’

‘I know not indeed’ said Mac Roth, ‘but I did see a great and numerous troop of horsemen coming directly from the north-east to Slemain Mide’.

‘How many in number are the horsemen?’ said Ailill.

‘Not fewer, it seemed to me, than thirty hundred chariot-fighters armed with spears’ said Mac Roth.

‘Well Fergus’ said Ailill, ‘why did you try to frighten us just now with the dust and the smoke and the panting of a great army while that is all the battle force you have for us?’

‘A little too soon do you disparage them’ said Fergus, ‘for perhaps (?) the army is more numerous than Mac Roth says’.

‘Let us make a good plan swiftly concerning this’ said Medb, ‘for it was known that yonder huge, fierce, vehement man would attack us, Conchobor son of Fachtna Fáthach mac Rosa Rúaid meic Rudraige, the high-king of Ulster and the son of the high- king of Ireland. Let the men of Ireland be drawn up in open array to face Conchobor with a force of thirty hundred closing it in from the rear, and let the men be taken prisoner but not wounded for those who come number no more than the prisoners we need’

—That is one of the three most satirical sayings of Táin Bó Cúailnge, to suggest that Conchobor should be captured unwounded and that the thirty hundred princes of Ulster who accompanied him should be taken prisoner. –Cormac Cond Longas, the son of Conchobor, heard that and he knew that, if he did not take vengeance at once on Medb for her boastful speech, he would never avenge it until the very end of doom and life.

Then Cormac Cond Longas rose up with his force of thirty hundred to wage war and battle on Ailill and Medb.

To meet him rose Ailill with his thirty hundred, and Medb rose with her thirty hundred. The Maines arose with their thirty hundreds and Meic Mágach with their thirty hundreds. The Leinstermen and the Munstermen and the people of Tara rose up.

The combatants were separated and each man of them sat down beside the other and near by his weapons.

Nevertheless Medb drew up a hollow array to face Conchobor with a force of thirty hundred men closing in the rear. Conchobor came to this array of men and in no wise sought a way of entry, but cut a breach broad enough for a soldier opposite his face and his countenance, and cut a breach broad enough for a hundred on his right hand and another breach for a hundred on his left, and he turned in on them and wrought confusion in their midst and eight hundred valiant warriors of them fell at his hands. Then he came from them, unwounded and unhurt, and took up his station in Slemain Mide, waiting for the Ulstermen.

‘Come now, ye men of Ireland’ said Ailill, ‘let some one of us go to reconnoitre the broad plain of Meath to find out in what fashion the Ulstermen come to the hill in Slemain Mide and to give us an account of their arms and equipment, their heroes and soldiers and their battle-champions and the people of their land. To listen to him will be all the more pleasant for us now’.

‘Who should go there?’ asked they all.

‘Who but Mac Roth, the chief messenger’ said Ailill.

Mac Roth came forward and took up his station in Slemain Mide to await the Ulstermen.

The Ulstermen began to muster on that hill and continued doing so from the twilight of early morning until sunset. In all that time the ground was hardly bare of them as they came with every division round its king, every band round its leader, and every king and every leader and every lord with the full number of his own particular forces and his army, his muster and his gathering. However, before the hour of evening sunset all the Ulstermen had reached that hill in Slemain Mide.

Mac Roth came forward to the place where were Ailill and Medb and Fergus and the nobles of the men of Ireland, bringing an account of the first band. Ailill and Medb asked tidings of him on his arrival.

‘Well now, O Mac Roth’ said Ailill, ‘in what guise and fashion do the men of Ulster come to the hill in Slemain Mide?’

‘I know only this indeed’ said Mac Roth. ‘There came a fierce, powerful, well-favoured band on to that hill in Slemain Mide. It seems, if one looks at it, as if it numbered thirty hundred. They all cast off their garments and dug up a mound of turf as a seat for their leader. A warrior, slender, very tall, of great stature and of proud mien, at the head of that band. Finest of the princes of the world was he among his troops, in fearsomeness and horror, in battle and in contention. Fair yellow hair he had, curled, well-arranged, ringletted, cut short. His countenance was comely and clear crimson. An eager grey eye in his head, fierce and awe-inspiring. A forked beard, yellow and curly, on his chin. A purple mantle fringed, five-folded, about him and a golden brooch in the mantle over his breast. A pure- white, hooded shirt with insertion of red gold he wore next to his white skin. He carried a white shield ornamented with animal designs in red gold. In one hand he had a gold-hilted, ornamented sword, in the other a broad, grey spear. That warrior took up position at the top of the hill and everyone came to him and his company took their places around him.’

‘There came also another band to the same hill in Slemain Mide’ said Mac Roth. ‘It numbered almost thirty hundred. A handsome man in the forefront of that same band. Fair yellow hair he had. A bright and very curly beard on his chin. A green mantle wrapt around him. A pure silver brooch in the mantle over his breast. A dark-red, soldierly tunic with insertion of red gold next to his fair skin and reaching to his knees. A spear like the torch of a royal palace in his hand, with bands of silver and rings of gold. Wonderful are the feats and games performed by that spear in the warrior’s hand. The silvern bands revolve round the golden rings alternately from butt to socket, and alternately the golden rings revolve round the silvern bands from socket to thong. He bore a smiting shield with scalloped rim. On his left side a sword with guards of ivory and ornament of gold thread. That warrior sat on the left hand of the warrior who had first come to the hill, and his company sat around him. But though we say that they sat, yet they did not really do so, but knelt on the ground with the rim of their shields at their chins, in their eagerness to be let at us. And yet it seemed to me that the tall, fierce warrior who led that company stammered greatly.’

‘There came still another company to the same hill in Slemain Mide’ said Mac Roth. ‘Almost the same were they as the preceding one in number and appearance and apparel. A handsome, broad-headed warrior in the van of that company. Thick, dark-yellow hair he had. An eager, dark-blue, restless eye in his head. A bright and very curly beard, forked and tapering, on his chin. A dark-grey, fringed cloak wrapt about him. A leaf-shaped brooch of white bronze in the cloak over his breast. A white- hooded shirt next to his skin. A white shield with animal ornaments of silver he carried. A sword with rounded hilt of bright silver in a warlike scabbard at his waist. A spear like the pillar of a palace on his back. This warrior sat on the turfy mound in front of the warrior who had come first to the hill and his company took up their positions around him. But sweeter I thought than the sound of lutes in the hands of expert players was the melodious tone of the voice and speech of that warrior as he addressed the warrior who had come first to the hill and gave him counsel’.

‘Who are those?’ asked Ailill of Fergus.

‘We know them indeed’ said Fergus. ‘The first warrior for whom the sodded mound was cast up on the top of the hill until they all came to him was Conchobor mac Fachtna Fáthaig meic Rosa Rúaid meic Rudraige, the high-king of Ulster and the son of the high-king of Ireland. The great stammering hero who took up his position on the left of Conchobor was Causcraid Mend Macha, the son of Conchobor, with the sons of the Ulster princes around him and the sons of the kings of Ireland who are with him. The spear with silver bands and rings of gold that Mac Roth saw in his hand is called the Torch of Causcraid. It is usual with that spear that the silver bands do not revolve the golden rings except shortly before some victory, and not at any other time, and it is likely that it was just before victory that they revolved just now.’

‘The handsome, broad-headed warrior who sat on the mound in front of the warrior who had first come to the hill was Sencha mac Ailella meic Máilchló, the eloquent speaker of Ulster, the man who appeases the armies of the men of Ireland. o was that?’ said Ailill to Fergus.

‘We know him indeed’ said Fergus.

‘The men who came there is the starting of strife, a warrior for conflict, doom of enemies. That was Eogan mac Durthachta from the north, the steadfast ruler of Farney’.

‘There came another band to the same hill in Slemain Mide’ said Mac Roth. ‘In truth boldly they made for that hill. Great is the horror and vast the fear which they brought with them. Their garments were all cast back. A big-headed, valiant warrior in the van of that company, and he was fierce and fearsome. Fine grizzled hair he had. Great yellow eyes in his head. A yellow mantle of the breadth of five hands around him. A pin of yellow gold in the mantle over his breast. A yellow, bordered shirt next to his skin. In his hand a rivetted spear, broad-bladed and long-shafted, with a drop of blood on its edge’.

‘Who was that?’ asked Ailill of Fergus.

‘We know that hero indeed’ said Fergus.

‘He who came there shuns not battle nor battlefield nor conflict. That was Lóegaire Búadach mac Connaid Buide meic Iliach from Ráith Immil in the North.’

‘There came still another company to the same hill in Slemain Mide’ said Mac Roth. ‘A thick-necked, corpulent warrior in the van of that company. He had black, cropped hair and a scarred, crimson countenance. A grey, bright eye in his head. A bloodstained spear shimmering above him. A black shield with hard rim of white bronze he bore. A dun-coloured mantle of curly wool around him. A brooch of white gold in the mantle over his breast. A plaited shirt of silk next to his skin. A sword with guards of ivory and ornament of thread of gold over his garments on the outside’.

‘Who was that?’ asked Ailill of Fergus.

‘We know him indeed’ said Fergus. ‘He that came there is the starting of strife; he is the stormy wave which drowns; he is a man of three shouts; he is the sea pouring over ramparts. That was Munremur mac Gerrcind from Modorn in the north’.

‘There came still another company to the same hill in Slemain Mide’ said mac Roth. ‘A broad, bulky warrior in the van of that company,

[gap: text untranslated/extent: 3 words]

and dusky-coloured, fierce and bull-like. A round eye, dull and haughty, in his head. Yellow, very curly hair he had. A round, red shield he bore aloft, with a rim of hard silver around it. In his hand a broad-bladed, long-shafted spear. A striped cloak he wore with a brooch of bronze in the cloak over his breast. A hooded shirt reaching to his calves. An ivory-hilted sword on his left thigh’.

‘Who was that?’ Ailill asked Fergus.

‘He is a prop of battle. He is victory in every conflict. The man who came there is an instrument which pierces. That was Connud mac Morna from Callann in the north’.

‘There came yet another company to the same hill in Slemain Mide’ said Mac Roth. ‘Vigorously and violently, in truth, did they make for that hill and shook the forces that had arrived there before them. A handsome and noble man in the van of that company. Most beautiful of the men of the world was he, in shape and form and make, in arms and equipment, in size and dignity and honour, in figure and valour and proportion’.

‘That is indeed no lie’ said Fergus. ‘That is his fitting description. He who came there is no foolish one in bareness. He is the enemy of all. He is the force which cannot be endured. He is a stormy wave which engulfs. The glitter of ice is that handsome man. That was Feidilmid Chilair Chetail from Ellann in the north’.

‘There came still another band on to the same hill on Slemain Mide’ said Mac Roth. ‘Not many heroes are more beautiful than the hero in the forefront of that band. Cropped, red-yellow hair he had. His face was narrow below and broad above. An eager, grey eye, glittering and gay, in his head. A shapely, well-proportioned man, tall, slender-hipped, broad- shouldered. Thin red lips he had and shining, pearl-like teeth. A white, seemly body. A purple cloak wrapt about him. A golden brooch in the cloak over his breast. A shirt of royal silk with a hem of red gold next to his white skin. A white shield with emblems of animals in red gold on it he bore. At his left side an ornamented sword with golden hilt. In his hand a long spear with shining edge and a sharp aggressive javelin with splendid thongs, with rivets of white bronze’.

‘Who was that?’ asked Ailill of Fergus.

‘We know him indeed’ said Fergus. ‘He who came there is in himself the half of a battle; he is the dividing of a combat; he is the wild fury of a watch- dog. That was Reochaid mac Faithemain from Rígdond in the north’.

‘There came still another band to the same hill in Slemain Mide’ said Mac Roth. ‘A hero brawny-legged, thick-thighed, in the forefront of that band. Every one of his limbs is almost as thick as a man. In truth, he is every inch a man’ said he. ‘Brown, cropped hair he had, and a ruddy, round countenance. An eye of many colours high in his head. A splendid swift man was he thus, accompanied by contentious, black-eyed warriors, with red, flaming banner, with self-willed behaviour, avoiding equal combat to vanquish overwhelming numbers, with the releasing (?) of an attack upon him and without any protection from Conchobor’.

‘Who was that?’ asked Ailill of Fergus.

‘We know him indeed’ said Fergus. ‘He who came there was full? of valour and prowess, of hot bloodedness and violence. He is a consolidator of hosts and weapons. He is the point of perfection in battle and combat of the men of Ireland in the north my own foster-brother, Fergus mac Leite from Líne in the north’.

‘There came still another band on to the same hill in Slemain Mide’ said Mac Roth. ‘one which was steady and outstanding. A handsome, lively hero in the forefront of that band. Next to his skin a fine, fringed garment of blue cloth with plaited, intertwined fine loops of white bronze and strong, splendid buttons of red gold on its slashes and its breast. A mantle of many pieces with the choicest of colour wrapt about him. Five concentric circles of gold, to wit, his shield, he bore. At his left side a sword, hard, tough and straight, held in a high heroic grasp. A straight, ridged spear blazing in his hand’.

‘Who was that?’ asked Ailill of Fergus.

‘We know him indeed’ said Fergus. ‘He is the choicest among royal poets. He is an attack on a fort. He is the way to the goal. Violent is the valour of him who came there, Amairgin mac Ecelsalaig Goband, the noble poet from Búas in the north’.

‘There came still another company to the same hill in Slemain Mide’ said Mac Roth. ‘A fair, yellow-haired warrior in the van of that company. Fair in all points was that man, hair and eye and beard and eyebrows and garments. A rimmed shield he bore. At his left side a gold-hilted, ornamented sword. In his hand a five-pronged spear which flashed above the whole host’.

‘Who was that?’ asked Ailill of Fergus.

‘We know him indeed’, said Fergus. ‘Beloved is that warrior who came into our territory to us. Beloved is that strong-smiting hero, beloved that bear which performs great deeds against enemies with the overwhelming violence of his attack. That was Feradach Find Fechtnach from Nemed in Sliab Fúait in the north.’

‘There came still another company to the same hill in Slemain Mide’ said Mac Roth. ‘Two youthful warriors at the head of that company. Two green cloaks wrapt about them and two brooches of white silver in the cloaks over their breasts. Two shirts of smooth, yellow silk next to their skin. Swords with white hilts at their girdles. Two five pronged spears with bands of pure white silver in their hands. A slight difference of age between them’.

‘Who are those?’ asked Ailill of Fergus.

‘We know them indeed’ said Fergus. ‘They are two men of valour, two equally strong-necked ones, two equally bright flames, two equally bright torches, two champions, two heroes, two chief hospitallers, two dragons, two fires, two scatterers, two brave scions, two doughty ones, two fierce ones, the two beloved by the Ulstermen around their king. Those are Fiacha and Fiachna, two sons of Conchobor mac Fachtna meic Rosa Rúaid meic Rudraigi’.

‘There came still another company to the same hill, ’ said Mac Roth, ‘in size like the overwhelming sea, in red blazing like fire, in numbers a battalion, in strength a rock, in combativeness like doom, in violence like the thunder. A wrathful, terrible, fearsome man at the head of that company. He was big-nosed, big- eared and with prominent eyes. Rough, grizzled hair he had. A striped cloak he wore and in that cloak over his breast an iron stake which reaches from shoulder to shoulder. A rough, plaited shirt next to his skin. Along the side of his back a sword of refined iron, tempered seven times in the heat. A brown mound, to wit, his shield, he carried. A great, grey spear with thirty rivets through its socket in his hand. But the battalions and hosts were thrown into confusion on seeing that warrior surrounded by his company advancing to the hill in Slemain Mide’.

‘Who was that?’ said Ailill to Fergus. ‘We know him indeed’ said Fergus. ‘He is half a battle in himself, he is a leader of strife, he is a chief in valour. The man who came is the sea pouring across boundaries. That was Celtchair Mór mac Uthechair from Lethglais in the north’.

‘There came still another band to the same hill in Slemain Mide’ said Mac Roth, ‘any they were strong and fierce, hateful and fearsome. A big-bellied, big-mouthed hero at the head of that band, with bright cheeks (?), with broad head, with long arms. Brown, very curly hair he had. A black swinging mantle he wore with a round brooch of bronze in the mantle over his breast. A splendid shirt next to his skin. A very long sword at his waist. A large spear in his right hand. A grey buckler, to wit, his shield, he bore’.

‘Who was that?’ asked Ailill of Fergus.

‘We know him indeed’ said Fergus. ‘He is the lion, fierce, with bloodstained paws. He is the bear, violent and terrible, that overcomes the valiant. That was Eirrge Echbel from Brí Eirrgi in the north’.

‘There came still another company to the same hill in Slemain Mide’ said Mac Roth.

‘A huge and splendid man in the van of that company. Red hair he had and great red eyes in his head, and each of his great royal eyes was as long as a warrior’s finger. A variegated mantle he wore. A grey shield he carried. A slender blue spear he held aloft. Around him was a company, bloodstained and wounded, while he himself was wounded and bloody.’

‘Who was that?’ asked Ailill of Fergus.

‘We know him indeed’ said Fergus. ‘He is the bold and ruthless one. He is the awe-inspiring eagle. He is the strong spear. He is the goring beast (?) He is the fighter of Colptha. He is the victorious one of Baile. He is the lion? of Lorg. He is the loud-voiced hero from Berna. He is the mad bull. That was Mend mac Sálcholgán from Rena na Bóinne’.

‘There came still another company to the same hill in Slemain Mide’ said Mac Roth. ‘A long-cheeked, sallow-faced man at the head of that company. Black hair he had and long legs. He wore a red cloak of curly wool with a brooch of pale silver in the cloak over his breast. A linen shirt next to his skin. A blood-red shield with a boss of gold he carried. At his left side a sword with hilt of silver, and aloft he carried an angular spear with socket of gold’.

‘Who was that?’ asked Ailill of Fergus.

‘We know him indeed’ said Fergus. ‘He is the man of three paths, the man of three roads, the man of three highways, the man of three routs, the man of three triumphs, the man of three combats. That was Fergna mac Findchonna the chief of Búrach Ulad in the north’.

‘There came still another band to the same hill in Slemain Mide’ said Mac Roth. ‘A great, comely man at the head of that band. He was like to Ailill yonder, the keen one who can restrain, in appearance and dignity and brightness, in arms and equipment, in valour and prowess, in generosity and great deeds. A blue shield with golden boss he carried. At his left side a gold-hilted sword. In his hand a five-pronged spear with gold. A golden diadem on his head’.

‘Who was that?’ asked Ailill of Fergus.

‘We know him indeed’ said Fergus. ‘He is manly steadfastness. He is an assault on overwhelming forces. He who came there is the vanquishing of men. That was Furbaide Fer Bend, the son of Conchobor, from Síl in Mag n-Inis in the north’.

‘There came still another company to the same hill in Slemain Mide’ said Mac Roth, ‘and they were steadfast and unlike the other companies. Some wore red mantles and some grey. Some wore blue mantles and others green. Overmantles of white and yellow, beautiful and brilliant, above them. There is in their very midst a little freckled lad in a crimson cloak with a golden brooch in the cloak over his breast. A shirt of royal satin with insertion of red gold next to his white skin. A white shield with animal designs in red gold he bore and on the shield was a boss of gold and around it a rim of gold. A small sword with golden hilt he had at his waist. Aloft he held a light sharp spear which shimmered’.

‘Who was that’ said Ailill to Fergus.

‘I know not indeed’ said Fergus, ‘that I left behind me with the Ulstermen such a company as that or the little lad who is with them, and yet I should think it likely that they were the men of Tara with Erc the son of Fedilmid Nóchrothach, who is also the son of Cairbre Nia Fer, and if it is they,

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for this little lad has come on this occasion to succour his grandfather without asking permission of his father, and if it is they, this company will overwhelm you like the sea, for it is by reason of this company and the little lad among them that ye will be defeated on this occasion’.

‘How is that?’ asked Ailill.

‘Not difficult to say’ answered Fergus, ‘for this little lad will experience neither fear nor dread when slaying and slaughtering you until he comes to you into the middle of your army. The noise of Conchobor’s sword shall be heard like the baying of a watchdog

[gap: text untranslated/extent: 2 words]

or like a lion attacking bears. Outside the line of battle Cú Chulainn will cast up four great ramparts of men’s corpses. Filled with affection for their own kin, the chiefs of the men of Ulster will in due course smite you. Bravely will those powerful bulls roar as they rescue the calf of their own cow in the battle on the morrow’s morn’.

‘There came still another company to the same hill in Slemain Mide’ said Mac Roth, ‘which numbered no less than thirty hundred. Fierce, bloodstained warrior bands. Fair, clear, blue and crimson men. They had long, fair-yellow hair, beautiful, brilliant countenances, clear kingly eyes. Shining, beautiful garments they wore. Wonderful, golden brooches on their bright- hued arms. Silken, fine-textured shirts. Shining, blue spears they carried. Yellow, smiting shields. Gold-hilted ornamented swords are set on their thighs. Loud-voiced care has come to them. Sad are all the horsemen (?). Sorrowful are the royal leaders. Orphaned the bright company without their protecting lord who used to defend their borders’.

‘Who are these?’ asked Ailill of Fergus.

‘We know them indeed’ said Fergus. ‘They are fierce lions. They are champions of battle. They are the thirty hundred from Mag Muirtheimne. The reason they are downcast, sorrowful and joyless, is because their territorial king is not among them, namely Cú Chulainn, the restraining, victorious, red-sworded, triumphant one’.

‘They have good cause’ said Madb, ‘to be downcast, sorrowful and joyless, for there is no evil we have not wrought on them. We have plundered them and we have ravaged them from the Monday at the beginning of Samain until the beginning of spring. We have carried off their women and their sons and their youths, their horses and their steeds, their herds and their flocks and their cattle. We have cast down their hills behind them on to their slopes until they were of equal height’.

‘You have no reason to boast over them, Medb’ said Fergus, ‘for you did no harm or wrong to them that the leader of that goodly band yonder has not avenged on you, since every mound and every grave, every tomb from here to the eastern part of Ireland is a mound and a grave, a tombstone and a tomb for some goodly hero or for some brave warrior who fell by the valiant leader of yonder band. Fortunate is he whom they will uphold! Woe to him whom they will oppose! They will be as much as half a battle force against the men of Ireland when they defend their lord in the battle tomorrow morning’.

‘I heard a great outcry there’ said Mac Roth, ‘to the west of the battle or to the east of the battle’.

‘What outcry was that?’ asked Ailill of Fergus.

‘We know it indeed’ said Fergus. ‘That was Cú Chulainn trying to come to the battle when he was being laid prostrate on his sick-bed in Fert Sciach, with wooden hoops and restraining bands and ropes holding him down, for the Ulstermen allow him not to come there because of his wounds and gashes, for he is unfit for battle and combat after his fight with Fer Diad’.

It was as Fergus said. That was Cú Chulainn being laid prostrate on his sick-bed in Fert Sciach, held down with hoops and restraining bands and ropes.

Then there came out oF the encampment of the men of Ireland two female satirists called Fethan and Collach, and they pretended to weep and lament over Cú Chulainn, telling him that the Ulstermen had been routed and that Conchobor had been killed and that Fergus had fallen in the fight against them.

It was on that night that the Morrígu daughter of Ernmas came and sowed strife and dissension between the two encampments on either side, and she spoke these words: Crennait brain [gap: rhetoric untranslated/extent: 5 lines]

She whispered to the Erainn that they will not fight the battle which lies ahead.

Then said Cú Chulainn to Láeg mac Riangabra: ‘Alas for you, my friend Láeg, if between the two battle- forces today anything should be done that you would not find out for me’.

‘Whatsoever I shall find out concerning it, little Cú’ said Láeg, ‘shall be told to you. But see a little flock coming from the west out of the encampment now on to the plain. There is a band of youths after them to check and hold them. See too a band of youths coming from the east out of the encampment to seize them’.

‘That is true indeed’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘It is the omen of a mighty combat and a cause of great strife. The little flock will go across the plain and the youths from the east will encounter those from the west’.

It was as Cú Chulainn said: The little flock went across the plain and the youths met.

‘Who gives battle now, my friend Láeg?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘The people of Ulster’ said Láeg, ‘that is, the youths’.

‘How do they fight?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘Bravely do they fight’ said Láeg. ‘As for the champions who come from the east to the battle, they will make a breach through the battle-line to the west. As for the champions from the west, they will make a breach through the battle-line to the east’.

‘Alas that I am not strong enough to go afoot among them! For if I were, my breach too would be clearly seen there today like that of the rest’.

‘Nay then, little Cú’ said Láeg, ‘it is no disgrace to your valour and no reproach to your honour. You have done bravely hitherto and you will do bravely hereafter’.

‘Well now, friend Láeg’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘rouse the Ulstermen to the battle now for it is time for them to go there’.

Láeg came and roused the Ulstermen to the battle, and he spoke these words: ‘Comeirget ríg Macha mórglonnaig

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Then all the Ulstermen rose together at the call of their king and at the behest of their lord and to answer the summons of Láeg mac Riangabra. And they all arose stark naked except for their weapons which they bore in their hands. Each man whose tent door faced east would go westwards through his tent, deeming it too long to go around.

‘How do the men of Ulster rise for battle now, friend Láeg?’ asked Cú Chulainn.

‘Bravely do they rise’ answered Láeg. ‘All are stark naked. Each man whose tent-door faces east rushed westwards through his tent, deeming it too long to go around’.

‘I pledge my word’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘that their rising around Conchobor now in the early morn is speedy help in answer to a call of alarm.’

Then said Conchobor to Sencha mac Ailella: ‘Good my master Sencha, hold back the men of Ulster, and do not let them come to the battle until omens and auguries are strongly in their favour and until the sun rises into the vaults of heaven and fills the glens and slopes, the hills and mounds of Ireland’. There they remained until a good omen was strengthened and sunshine filled the glens and slopes and hills and mounds of the province.

‘Good my master Sencha’ said Conchobor, ‘rouse the men of Ulster for battle for it is time for them to go’.

Sencha roused the men of Ulster for the fight, and he spoke the words: ‘Comeirget rig Macha

[gap: rhetoric untranslated/extent: 6 lines]

Not long was Láeg there when he saw all the men of Ireland rising together and taking up their shields and their spears and their swords and their helmets, and driving the troops before them to the battle. The men of Ireland began each of them to strike and smite, to hew and cut, to slay and slaughter the others for a long space of time.

Then Cú Chulainn asked Láeg, his charioteer, when a bright cloud covered the sun: ‘How are they fighting the battle now, my friend Láeg?’

‘Bravely they fight’ said Láeg. ‘If we were to mount, I into my chariot and En, the charioteer of Conall, into his chariot, and if we were to go in two chariots from one wing of the army to the other along the tips of their weapons, not a hoof nor a wheel nor an axle nor a shaft of those chariots would touch the ground, so densely, so firmly and so strongly are their weapons held in the hands of the soldiers now’.

‘Alas that I have not the strength to be among them!’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘for if I had, my attack would be clearly seen there today like that of the rest’.

‘Nay then, little Cú’ said Láeg, ‘it is no disgrace to your valour and no reproach to your honour. You have done bravely hitherto and you will do bravely hereafter’.

Then the men of Ireland began again to strike and smite, to hew and cut, to slay and slaughter the others for a long space and time. There came to them then the nine chariot-fighters of the warriors of Irúad and the three men on foot together with them, and the nine chariot-riders were no swifter than the three on foot.

Then there came to them also the ferchuitredaig, the triads of the men of Ireland, and their sole function in the battle was to slay Conchobor if he should be defeated and to rescue Ailill and Medb if it were they who were overcome.

And these are the names of the triads: the three Conaires from Slíab Mis, the three Lussins of Lúachair, the three Niad Choirbb from Tilach Loiscthe, the three Dóelfhers from Dell, the three Dámaltachs from Loch Dergdergc, the three Bodars from the river Búas, the three Báeths from the river Buaidnech, the three Búageltachs of Mag m-Breg, the three Suibnes from the river Suir, the three Echtachs from Áine Cliach, the three Mailleths from Loch Eirne, the three Abratrúads from Loch Ríb, the three Mac Amras from Es Rúaid, the three Fiachas from Fid Nemain, the three Maines form Muiresc, the three Muiredachs from Mairge (?), the three Lóegaires from Lec Derg, the three Brodonns from the river Barrow, the three Descertachs of Dromm Fornochta, the three Finns from Findabair, the three Conalls from Collamair, the three Cairbres from Cliu, the three Maines of Mossud (?). the three Scáthglans of Scár (?). the three Echtachs of Eirc, the three Trenfhers of Taite (?), the three Fintans from (Magh) Femen, the three Rótanachs from (Mag) Raigne, the three Sárchorachs of Suide Laigen, the three Etarscels of Etarbán, the three Aeds from Mag n- Aidne, the three Guaires from Gabail.

Then said Medb to Fergus: ‘It were indeed fitting for you to give us your aid unstintingly in fighting today, for you were banished from your territory and your land and with us you got territory and land and estate and much kindness was shown to you’.

‘If I had my sword today’ said Fergus, ‘I would cut them down so that the trunks of men would be piled high on the trunks of men and arms of men piled high on arms of men and the crowns of men’s heads piled on the crowns of men’s heads and men’s heads piled on the edges of shields, and all the limbs of the Ulstermen scattered by me to the east and to the west would be as numerous as hailstones between two dry fields (?) along which a king’s horses drive, if only I had my sword’.

Then said Ailill to his own charioteer, Fer Loga: ‘Bring me quickly the sword that wounds men’s flesh, O fellow. I pledge my word that if its condition and preservation be worse with you today than on the day when I gave it to you on the hillside at Crúachna Aí, even if the men of Ireland and of Alba are protecting you against me today, not all of them will save you’.

Fer Loga came forward and brought the sword in all the beauty of its fair preservation, shining bright as a torch, and the sword was given into Ailill’s hand.

And Ailill gave the sword to Fergus and Fergus welcomed the sword:

‘Welcome to you, O Caladbolg, the sword of Leite’ said he. ‘Weary are the champions of the war-goddess. On whom shall I ply this sword?’ asked Fergus.

‘On the hosts that surround you on all sides’ said Medb. ‘Let none receive mercy or quarter from you today except a true friend’.

Then Fergus seized his arms and went forward to the battle. Ailill seized his arms. Medb seized her arms and came to the battle and three times they were victorious in the battle northwards until a phalanx and swords forced them to retreat again.

Conchobor heard from his place in the battle-line that the battle had three times gone against him in the north. Then he said to his people, the intimate household of the Cráebrúad: ‘Take up for a short time, my men, the position in which I am so that I may go and see who is thus victorious three times to the north of us’.

Then said his household: ‘We shall do so, for heaven is above us and earth beneath us and the sea all around us, and unless the firmament with its showers of stars fall upon the surface of the earth, or unless the blue-bordered fish-abounding sea come over the face of the world, or unless the earth quake, we shall never retreat one inch from this spot until such time as you come back to us again’.

Conchobor came forward to where he had heard the rout of battle against him three times in the north, and against the shield, the Óchaín Conchobuir, with its four golden corners and its four coverings of red gold.

Then Fergus gave three strong, warlike blows on the Óchaín Conchobuir and Conchobor’s shield groaned. —Whenever Conchobor’s shield groaned, the shields of all the Ulstermen groaned.—Strongly and violently as Fergus struck Conchobor’s shield, even as stoutly and as bravely did Conchobor hold the shield, so that the corner of the shield did not even touch Conchobor’s ear.

‘Alas, my men!’ said Fergus, ‘who holds his shield against me today in this day of conflict where the four great provinces of Ireland meet at Gáirech and Ilgáirech in the battle of the Foray of Cúailnge?’

‘There is a man here younger and mightier than you, and whose father and mother were nobler, one who banished you from your land and territory and estate, one who drove you to dwell with deer and hare and fox, one who did not permit you to hold even the length of your own stride in your land and territory, one who made you dependent on a woman of property, one who outraged you on one occasion by slaying the three sons of Usnech despite your safeguard, one who today will ward you off in the presence of the men of Ireland, namely, Conchobor mac Fachtna Fáthaig meic Rossa Rúaid meic Rudraigi, the high king of Ulster and the son of the high king of Ireland’.

‘That has befallen me indeed’ said Fergus. And Fergus grasped the Caladbolg in both hands and swung it back behind him so that its point touched the ground, and his intent was to strike three terrible and warlike blows on the Ulstermen so that their dead might outnumber their living.

Cormac Cond Longas, the son of Conchobor, saw him and he rushed towards Fergus and clasped his two arms about him.‘Ready; yet not ready (?), my master Fergus. Hostile and not friendly is that, my master Fergus. Ungentle but not heedful (?) is that, my master Fergus. Do not slay and destroy the Ulsterman with your mighty blows, but take thought for their honour on this day of battle today’.

‘Begone from me, lad’ said Fregus ‘for I shall not live if I strike not my three mighty, warlike blows upon the Ulstermen today so that their living outnumber their dead’.

‘Turn your hand level’ said Cormac Cond Longas, ‘and strike off the tops of the hills over the heads of the hosts and that will appease your anger’.

‘Tell Conchobor to come then into his battle-position’.

Conchobor came to his place in the battle.

Now that sword, the sword of Fergus, was the sword of Leite from the elf-mounds. When one wished to strike with it, it was as big as a rainbow in the air.—Then Fergus turned his hand level above the heads of the hosts and cut off the tops of the three hills which are still there in the marshy plain as evidence. Those are the three Máela of Meath.

Now as for Cú Chulainn, when he heard the Óchaín Conchobuir being struck by Fergus mac Róig, he said: ‘Come now, my friend Láeg, who will dare thus to smite the Óchain of Conchobor my master while I am alive?’

‘This huge sword, as big as a rainbow, sheds blood, increase of slaughter’ said Láeg. ‘It is the hero Fergus mac Róig. The chariot sword was hidden in the fairy mounds. The horsemen (?) of my master Conchobor have reached the battlefield’.

‘Loosen quickly the wooden hoops over my wounds, fellow’ said Cú Chulainn.

Then Cú Chulainn gave a mighty spring and the wooden hoops flew from him to Mag Túaga in Connacht. The bindings of his wounds went from him to Bacca in Corco M’ruad. The dry wisps of tow which plugged his wounds soared into the uppermost air and firmament as high as larks soar on a day of fair weather when there is no wind. His wounds broke out afresh and the trenches and furrows in the earth were filled with his blood and the tents from his wounds. The first exploit which Cú Chulain performed after rising from his sickbed was against the two female satirsts, Fethan and Colla, who had been feigning to weep and lament over him. He dashed their two heads together so that he was red with their blood and grey with their brains. None of his weapons had been left beside him save only his chariot. And he took his chariot on his back and came towards the men of Ireland, and with his chariot he smote them until he reached the spot where Fergus mac Róig stood.

‘Turn hither, my master Fergus’ said Cú Chulainn.

Fergus did not answer for he did not hear him.

Cú Chulainn said again: ‘Turn hither, my master Fergus, or if you do not, I shall grind you as a mill grinds goodly grain, I shall belabour you as flax-heads (?) are belaboured in a pool, I shall entwine you as a woodbine (?) entwines trees, I shall swoop on you as a hawk swoops on little birds’.

‘That has befallen me indeed’ said Fergus. ‘Who will dare to speak those proud, warlike words to me here where the four great provinces of Ireland meet at Gáirech and Ilgáirech in the battle of the Foray of Cúailnge?’

‘Your own fosterson’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘and the fosterson of Conchobor and of the rest of the men of Ulster, Cú Chulainn mac Sualtaim, and you promised that you would flee before me when I should be wounded, bloody and pierced with stabs in the battle of the Táin, for I fled before you in your own battle on the Táin’.

Fergus heard that, and be turned and took three mighty, heroic strides, and when he turned, all the men of Ireland turned and were routed westwards over the hill.

The conflict was centred against the men of Connacht.

At midday Cú Chulainn had come to the battle. It was sunset in the evening when the last band of the men of Connacht fled westwards over the hill. By that time there remained in Cú Chulainn’s hand only a fistful of the spokes around the wheel and a handful of shafts around the body of the chariot, but he kept on slaying and slaughtering the four great provinces of Ireland during all that time.

Then Medb covered the retreat of the men of Ireland and she sent the Donn Cúailnge around to Crúachu together with fifty of his heifers and eight of Medb’s messengers, so that whoever might reach Crúachu or whoever might not, at least the Donn Cúailnge would arrive there as she had promised.

Then her issue of blood came upon Medb and she said: ‘Fergus, cover the retreat of the men of Ireland that I may pass my water’.

‘By my conscience’ said Fergus, ‘It is ill-timed and it is not right to do so’.

‘Yet I cannot but do so’ said Medb, ‘for I shall not live unless I do’.

Fergus came then and covered the retreat of the men of Ireland.

Medb passed her water and it made three great trenches in each of which a household can fit. Hence the place is called Fúal Medba.

Cú Chulainn came upon her thus engaged but he did not wound her for he used not to strike her from behind.

‘Grant me a favour today, Cú Chulainn’ said Medb.

‘What favour do you ask?’ said Cú Chulainn.

‘That this army may be under your protection and safeguard till they have gone westwards past Áth Mór’.

‘I grant it’ said Cú Chulainn. Cú Chulainn came around the men of Ireland and covered the retreat on one side of them to protect them. The triads of the men of Ireland came on the other side, and Medb came into her own position and covered their retreat in the rear.

In that fashion they took the men of Ireland westwards past Áth Mór.

Then Cú Chulainn’s sword was given to him and he smote a blow on the three blunt-topped hills at Áth Luain, as a counterblast to the three Máela Mide, and cut off their three tops.

Then Fergus began to survey the host as they went westwards from Áth Mór. ‘This day was indeed a fitting one for those who were led by a women’ said Fergus.

[gap: text untranslated/extent: 7 words]

said Medb to Fergus. ‘This host has been plundered and despoiled today. As when a mare goes before her band of foals into unknown territory, with none to lead or counsel them, so this host has perished today’.

As for Medb, she gathered and assembled the men of Ireland to Crúachu that they might see the combat of the bulls.

As for the Donn Cúailnge, when he saw the beautiful strange land, he bellowed loudly three times. The Findbennach of Aí heard him. Because of the Findbennach no male animal between the four fords of all Mag Aí, namely, Áth Moga and Áth Coltna, Áth Slissen and Áth m- Bercha, dared utter a sound louder than the lowing of a cow. The Findbennach tossed his head violently and came forward to Crúachu to meet the Donn Cúailnge.

Then the men of Ireland asked who should be an eye-witness for the bulls, and they all decided that it should be Bricriu mac Garbada.—A year before these events in the Foray of Cúailnge, Bricriu had come from one province to another begging from Fergus, and Fergus had retained him in his service waiting for his chattels and wealth. And a quarrel arose between him and Fergus as they were playing chess, and Bricriu spoke very insultingly to Fergus. Fergus struck him with his fist and with the chessman that he held in his hand and drove the chessman into his head and broke a bone in his skull. While the men of Ireland were on the hosting of the Táin, Bricriu was all that time being cured in Crúachu, and the day they returned from the hosting was the day Bricriu rose from his sickness.—And the reason they chose Bricriu in this manner was because he was no fairer to his friend than to his enemy.

So Bricriu was brought to a gap in front of the bulls.

Each of the bulls caught sight of the other and they pawed the ground and cast the earth over them. They dug up the ground and threw it over their shoulders and their withers, and their eyes blazed in their heads like distended balls of fire. Their cheeks and nostrils swelled like smith’s bellows in a forge. And each collided with the other with a crashing noise. Each of them began to gore and to pierce and to slay and slaughter the other. Then the Findbennach Aí took advantage of the confusion of the Donn Cúailnge’s journeying and wandering and travelling, and thrust his horn into his side and visited his rage on him. Their violent rush took them to where Bricriu stood and the bulls’ hooves trampled him a man’s length into the ground after they had killed him.

Hence that is called the Tragical Death of Bricriu.

Cormac Cond Longas, the son of Conchobor, saw this happening and he took a spear which filled his grasp and struck three blows on the Donn Cúailnge from his ear to his tail. ‘No wonderful, lasting possession may this chattel be for us’ said Cormac, ‘since he cannot repel a calf of his own age’.

Donn Cúailnge heard this for he had human understanding, and he attacked the Findbennach, and for a long time and space they fought together until night fell on the men of Ireland. And when night fell, all the men of Ireland could do was to listen to their noise and their uproar.

That night the bulls traversed the whole of Ireland.

Not long were the men of Ireland there early on the morrow when they saw the Donn Cúailnge coming past Crúachu from the west with the Findbennach Aí a mangled mass on his antlers and horns. The men of Ireland arose and they knew not which of the bulls was there.

‘Well now, men’ said Fergus, ‘leave him alone if it is the Findbennach Aí, and if it is Donn Cúailnge, leave him his triumph. I swear that what has been done concerning the bulls is but little in comparison with what will be done now’.

The Donn Cúailnge arrived. He turned his right side to Crúachu and left there a heap of the liver of the Findbennach. Whence the name Crúachna Áe.

He came forward to the brink of Áth Mór and there he left the loin of the Findbennach. Whence the name Áth Luain.

He came eastwards into the land of Meath to Áth Troim and there he left the liver of the Findbennach.

He tossed his head fiercely and shook off the Findbennach over Ireland. He threw his thigh as far as Port Lárge. He threw his rib-cage as far as Dublin which is called Áth Clíath. After that he faced towards the north and recognised the land of Cúailnge and came towards it. There there were women and boys and children lamenting the Donn Cúailnge. They saw the forehead of the Donn Cúailnge coming towards them. ‘A bull’s forehead comes to us!’ they cried. Hence the name Taul Tairb ever since.

Then the Donn Cúailnge attacked the women and boys and children of the territory of Cúailnge and inflicted great slaughter on them. After that he turned his back to the hill and his heart broke like a nut in his breast.

So far the account and the story and the end of the Táin:

1. A blessing on everyone who shall faithfully memorise the Táin as it is written here and shall not add any other form to it.

1. But I who have written this story, or rather this fable, give no credence to the various incidents related in it. For some things in it are the deceptions of demons, other poetic figments; some are probable, others improbable; while still others are intended for the delectation of foolish men.

Pliny on Britain

PLINY ON BRITAIN

BOOK IV CHAP. 30. BRITANNIA.

Opposite to this coast is the island called Britannia, so celebrated in the records of Greece and of our own country. It is situated to the north-west, and, with a large tract of intervening sea, lies opposite to Germany, Gaul, and Spain, by far the greater part of Europe. Its former name was Albion; but at a later period, all the islands, of which we shall just now briefly make mention, were included under the name of “Britanniæ.” This island is distant from Gesoriacum, on the coast of the nation of the Morini, at the spot where the passage across is the shortest, fifty miles. Pytheas and Isidorus say that its circumference is 4875 miles. It is barely thirty years since any extensive knowledge of it was gained by the successes of the Roman arms, and even as yet they have not penetrated beyond the vicinity of the Caledonian forest. Agrippa believes its length to be 800 miles, and its breadth 300; he also thinks that the breadth of Hibernia is the same, but that its length is less by 200 miles. This last island is situated beyond Britannia, the passage across being the shortest from the territory of the Silures, a distance of thirty miles. Of the remaining islands, none is said to have a greater circumference than 125 miles. Among these there are the Orcades, forty in number, and situate within a short distance of each other, the seven islands called Acmodæ, the Hæbudes, thirty in number, and, between Hibernia and Britannia, the islands of Mona, Monapia , Ricina , Vectis , Limnus , and Andros . Below it are the islands called Samnis and Axantos, and opposite, scattered in the German Sea, are those known as the Glæsariæ, but which the Greeks have more recently called the Electrides, from the circumstance of their producing electrum or amber. The most remote of all that we find mentioned is Thule, in which, as we have previously stated, there is no night at the summer solstice, when the sun is passing through the sign of Cancer, while on the other hand at the winter solstice there is no day. Some writers are of opinion that this state of things lasts for six whole months together. Timæus the historian says that an island called Mictis is within six days’ sail of Britannia, in which white lead is found; and that the Britons sail over to it in boats of osier, covered with sewed hides. There are writers also who make mention of some other islands, Scandia namely, Dumna, Bergos, and, greater than all, Nerigos, from which persons embark for Thule. At one day’s sail from Thule is the frozen ocean, which by some is called the Cronian Sea.

BOOK I CHAP. 77. WHERE THE DAYS ARE THE LONGEST AND WHERE THE SHORTEST.

Hence it follows, that in consequence of the daylight increasing in various degrees, in Meroë the longest day consists of twelve æquinoctial hours and eight parts of an hour , at Alexandria of fourteen hours, in Italy of fifteen, in Britain of seventeen; where the degree of light, which exists in the night, very clearly proves, what the reason of the thing also obliges us to believe, that, during the solstitial period, as the sun approaches to the pole of the world, and his orbit is contracted, the parts of the earth that lie below him have a day of six months long, and a night of equal length when he is removed to the south pole. Pytheas, of Marseilles, informs us, that this is the case in the island of Thule, which is six days’ sail from the north of Britain. Some persons also affirm that this is the case in Mona, which is about 200 miles from Camelodunum, a town of Britain.

BOOK I CHAP. 99. CONCERNING THE CAUSE OF THE FLOWING AND EBBING OF THE SEA.

On which account neither lakes nor rivers are moved in the same manner. Pytheas of Massilia informs us, that in Britain the tide rises 80 cubits. Inland seas are enclosed as in a harbour, but, in some parts of them, there is a more free space which obeys the influence.

BOOK IV CHAP. 37. THE GENERAL MEASUREMENT OF EUROPE.

Having thus made the circuit of Europe, we must now give the complete measurement of it, in order that those who wish to be acquainted with this subject may not feel themselves at a loss. Artemidorus and Isidorus have given its length, from the Tanais to Gades, as 8214 miles. Polybius in his writings has stated the breadth of Europe, in a line from Italy to the ocean, to be 1150 miles. But, even in his day, its magnitude was but little known. The distance of Italy, as we have previously stated, as far as the Alps, is 1120 miles, from which, through Lugdunum to the British port of the Morini, the direction which Polybius seems to follow, is 1168 miles. But the better ascertained, though greater length, is that taken from the Alps through the Camp of the Legions in Germany, in a north-westerly direction, to the mouth of the Rhine, being 1543 miles. We shall now have to speak of Africa and Asia.

BOOK VIII CHAP. 57. THE INVENTORS OF VARIOUS THINGS.

Midacritus was the first who brought tin from the island called Cassiteris.

Danaüis was the first who passed over in a ship from Egypt to Greece. Before his time, they used to sail on rafts, which had been invented by King Erythras, to pass from one island to another in the Red Sea. There are some writers to be found, who are of opinion that they were first thought of by the Mysians and the Trojans, for the purpose of crossing the Hellespont into Thrace. Even at the present day, they are made in the British ocean, of wicker-work covered with hides; on the Nile, they are made of papyrus, rushes, and reeds.

BOOK XXXIV CHAP. 49. BLACK LEAD.

BOOK XXII CHAP. 2. PLANTS USED BY NATIONS FOR THE ADORNMENT OF THE PERSON.

There is a plant in Gaul, similar to the plantago in appearance, and known there by the name of “glastum:” with it both matrons and girls among the people of Britain are in the habit of staining the body all over, when taking part in the performance of certain sacred rites; rivalling hereby the swarthy hue of the Æthiopianls, they go in a state of nature.

BOOK XXXVII CHAP. 11. AMBER: THE MANY FALSEHOODS THAT HAVE BEEN TOLD ABOUT IT.

Sotacus expresses a belief that amber exudes from certain stones in Britannia, to which he gives the name of “electrides.”

NEAR BRITAIN

BOOK IV CHAP. 31. GALLIA BELGICA.

The whole of Gaul that is comprehended under the one general name of Comata, is divided into three races of people, which are more especially kept distinct from each other by the following rivers. From the Scaldis to the Sequana it is Belgic Gaul; from the Sequana to the Garumna it is Celtic Gaul or Lugdunensis; and from the Garumna to the promontory of the Pyrenæan range it is Aquitanian Gaul, formerly called Aremorica. Agrippa makes the entire length of the coast of Gaul to be 1800 miles, measured from the Rhine to the Pyrenees: and its length, from the ocean to the mountains of Gebenna and Jura, excluding there from Gallia Narbonensis, he computes at 420 miles, the breadth being 318.

Beginning at the Scaldis, the parts beyond are inhabited by the Toxandri, who are divided into various peoples with many names; after whom come the Menapii , the Morini , the Oromarsaci , who are adjacent to the burgh which is known as Gesoriacum, the Britanni, the Ambiani, the Bel- lovaci, the Hassi, and, more in the interior, the Catoslugi, the Atrebates, the Nervii , a free people, the Veromandui, the Suæuconi, the Suessiones, a free people, the Ulmanetes , a free people, the Tungri , the Sunuci , the Frisiabones , the Betasi , the Leuci , a free people, the Treveri , who were formerly free, and the Lingones , a federal state, the federal Remi , the Mediomatrici , the Sequani , the Raurici , and the Helvetii . The Roman colonies are Equestris and Rauriaca. The nations of Germany which dwell in this province, near the sources of the Rhine, are the Nemetes, the Triboci, and the Vangiones; nearer again, the Ubii, the Colony of Agrippina, the Cugerni, the Batavi, and the peoples whom we have already mentioned as dwelling on the islands of the Rhine.

CHAP. 32. GALLIA LUGDUNENSIS.

That part of Gaul which is known as Lugdunensis con- tains the Lexovii, the Vellocasses, the Galeti, the Veneti, the Abrincatui, the Ossismi, and the celebrated river Ligeris, as also a most remarkable peninsula, which extends into the ocean at the extremity of the territory of the Ossismi, the circumference of which is 62510 miles, and its breadth at the neck 12511. Beyond this are the Nannetes, and in the interior, are the Ædui, a federal people, the Carnuti, a federal people, the Boii, the Senones, the Aulerci, both those surnamed Eburovices and those called Cenomanni, the Meldi, a free people, the Parisii, the Tricasses, the An- decavi, the Viducasses, the Bodiocasses, the Venelli, the Cariosvelites, the Diablinti, the Rhedones, the Turones, the Atesui, and the Secusiani, a free people, in whose territory is the colony of Lugdunum.

BOOK IV CHAP. 28. GERMANY.

The whole of the shores of this sea as far as the Scaldis, a river of Germany, is inhabited by nations, the dimensions of whose respective territories it is quite impossible to state, so immensely do the authors differ who have touched upon this subject. The Greek writers and some of our own countrymen have stated the coast of Germany to be 2500 miles in extent, while Agrippa, comprising Rhætia and Noricum in his estimate, makes the length to be 6862 miles, and the breadth 1483. The breadth of Rhætia alone however very nearly exceeds that number of miles, and indeed we ought to state that it was only subjugated at about the period of the death of that general; while as for Germany, the whole of it was not thoroughly known to us for many years after his time. If I may be allowed to form a conjecture, the margin of the coast will be found to be not far short of the estimate of the Greek writers, while the distance in a straight line will nearly correspond with that mentioned by Agrippa.

There are five German races; the Vandili, parts of whom are the Burgundiones, the Varini, the Carini, and the Gutones: the Ingævones, forming a second race, a portion of whom are the Cimbri , the Teutoni , and the tribes of the Chauci . The Istævones, who join up to the Rhine, and to whom the Cimbri belong, are the third race; while the Hermiones, forming a fourth, dwell in the interior, and include the Suevi, the Hermunduri, the Chatti, and the Cherusci: the fifth race is that of the Peucini, who are also the Basternæ, adjoining the Daci previously mentioned. The more famous rivers that flow into the ocean are the Guttalus, the Vistillus or Vistula, the Albis, the Visurgis, the Amisius, the Rhine, and the Mosa. In the interior is the long extent of the Hercynian range, which in grandeur is inferior to none.

BOOK IV CHAP. 29. NINETY-SIX ISLANDS OF THE GALLIC OCEAN.

In the Rhine itself, nearly 100 miles in length, is the most famous island of the Batavi and the Canninefates, as also other islands of the Frisii, the Chauci, the Frisiabones, the Sturii, and the Marsacii, which lie between Helium and Flevum. These are the names of the mouths into which the Rhine divides itself, discharging its waters on the north into the lakes there, and on the west into the river Mosa. At the middle mouth which lies between these two, the river, having but a very small channel, preserves its own name.

BOOK IV CHAP. 36. THE ISLANDS IN THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.

Opposite to Celtiberia are a number of islands, by the Greeks called Cassiteride, in consequence of their abounding in tin: and, facing the Promontory of the Arrotrebæ, are the six Islands of the Gods, which some persons have called the Fortunate Islands. At the very commencement of Bætica, and twenty-five miles from the mouth of the Straits of Gades, is the island of Gadis, twelve miles long and three broad, as Polybius states in his writings. At its nearest part, it is less than 700 feet distant from the mainland, while in the remaining portion it is distant more than seven miles. Its circuit is fifteen miles, and it has on it a city which enjoys the rights of Roman citizens, and whose people are called the Augustani of the city of Julia Gaditana. On the side which looks towards Spain, at about 100 paces distance, is another long island, three miles wide, on which the original city of Gades stood. By Ephorus and Philistides it is called Erythia, by Timæus and Silenus Aphrodisias, and by the natives the Isle of Juno. Timæus says, that the larger island used to be called Cotinusa, from its olives; the Romans call it Tartessos; the Carthaginians Gadir, that word in the Punic language signifying a hedge. It was called Erythia because the Tyrians, the original an- cestors of the Carthaginians, were said to have come from the Erythræn, or Red Sea. In this island Geryon is by some thought to have dwelt, whose herds were carried off by Hercules. Other persons again think, that his island is another one, opposite to Lusitania, and that it was there formerly called by that name.

BOOK III CHAP. 1. THE BOUNDARIES AND GULFS OF EUROPE FIRST SET FORTH IN A GENERAL WAY.

I shall first then speak of Europe, the foster-mother of that people which has conquered all other nations, and itself by far the most beauteous portion of the earth. Indeed, many persons have, not without reason, considered it, not as a third part only of the earth, but as equal to all the rest, looking upon the whole of our globe as divided into two parts only, by a line drawn from the river Tanais to the Straits of Gades. The ocean, after pouring the waters of the Atlantic through the inlet which I have here described, and, in its eager progress, overwhelming all the lands which have had to dread its approach, skirts with its winding course the shores of those parts which offer a more effectual resistance, hollowing out the coast of Europe especially into numerous bays, among which there are four Gulfs that are more particularly remarkable. The first of these begins at Calpe, which I have previously mentioned, the most distant mountain of Spain; and bends, describing an immense curve, as far as Locri and the Promontory of Bruttium.

BOOK IV CHAP. 26. SCYTHIA.

Leaving the Ister, we come to the towns of Cremniscos, Æpolium, the mountains of Macrocremnus, and the famous river Tyra, which gives name to a town on the spot where Ophiusa is said formerly to have stood. The Tyragetæ inhabit a large island situate in this river, which is distant from Pseudostomos, a mouth of the Ister, so called, 130 miles. We then come to the Axiacæ, who take their name from the river Axiaces, and beyond them, the Crobyzi, the river Rhodes, the Sagarian Gulf, and the port of Ordesos. At a distance of 120 miles from the Tyra is the river Borysthenes, with a lake and a people of similar name, as also a town in the interior, at a distance of fifteen miles from the sea, the ancient names of which were Olbiopolis and Miletopolis. Again, on the shore is the port of the Achæi, and the island of Achilles, famous for the tomb there of that hero, and, at a distance of 125 miles from it, a peninsula which stretches forth in the shape of a sword, in an oblique direction, and is called, from having been his place of exercise, Dromos Achilleos: the length of this, according to Agrippa, is eighty miles. The Taurian Scythians and the Siraci occupy all this tract of country.

At this spot begins a well-wooded district, which has given to the sea that washes its banks the name of the Hylæan Sea; its inhabitants are called Enœchadlæ. Beyond them is the river Pantieapes, which separates the Nomades and the Georgi, and after it the Acesinus. Some authors say that the Panticapes flows into the Borysthenes below Olbia. Others, who are more correct, say that it is the Hypanis: so great is the mistake made by those who have placed it in Asia.

The sea runs in here and forms a large gulf, until there is only an intervening space of five miles between it and the Lake Mæotis, its margin forming the sea-line of extensive tracts of land, and numerous nations; it is known as the Gulf of Carcinites. Here we find the river Pacyris, the towns of Navarum and Carcine, and behind it Lake Buges, which discharges itself by a channel into the sea. This Buges is separated by a ridge of rocks from Coretus, a gulf in the Lake Mæotis; it receives the rivers Buges, Gerrus, and Hypacaris, which approach it from regions that lie in various directions. For the Gerrus separates the Basilidæ from the Nomades, the Hypacaris flows through the Nomades and the Hylæi, by an artificial channel into Lake Buges, and by its natural one into the Gulf of Coretus: this region bears the name of Scythia Sindice.

At the river Carcinites, Scythia Taurica begins, which was once covered by the sea, where we now see level plains extended on every side: beyond this the land rises into mountains of great elevation. The peoples here are thirty in number, of which twenty-three dwell in the interior, six of the cities being inhabited by the Orgocyni, the Chara- ceni, the Lagyrani, the Tractari, the Arsilachitæ, and the Caliordi. The Scythotauri possess the range of mountains: on the west they are bounded by the Chersonesus, and on the east by the Scythian Satarchæ. On the shore, after we leave Carcinites, we find the following towns; Taphræ, situate on the very isthmus of the peninsula, and then Heraclea Chersonesus, to which its freedom has been granted by the Romans. This place was formerly called Megarice, being the most polished city throughout all these regions, in consequence of its strict preservation of Grecian manners and customs. A wall, five miles in length, surrounds it. Next to this comes the Promontory of Parthenium, the city of the Tauri, Placia, the port of the Symboli, and the Promontory of Criumetopon, opposite to Carambis, a promontory of Asia, which runs out in the middle of the Euxine, leaving an intervening space between them of 170 miles, which circumstance it is in especial that gives to this sea the form of a Scythian bow. After leaving this headland we come to a great number of harbours and lakes of the Tauri. The town of Theodosia is distant from Criumetopon 125 miles, and from Chersonesus 165. Beyond it there were, in former times, the towns of Cytæ, Zephyrium, Acræ, Nymphæum, and Dia. Panticapæum, a city of the Milesians, by far the strongest of them all, is still in existence; it lies at the entrance of the Bosporus, and is distant from Theodosia eighty-seven miles and a half, and from the town of Cimmerium, which lies on the other side of the Strait, as we have previously stated, two miles and a half. Such is the width here of the channel which separates Asia from Europe, and which too, from being generally quite frozen over, allows of a passage on foot. The width of the Cimmerian Bosporus is twelve miles and a half: it contains the towns of Hermisium, Myrmecium, and, in the interior of it, the island of Alopece. From the spot called Taphræ, at the extremity of the isthmus, to the mouth of the Bosporus, along the line of the Lake Mæotis, is a distance of 260 miles.

Leaving Taphræ, and going along the mainland, we find in the interior the Auchetæ, in whose country the Hypanis has its rise, as also the Neurœ, in whose district the Borysthenes has its source, the Geloni , the Thyssagetæ, the Budini, the Basilidæ, and the Agathyrsi with their azure-coloured hair. Above them are the Nomades, and then a nation of Anthropophagi or cannibals. On leaving Lake Buges, above the Lake Mæotis we come to the Sauromatæ and the Essedones. Along the coast, as far as the river Tanais, are the Mæotæ, from whom the lake derives its name, and the last of all, in the rear of them, the Arimaspi. We then come to the Riphæan mountains, and the region known by the name of Pterophoros, because of the perpetual fall of snow there, the flakes of which resemble feathers; a part of the world which has been condemned by the decree of nature to lie immersed in thick darkness; suited for nothing but the generation of cold, and to be the asylum of the chilling blasts of the northern winds.

Behind these mountains, and beyond the region of the northern winds, there dwells, if we choose to believe it, a happy race, known as the Hyperborei, a race that lives to an extreme old age, and which has been the subject of many marvellous stories. At this spot are supposed to be the hinges upon which the world revolves, and the extreme limits of the revolutions of the stars. Here we find light for six months together, given by the sun in one continuous day, who does not, however, as some ignorant persons have asserted, conceal himself from the vernal equinox to autumn. On the contrary, to these people there is but one rising of the sun for the year, and that at the summer solstice, and but one setting, at the winter solstice. This region, warmed by the rays of the sun, is of a most delightful temperature, and exempt from every noxious blast. The abodes of the natives are the woods and groves; the gods receive their worship singly and in groups, while all discord and every kind of sickness are things utterly unknown. Death comes upon them only when satiated with life; after a career of feasting, in an old age sated with every luxury, they leap from a certain rock there into the sea; and this they deem the most desirable mode of ending existence. Some writers have placed these people, not in Europe, but at the very verge of the shores of Asia, because we find there a people called the Attacori, who greatly resemble them and occupy a very similar locality. Other writers again have placed them midway between the two suns, at the spot where it sets to the Antipodes and rises to us; a thing however that cannot possibly be, in consequence of the vast tract of sea which there intervenes. Those writers who place them nowhere but under a day which lasts for six months, state that in the morning they sow, at mid-day they reap, at sunset they gather in the fruits of the trees, and during the night conceal themselves in caves. Nor are we at liberty to entertain any doubts as to the existence of this race; so many authors are there who assert that they were in the habit of sending their first-fruits to Delos to present them to Apollo, whom in especial they worship. Virgins used to carry them, who for many years were held in high veneration, and received the rites of hospitality from the nations that lay on the route; until at last, in consequence of repeated violations of good faith, the Hyperboreans came to the determination to deposit these offerings upon the frontiers of the people who adjoined them, and they in their turn were to convey them on to their neighbours, and so from one to the other, till they should have arrived at Delos. However, this custom, even, in time fell into disuse.

The length of Sarmatia, Scythia, and Taurica, and of the whole of the region which extends from the river Borysthenes, is, according to Agrippa, 980 miles, and its breadth 717. I am of opinion, however, that in this part of the earth all estimates of measurement are exceedingly doubtful.

Pliny on Mining, Metals and Magnets.

PLINY ON MINING

BOOK XXXIV CHAP. 49. BLACK LEAD.

Black lead is used in the form of pipes and sheets: it is extracted with great labour in Spain, and throughout all the Gallic provinces; but in Britannia it is found in the upper stratum of the earth, in such abundance, that a law has been spontaneously made, prohibiting any one from working more than a certain quantity of it. The various kinds of black lead are known by the following names–the Ovetanian, the Caprariensian, and the Oleastrensian. There is no difference whatever in them, when the scoria has been carefully removed by calcination. It is a marvellous fact, that these mines, and these only, when they have been abandoned for some time, become replenished, and are more prolific than before. This would appear to be effected by the air, infusing itself at liberty through the open orifices, just as some women become more prolific after abortion. This was lately found to be the case with the Santarensian mine in Bætica; which, after being farmed at an annual rental of two hundred thousand denarii, and then abandoned, is now rented at two hundred and fifty- five thousand per annum. In the same manner, the Antonian mine in the same province has had the rent raised to four hundred thousand sesterces per annum.

It is a remarkable fact, that if we pour water into a vessel of lead, it will not melt; but that if we throw into the water a pebble or a copper quadrans, the vessel will be penetrated by the fire.

BOOK XXXIV CHAP. 42. THE METAL CALLED LIVE IRON.

The nature of lead next comes to be considered. There are two kinds of it, the black and the white. The white is the most valuable: it was called by the Greeks “cassiteros,” and there is a fabulous story told of their going in quest of it to the islands of the Atlantic, and of its being brought in barks made of osiers, covered with hides. It is now known that it is a production of Lusitania and Gallæcia. It is a sand found on the surface of the earth, and of a black colour, and is only to be detected by its weight. It is mingled with small pebbles, particularly in the dried beds of rivers. The miners wash this sand, and calcine the deposit in the furnace. It is also found in the gold mines that are known as “alutiæ,” the stream of water which is passed through them detaching certain black pebbles, mottled with small white spots and of the same weight as gold. Hence it is that they remain with the gold in the baskets in which it is collected; and being separated in the furnace, are then melted, and become converted into white lead.

Black lead is not procured in Gallæcia, although it is so greatly abundant in the neighbouring province of Cantabria; nor is silver procured from white lead, although it is from black. Pieces of black lead cannot be soldered without the intervention of white lead, nor can this be done without employing oil; nor can white lead, on the other hand, be united without the aid of black lead. White lead was held in estimation in the days even of the Trojan War, a fact that is attested by Homer, who calls it “cassiteros.” There are two different sources of black lead: it being procured either from its own native ore, where it is produced without the intermixture of any other substance, or else from an ore which contains it in common with silver, the two metals being fused together. The metal which first becomes liquid in the furnace, is called “stannum;” the next that melts is silver; and the metal that remains behind is galena, the third constituent part of the mineral. On this last being again submitted to fusion black lead is produced, with a deduction of two-ninths.

BOOK XXXIV CHAP. 54. PSIMITHIUM, OR CERUSE; SIX REMEDIES.

Psimithium, which is also known as ceruse, is another production of the lead-works. The most esteemed comes from Rhodes. It is made from very fine shavings of lead, placed over a vessel filled with the strongest vinegar; by which means the shavings become dissolved. That which falls into the vinegar is first dried, and then pounded and sifted, after which it is again mixed with vinegar, and is then divided into tablets and dried in the sun, during summer. It is also made in another way; the lead is thrown into jars filled with vinegar, which are kept closed for ten days; the sort of mould that forms upon the surface is then scraped off, and the lead is again put into the vinegar, until the whole of the metal is consumed. The part that has been scraped off is triturated and sifted, and then melted in shallow vessels, being stirred with ladles, until the substance becomes red, and assumes the appearance of sandarach. It is then washed with fresh water, until all the cloudy impurities have disappeared, after which it is dried as before, and divided into tablets.

Its properties are the same as those of the substances above mentioned. It is, however, the mildest of all the preparations of lead; in addition to which, it is also used by females to whiten the complexion. It is, however, like scum of silver, a deadly poison. Melted a second time, ceruse becomes red.

BOOK XXXIII CHAP. 21. HOW GOLD IS FOUND.

Gold is found in our own part of the world; not to mention the gold extracted from the earth in India by the ants, and in Scythia by the Griffins. Among us it is procured in three different ways; the first of which is, in the shape of dust, found in running streams, the Tagus in Spain, for instance, the Padus in Italy, the Hebrus in Thracia, the Pactolus in Asia, and the Ganges in India; indeed, there is no gold found in a more perfect state than this, thoroughly polished as it is by the continual attrition of the current.

A second mode of obtaining gold is by sinking shafts or seeking it among the debris of mountains; both of which methods it will be as well to describe. The persons in search of gold in the first place remove the “segutilum,” such being the name of the earth which gives indication of the presence of gold. This done, a bed is made, the sand of which is washed, and, according to the residue found after washing, a conjecture is formed as to the richness of the vein. Sometimes, indeed, gold is found at once in the surface earth, a success, however, but rarely experienced. Recently, for instance, in the reign of Nero, a vein was discovered in Dalmatia, which yielded daily as much as fifty pounds’ weight of gold. The gold that is thus found in the surface crust is known as “talutium,” in cases where there is auriferous earth beneath. The mountains of Spain, in other respects arid and sterile, and productive of nothing whatever, are thus constrained by man to be fertile, in supplying him with this precious commodity.

The gold that is extracted from shafts is known by some persons as “canalicium,” and by others as “canaliense;” it is found adhering to the gritty crust of marble, and, altogether different from the form in which it sparkles in the sapphirus of the East, and in the stone of Thebais and other gems, it is seen interlaced with the molecules of the marble. The channels of these veins are found running in various directions along the sides of the shafts, and hence the name of the gold they yield–“canalicium.” In these shafts, too, the superincumbent earth is kept from falling in by means of wooden pillars. The substance that is extracted is first broken up, and then washed; after which it is subjected to the action of fire, and ground to a fine powder. This powder is known as “apitascudes,” while the silver which becomes disengaged in the furnace has the name of “sudor” given to it. The im- purities that escape by the chimney, as in the case of all other metals, are known by the name of “scoria.” In the case of gold, this scoria is broken up a second time, and melted over again. The crucibles used for this purpose are made of “tasconium,” a white earth similar to potter’s clay in appearance; there being no other substance capable of with-standing the strong current of air, the action of the fire, and the intense heat of the melted metal.

The third method of obtaining gold surpasses the labours of the Giants even: by the aid of galleries driven to a long distance, mountains are excavated by the light of torches, the duration of which forms the set times for work, the workmen never seeing the light of day for many months together. These mines are known as “arrugiæ;” and not unfrequently clefts are formed on a sudden, the earth sinks in, and the workmen are crushed beneath; so that it would really appear less rash to go in search of pearls and purples at the bottom of the sea, so much more dangerous to ourselves have we made the earth than the water! Hence it is, that in this kind of mining, arches are left at frequent intervals for the purpose of supporting the weight of the mountain above. In mining either by shaft or by gallery, barriers of silex are met with, which have to be driven asunder by the aid of fire and vinegar; or more frequently, as this method fills the galleries with suffocating vapours and smoke, to be broken to pieces with bruising- machines shod with pieces of iron weighing one hundred and fifty pounds: which done, the fragments are carried out on the workmen’s shoulders, night and day, each man passing them on to his neighbour in the dark, it being only those at the pit’s mouth that ever see the light. In cases where the bed of silex appears too thick to admit of being penetrated, the miner traces along the sides of it, and so turns it. And yet, after all, the labour entailed by this silex is looked upon as comparatively easy, there being an earth–a kind of potter’s clay mixed with gravel, “gangadia” by name, which it is almost impossible to overcome. This earth has to be attacked with iron wedges and hammers like those previously mentioned, and it is generally considered that there is nothing more stubborn in existence–except indeed the greed for gold, which is the most stubborn of all things.

When these operations are all completed, beginning at the last, they cut away the wooden pillars at the point where they support the roof: the coming downfall gives warning, which is instantly perceived by the sentinel, and by him only, who is set to watch upon a peak of the same mountain. By voice as well as by signals, he orders the workmen to be immediately summoned from their labours, and at the same moment takes to flight himself. The mountain, rent to pieces, is cleft asunder, hurling its debris to a distance with a crash which it is impossible for the human imagination to conceive; and from the midst of a cloud of dust, of a density quite incredible, the victorious miners gaze upon this downfall of Nature. Nor yet even then are they sure of gold, nor indeed were they by any means certain that there was any to be found when they first began to excavate, it being quite sufficient, as an inducement to undergo such perils and to incur such vast expense, to entertain the hope that they shall obtain what they so eagerly desire.

Another labour, too, quite equal to this, and one which entails even greater expense, is that of bringing rivers from the more elevated mountain heights, a distance in many instances of one hundred miles perhaps, for the purpose of washing these debris. The channels thus formed are called “corrugi,” from our word “corrivatio,” I suppose; and even when these are once made, they entail a thousand fresh labours. The fall, for instance, must be steep, that the water may be precipitated, so to say, rather than flow; and it is in this manner that it is brought from the most elevated points. Then, too, vallies and crevasses have to be united by the aid of aqueducts, and in another place impassable rocks have to be hewn away, and forced to make room for hollowed troughs of wood; the person hewing them hanging suspended all the time with ropes, so that to a spectator who views the operations from a distance, the workmen have all the appearance, not so much of wild beasts, as of birds upon the wing. Hanging thus suspended in most instances, they take the levels, and trace with lines the course the water is to take; and thus, where there is no room even for man to plant a footstep, are rivers traced out by the hand of man. The water, too, is considered in an unfit state for washing, if the current of the river carries any mud along with it. The kind of earth that yields this mud is known as “urium;” and hence it is that in tracing out these channels, they carry the water over beds of silex or pebbles, and carefully avoid this urium. When they have reached the head of the fall, at the very brow of the mountain, reservoirs are hollowed out, a couple of hundred feet in length and breadth, and some ten feet in depth. In these reservoirs there are generally five sluices left, about three feet square; so that, the moment the reservoir is filled, the floodgates are struck away, and the torrent bursts forth with such a degree of violence as to roll onwards any fragments of rock which may obstruct its passage.

When they have reached the level ground, too, there is still another labour that awaits them. Trenches–known as “agogæ” –have to be dug for the passage of the water; and these, at regular intervals, have a layer of ulex placed at the bottom. This ulex is a plant like rosemary in appearance, rough and prickly, and well-adapted for arresting any pieces of gold that may be carried along. The sides, too, are closed in with planks, and are supported by arches when carried over steep and precipitous spots. The earth, carried onwards in the stream, arrives at the sea at last, and thus is the shattered mountain washed away; causes which have greatly tended to extend the shores of Spain by these encroachments upon the deep. It is also by the agency of canals of this description that the material, excavated at the cost of such immense labour by the process previously described, is washed and carried away; for otherwise the shafts would soon be choked up by it.

The gold found by excavating with galleries does not require to be melted, but is pure gold at once. In these excavations, too, it is found in lumps, as also in the shafts which are sunk, sometimes exceeding ten pounds even. The names given to these lumps are “palagæ,” and “palacurnæ,” while the gold found in small grains is known as “baluce.” The ulex that is used for the above purpose is dried and burnt, after which the ashes of it are washed upon a bed of grassy turf, in order that the gold may be deposited thereupon.

Asturia, Gallæcia, and Lusitania furnish in this manner, yearly, according to some authorities, twenty thousand pounds’ weight of gold, the produce of Asturia forming the major part. Indeed, there is no part of the world that for centuries has maintained such a continuous fertility in gold. I have already mentioned that by an ancient decree of the senate, the soil of Italy has been protected from these researches; otherwise, there would be no land more fertile in metals. There is extant also a censorial law relative to the gold mines of Victumulæ, in the territory of Vercellæ, by which the farmers of the revenue were forbidden to employ more than five thousand men at the works.

BOOK XXVI CHAP. 52. CISTERNS.

Cisterns should be made of five parts of pure, gravelly, sand, two of the very strongest quicklime, and fragments of silex not exceeding a pound each in weight; when thus incorporated, the bottom and sides should be well beaten with iron rammers. The best plan, too, is to have the cisterns double; so that all superfluities may settle in the inner cistern, and the water filter through, as pure as possible, into the outer one.

BOOK XXXIII CHAP. 20. THE METHOD OF GILDING.

On marble and other substances which do not admit of being brought to a white heat, gilt is laid with glair of egg, and on wood by the aid of a glutinous composition, known as “leucophoron:” what this last is, and how it is prepared, we shall state on the appropriate occasion. The most convenient method for gilding copper would be to employ quicksilver, or, at all events, hydrargyros; but with reference to these substances, as we shall have occasion to say when describing the nature of them, methods of adulteration have been devised. To effect this mode of gilding, the copper is first well hammered, after which it is subjected to the action of fire, and then cooled with a mixture of salt, vinegar, and alum. It is then cleansed of all extraneous substances, it being known by its brightness when it has been sufficiently purified. This done, it is again heated by fire, in order to enable it, when thus prepared, with the aid of an amalgam of pumice, alum, and quicksilver, to receive the gold leaf when applied. Alum has the same property of purifying copper, that we have already mentioned as belonging to lead with reference to gold.

BOOK XXXIV CHAP. 41. THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF IRON, AND THE MODE OF TEMPERING IT.

Iron ores are to be found almost everywhere; for they exist even in the Italian island of Ilva, being easily distinguished by the ferruginous colour of the earth. The method of working the ore is the same as that employed in the case of copper. In Cappadocia, however, it is peculiarly questionable whether this metal is a present due to the water or to the earth; because, when the latter has been saturated with the water of a certain river, it yields, and then only, an iron that may be obtained by smelting.

There are numerous varieties of iron ore; the chief causes of which arise from differences in the soil and in the climate. Some earths produce a metal that is soft, and nearly akin to lead; others an iron that is brittle and coppery, the use of which must be particularly avoided in making wheels or nails, the former kind being better for these purposes. There is another kind, again, which is only esteemed when cut into short lengths, and is used for making hobnails; and another which is more particularly liable to rust. All these varieties are known by the name of “strictura,” an appellation which is not used with reference to the other metals, and is derived from the steel that is used for giving an edge. There is a great difference, too, in the smelting; some kinds producing knurrs of metal, which are especially adapted for hardening into steel, or else, prepared in another manner, for making thick anvils or heads of hammers. But the main difference results from the quality of the water into which the red-hot metal is plunged from time to time. The water, which is in some places better for this purpose than in others, has quite ennobled some localities for the excellence of their iron, Bilbilis, for example, and Turiasso in Spain, and Comum in Italy; and this, although there are no iron mines in these spots.

But of all the different kinds of iron, the palm of excellence is awarded to that which is made by the Seres, who send it to us with their tissues and skins; next to which, in quality, is the Parthian iron. Indeed, none of the other kinds of iron are made of the pure hard metal, a softer alloy being welded with them all. In our part of the world, a vein of ore is occasionally found to yield a metal of this high quality, as in Noricum for instance; but, in other cases, it derives its value from the mode of working it, as at Sulmo, for example, a result owing to the nature of its water, as already stated. It is to be observed also, that in giving an edge to iron, there is a great difference between oil-whetstones and water-whetstones, the use of oil producing a much finer edge. It is a remarkable fact, that when the ore is fused, the metal becomes liquefied like water, and afterwards acquires a spongy, brittle texture. It is the practice to quench smaller articles made of iron with oil, lest by being hardened in water they should be rendered brittle. Human blood revenges itself upon iron; for if the metal has been once touched by this blood it is much more apt to become rusty.

BOOK XXXIV CHAP. 42. THE METAL CALLED LIVE IRON.

We shall speak of the loadstone in its proper place, and of the sympathy which it has with iron. This is the only metal that acquires the properties of that stone, retaining them for a length of time, and attracting other iron, so that we may sometimes see a whole chain formed of these rings. The lower classes, in their ignorance, call this “live iron,” and the wounds that are made by it are much more severe. This mineral is also found in Cantabria, not in continuous strata, like the genuine loadstone, but in scattered fragments, which they call “bullationes.” I do not know whether this species of ore is proper also for the fusion of glass, as no one has hitherto tried it; but it certainly imparts the same property as the magnet to iron. The architect Timochares began to erect a vaulted roof of loadstone, in the Temple of Arsinoë, at Alexandria, in order that the iron statue of that princess might have the appearance of hanging suspended in the air: his death, however, and that of King Ptolemæus, who had ordered this monument to be erected in honour of his sister, prevented the completion of the project.

BOOK XXVI CHAP. 25. THE MAGNET: THREE REMEDIES

Upon quitting the marbles to pass on to the other more remarkable stones, who can for a moment doubt that the magnet will be the first to suggest itself? For what, in fact, is there endowed with more marvellous properties than this? or in which of her departments has Nature displayed a greater degree of waywardness? She had given a voice to rocks, as already mentioned, and had enabled them to answer man, or rather, I should say, to throw back his own words in his teeth. What is there in existence more inert than a piece of rigid stone? And yet, behold! Nature has here endowed stone with both sense and hands. What is there more stubborn than hard iron? Nature has, in this instance, bestowed upon it both feet and intelligence. It allows itself, in fact, to be attracted by the magnet, and, itself a metal which subdues all other elements, it precipitates itself towards the source of an influence at once mysterious and unseen. The moment the metal comes near it, it springs towards the magnet, and, as it clasps it, is held fast in the magnet’s embraces. Hence it is that this stone is sometimes known by the name of “sideritis;” another name given to it being “heraclion.” It received its name “magnes,” Nicander informs us, from the person who was the first to discover it, upon Ida. It is found, too, in various other countries, as in Spain, for example. Magnes, it is said, made this discovery, when, upon taking his herds to pasture, he found that the nails of his shoes and the iron ferrel of his staff adhered to the ground.

Sotacus describes five different kinds of magnet; the Æthiopian magnet; that of Magnesia, a country which borders on Macedonia, and lies to the right of the road which leads from the town of Bœbe to Iolcos; a third, from Hyettus in Bœotia; a fourth, from Alexandria in Troas; and a fifth, from Magnesia in Asia. The leading distinction in magnets is the sex, male and female, and the next great difference in them is the colour. Those of Magnesia, bordering on Macedonia, are of a reddish black; those of Bœotia are more red than black; and the kind that is found in Troas is black, of the female sex, and consequently destitute of attractive power. The most inferior, however, of all, are those of Magnesia in Asia: they are white, have no attractive influence on iron, and resemble pumice in appearance. It has been found by experience, that the more nearly the magnet approaches to an azure colour, the better it is in quality. The Æthiopian magnet is looked upon as the best of all, and is purchased at its weight in silver: Zmiris in Æthiopia is the place where it is found, such being the name of a region there, covered with sand.

In the same country, too, the magnet called “hæmatites” is found, a stone of a blood-red colour, and which, when bruised, yields a tint like that of blood, as also of saffron. The hæmatites has not the same property of attracting iron that the ordinary magnet has. The Æthiopian magnet is recognized by this peculiarity, that it has the property, also, of attracting other magnets to it. All these minerals are useful as ingredients in ophthalmic preparations, in certain proportions according to the nature of each: they are particularly good, too, for arresting defluxions of the eyes. Triturated in a calcined state, they have a healing effect upon burns.

In Æthiopia, too, not far from Zmiris, there is a mountain in which the stone called “theamedes” is found, a mineral which repels and rejects all kinds of iron. Of the attractive and repulsive properties of iron, we have spoken more than once.

BOOK XXXIII CHAP. 26. CHRYSOCOLLA.

Chrysocolla is a liquid which is found in the shafts already mentioned, flowing through the veins of gold; a kind of slime which becomes indurated by the cold of winter till it has attained the hardness even of pumice. The most esteemed kind of it, it has been ascertained, is found in copper-mines, the next best being the produce of silver-mines: it is found also in lead-mines, but that found in combination with gold ore is much inferior.

In all these mines, too, an artificial chrysocolla is manu- factured; much inferior, however, to the native chrysocolla. The method of preparing it consists in introducing water gradually into a vein of metal, throughout the winter and until the month of June; after which, it is left to dry up during the months of June and July: so that, in fact, it is quite evident that chrysocolla is nothing else but the putrefaction of a metallic vein. Native chrysocolla, known as “uva,” differs from the other in its hardness more particularly; and yet, hard as it is, it admits of being coloured with the plant known as “lutum.” Like flax and wool, it is of a nature which imbibes liquids. For the purpose of dyeing it, it is first bruised in a mortar, after which, it is passed through a fine sieve. This done, it is ground, and then passed through a still finer sieve; all that refuses to pass being replaced in the mortar, and subjected once more to the mill. The finest part of the powder is from time to time measured out into a crucible, where it is macerated in vinegar, so that all the hard particles may be dissolved; after which, it is pounded again, and then rinsed in shell-shaped vessels, and left to dry. This done, the chrysocolla is dyed by the agency of schist alum and the plant above-mentioned; and thus is it painted itself before it serves to paint. It is of considerable importance, too, that it should be absorbent and readily take the dye: indeed, if it does not speedily take the colour, scytanum and turbistum are added to the dye; such being the name of two drugs which compel it to absorb the colouring matter.

BOOK XXXIII CHAP. 29. THE CHRYSOCOLLA OF THE GOLDSMITHS, KNOWN ALSO AS SANTERNA.

The goldsmiths also employ a chrysocolla of their own, for the purpose of soldering gold; and it is from this chrysocolla, they say, that all the other substances, which present a similar green, have received their name. This preparation is made from verdigris of Cyprian copper, the urine of a youth who has not arrived at puberty, and a portion of nitre. It is then pounded with a pestle of Cyprian copper, in a copper mortar, and the name given to the mixture is “santerna.” It is in this way that the gold known as “silvery” gold is soldered; one sign of its being so alloyed being its additional brilliancy on the application of santerna. If, on the other hand, the gold is impregnated with copper, it will contract, on coming in contact with the santerna, become dull, and only be soldered with the greatest difficulty: indeed, for this last kind of gold, there is a peculiar solder employed, made of gold and one- seventh part of silver, in addition to the materials above-mentioned, the whole beaten up together.

BOOK XXXIII CHAP. 30. THE MARVELLOUS OPERATIONS OF NATURE IN SOLDERING METALLIC SUBSTANCES, AND BRINGING THEM TO A STATE OF PERFECTION.

While speaking on this subject, it will be as well to annex the remaining particulars, that our admiration may here be drawn to all the marvels presented by Nature in connection therewith. The proper solder for gold is that above described; for iron, potter’s clay; for copper, when in masses, cadmia, and in sheets, alum; for lead and marble, resin. Lead is also united by the aid of white lead; white lead with white lead, by the agency of oil; stannum, with copper file-dust; and silver, with stannum.

For smelting copper and iron, pine-wood is the best, Egyptian papyrus being also very good for the purpose. Gold is melted most easily with a fire made of chaff. Limestone and Thracian stone are ignited by the agency of water, this last being extinguished by the application of oil. Fire, however, is extinguished most readily by the application of vinegar, viscus, and unboiled eggs. Earth will under no circumstance ignite. When charcoal has been once quenched, and then again ignited, it gives out a greater heat than before.

BOOK XXXIII CHAP. 32. QUICKSILVER.

There is a mineral also found in these veins of silver, which yields a humour that is always liquid, and is known as “quicksilver.” It acts as a poison upon everything, and pierces vessels even, making its way through them by the agency of its malignant properties. All substances float upon the surface of quicksilver, with the exception of gold, this being the only substance that it attracts to itself. Hence it is, that it is such an excellent refiner of gold; for, on being briskly shaken in an earthen vessel with gold, it rejects all the impurities that are mixed with it. When once it has thus expelled these superfluities, there is nothing to do but to separate it from the gold; to effect which, it is poured out upon skins that have been well tawed, and so, exuding through them like a sort of perspiration, it leaves the gold in a state of purity behind.

Hence it is, too, that when copper has to be gilded, a coat of quicksilver is laid beneath the gold leaf, which it retains in its place with the greatest tenacity: in cases, however, where the leaf is single, or very thin, the presence of the quicksilver is detected by the paleness of the colour. For this reason, persons, when meditating a piece of fraud, have been in the habit of substituting glair of egg for quicksilver, and then laying upon it a coat of hydrargyros, a substance of which we shall make further mention in the appropriate place. Generally speaking, quicksilver has not been found in any large quantities.

BOOK XXXIV CHAP. 1. THE ORES OF BRASS.

WE must, in the next place, give an account of the ores of brass, a metal which, in respect of utility, is next in value; indeed the Corinthian brass comes before silver, not to say almost before gold itself. It is also, as I have stated above, the standard of monetary value; hence the terms “æra militum,” “tribuni ærarii,” “ærarium,” “obærati,” and “ære diruti.” I have already mentioned for what length of time the Roman people employed no coin except brass; and there is another ancient fact which proves that the esteem in which it was held was of equal antiquity with that of the City itself, the circumstance that the third associated body which Numa established, was that of the braziers.

BOOK XXXIV CHAP. 2. THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF COPPER.

The ore is extracted in the mode that has been described above, and is then purified by fusion. The metal is also obtained from a coppery stone called “cadmia.” The most highly esteemed copper is procured from beyond seas: it was formerly obtained in Campania also, and at present is found in the country of the Bergomates, at the extremity of Italy. It is said to have been lately discovered also in the province of Germany.

In Cyprus, where copper was first discovered, it is also procured from another stone, which is called “chalcitis.” This, however, was afterwards considered of little value, a better kind having been found in other regions, especially that called “aurichalcum,” which was long in high request, on account of its excellent quality; but none of it has been found for this long time, the earth having been quite exhausted. The kind which was next in value was the Sallustian, procured from the Alpine district of the Centrones; but this did not last long, and was succeeded by the Livian, in Gaul. They both took their names from the owners of the mines; the former a friend of the Emperor Augustus, the latter that emperor’s wife. They soon failed, however, and in the Livian even there is now found but a very small quantity of ore. That which is at present held in the highest estimation is the Marian, likewise known as the Corduban: next to the Livian, this kind most readily absorbs cadmia, and becomes almost as excellent as aurichalcum for making sesterces and double asses, the Cyprian copper being thought good enough for the as. Thus much concerning the natural qualities of this metal.

BOOK XXXV CHAP. 47. VARIOUS KINDS OF EARTH. THE PUTEOLAN DUST, AND OTHER EARTHS OF WHICH CEMENTS LIKE STONE ARE MADE.

But there are other resources also, which are derived immediately from the earth. Who, indeed, cannot but be surprised at finding the most inferior constituent parts of it, known as “dust” only, on the hills about Puteoli, forming a barrier against the waves of the sea, becoming changed into stone the moment of its immersion, and increasing in hardness from day to day–more particularly when mixed with the cement of Cumæ? There is an earth too, of a similar nature found in the districts about Cyzicus; but there, it is not a dust, but a solid earth, which is cut away in blocks of all sizes, and which, after being immersed in the sea, is taken out transformed into stone. The same thing may be seen also, it is said, in the vicinity of Cassandrea; and at Cnidos, there is a spring of fresh water which has the property of causing earth to petrify within the space of eight months. Between Oropus and Aulis, every portion of the land upon which the sea encroaches becomes transformed into solid rock.

The finer portion of the sand of the river Nilus is not very different in its properties from the dust of Puteoli; not, indeed, that it is used for breaking the force of the sea and withstanding the waves, but only for the purpose, forsooth, of subduing the body for the exercises of the palestra! At all events, it was for this purpose that it used to be brought over for Patrobius, a freedman of the Emperor Nero. I find it stated also, that Craterus, Leonnatus, and Meleager, generals of Alexander the Great, had this sand transported along with their munitions of war. But I forbear to enlarge any further upon this subject; or indeed, by Hercules! upon those preparations of earth and wax of which the ceromata are made, so much employed by our youth in their exercises of the body, at the cost of all vigour of the mind.

Pliny on Pottery, Building and Amber.

PLINY ON POTTERY, BUILDING & AMBER

BOOK XXXV CHAP. 46. WORKS IN POTTERY.

Statues of this nature are still in existence at various places. At Rome, in fact, and in our municipal towns, we still see many such pediments of temples; wonderful too, for their workmanship, and, from their artistic merit and long duration, more deserving of our respect than gold, and certainly far less baneful. At the present day even, in the midst of such wealth as we possess, we make our first libation at the sacrifice, not from murrhine vases or vessels of crystal, but from ladles made of earthenware.

Bounteous beyond expression is the earth, if we only consider in detail her various gifts. To omit all mention of the cereals, wine, fruits, herbs, shrubs, medicaments, and metals, bounties which she has lavished upon us, and which have already passed under our notice, her productions in the shape of pottery alone, would more than suffice, in their variety, to satisfy our domestic wants; what with gutter-tiles of earthenware, vats for receiving wine, pipes for conveying water, conduits for supplying baths, baked tiles for roofs, bricks for foundations, the productions, too, of the potter’s wheel; results, all of them, of an art, which induced King Numa to establish, as a seventh company, that of the makers of earthenware.

Even more than this, many persons have chosen to be buried in coffins made of earthenware; M. Varro, for instance, who was interred, in true Pythagorean style, in the midst of leaves of myrtle, olive, and black poplar; indeed, the greater part of mankind make use of earthen vases for this purpose. For the service of the table, the Samian pottery is even yet held in high esteem; that, too, of Arretium in Italy, still maintains its high character; while for their cups, and for those only, the manufactories of Surrentum, Asta, Pollentia, Saguntum in Spain, and Pergamus in Asia, are greatly esteemed.

The city of Tralles, too, in Asia, and that of Mutina in Italy, have their respective manufactures of earthenware, and even by this branch of art are localities rendered famous; their productions, by the aid of the potter’s wheel, becoming known to all countries, and conveyed by sea and by land to every quarter of the earth. At Erythræ, there are still shown, in a temple there, two amphoræ, that were consecrated in consequence of the singular thinness of the material: they originated in a contest between a master and his pupil, which of the two could make earthenware of the greatest thinness. The vessels of Cos are the most highly celebrated for their beauty, but those of Adria are considered the most substantial.

In relation to these productions of art, there are some instances of severity mentioned: Q. Coponius, we find, was condemned for bribery, because he made present of an amphora of wine to a person who had the right of voting. To make luxury, too, conduce in some degree to enhance our estimation of earthenware, “tripatinium,” as we learn from Fenestella, was the name given to the most exquisite course of dishes that was served up at the Roman banquets. It consisted of one dish of murænæ, one of lupi, and a third of a mixture of fish. It is clear that the public manners were then already on the decline; though we still have a right to hold them preferable to those of the philosophers even of Greece, seeing that the representatives of Aristotle, it is said, sold, at the auction of his goods, as many as seventy dishes of earthenware. It has been already stated by us, when on the subject of birds, that a single dish cost the tragic actor Æsopus one hundred thousand sesterces; much to the reader’s indignation, no doubt; but, by Hercules! Vitellius, when emperor, ordered a dish to be made, which was to cost a million of sesterces, and for the preparation of which a furnace had to be erected out in the fields! luxury having thus arrived at such a pitch of excess as to make earthenware even sell at higher prices than murrhine vessels. It was in reference to this circumstance, that Mucianus, in his second consulship, when pronouncing one of his perorations, reproached the memory of Vitellius with his dishes as broad as the Pomptine Marsh; not less deserving to be execrated than the poisoned dish of Asprenas, which, according to the accusation brought against him by Cassius Severus, caused the death of one hundred and thirty guests.

These works of artistic merit have conferred celebrity on some cities even, Rhegium for example, and Cumæ. The priests of the Mother of the gods, known as the Galli, deprive themselves of their virility with a piece of Samian pottery, the only means, if we believe M. Cælius, of avoiding dangerous results. He it was, too, who recommended, when inveighing against certain abominable practices, that the person guilty of them should have his tongue cut out, in a similar manner; a reproach which would appear to have been levelled by anticipation against this same Vitellius.

What is there that human industry will not devise? Even broken pottery has been utilized; it being found that, beaten to powder, and tempered with lime, it becomes more solid and durable than other substances of a similar nature; forming the cement known as the “Signine” composition, so extensively employed for even making the pavements of houses.

BOOK XXXV CHAP. 48. FORMACEAN WALLS.

And then, besides, have we not in Africa and in Spain walls of earth, known as “formaceoan” walls? from the fact that they are moulded, rather than built, by enclosing earth within a frame of boards, constructed on either side. These walls will last for centuries, are proof against rain, wind, and fire, and are superior in solidity to any cement. Even at this day, Spain still beholds watch-towers that were erected by Hannibal, and turrets of earth placed on the very summits of her mountains. It is from the same source, too, that we derive the substantial materials so well adapted for forming the earth-works of our camps and embankments against the impetuous violence of rivers. What person, too, is unacquainted with the fact, that partitions are made of hurdles coated with clay, and that walls are constructed of unbaked bricks?

BOOK XXXV CHAP. 49. WALLS OF BRICK. MAKING BRICKS.

Earth for making bricks should never be extracted from a sandy or gravelly soil, and still less from one that is stony; but from a stratum that is white and cretaceous, or else impregnated with red earth. If a sandy soil must be employed for the purpose, it should at least be male sand, and no other. The spring is the best season for making bricks, as at midsummer they are very apt to crack. For building, bricks two years old are the only ones that are approved of; and the wrought material of them should be well macerated before they are made.

There are three different kinds of bricks; the Lydian, which is in use with us, a foot-and-a-half in length by a foot in breadth; the tetradoron; and the pentadoron; the word “doron” being used by the ancient Greeks to signify the palm –hence, too, their word “doron” meaning a gift, because it is the hand that gives. These last two kinds, therefore, are named respectively from their being four and five palms in length, the breadth being the same. The smaller kind is used in Greece for private buildings, the larger for the construction of public edifices. At Pitane, in Asia, and in the cities of Maxilua and Calentum in Farther Spain, there are bricks made, which float in water, when dry; the material being a sort of pumice-earth, extremely good for the purpose when it can be made to unite. The Greeks have always preferred walls of brick, except in those cases where they could find silicious stone for the purposes of building: for walls of this nature will last for ever, if they are only built on the perpendicular. Hence it is, that the Greeks have built their public edifices and the palaces of their kings of brick; the wall at Athens, for example, which faces Mount Hymettus; the Temples of Jupiter and Hercules at Patræ, although the columns and architraves in the interior are of stone; the palace of King Attalus at Tralles; the palace of Crœsus at Sardes, now converted into an asylum for aged persons; and that of King Mausolus at Halicarnassus; edifices, all of them, still in existence.

Muræna and Varro, in their ædileship, had a fine fresco painting, on the plaster of a wall at Lacedæmon, cut away from the bricks, and transported in wooden frames to Rome, for the purpose of adorning the Comitium. Admirable as the work was of itself, it was still more admired after being thus transferred. In Italy also there are walls of brick, at Arretium and Mevania. At Rome, there are no buildings of this description, because a wall only a foot-and-a-half in thickness would not support more than a single story; and by public ordinance it has been enacted that no partition should exceed that thickness; nor, indeed, does the peculiar construction of our party-walls admit of it.

BOOK XXVI CHAP. 53. QUICK-LIME.

Cato the Censor disapproves of lime prepared from stones of various colours: that made of white stone is the best. Lime prepared from hard stone is the best for building purposes, and that from porous stone for coats of plaster. For both these purposes, lime made from silex is equally rejected. Stone that has been extracted from quarries furnishes a better lime than that collected from the beds of rivers; but the best of all is the lime that is obtained from the molar-stone, that being of a more unctuous nature than the others. It is something truly marvellous, that quick-lime, after the stone has been subjected to fire, should ignite on the application of water!

BOOK XXVI CHAP. 54. SAND. COMBINATIONS OF SAND WITH LIME.

There are three kinds of sand: fossil sand, to which one-fourth part of lime should be added; river sand; and sea sand; to both of which last, one third of lime should be added. If, too, one third of the mortar is composed of bruised earthenware, it will be all the better. Fossil sand is found in the districts that lie between the Apennines and the Padus, but not in the parts beyond sea.

BOOK XXVI CHAP. 55. DEFECTS IN BUILDING. PLASTERS FOR WALLS.

The great cause of the fall of so many buildings in our City, is, that through a fraudulent abstraction of the lime, the rough work is laid without anything to hold it together. The older, too, the mortar is, the better it is in quality. In the ancient laws for the regulation of building, no contractor was to use mortar less than three months old; hence it is, that no cracks have disfigured the plaster coatings of their walls. These stuccos will never present a sufficiently bright surface, unless there have been three layers of sanded mortar, and two of marbled mortar upon that. In damp localities and places subject to exhalations from the sea, it is the best plan to substitute ground earthenware mortar for sanded mortar. In Greece, it is the practice, first to pound the lime and sand used for plastering, with wooden pestles in a large trough. The test by which it is known that marbled mortar has been properly blended, is its not adhering to the trowel; whereas, if it is only wanted for white-washing, the lime, after being well slaked with water, should stick like glue. For this last purpose, however, the lime should only be slaked in lumps.

At Elis, there is a Temple of Minerva, which was pargetted, they say, by Panænus, the brother of Phidias, with a mortar that was blended with milk and saffron: hence it is, that, even at the present day, when rubbed with spittle on the finger, it yields the smell and flavour of saffron.

BOOK XXVI CHAP. 56. COLUMNS. THE SEVERAL KINDS OF COLUMNS.

The more closely columns are placed together, the thicker they appear to be. There are four different kinds of pillars. Those of which the diameter at the foot is one-sixth part of the height, are called Doric. When the diameter is one-ninth, they are Ionic; and when it is one-seventh, Tuscan. The proportions in the Corinthian are the same as those of the Ionic; but they differ in the circumstance that the Corinthian capitals are of the same height as the diameter at the foot, a thing that gives them a more slender appearance; whereas, in the Ionic column, the height of the capital is only one-third of the diameter at the foot. In ancient times the rule was, that the columns should be one-third of the breadth of the temple in height.

It was in the Temple of Diana, at Ephesus, as originally built, that spirals were first placed beneath, and capitals added: and it was determined that the diameter of the shafts should be one-eighth of their height, and that the spirals should be one-half of the diameter in height, the upper extremity of the shaft being one-seventh less in diameter than the foot. In addition to these columns, there are what are called “Attic” columns, quadrangular, and with equal sides.

BOOK XXVI CHAP. 59. GYPSUM

Gypsum has a close affinity with limestone, and there are numerous varieties of it. One kind is prepared from a calcined stone, as in Syria, and at Thurii, for example. In Cyprus and at Perrhæbia, gypsum is dug out of the earth, and at Tymphæ it is found just below the level of the soil. The stone that is calcined for this purpose, ought to be very similar to alabastrites, or else of a grain like that of marble. In Syria, they select the hardest stones for the purpose, and calcine them with cow-dung, to accelerate the process. Experience has proved, however, that the best plaster of all is that prepared from specular-stone, or any other stone that is similarly laminated. Gypsum, when moistened, must be used immediately, as it hardens with the greatest rapidity; it admits, however, of being triturated over again, and so reduced to powder. It is very useful for pargetting, and has a pleasing effect when used for ornamental figures and wreaths in buildings.

There is one remarkable fact connected with this substance; Caius Proculeius, an intimate friend of the Emperor Augustus, suffering from violent pains in the stomach, swallowed gypsum, and so put an end to his existence.

BOOK XXVI CHAP. 60. PAVEMENTS. THE ASAROTOS ŒCOS.

Pavements are an invention of the Greeks, who also practised the art of painting them, till they were superseded by mosaics. In this last branch of art, the highest excellence has been attained by Sosus, who laid, at Pergamus, the mosaic pavement known as the “Asarotos œcos;” from the fact that he there represented, in small squares of different colours, the remnants of a banquet lying upon the pavement, and other things which are usually swept away with the broom, they, having all the appearance of being left there by accident. There is a dove also, greatly admired, in the act of drinking, and throwing the shadow of its head upon the water; while other birds are to be seen sunning and pluming themselves, on the margin of a drinking-bowl.

BOOK XXVI CHAP. 61.THE FIRST PAVEMENTS IN USE AT ROME.

The first pavements, in my opinion, were those now known to us as barbaric and subtegulan pavements, a kind of work that was beaten down with the rammer: at least if we may form a judgment from the name that has been given to them. The first diamonded pavement at Rome was laid in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, after the commencement of the Third Punic War. That pavements had come into common use before the Cimbric War, and that a taste for them was very prevalent, is evident from the line of Lucilius–“With checquered emblems like a pavement marked.”

BOOK XXVI CHAP. 62. TERRACE-ROOF PAVEMENTS.

The Greeks have also invented terrace-roof pavements, and have covered their houses with them; a thing that may easily be done in the hotter climates, but a great mistake in countries where the rain is apt to become congealed. In making these pavements, the proper plan is to begin with two layers of boards, running different ways, and nailed at the extremities, to prevent them from warping. Upon this planking, a rough-work must be laid, one-fourth of which consists of pounded pottery: and upon this, another bed of rough-work, two-fifths composed of lime, a foot in thickness, and well beaten down with the rammer. The nucleus is then laid down, a bed six fingers in depth; and upon that, large square stones, not less than a couple of fingers in thickness; an inclination being carefully observed, of an inch and a half to every ten feet. This done, the surface is well rubbed down with a polishing stone. The general opinion is, that oak should never be used for the planking, it being so very liable to warp; and it is considered a good plan to cover the boards with a layer of fern or chaff, that they may be the better able to resist the action of the lime. It is necessary, too, before putting down the planking, to underset it with a bed of round pebbles. Wheat-ear tesselated pavements are laid down in a similar manner.

BOOK XXVI CHAP. 63. GRÆCANIC PAVEMENTS.

We must not omit here one other kind of pavement, that known as the “Græcanic.” The ground is well rammed down, and a bed of rough work, or else broken pottery, is then laid upon it. Upon the top of this, a layer of charcoal is placed, well trodden down with a mixture of sand, lime, and ashes; care being taken, by line and rule, to give it a uniform thickness of half a foot. The surface then presents the ordinary appearance of the ground; but if it is well rubbed with the polishing-stone, it will have all the appearance of a black pavement.

BOOK XXVI CHAP. 66. GLASS, AND THE MODE OF MAKING IT.

In process of time, as human industry is ingenious in discovering, it was not content with the combination of nitre, but magnet-stone began to be added as well; from the impression that it attracts liquefied glass as well as iron. In a similar manner, too, brilliant stones of various descriptions came to be added in the melting, and, at last, shells and fossil sand. Some authors tell us, that the glass of India is made of broken crystal, and that, in consequence, there is none that can be compared to it.

In fusing it, light and dry wood is used for fuel, Cyprian copper and nitre being added to the melting, nitre of Ophir more particularly. It is melted, like copper, in contiguous furnaces, and a swarthy mass of an unctuous appearance is the result. Of such a penetrating nature is the molten glass, that it will cut to the very bone any part of the body which it may come near, and that, too, before it is even felt. This mass is again subjected to fusion in the furnace, for the purpose of colouring it; after which, the glass is either blown into various forms, turned in a lathe, or engraved like silver. Sidon was formerly famous for its glass-houses, for it was this place that first invented mirrors.

Such was the ancient method of making glass: but, at the present day, there is found a very white sand for the purpose, at the mouth of the river Volturnus, in Italy. It spreads over an extent of six miles, upon the sea-shore that lies between Cumæ and Liternum, and is prepared for use by pounding it with a pestle and mortar; which done, it is mixed with three parts of nitre, either by weight or measure, and, when fused, is transferred to another furnace. Here it forms a mass of what is called “hammonitrum;” which is again submitted to fusion, and becomes a mass of pure, white, glass. Indeed, at the present day, throughout the Gallic and Spanish provinces even, we find sand subjected to a similar process. In the reign of Tiberius, it is said, a combination was devised which produced a flexible glass; but the manufactory of the artist was totally destroyed, we are told, in order to prevent the value of copper, silver, and gold, from becoming depreciated. This story, however, was, for a long time, more widely spread than well authentieated. But be it as it may, it is of little consequence; for, in the time of the Emperor Nero, there was a process discovered, by which two small glass cups were made, of the kind called “petroti,” the price of which was no less than six thousand sesterces!

BOOK XXXVII CHAP. 11. AMBER: THE MANY FALSEHOODS THAT HAVE BEEN TOLD ABOUT IT.

Next in rank among the objects of luxury, we have amber; an article which, for the present, however, is in request among women only. All these three last-mentioned substances hold the same rank, no doubt, as precious stones; the two former for certain fair reasons; crystal, because it is adapted for taking cool drinks, and murrhine vessels, for taking drinks that are either hot or cold. But as for amber, luxury has not been able, as yet, to devise any justification for the use of it. This is a subject which affords us an excellent opportunity of exposing some of the frivolities and falsehoods of the Greeks; and I beg that my readers will only have patience with me while I do so, it being really worth while, for our own practical improvement, to become acquainted with the marvellous stories which they have promulgated respecting amber.

After Phaëthon had been struck by lightning, his sisters, they tell us, became changed into poplars, which every year shed their tears upon the banks of the Eridanus, a river known to us as the “Padus.” To these tears was given the name of “electrum,” from the circumstance that the Sun was usually called “elector.” Such is the story, at all events, that is told by many of the poets, the first of whom were, in my opinion, Æschylus, Philoxenus, Euripides, Satyrus, and Nicander; and the falsity of which is abundantly proved upon the testimony of Italy itself. Those among the Greeks who have devoted more attention to the subject, have spoken of certain islands in the Adriatic Sea, known as the “Electrides,” and to which the Padus, they say, carries down electrum. It is the fact, however, that there never were any islands there so called, nor, indeed, any islands so situate as to allow of the Padus carrying down anything in its course to their shores. As to Æschylus placing the Eridanus in Iberia, or, in other words, in Spain, and giving it the name of Rhodanus; and as to Euripides and Apollonius representing the Rhodanus and the Padus as discharging themselves by one common mouth on the shores of the Adriatic; we can forgive them all the more readily for knowing nothing about amber when they betray such monstrous ignorance of geography.

Other writers, again, who are more guarded in their assertions, have told us, though with an equal degree of untruthfulness, that, at the extremity of the Adriatic Gulf, upon certain inaccessible rocks there, there are certain trees which shed their gum at the rising of the Dog-Star. Theophrastus has stated that amber is extracted from the earth in Liguria; Chares, that Phaëthon died in the territory of Hammon, in Æthiopia, where there is a temple of his and an oracle, and where amber is produced; Philemon, that it is a fossil substance, and that it is found in two different localities in Scythia, in one of which it is of a white and waxen colour, and is known as “electrum;” while in the other it is red, and is called “sualiternicum.” Demostratus calls amber “lyncurion,” and he says that it originates in the urine of the wild beast known as the “lynx;” that voided by the male producing a red and fiery substance, and that by the female an amber of a white and less pronounced colour: he also informs us that by some persons it is called “langurium,” and that in Italy, there are certain wild beasts known as “languri.” Zenothemis, how- ever, calls these wild beasts “langæ,” and gives the banks of the river Padus as their locality. Sudines says, that it is a tree in reality, that produces amber, and that, in Etruria, this tree is known by the name of “lynx;” an opinion which is also adopted by Metrodorus. Sotacus expresses a belief that amber exudes from certain stones in Britannia, to which he gives the name of “electrides.” Pytheas says that the Gutones, a people of Germany, inhabit the shores of an æstuary of the Ocean called Mentonomon, their territory extending a distance of six thousand stadia; that, at one day’s sail from this territory, is the Isle of Abalus, upon the shores of which, amber is thrown up by the waves in spring, it being an excretion of the sea in a concrete form; as, also, that the inhabitants use this amber by way of fuel, and sell it to their neighbours, the Teutones. Timæus, too, is of the same belief, but he has given to the island the name of Basilia.

Philemon says that electrum does not yield a flame. Nicias, again, will have it, that it is a liquid produced by the rays of the sun; and that these rays, at the moment of the sun’s setting, striking with the greatest force upon the surface of the soil, leave upon it an unctuous sweat, which is carried off by the tides of the Ocean, and thrown up upon the shores of Germany. He states, also, that in Egypt it is similarly produced, and is there called “sacal;” that it is found in India, too, where it is held as a preferable substitute for frankincense; and that in Syria the women make the whirls of their spindles of this substance, and give it the name of “harpax,” from the circumstance that it attracts leaves towards it, chaff, and the light fringe of tissues. According to Theochrestus, amber is thrown up by the tides of the Ocean, at the foot of the Pyrenæan range; an opinion adopted also by Xenocrates. Asarubas, who has written the most recently upon these subjects, and is still living, informs us, that near the shores of the Atlantic is Lake Cephisis, known to the Mauri by the name of “Electrum;” and that when this lake is dried up by the sun, the slime of it produces amber, which floats upon the surface. Mnaseas speaks of a locality in Africa called Sicyon, and of a river Crathis there, which discharges itself from a lake into the Ocean, the banks of which are frequented by birds which he calls “meleagrides” and “penelopes:” it is here that, according to him, electrum is produced, in manner above mentioned. Theomenes says that near the Greater Syrtis are the Gardens of the Hesperides, and Lake Electrum: on the banks, he says, are poplars, from the summits of which amber falls into the water below, where it is gathered by the maidens of the Hesperides.

Ctesias asserts that there is in India a river called Hypobarus, a word which signifies “bearer of all good things;” that this river flows from the north into the Eastern Ocean, where it discharges itself near a mountain covered with trees which produce electrum; and that these trees are called “siptachoræ,” the meaning of which is “intense sweetness.” Mithridates says, that off the shores of Germany there is an island called “Serita,” covered with a kind of cedar, from which amber falls upon the rocks. According to Xenocrates, this substance is called, in Italy, not only “succinum,” but “thieum” as well, the Scythian name of it, for there also it is to be found, being “sacrium:” others, he says, are of opinion that it is a product of Numidia. But the one that has surpassed them all is Sophocles, the tragic poet; a thing that indeed surprises me, when I only consider the surpassing gravity of his lofty style, the high repute that he enjoyed in life, his elevated position by birth at Athens, his various exploits, and his high military command. According to him, amber is produced in the countries beyond India, from the tears that are shed for Meleager, by the birds called “meleagrides!” Who can be otherwise than surprised that he should have believed such a thing as this, or have hoped to persuade others to believe it? What child, too, could possibly be found in such a state of ignorance as to believe that birds weep once a year, that their tears are so prolific as this, or that they go all the way from Greece, where Meleager died, to India to weep? “But then,” it will be said, “do not the poets tell many other stories that are quite as fabulous?” Such is the fact, no doubt, but for a person seriously to advance such an absurdity with reference to a thing so common as amber, which is imported every day and so easily proves the mendacity of this assertion, is neither more nor less than to evince a supreme contempt for the opinions of mankind, and to assert with impunity an intolerable falsehood.

There can be no doubt that amber is a product of the islands of the Northern Ocean, and that it is the substance by the Germans called “glæsum;” for which reason the Romans, when Germanicus Cæsar commanded the fleet in those parts, gave to one of these islands the name of Glæsaria, which by the barbarians was known as Austeravia. Amber is produced from a marrow discharged by trees belonging to the pine genus, like gum from the cherry, and resin from the ordinary pine. It is a liquid at first, which issues forth in considerable quantities, and is gradually hardened by heat or cold, or else by the action of the sea, when the rise of the tide carries off the fragments from the shores of these islands. At all events, it is thrown up upon the coasts, in so light and voluble a form that in the shallows it has all the appearance of hanging suspended in the water. Our forefathers, too, were of opinion that it is the juice of a tree, and for this reason gave it the name of “succinum:” and one great proof that it is the produce of a tree of the pine genus, is the fact that it emits a pine-like smell when rubbed, and that it burns, when ignited, with the odour and appearance of torch-pine wood.

Amber is imported by the Germans into Pannonia, more particularly; from whence the Veneti, by the Greeks called Eneti, first brought it into general notice, a people in the vicinity of Pannonia, and dwelling on the shores of the Adriatic Sea. From this it is evident how the story which connects it with the Padus first originated; and at the present day we see the female peasantry in the countries that lie beyond that river wearing necklaces of amber, principally as an ornament, no doubt, but on account of its remedial virtues as well; for amber, it is generally believed, is good for affec- tions of the tonsillary glands and fauces, the various kinds of water in the vicinity of the Alps being apt to produce disease in the human throat.

From Carnuntum in Pannonia, to the coasts of Germany from which the amber is brought, is a distance of about six hundred miles, a fact which has been only very recently ascertained; and there is still living a member of the equestrian order, who was sent thither by Julianus, the manager of the gladiatorial exhibitions for the Emperor Nero, to procure a supply of this article. Traversing the coasts of that country and visiting the various markets there, he brought back amber, in such vast quantities, as to admit of the nets, which are used for protecting the podium against the wild beasts, being studded with amber.

The arms too, the litters, and all the other apparatus, were, on one day, decorated with nothing but amber, a different kind of display being made each day that these spectacles were exhibited. The largest piece of amber that this personage brought to Rome was thirteen pounds in weight.

That amber is found in India too, is a fact well ascertained. Archelaüs, who reigned over Cappadocia, says that it is brought from that country in the rough state, and with the fine bark still adhering to it, it being the custom there to polish it by boiling it in the grease of a sucking-pig. One great proof that amber must have been originally in a liquid state, is the fact that, owing to its transparency, certain objects are to be seen within, ants for example, gnats, and lizards. These, no doubt, must have first adhered to it while liquid, and then, upon its hardening, have remained enclosed within.

BOOK XXXVII CHAP. 12. SEVERAL KINDS OF AMBER: THE REMEDIES DERIVED FROM IT.

There are several kinds of amber. The white is the one that has the finest odour; but neither this nor the wax-coloured amber is held in very high esteem. The red amber is more highly valued; and still more so, when it is transparent, without presenting too brilliant and igneous an appearance. For amber, to be of high quality, should present a brightness like that of fire, but not flakes resembling those of flame. The most highly esteemed amber is that known as the “Falernian,” from its resemblance to the colour of Falernian wine; it is perfectly transparent, and has a softened, transparent, brightness. Other kinds, again, are valued for their mellowed tints, like the colour of boiled honey in appearance. It ought to be known, however, that any colour can be imparted to amber that may be desired, it being sometimes stained with kid-suet and root of alkanet; indeed, at the present day, amber is dyed purple even. When a vivifying heat has been imparted to it by rubbing it between the fingers, amber will attract chaff, dried leaves, and thin bark, just in the same way that the magnet attracts iron. Pieces of amber, steeped in oil, burn with a more brilliant and more lasting flame than pith of flax.

So highly valued is this as an object of luxury, that a very diminutive human effigy, made of amber, has been known to sell at a higher price than living men even, in stout and vigorous health. This single ground for censure, however, is far from being sufficient; in Corinthian objects of vertu, it is the copper that recommends them, combined with silver and gold; and in embossed works it is the skill and genius of the artist that is so highly esteemed. We have already said what it is that recommends vessels of murrhine and of crystal; pearls, too, are of use for wearing upon the head, and gems upon the fingers. In the case of all other luxuries, in fact, it is either a spirit of ostentation or some utility that has been discovered in them that pleads so strongly in their behalf; but in that of amber we have solely the consciousness that we are enjoying a luxury, and nothing more. Domitius Nero, among the other portentous extravagances of his life, bestowed this name upon the ringlets of his wife Poppæa, and, in certain verses of his, he has even gone so far as to call them “succini.” As fine names, too, are never wanting for bodily defects, a third tint has been introduced of late for hair among our ladies, under the name of “amber-colour.”

Amber, however, is not without its utility in a medicinal point of view; though it is not for this reason that the women are so pleased with it. It is beneficial for infants also, attached to the body in the form of an amulet; and, according to Callistratus, it is good for any age, as a preventive of delirium and as a cure for strangury, either taken in drink or attached as an amulet to the body. This last author, too, has invented a new variety of amber; giving the name of “chryselectrum” to an amber of a golden colour, and which presents the most beautiful tints in the morning. This last kind attracts flame, too, with the greatest rapidity, and, the moment it approaches the fire, it ignites. Worn upon the neck, he says, it is a cure for fevers and other diseases, and, triturated with honey and oil of roses, it is good for maladies of the ears. Beaten up with Attic honey, it is good for dimness of sight; and the powder of it, either taken by itself or with gum mastich in water, is remedial for diseases of the stomach. Amber, too, is greatly in request for the imitation of the transparent precious stones, amethystos in particular: for, as already stated, it admits of being dyed of every colour.

Tacitus, Agricola.

TACITUS

THE LIFE OF CNAEUS JULIUS AGRICOLA.

This work is supposed by the commentators to have been written before the Christian era 97.

He learned the rudiments of war in Britain, under Suetonius Paullinus, an active and prudent commander, who chose him for his tent companion, in order to form an estimate of his merit. Nor did Agricola, like many young men, who convert military service into wanton pastime, avail himself licentiously or slothfully of his tribunitial title, or his inexperience, to spend his time in pleasures and absences from duty; but he employed himself in gaining a knowledge of the country, making himself known to the army, learning from the experienced, and imitating the best; neither pressing to be employed through vainglory, nor declining it through timidity; and performing his duty with equal solicitude and spirit. At no other time in truth was Britain more agitated or in a state of greater uncertainty. Our veterans slaughtered, our colonies burnt, our armies cut off,

Departing thence to undertake the offices of magistracy in Rome, he married Domitia Decidiana,

Aulus Plautius, the first consular governor, and his successor, Ostorius Scapula, were both eminent for military abilities. Under them, the nearest part of Britain was gradually reduced into the form of a province, and a colony of veterans was settled. Certain districts were bestowed upon king Cogidunus, a prince who continued in perfect fidelity within our own memory. This was done agreeably to the ancient and long established practice of the Romans, to make even kings the instruments of servitude. Didius Gallus, the next governor, preserved the acquisitions of his predecessors, and added a very few fortified posts in the remoter parts, for the reputation of enlarging his province. Veranius succeeded, but died within the year. Suetonius Paullinus then commanded with success for two years, subduing various nations, and establishing garrisons. In the confidence with which this inspired him, he undertook an expedition against the island Mona, which had furnished the revolters with supplies; and thereby exposed the settlements behind him to a surprise.

For the Britons, relieved from present dread by the absence of the governor, began to hold conferences, in which they painted the miseries of servitude, compared their several injuries, and inflamed each other with such representations as these: “That the only effects of their patience were more grievous impositions upon a people who submitted with such facility. Formerly they had one king respectively; now two were set over them, the lieutenant and the procurator, the former of whom vented his rage upon their life’s blood, the latter upon their properties; the union or discord of these governors was equally fatal to those whom they ruled, while the officers of the one, and the centurions of the other, joined in oppressing them by all kinds of violence and contumely; so that nothing was exempted from their avarice, nothing from their lust. In battle it was the bravest who took spoils; but those whom they suffered to seize their houses, force away their children, and exact levies, were, for the most part, the cowardly and effeminate; as if the only lesson of suffering of which they were ignorant was how to die for their country. Yet how inconsiderable would the number of invaders appear did the Britons but compute their own forces! From considerations like these, Germany had thrown off the yoke, though a river and not the ocean was its barrier. The welfare of their country, their wives, and their parents called them to arms, while avarice and luxury alone incited their enemies; who would withdraw as even the deified Julius had done, if the present race of Britons would emulate the valour of their ancestors, and not be dismayed at the event of the first or second engagement. Superior spirit and perseverance were always the share of the wretched; and the gods themselves now seemed to compassionate the Britons, by ordaining the absence of the general, and the detention of his army in another island. The most difficult point, assembling for the purpose of deliberation, was already accomplished; and there was always more danger from the discovery of designs like these, than from their execution.”

Instigated by such suggestions, they unanimously rose in arms, led by Boadicea, [a woman of royal descent (for they make no distinction between the sexes in succession to the throne), and attacking the soldiers dispersed through the garrisons, stormed the fortified posts, and invaded the colony itself, as the seat of slavery. They omitted no species of cruelty with which rage and victory could inspire barbarians; and had not Paullinus, on being acquainted with the commotion of the province, marched speedily to its relief, Britain would have been lost. The fortune of a single battle, however, reduced it to its former subjection; though many still remained in arms, whom the consciousness of revolt, and particular dread of the governor, had driven to despair. Paullinus, although otherwise exemplary in his administration, having treated those who surrendered with severity, and having pursued too rigorous measures, as one who was revenging his own personal injury also, Petronius Turpilianus was sent in his stead, as a person more inclined to lenity, and one who, being unacquainted with the enemy’s delinquency, could more easily accept their penitence. After having restored things to their former quiet state, he delivered the command to Trebellius Maximus. Trebellius, indolent, and inexperienced in military affairs, maintained the tranquillity of the province by popular manners; for even the barbarians had now learned to pardon under the seductive influence of vices; and the intervention of the civil wars afforded a legitimate excuse for his inactivity. Sedition however infected the soldiers, who, instead of their usual military services, were rioting in idleness. Trebellius, after escaping the fury of his army by flight and concealment, dishonoured and abased, regained a precarious authority; and a kind of tacit compact took place, of safety to the general, and licentiousness to the army. This mutiny was not attended with bloodshed. Vettius Bolanus, succeeding during the continuance of the civil wars, was unable to introduce discipline into Britain. The same inaction towards the enemy, and the same insolence in the camp, continued; except that Bolanus, unblemished in his character, and not obnoxious by any crime, in some measure substituted affection in the place of authority.

At length, when Vespasian received the possession of Britain together with the rest of the world, the great commanders and well-appointed armies which were sent over abated the confidence of the enemy; and Petilius Cerealis struck terror by an attack upon the Brigantes, who are reputed to compose the most populous state in the whole province. Many battles were fought, some of them attended with much bloodshed; and the greater part of the Brigantes were either brought into subjection, or involved in the ravages of war. The conduct and reputation of Cerealis were so brilliant that they might have eclipsed the splendour of a successor; yet Julius Frontinus, a truly great man, supported the arduous competition, as far as circumstances would permit. He subdued the strong and warlike nation of the Silures, in which expedition, besides the valour of the enemy, he had the difficulties of the country to struggle with.

Such was the state of Britain, and such had been the vicissitudes of warfare, when Agricola arrived in the middle of summer; at a time when the Roman soldiers, supposing the expeditions of the year were concluded, were thinking of enjoying themselves without care, and the natives, of seizing the opportunity thus afforded them. Not long before his arrival, the Ordovices had cut off almost an entire corps of cavalry stationed on their frontiers; and the inhabitants of the province being thrown into a state of anxious suspense by this beginning, inasmuch as war was what they wished for, either approved of the example, or waited to discover the disposition of the new governor. The season was now far advanced, the troops dispersed through the country, and possessed with the idea of being suffered to remain inactive during the rest of the year; circumstances which tended to retard and discourage any military enterprise; so that it was generally thought most advisable to be contented with defending the suspected posts: yet Agricola determined to march out and meet the approaching danger. For this purpose, he drew together the detachments from the legions, and a small body of auxiliaries; and when he perceived that the Ordovices would not venture to descend into the plain, he led an advanced party in person to the attack, in order to inspire the rest of his troops with equal ardor. The result of the action was almost the total extirpation of the Ordovices; when Agricola, sensible that renown must be followed up, and that the future events of the war would be determined by the first success, resolved to make an attempt upon the island Mona, from the occupation of which Paullinus had been summoned by the general rebellion of Britain, as before related. The usual deficiency of an unforeseen expedition appearing in the want of transport vessels, the ability and resolution of the general were exerted to supply this defect. A select body of auxiliaries, disencumbered of their baggage, who were well acquainted with the fords, and accustomed, after the manner of their country, to direct their horses and manage their arms while swimming, were ordered suddenly to plunge into the channel; by which movement, the enemy, who expected the arrival of a fleet, and a formal invasion by sea, were struck with terror and astonishment, conceiving nothing arduous or insuperable to troops who thus advanced to the attack. They were therefore induced to sue for peace, and make a surrender of the island; an event which threw lustre on the name of Agricola, who, on the very entrance upon his province, had employed in toils and dangers that time which is usually devoted to ostentatious parade, and the compliments of office. Nor was he tempted, in the pride of success, to term that an expedition or a victory; which was only bridling the vanquished; nor even to announce his success in laureate despatches. But this concealment of his glory served to augment it; since men were led to entertain a high idea of the grandeur of his future views, when such important services were passed over in silence.

Well acquainted with the temper of the province, and taught by the experience of former governors how little proficiency had been made by arms, when success was followed by injuries, he next undertook to eradicate the causes of war. And beginning with himself, and those next to him, he first laid restrictions upon his own household, a task no less arduous to most governors than the administration of the province. He suffered no public business to pass through the hands of his slaves or freedmen. In admitting soldiers into regular service, to attendance about his person, he was not influenced by private favour, or the recommendation or solicitation of the centurions, but considered the best men as likely to prove the most faithful. He would know everything; but was content to let some things pass unnoticed. He could pardon small aults, and use severity to great ones; yet did not always punish, but was frequently satisfied with penitence. He chose rather to confer offices and employments upon such as would not offend, than to condemn those who had offended. The augmentation of tributes and contributions he mitigated by a just and equal assessment, abolishing those private exactions which were more grievous to be borne than the taxes themselves. For the inhabitants had been compelled in mockery to sit by their own locked-up granaries, to buy corn needlessly, and to sell it again at a stated price. Long and difficult journeys had also been imposed upon them; for the several districts, instead of being allowed to supply the nearest winter quarters, were forced to carry their corn to remote and devious places; by which means, what was easy to be procured by all, was converted into an article of gain to a few.

By suppressing these abuses in the first year of his administration, he established a favourable idea of peace, which, through the negligence or oppression of his predecessors, had been no less dreaded than war. At the return of summer, he assembled his army. On their march, he commended the regular and orderly, and restrained the stragglers; he marked out the encampments, and explored in person the estuaries and forests. At the same time, he perpetually harassed the enemy by sudden incursions; and, after sufficiently alarming them, by an interval of forbearance, he held to their view the allurements of peace. By this management, many states, which till that time had asserted their independence, were now induced to lay aside their animosity, and to deliver hostages. These districts were surrounded with castles and forts, disposed with so much attention and judgement, that no part of Britain, hitherto new to the Roman arms, escaped unmolested.

The succeeding winter was employed in the most salutary measures. In order, by a taste of pleasures, to reclaim the natives from that rude and unsettled state which prompted them to war, and reconcile them to quiet and tranquillity, he incited them, by private instigations and public encouragements, to erect temples, courts of justice, and dwelling-houses. He bestowed commendations upon those who were prompt in complying with his intentions, and reprimanded such as were dilatory; thus promoting a spirit of emulation which had all the force of necessity. He was also attentive to provide a liberal education for the sons of their chieftains, preferring the natural genius of the Britons to the attainments of the Gauls; and his attempts were attended with such success, that they who lately disdained to make use of the Roman language, were now ambitious of becoming eloquent. Hence the Roman habit began to be held in honour, and the toga was frequently worn. At length, they gradually deviated into a taste for those luxuries which stimulate to vice; porticoes, and baths, and the elegances of the table; and this, from their inexperience, they termed politeness, whilst, in reality, it constituted a part of their slavery.

The military expeditions of the third year discovered new nations to the Romans, and their ravages extended as far as the estuary of the Tay. The enemies were thereby struck with such terror that they did not venture to molest the army though harassed by violent tempests; so that they had sufficient opportunity for the erection of fortresses. Persons of experience remarked, that no general had ever shown greater skill in the choice of advantageous situations than Agricola; for not one of his fortified posts was either taken by storm, or surrendered by capitulation. The garrisons made frequent sallies; for they were secured against a blockade by a year’s provision in their stores. Thus, the winter passed without alarm, and each garrison proved sufficient for its own defence; while the enemy, who were generally accustomed to repair the losses of the summer by the successes of the winter, now equally unfortunate in both seasons, were baffled and driven to despair. In these transactions, Agricola never attempted to arrogate to himself the glory of others; but always bore an impartial testimony to the meritorious actions of his officers, from the centurion to the commander of a legion. He was represented by some as rather harsh in reproof; as if the same disposition which made him affable to the deserving, had inclined him to austerity towards the worthless. But his anger left no relics behind; his silence and reserve were not to be dreaded; and he esteemed it more honourable to show marks of open displeasure, than to entertain secret hatred.

The fourth summer was spent in securing the country which had been overrun; and if the valour of the army and the glory of the Roman name had permitted it, our conquests would have found a limit within Britain itself. For the tides of the opposite seas, flowing very far up the estuaries of Clota and Bodotria, almost intersect the country; leaving only a narrow neck of land, which was then defended by a chain of forts. Thus, all the territory on this side was held in subjection, and the remaining enemies were removed, as it were, into another island.

In the fifth campaign, Agricola, crossing over in the first ship, subdued, by frequent and successful engagements, several nations till then unknown; and stationed troops in that part of Britain which is opposite to Ireland, rather with a view to future advantage, than from any apprehension of danger from that quarter. For the possession of Ireland, situated between Britain and Spain, and lying commodiously to the Gallic sea, would have formed a very beneficial connection between the most powerful parts of the empire. This island is less than Britain, but larger than those of our sea. Its soil, climate, and the manners and dispositions of its inhabitants, are little different from those of Britain. Its ports and harbours are better known, from the concourse of merchants for the purposes of commerce. Agricola had received into his protection one of its petty kings, who had been expelled by a domestic sedition; and detained him, under the semblance of friendship, till an occasion should offer of making use of him. I have frequently heard him assert, that a single legion and a few auxiliaries would be sufficient entirely to conquer Ireland and keep it in subjection; and that such an event would also have contributed to restrain the Britons, by awing them with the prospect of the Roman arms all around them, and, as it were, banishing liberty from their sight.

In the summer which began the sixth year of Agricola’s administration, extending his views to the countries situated beyond Bodotria, as a general insurrection of the remoter nations was apprehended, and the enemy’s army rendered marching unsafe, he caused the harbours to be explored by his fleet, which, now first acting in aid of the land-forces gave the formidable spectacle of war at once pushed on by sea and land. The cavalry, infantry, and marines were frequently mingled in the same camp, and recounted with mutual pleasure their several exploits and adventures; comparing, in the boastful language of military men, the dark recesses of woods and mountains, with the horrors of waves and tempests; and the land and enemy subdued, with the conquered ocean. It was also discovered from the captives, that the Britons had been struck with consternation at the view of the fleet, conceiving the last refuge of the vanquished to be cut off, now the secret retreats of their seas were disclosed. The various inhabitants of Caledonia immediately took up arms, with great preparations, magnified, however, by report, as usual where the truth is unknown; and by beginning hostilities, and attacking our fortresses, they inspired terror as daring to act offensively; insomuch that some persons, disguising their timidity under the mask of prudence, were for instantly retreating on this side the firth, and relinquishing the country rather than waiting to be driven out. Agricola, in the meantime, being informed that the enemy intended to bear down in several bodies, distributed his army into three divisions, that his inferiority of numbers, and ignorance of the country, might not give them an opportunity of surrounding him.

When this was known to the enemy, they suddenly changed their design; and making a general attack in the night upon the ninth legion, which was the weakest, in the confusion of sleep and consternation they slaughtered the sentinels, and burst through the entrenchments. They were now fighting within the camp, when Agricola, who had received information of their march from his scouts, and followed close upon their track, gave orders for the swiftest of his horse and foot to charge the enemy’s rear. Presently the whole army raised a general shout; and the standards now glittered at the approach of day. The Britons were distracted by opposite dangers; whilst the Romans in the camp resumed their courage, and secure of safety, began to contend for glory. They now in their turns rushed forwards to the attack, and a furious engagement ensued in the gates of the camp; till by the efforts of both Roman armies, one to give assistance, the other to appear not to need it, the enemy was routed: and had not the woods and marshes sheltered the fugitives, that day would have terminated the war.

The soldiers, inspirited by the steadfastness which characterized and the fame which attended this victory, cried out that “nothing could resist their valour; now was the time to penetrate into the heart of Caledonia, and in a continued series of engagements at length to discover the utmost limits of Britain.” Those even who had before recommended caution and prudence, were now rendered rash and boastful by success. It is the hard condition of military command, that a share in prosperous events is claimed by all, but misfortunes are imputed to one alone. The Britons meantime, attributing their defeat not to the superior bravery of their adversaries, but to chance, and the skill of the general, remitted nothing of their confidence; but proceeded to arm their youth, to send their wives and children to places of safety, and to ratify the confederacy of their several states by solemn assemblies and sacrifices. Thus, the parties separated with minds mutually irritated.

During the same summer, a cohort of Usipii, which had been levied in Germany, and sent over into Britain, performed an extremely daring and memorable action. After murdering a centurion and some soldiers who had been incorporated with them for the purpose of instructing them in military discipline, they seized upon three light vessels, and compelled the masters to go on board with them. One of these, however, escaping to shore, they killed the other two upon suspicion; and before the affair was publicly known, they sailed away, as it were by miracle. They were presently driven at the mercy of the waves; and had frequent conflicts, with various success, with the Britons, defending their property from plunder. At length they were reduced to such extremity of distress as to be obliged to feed upon each other; the weakest being first sacrificed, and then such as were taken by lot. In this manner having sailed round the island, they lost their ships through want of skill; and, being regarded as pirates, were intercepted, first by the Suevi, then by the Frisii. Some of them, after being sold for slaves, by the change of masters were brought to the Roman side of the river, and became notorious from the relation of their extraordinary adventures.

In the beginning of the next summer, Agricola received a severe domestic wound in the loss of a son, about a year old. He bore this calamity, not with the ostentatious firmness which many have affected, nor yet with the tears and lamentations of feminine sorrow; and war was one of the remedies of his grief. Having sent forwards his fleet to spread its ravages through various parts of the coast, in order to excite an extensive and dubious alarm, he marched with an army equipped for expedition, to which he had joined the bravest of the Britons whose fidelity had been approved by a long allegiance, and arrived at the Grampian hills, where the enemy was already encamped. For the Britons, undismayed by the event of the former action, expecting revenge or slavery, and at length taught that the common danger was to be repelled by union alone, had assembled the strength of all their tribes by embassies and confederacies. Upwards of thirty thousand men in arms were now descried; and the youth, together with those of a hale and vigorous age, renowned in war, and bearing their several honorary decorations, were still flocking in; when Calgacus, the most distinguished for birth and valour among the chieftains, is said to have harangued the multitude, gathering round, and eager for battle, after the following manner:

“When I reflect on the causes of the war, and the circumstances of our situation, I feel a strong persuasion that our united efforts on the present day will prove the beginning of universal liberty to Britain. For we are all undebased by slavery; and there is no land behind us, nor does even the sea afford a refuge, whilst the Roman fleet hovers around. Thus, the use of arms, which is at all times honourable to the brave, now offers the only safety even to cowards. In all the battles which have yet been fought, with various success, against the Romans, our countrymen may be deemed to have reposed their final hopes and resources in us: for we, the noblest sons of Britain, and therefore stationed in its last recesses, far from the view of servile shores, have preserved even our eyes unpolluted by the contact of subjection. We, at the furthest limits both of land and liberty, have been defended to this day by the remoteness of our situation and of our fame. The extremity of Britain is now disclosed; and whatever is unknown becomes an object of magnitude. But there is no nation beyond us; nothing but waves and rocks, and the still more hostile Romans, whose arrogance we cannot escape by obsequiousness and submission. These plunderers of the world, after exhausting the land by their devastations, are rifling the ocean: stimulated by avarice, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor; unsatiated by the East and by the West: the only people who behold wealth and indigence with equal avidity. To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.

“Our children and relations are by the appointment of nature the dearest of all things to us. These are torn away by levies to serve in foreign lands. Our wives and sisters, though they should escape the violation of hostile force, are polluted under names of friendship and hospitality. Our estates and possessions are consumed in tributes; our grain in contributions. Even our bodies are worn down amidst stripes and insults in clearing woods and draining marshes. Wretches born to slavery are once bought, and afterwards maintained by their masters: Britain every day buys, every day feeds, her own servitude. And as among domestic slaves every new comer serves for the scorn and derision of his fellows; so, in this ancient household of the world, we, as the newest and vilest, are sought out to destruction. For we have neither cultivated lands, nor mines, nor harbours, which can induce them to preserve us for our labours. The valour too and unsubmitting spirit of subjects only render them more obnoxious to their masters; while remoteness and secrecy of situation itself, in proportion as it conduces to security, tends to inspire suspicion. Since then all hopes of mercy are vain, at length assume courage, both you to whom safety and you to whom glory is dear. The Trinobantes, even under a female leader, had force enough to burn a colony, to storm camps, and, if success had not damped their vigour, would have been able entirely to throw off the yoke; and shall not we, untouched, unsubdued, and struggling not for the acquisition but the security of liberty, show at the very first onset what men Caledonia has reserved for her defence?

“Can you imagine that the Romans are as brave in war as they are licentious in peace? Acquiring renown from our discords and dissensions, they convert the faults of their enemies to the glory of their own army; an army compounded of the most different nations, which success alone has kept together, and which misfortune will as certainly dissipate. Unless, indeed, you can suppose that Gauls, and Germans, and (I blush to say it) even Britons, who, though they expend their blood to establish a foreign dominion, have been longer its foes than its subjects, will be retained by loyalty and affection! Terror and dread alone are the weak bonds of attachment; which once broken, they who cease to fear will begin to hate. Every incitement to victory is on our side. The Romans have no wives to animate them; no parents to upbraid their flight. Most of them have either no home, or a distant one. Few in number, ignorant of the country, looking around in silent horror at woods, seas, and a heaven itself unknown to them, they are delivered by the gods, as it were imprisoned and bound, into our hands. Be not terrified with an idle show, and the glitter of silver and gold, which can neither protect nor wound. In the very ranks of the enemy we shall find our own bands. The Britons will acknowledge their own cause. The Gauls will recollect their former liberty. The rest of the Germans will desert them, as the Usipii have lately done. Nor is there anything formidable behind them: ungarrisoned forts; colonies of old men; municipal towns distempered and distracted between unjust masters and ill-obeying subjects. Here is a general; here an army. There, tributes, mines, and all the train of punishments inflicted on slaves; which whether to bear eternally, or instantly to revenge, this field must determine. March then to battle, and think of your ancestors and your posterity.”

They received this harangue with alacrity, and testified their applause after the barbarian manner, with songs, and yells, and dissonant shouts. And now the several divisions were in motion, the glittering of arms was beheld, while the most daring and impetuous were hurrying to the front, and the line of battle was forming; when Agricola, although his soldiers were in high spirits, and scarcely to be kept within their entrenchments, kindled additional ardour by these words:–

“It is now the eighth year, my fellow-soldiers, in which, under the high auspices of the Roman empire, by your valour and perseverance you have been conquering Britain. In so many expeditions, in so many battles, whether you have been required to exert your courage against the enemy, or your patient labours against the very nature of the country, neither have I ever been dissatisfied with my soldiers, nor you with your general. In this mutual confidence, we have proceeded beyond the limits of former commanders and former armies; and are now become acquainted with the extremity of the island, not by uncertain rumour, but by actual possession with our arms and encampments. Britain is discovered and subdued. How often on a march, when embarrassed with mountains, bogs and rivers, have I heard the bravest among you exclaim, ‘When shall we descry the enemy? when shall we be led to the field of battle?’ At length they are unharboured from their retreats; your wishes and your valour have now free scope; and every circumstance is equally propitious to the victor, and ruinous to the vanquished. For, the greater our glory in having marched over vast tracts of land, penetrated forests, and crossed arms of the sea, while advancing towards the foe, the greater will be our danger and difficulty if we should attempt a retreat. We are inferior to our enemies in knowledge of the country, and less able to command supplies of provision; but we have arms in our hands, and in these we have everything. For myself, it has long been my principle, that a retiring general or army is never safe. Hot only, then, are we to reflect that death with honour is preferable to life with ignominy, but to remember that security and glory are seated in the same place. Even to fall in this extremest verge of earth and of nature cannot be thought an inglorious fate.

“If unknown nations or untried troops were drawn up against you, I would exhort you from the example of other armies. At present, recollect your own honours, question your own eyes. These are they, who, the last year, attacking by surprise a single legion in the obscurity of the night, were put to flight by a shout: the greatest fugitives of all the Britons, and therefore the longest survivors. As in penetrating woods and thickets the fiercest animals boldly rush on the hunters, while the weak and timorous fly at their very noise; so the bravest of the Britons have long since fallen: the remaining number consists solely of the cowardly and spiritless; whom you see at length within your reach, not because they have stood their ground, but because they are overtaken. Torpid with fear, their bodies are fixed and chained down in yonder field, which to you will speedily be the scene of a glorious and memorable victory. Here bring your toils and services to a conclusion; close a struggle of fifty years with one great day; and convince your country-men, that to the army ought not to be imputed either the protraction of war, or the causes of rebellion.”

Whilst Agricola was yet speaking, the ardour of the soldiers declared itself; and as soon as he had finished, they burst forth into cheerful acclamations, and instantly flew to arms. Thus, eager and impetuous, he formed them so that the centre was occupied by the auxiliary infantry, in number eight thousand, and three thousand horse were spread in the wings. The legions were stationed in the rear, before the entrenchments; a disposition which would render the victory signally glorious, if it were obtained without the expense of Roman blood; and would ensure support if the rest of the army were repulsed. The British troops, for the greater display of their numbers, and more formidable appearance, were ranged upon the rising grounds, so that the first line stood upon the plain, the rest, as if linked together, rose above one another upon the ascent. The charioteers and horsemen filled the middle of the field with their tumult and careering. Then Agricola, fearing from the superior number of the enemy lest he should be obliged to fight as well on his flanks as in front, extended his ranks; and although this rendered his line of battle less firm, and several of his officers advised him to bring up the legions, yet, filled with hope, and resolute in danger, he dismissed his horse and took his station on foot before the colours.

At first the action was carried on at a distance. The Britons, armed with long swords and short targets, with steadiness and dexterity avoided or struck down our missile weapons, and at the same time poured in a torrent of their own. Agricola then encouraged three Batavian and two Tungrian cohorts to fall in and come to close quarters; a method of fighting familiar to these veteran soldiers, but embarrassing to the enemy from the nature of their armor; for the enormous British swords, blunt at the point, are unfit for close grappling, and engaging in a confined space. When the Batavians; therefore, began to redouble their blows, to strike with the bosses of their shields, and mangle the faces of the enemy; and, bearing down all those who resisted them on the plain, were advancing their lines up the ascent; the other cohorts, fired with ardour and emulation, joined in the charge, and overthrew all who came in their way: and so great was their impetuosity in the pursuit of victory, that they left many of their foes half dead or unhurt behind them. In the meantime, the troops of cavalry took to flight, and the armed chariots mingled in the engagement of the infantry; but although their first shock occasioned some consternation, they were soon entangled among the close ranks of the cohorts, and the inequalities of the ground. Not the least appearance was left of an engagement of cavalry; since the men, long keeping their ground with difficulty, were forced along with the bodies of the horses; and frequently, straggling chariots, and affrighted horses without their riders, flying variously as terror impelled them, rushed obliquely athwart or directly through the lines.

Those of the Britons who, yet disengaged from the fight, sat on the summits of the hills, and looked with careless contempt on the smallness of our numbers, now began gradually to descend; and would have fallen on the rear of the conquering troops, had not Agricola, apprehending this very event, opposed four reserved squadron of horse to their attack, which, the more furiously they had advanced, drove them back with the greater celerity. Their project was thus turned against themselves; and the squadrons were ordered to wheel from the front of the battle and fall upon the enemy’s rear. A striking and hideous spectacle now appeared on the plain: some pursuing; some striking: some making prisoners, whom they slaughtered as others came in their way. Now, as their several dispositions prompted, crowds of armed Britons fled before inferior numbers, or a few, even unarmed, rushed upon their foes, and offered themselves to a voluntary death. Arms, and carcasses, and mangled limbs, were promiscuously strewed, and the field was dyed in blood. Even among the vanquished were seen instances of rage and valour. When the fugitives approached the woods, they collected, and surrounded the foremost of the pursuers, advancing incautiously, and unacquainted with the country; and had not Agricola, who was everywhere present, caused some strong and lightly-equipped cohorts to encompass the ground, while part of the cavalry dismounted made way through the thickets, and part on horseback scoured the open woods, some disaster would have proceeded from the excess of confidence. But when the enemy saw their pursuers again formed in compact order, they renewed their flight, not in bodies as before, or waiting for their companions, but scattered and mutually avoiding each other; and thus, took their way to the most distant and devious retreats. Night and satiety of slaughter put an end to the pursuit. Of the enemy ten thousand were slain: on our part three hundred and sixty fell; among whom was Aulus Atticus, the praefect of a cohort, who, by his juvenile ardour, and the fire of his horse, was borne into the midst of the enemy.

Success and plunder contributed to render the night joyful to the victors; whilst the Britons, wandering and forlorn, amid the promiscuous lamentations of men and women, were dragging along the wounded; calling out to the unhurt; abandoning their habitations, and in the rage of despair setting them on fire; choosing places of concealment, and then deserting them; consulting together, and then separating. Sometimes, on beholding the dear pledges of kindred and affection, they were melted into tenderness, or more frequently roused into fury; insomuch that several, according to authentic information, instigated by a savage compassion, laid violent hands upon their own wives and children. On the succeeding day, a vast silence all around, desolate hills, the distant smoke of burning houses, and not a living soul descried by the scouts, displayed more amply the face of victory. After parties had been detached to all quarters without discovering any certain tracks of the enemy’s flight, or any bodies of them still in arms, as the lateness of the season rendered it impracticable to spread the war through the country, Agricola led his army to the confines of the Horesti. Having received hostages from this people, he ordered the commander of the fleet to sail round the island; for which expedition he was furnished with sufficient force, and preceded by the terror of the Roman name. Pie himself then led back the cavalry and infantry, marching slowly, that he might impress a deeper awe on the newly conquered nations; and at length distributed his troops into their winter-quarters. The fleet, about the same time, with prosperous gales and renown, entered the Trutulensian harbor, whence, coasting all the hither shore of Britain, it returned entire to its former station.

Tacitus. Britain.

TACITUS

Description of Britain

The situation and inhabitants of Britain have been described by many writers; and I shall not add to the number with the view of vying with them in accuracy and ingenuity, but because it was first thoroughly subdued in the period of the present history. Those things which, while yet unascertained, they embellished with their eloquence, shall here be related with a faithful adherence to known facts. Britain, the largest of all the islands which have come within the knowledge of the Romans, stretches on the east towards Germany, on the west towards Spain, and on the south it is even within sight of Gaul. Its northern extremity has no opposite land, but is washed by a wide and open sea. Livy, the most eloquent of ancient, and Fabius Rusticus, of modern writers, have likened the figure of Britain to an oblong target, or a two-edged axe. And this is in reality its appearance, exclusive of Caledonia; whence it has been popularly attributed to the whole island. But that tract of country, irregularly stretching out to an immense length towards the furthest shore, is gradually contracted in form of a wedge. The Roman fleet, at this period first sailing round this remotest coast, gave certain proof that Britain was an island; and at the same time discovered and subdued the Orcades, islands till then unknown. Thule was also distinctly seen, which winter and eternal snow had hitherto concealed. The sea is reported to be sluggish and laborious to the rower; and even to be scarcely agitated by winds. The cause of this stagnation I imagine to be the deficiency of land and mountains where tempests are generated; and the difficulty with which such a mighty mass of waters, in an uninterrupted main, is put in motion. It is not the business of this work to investigate the nature of the ocean and the tides; a subject which many writers have already undertaken. I shall only add one circumstance: that the dominion of the sea is nowhere more extensive; that it carries many currents in this direction and in that; and its ebbings and flowings are not confined to the shore, but it penetrates into the heart of the country, and works its way among hills and mountains, as though it were in its own domain.

Who were the first inhabitants of Britain, whether indigenous or immigrants, is a question involved in the obscurity usual among barbarians. Their temperament of body is various, whence deductions are formed of their different origin. Thus, the ruddy hair and large limbs of the Caledonians point out a German derivation. The swarthy complexion and curled hair of the Silures, together with their situation opposite to Spain, render it probable that a colony of the ancient Iberi possessed themselves of that territory. They who are nearest Gaul resemble the inhabitants of that country; whether from the duration of hereditary influence, or whether it be that when lands jut forward in opposite directions, climate gives the same condition of body to the inhabitants of both. On a general survey, however, it appears probable that the Gauls originally took possession of the neighboring coast. The sacred rites and superstitions of these people are discernible among the Britons. The languages of the two nations do not greatly differ. The same audacity in provoking danger, and irresolution in facing it when present, is observable in both. The Britons, however, display more ferocity, not being yet softened by a long peace: for it appears from history that the Gauls were once renowned in war, till, losing their valor with their liberty, languor and indolence entered amongst them. The same change has also taken place among those of the Britons who have been long subdued; but the rest continue such as the Gauls formerly were.

Their military strength consists in infantry; some nations also make use of chariots in war; in the management of which, the most honorable person guides the reins, while his dependents fight from the chariot. The Britons were formerly governed by kings, but at present they are divided in factions and parties among their chiefs; and this want of union for concerting some general plan is the most favorable circumstance to us, in our designs against so powerful a people. It is seldom that two or three communities concur in repelling the common danger; and thus, while they engage singly, they are all subdued. The sky in this country is deformed by clouds and frequent rains; but the cold is never extremely rigorous. The length of the days greatly exceeds that in our part of the world. The nights are bright, and, at the extremity of the island, so short, that the close and return of day is scarcely distinguished by a perceptible interval. It is even asserted that, when clouds do not intervene, the splendor of the sun is visible during the whole night, and that it does not appear to rise and set, but to move across. The cause of this is, that the extreme and flat parts of the earth, casting a low shadow, do not throw up the darkness, and so night falls beneath the sky and the stars. The soil, though improper for the olive, the vine, and other productions of warmer climates, is fertile, and suitable for corn. Growth is quick, but maturation slow; both from the same cause, the great humidity of the ground and the atmosphere. The earth yields gold and silver and other metals, the rewards of victory. The ocean produces pearls, but of a cloudy and livid hue; which some impute to unskilfulness in the gatherers; for in the Red Sea the fish are plucked from the rocks alive and vigorous, but in Britain they are collected as the sea throws them up. For my own part, I can more readily conceive that the defect is in the nature of the pearls, than in our avarice.

The Britons cheerfully submit to levies, tributes, and the other services of government, if they are not treated injuriously; but such treatment they bear with impatience, their subjection only extending to obedience, not to servitude. Accordingly, Julius Caesar, the first Roman who entered Britain with an army, although he terrified the inhabitants by a successful engagement, and became master of the shore, may be considered rather to have transmitted the discovery than the possession of the country to posterity. The civil wars soon succeeded; the arms of the leaders were turned against their country; and a long neglect of Britain ensued, which continued even after the establishment of peace. This Augustus attributed to policy; and Tiberius to the injunctions of his predecessor. It is certain that Caius Caesar meditated an expedition into Britain; but his temper, precipitate in forming schemes, and unsteady in pursuing them, together with the ill success of his mighty attempts against Germany, rendered the design abortive. Claudius accomplished the undertaking, transporting his legions and auxiliaries, and associating Vespasian in the direction of affairs, which laid the foundation of his future fortune. In this expedition, nations were subdued, kings made captive, and Vespasian was held forth to the fates.

Tacitus. Germany

TACITUS

A TREATISE ON THE SITUATION, MANNERS AND INHABITANTS OF GERMANY.

Germany is separated from Gaul, Rhaetia, and Pannonia, by the rivers Rhine and Danube; from Sarmatia and Dacia, by mountains and mutual dread. The rest is surrounded by an ocean, embracing broad promontories and vast insular tracts, in which our military expeditions have lately discovered various nations and kingdoms. The Rhine, issuing from the inaccessible and precipitous summit of the Rhaetic Alps, bends gently to the west, and falls into the Northern Ocean. The Danube, poured from the easy and gently raised ridge of Mount Abnoba, visits several nations in its course, till at length it bursts out by six channels into the Pontic sea; a seventh is lost in marshes.

The people of Germany appear to me indigenous, and free from inter mixture with foreigners, either as settlers or casual visitants. For the emigrants of former ages performed their expeditions not by land, but by water; and that immense, and, if I may so call it, hostile ocean, is rarely navigated by ships from our world. Then, besides the danger of a boisterous and unknown sea, who would relinquish Asia, Africa, or Italy, for Germany, a land rude in its surface, rigorous in its climate, cheerless to every beholder and cultivator, except a native? In their ancient songs, which are their only records or annals, they celebrate the god Tuisto, sprung from the earth, and his son Mannus, as the fathers and founders of their race. To Mannus they ascribe three sons, from whose names the people bordering on the ocean are called Ingaevones; those inhabiting the central parts, Herminones; the rest, Istaevones. Some, however, assuming the licence of antiquity, affirm that there were more descendants of the god, from whom more appellations were derived; as those of the Marsi, Gambrivii, Suevi, and Vandali; and that these are the genuine and original names. That of Germany, on the other hand, they assert to be a modern addition; for that the people who first crossed the Rhine, and expelled the Gauls, and are now called Tungri, were then named Germans; which appellation of a particular tribe, not of a whole people, gradually prevailed; so that the title of Germans, first assumed by the victors in order to excite terror, was afterwards adopted by the nation in general. They have likewise the tradition of a Hercules of their country, whose praises they sing before those of all other heroes as they advance to battle.

A peculiar kind of verses is also current among them, by the recital of which, termed “barding,” they stimulate their courage; while the sound itself serves as an augury of the event of the impending combat. For, according to the nature of the cry proceeding from the line, terror is inspired or felt: nor does it seem so much an articulate song, as the wild chorus of valour. A harsh, piercing note, and a broken roar, are the favourite tones; which they render more full and sonorous by applying their mouths to their shields. Some conjecture that Ulysses, in the course of his long and fabulous wanderings, was driven into this ocean, and landed in Germany; and that Asciburgium, a place situated on the Rhine, and at this day inhabited, was founded by him, and named Askipurgion. They pretend that an altar was formerly discovered here, consecrated to Ulysses, with the name of his father Laertes subjoined; and that certain monuments and tombs, inscribed with Greek characters, are still extant upon the confines of Germany and Rhaetia. These allegations I shall neither attempt to confirm nor to refute: let everyone believe concerning them as he is disposed.

I concur in opinion with those who deem the Germans never to have intermarried with other nations; but to be a race, pure, unmixed, and stamped with a distinct character. Hence a family likeness pervades the whole, though their numbers are so great: eyes stern and blue; ruddy hair; large bodies, powerful in sudden exertions, but impatient of toil and labour, least of all capable of sustaining thirst and heat. Cold and hunger they are accustomed by their climate and soil to endure.

The land, though varied to a considerable extent in its aspect, is yet universally shagged with forests, or deformed by marshes: moister on the side of Gaul, more bleak on the side of Norieum and Pannonia. It is productive of grain, but unkindly to fruit-trees. It abounds in flocks and herds, but in general of a small breed. Even the beef kind are destitute of their usual stateliness and dignity of head: they are, however, numerous, and form the most esteemed, and, indeed, the only species of wealth. Silver and gold the gods, I know not whether in their favour or anger, have denied to this country. Not that I would assert that no veins of these metals are generated in Germany; for who has made the search? The possession of them is not coveted by these people as it is by us. Vessels of silver are indeed to be seen among them, which have been presented to their ambassadors and chiefs; but they are held in no higher estimation than earthenware. The borderers, however, set a value on gold and silver for the purpose of commerce, and have learned to distinguish several kinds of our coin, some of which they prefer to others: the remoter inhabitants continue the more simple and ancient usage of bartering commodities. The money preferred by the Germans is the old and well-known species, such as the Serrati and Bigati. They are also better pleased with silver than gold; not on account of any fondness for that metal, but because the smaller money is more convenient in their common and petty merchandise.

Even iron is not plentiful among them; as may be inferred from the nature of their weapons. Swords or broad lances are seldom used; but they generally carry a spear, (called in their language framea,) which has an iron blade, short and narrow, but so sharp and manageable, that, as occasion requires, they employ it either in close or distant fighting. This spear and a shield are all the armour of the cavalry. The foot have, besides, missile weapons, several to each man, which they hurl to an immense distance. They are either naked, or lightly covered with a small mantle; and have no pride in equipage: their shields only are ornamented with the choicest colours. Few are provided with a coat of mail; and scarcely here and there one with a casque or helmet. Their horses are neither remarkable for beauty nor swiftness, nor are they taught the various evolutions practised with us. The cavalry either bear down straight forwards, or wheel once to the right, in so compact a body that none is left behind the rest. Their principal strength, on the whole, consists in their infantry: hence in an engagement these are intermixed with the cavalry; so Well accordant with the nature of equestrian combats is the agility of those foot soldiers, whom they select from the whole body of their youth, and place in the front of the line. Their number, too, is determined; a hundred from each canton: and they are distinguished at home by a name expressive of this circumstance; so that what at first was only an appellation of number, becomes thenceforth a title of honour. Their line of battle is disposed in wedges. To give ground, provided they rally again, is considered rather as a prudent stratagem, than cowardice. They carry off their slain even while the battle remains undecided. The, greatest disgrace that can befall them is to have abandoned their shields. A person branded with this ignominy is not permitted to join in their religious rites, or enter their assemblies; so that many, after escaping from battle, have put an end to their infamy by the halter.

In the election of kings, they have regard to birth; in that of generals, to valour. Their kings have not an absolute or unlimited power; and their generals command less through the force of authority, than of example. If they are daring, adventurous, and conspicuous in action, they procure obedience from the admiration they inspire. None, however, but the priests are permitted to judge offenders, to inflict bonds or stripes; so that chastisement appears not as an act of military discipline, but as the instigation of the god whom they suppose present with warriors. They also carry with them to battle certain images and standards taken from the sacred groves. It is a principal incentive to their courage, that their squadrons and battalions are not formed by men fortuitously collected, but by the assemblage of families and clans. Their pledges also are near at hand; they have within hearing the yells of their women, and the cries of their children. These, too, are the most revered witnesses of each man’s conduct, these his most liberal applauders. To their mothers and their wives, they bring their wounds for relief, nor do they dread to count or to search out the gashes. The women also administer food and encouragement to those who are fighting.

Tradition relates, that armies beginning to give way have been rallied by the females, through the earnestness of their supplications, the interposition of their bodies, and the pictures they have drawn of impending slavery, a calamity which these people bear with more impatience for their women than themselves; so that those states who have been obliged to give among their hostages the daughters of noble families, are the most effectually bound to fidelity. They even suppose somewhat of sanctity and prescience to be inherent in the female sex; and therefore, neither despise their counsels, nor disregard their responses. We have beheld, in the reign of Vespasian, Veleda, long reverenced by many as a deity. Aurima, moreover, and several others, were formerly held in equal veneration, but not with a servile flattery, nor as though they made them goddesses.

Of the gods, Mercury is the principal object of their adoration; whom, on certain days, they think it lawful to propitiate even with human victims. To Hercules and Mars, they offer the animals usually allotted for sacrifice. Some of the Suevi also perform sacred rites to Isis. What was the cause and origin of this foreign worship, I have not been able to discover; further than that her being represented with the symbol of a galley, seems to indicate an imported religion. They conceive it unworthy the grandeur of celestial beings to confine their deities within walls, or to represent them under a human similitude: woods and groves are their temples; and they affix names of divinity to that secret power, which they behold with the eye of adoration alone.

No people are more addicted to divination by omens and lots. The latter is performed in the following simple manner. They cut a twig from a fruit-tree, and divide it into small pieces, which, distinguished by certain marks, are thrown promiscuously upon a white garment. Then, the priest of the canton, if the occasion be public; if private, the master of the family; after an invocation of the gods, with his eyes lifted up to heaven, thrice takes out each piece, and, as they come up, interprets their signification according to the marks fixed upon them. If the result proves unfavourable, there is no more consultation on the same affair that day; if propitious, a confirmation by omens is still required. In common with other nations, the Germans are acquainted with the practice of auguring from the notes and flight of birds; but it is peculiar to them to derive admonitions and presages from horses also. Certain of these animals, milk-white, and untouched by earthly labour, are pastured at the public expense in the sacred woods and groves. These, yoked to a consecrated chariot, are accompanied by the priest, and king, or chief person of the community, who attentively observe their manner of neighing and snorting; and no kind of augury is more credited, not only among the populace, but among the nobles and priests. For the latter consider themselves as the ministers of the gods, and the horses, as privy to the divine will. Another kind of divination, by which they explore the event of momentous wars, is to oblige a prisoner, taken by any means whatsoever from the nation with whom they are at variance, to fight with a picked man of their own, each with his own country’s arms; and, according as the victory falls, they presage success to the one or to the other party.

On affairs of smaller moment, the chiefs consult; on those of greater importance, the whole community; yet with this circumstance, that what is referred to the decision of the people, is first maturely discussed by the chiefs. They assemble, unless upon some sudden emergency, on stated days, either at the new or full moon, which they account the most auspicious season for beginning any enterprise. Nor do they, in their computation of time, reckon, like us, by the number of days, but of nights. In this way, they arrange their business; in this way they fix their appointments; so that, with them, the night seems to lead the day. An inconvenience produced by their liberty is, that they do not all assemble at a stated time, as if it were in obedience to a command; but two or three days are lost in the delays of convening. When they all think fit, they sit down armed. Silence is proclaimed by the priests, who have on this occasion a coercive power. Then the king, or chief, and such others as are conspicuous for age, birth, military renown, or eloquence, are heard; and gain attention rather from their ability to persuade, than their authority to command. If a proposal displeases, the assembly reject it by an inarticulate murmur; if it prove agreeable, they clash their javelins; for the most honourable expression of assent among them is the sound of arms.

Before this council, it is likewise allowed to exhibit accusations, and to prosecute capital offences. Punishments are varied according to the nature of the crime. Traitors and deserters are hung upon trees: cowards, dastards, and those guilty of unnatural practices, are suffocated in mud under a hurdle. This difference of punishment has in view the principle, that villainy should he exposed while it is punished, but turpitude concealed. The penalties annexed to slighter offences are also proportioned to the delinquency. The convicts are fined in horses and cattle: part of the mulct goes to the king or state; part to the injured person, or his relations. In the same assembly’s chiefs are also elected, to administer justice through the cantons and districts. A hundred companions, chosen from the people, attended upon each of them, to assist them as well with their advice as their authority.

The Germans transact no business, public or private, without being armed: but it is not customary for any person to assume arms till the state has approved his ability to use them. Then, in the midst of the assembly, either one of the chiefs, or the father, or a relation, equips the youth with a shield and javelin. These are to them the manly gown; this is the first honour conferred on youth: before this they are considered as part of a household; afterwards, of the state. The dignity of chieftain is bestowed even on mere lads, whose descent is eminently illustrious, or whose fathers have performed signal services to the public; they are associated, however, with those of mature strength, who have already been declared capable of service; nor do they blush to be seen in the rank of companions. For the state of companionship itself has its several degrees, determined by the judgement of him whom they follow; and there is a great emulation among the companions, which shall possess the highest place in the favour of their chief; and among the chiefs, which shall excel in the number and valour of his companions. It is their dignity, their strength, to be always surrounded with a large body of select youth, an ornament in peace, a bulwark in war. And not in his own country alone, but among the neighbouring states, the fame and glory of each chief consists in being distinguished for the number and bravery of his companions. Such chiefs are courted by embassies; distinguished by presents; and often by their reputation alone decide a war.

In the field of battle, it is disgraceful for the chief to be surpassed in valour; it is disgraceful for the companions not to equal their chief; but it is reproach and infamy during a whole succeeding life to retreat from the field surviving him. To aid, to protect him; to place their own gallant actions to the account of his glory, is their first and most sacred engagement. The chiefs fight for victory; the companions for their chief. If their native country be long sunk in peace and inaction, many of the young nobles repair to some other state then engaged in war. For, besides that repose is unwelcome to their race, and toils and perils afford them a better opportunity of distinguishing themselves; they are unable, without war and violence, to maintain a large train of followers. The companion requires from the liberality of his chief, the warlike steed, the bloody and conquering spear: and in place of pay, he expects to be supplied with a table, homely indeed, but plentiful. The funds for this munificence must be found in war and rapine; nor are they so easily persuaded to cultivate the earth, and await the produce of the seasons, as to challenge the foe, and expose themselves to wounds; nay, they even think it base and spiritless to earn by sweat what they might purchase with blood.

During the intervals of war, they pass their time less in hunting than in a sluggish repose, divided between sleep and the table. All the bravest of the warriors, committing the care of the house, the family affairs, and the lands, to the women, old men, and weaker part of the domestics, stupefy themselves in inaction: so wonderful is the contrast presented by nature, that the same persons love indolence, and hate tranquillity! It is customary for the several states to present, by voluntary and individual contributions, cattle or grain to their chiefs; which are accepted as honorary gifts, while they serve as necessary supplies. They are peculiarly pleased with presents from neighbouring nations, offered not only by individuals, but by the community at large; such as fine horses, heavy armour, rich housings, and gold chains. We have now taught them also to accept of money.

It is well known that none of the German nations inhabit cities; or even admit of contiguous settlements. They dwell scattered and separate, as a spring, a meadow, or a grove may chance to invite them. Their villages are laid out, not like ours in rows of adjoining buildings; but everyone surrounds his house with a vacant space, either by way of security against fire, or through ignorance of the art of building. For, indeed, they are unacquainted with the use of mortar and tiles; and for every purpose employ rude un-shaped timber, fashioned with no regard to pleasing the eye. They bestow more than ordinary pains in coating certain parts of their buildings with a kind of earth, so pure and shining that it gives the appearance of painting. They also dig subterranean caves, and cover them over with a great quantity of dung. These they use as winter-retreats, and granaries; for they preserve a moderate temperature; and upon an invasion, when the open country is plundered, these recesses remain un-violated, either because the enemy is ignorant of them, or because he will not trouble himself with the search.

The clothing common to all is a sagum fastened by a clasp, or, in want of that, a thorn. With no other covering, they pass whole days on the hearth, before the fire. The more wealthy are distinguished by a vest, not flowing loose, like those of the Sarmatians and Parthians, but girt close, and exhibiting the shape of every limb. They also wear the skins of beasts, which the people near the borders are less curious in selecting or preparing than the more remote inhabitants, who cannot by commerce procure other clothing. These make choice of particular skins, which they variegate with spots, and strips of the furs of marine animals, the produce of the exterior ocean, and seas to us unknown. The dress of the women does not differ from that of the men; except that they more frequently wear linen, which they stain with purple; and do not lengthen their upper garment into sleeves, but leave exposed the whole arm, and part of the breast.

The matrimonial bond is, nevertheless, strict and severe among them; nor is there anything in their manners more commendable than this. Almost singly among the barbarians, they content themselves with one wife; a very few of them excepted, who, not through incontinence, but because their alliance is solicited on account of their rank, practise polygamy. The wife does not bring a dowry to her husband, but receives one from him. The parents and relations assemble, and pass their approbation on the presents, presents not adapted to please a female taste, or decorate the bride; but oxen, a caparisoned steed, a shield, spear, and sword. By virtue of these, the wife is espoused; and she in her turn makes a present of some arms to her husband. This they consider as the firmest bond of union; these, the sacred mysteries, the conjugal deities. That the woman may not think herself excused from exertions of fortitude, or exempt from the casualties of war, she is admonished by the very ceremonial of her marriage, that she comes to her husband as a partner in toils and dangers; to suffer and to dare equally with him, in peace and in war: this is indicated by the yoked oxen, the harnessed steed, the offered arms. Thus, she is to live; thus, to die. She receives what she is to return inviolate and honoured to her children; what her daughters-in-law are to receive, and again transmit to her grandchildren.

They live, therefore, fenced around with chastity; corrupted by no seductive spectacles, no convivial incitements. Men and women are alike unacquainted with clandestine correspondence. Adultery is extremely rare among so numerous a people. Its punishment is instant, and at the pleasure of the husband. He cuts off the hair of the offender, strips her, and in presence of her relations expels her from his house, and pursues her with stripes through the whole village. Nor is any indulgence shown to a prostitute. Neither beauty, youth, nor riches can procure her a husband: for none there looks on vice with a smile, or calls mutual seduction the way of the world. Still more exemplary is the practice of those states in which none but virgins marry, and the expectations and wishes of a wife are at once brought to a period. Thus, they take one husband as one body and one life; that no thought, no desire, may extend beyond him; and he may be loved not only as their husband, but as their marriage. To limit the increase of children, or put to death any of the later progeny is accounted infamous: and good habits have there more influence than good laws elsewhere.

In every house the children grow up, thinly and meanly clad, to that bulk of body and limb which we behold with wonder. Every mother suckles her own children, and does not deliver them into the hands of servants and nurses. No indulgence distinguishes the young master from the slave. They lie together amidst the same cattle, upon the same ground, till age separates, and valour marks out, the free-born. The youths partake late of the pleasures of love, and hence pass the age of puberty unexhausted: nor are the virgins hurried into marriage; the same maturity, the same full growth is required: the sexes unite equally matched and robust; and the children inherit the vigour of their parents. Children are regarded with equal affection by their maternal uncles as by their fathers: some even consider this as the more sacred bond of consanguinity, and prefer it in the requisition of hostages, as if it held the mind by a firmer tie, and the family by a more extensive obligation. A person’s own children, however, are his heirs and successors; and no wills are made. If there be no children, the next in order of inheritance are brothers, paternal and maternal uncles. The more numerous are a man’s relations and kinsmen, the more comfortable is his old age; nor is it here any advantage to be childless.

It is an indispensable duty to adopt the enmities of a father or relation, as well as their friendships: these, however, are not irreconcilable or perpetual. Even homicide is atoned by a certain fine in cattle and sheep; and the whole family accepts the satisfaction, to the advantage of the public weal, since quarrels are most dangerous in a free state. No people are more addicted to social entertainments, or more liberal in the exercise of hospitality. To refuse any person whatever admittance under their roof, is accounted outrageous. Everyone according to his ability feasts his guest: when his provisions are exhausted, he who was late the host, is now the guide and companion to another hospitable board. They enter the next house uninvited, and are received with equal cordiality. No one makes a distinction with respect to the rights of hospitality, between a stranger and an acquaintance. The departing guest is presented with whatever he may ask for; and with the same freedom a boon is desired in return. They are pleased with presents; but think no obligation incurred either when they give or receive.

Their manner of living with their guest is easy and affable. As soon as they arise from sleep, which they generally protract till late in the day, they bathe, usually in warm water, as cold weather chiefly prevails there. After bathing they take their meal, each on a distinct seat, and a a separate table. Then they proceed, armed, to business, and not less frequently to convivial parties, in which it is no disgrace to pass days and nights, without intermission, in drinking. The frequent quarrels that arise amongst them, when intoxicated, seldom terminate in abusive language, but more frequently in blood. In their feasts, they generally deliberate on the reconciling of enemies, on family alliances, on the appointment of chiefs, and finally on peace and war; conceiving that at no time the soul is more opened to sincerity, or warmed to heroism. These people, naturally void of artifice or disguise, disclose the most secret emotions of their hearts in the freedom of festivity. The minds of all being thus displayed without reserve, the subjects of their deliberation are again canvassed the next day; and each time has its advantages. They consult when unable to dissemble; they determine when not liable to mistake.

Their drink is a liquor prepared from barley or wheat brought by fermentation to a certain resemblance of wine. Those who border on the Rhine also purchase wine. Their food is simple; wild fruits, fresh venison, or coagulated milk. They satisfy hunger without seeking the elegances and delicacies of the table. Their thirst for liquor is not quenched with equal moderation. If their propensity to drunkenness be gratified to the extent of their wishes, intemperance proves as effectual in subduing them as the force of arms.

They have only one kind of public spectacle, which is exhibited in every company. Young men, who make it their diversion, dance naked amidst drawn swords and presented spears. Practice has conferred skill at this exercise; and skill has given grace; but they do not exhibit for hire or gain: the only reward of this pastime, though a hazardous one, is the pleasure of the spectators. What is extraordinary, they play at dice, when sober, as a serious business: and that with such a desperate venture of gain or loss, that, when everything else is gone, they set their liberties and persons on the last throw. The loser goes into voluntary servitude; and, though the youngest and strongest, patiently suffers himself to be bound and sold. Such is their obstinacy in a bad practice, they themselves call it honour. The slaves thus acquired are exchanged away in commerce, that the winner may get rid of the scandal of his victory.

The rest of their slaves have not, like ours, particular employments in the family allotted them. Each is the master of a habitation and household of his own. The lord requires from him a certain quantity of grain, cattle, or cloth, as from a tenant; and so far, only the subjection of the slave extends. His domestic offices are performed by his own wife and children. It is usual to scourge a slave, or punish him with chains or hard labour. They are sometimes killed by their masters; not through severity of chastisement, but in the heat of passion, like an enemy; with this difference, that it is done with impunity. Freedmen are little superior to slaves; seldom filling any important office in the family; never in the state, except in those tribes which are under regal government. There, they rise above the free-born, and even the nobles: in the rest, the subordinate condition of the freedmen is a proof of freedom.

Lending money upon interest, and increasing it by usury, is unknown amongst them: and this ignorance more effectually prevents the practice than a prohibition would do. The lands are occupied by townships, in allotments proportional to the number of cultivators; and are afterwards parcelled out among the individuals of the district, in shares according to the rank and condition of each person. The wide extent of plain facilitates this partition. The arable lands are annually changed, and a part left fallow; nor do they attempt to make the most of the fertility and plenty of the soil, by their own industry in planting orchards, enclosing meadows, and watering gardens. Corn is the only product required from the earth: hence their year is not divided into so many seasons as ours; for, while they know and distinguish by name Winter, Spring, and Summer, they are unacquainted equally with the appellation and bounty of Autumn.

Their funerals are without parade. The only circumstance to which they attend, is to burn the bodies of eminent persons with some particular kinds of wood. Neither vestments nor perfumes are heaped upon the pile: the arms of the deceased, and sometimes his horse, are given to the flames. The tomb is a mound of turf. They condemn the elaborate and costly honours of monumental structures, as mere burdens to the dead. They soon dismiss tears and lamentations; slowly, sorrow and regret. They think it the women’s part to bewail their friends, the men’s to remember them.

This is the sum of what I have been able to learn concerning the origin and manners of the Germans in general. I now proceed to mention those particulars in which they differ from each other; and likewise, to relate what nations have migrated from Germany into Gaul. That great writer, the deified Julius, asserts that the Gauls were formerly the superior people; whence it is probable that some Gallic colonies passed over into Germany: for how small an obstacle would a river be to prevent any nation, as it increased in strength, from occupying or changing settlements as yet lying in common, and unappropriated by the power of monarchies! Accordingly, the tract betwixt the Hercynian forest and the rivers Rhine and Mayne was possessed by the Helvetii: and that beyond, by the Boii; both Gallic tribes. The name of Boiemum still remains, a memorial of the ancient settlement, though its inhabitants are now changed. But whether the Aravisci migrated into Pannonia from the Osi, a German nation; or the Osi into Germany from the Aravisci; the language, institutions, and manners of both being still the same, is a matter of uncertainty; for, in their pristine state of equal indigence and equal liberty, the same advantages and disadvantages were common to both sides of the river. The Treveri and Nervii are ambitious of being thought of German origin; as if the reputation of this descent would distinguish them from the Gauls, whom they resemble in person and effeminacy. The Vangiones, Triboci, and Nemetes, who inhabit the bank of the Rhine, are without doubt German tribes. Nor do the Ubii, although they have been thought worthy of being made a Roman colony, and are pleased in bearing the name of Agrippinenses from their founder, blush to acknowledge their origin from Germany; from whence they formerly migrated, and for their approved fidelity were settled on the bank of the Rhine, not that they might be guarded themselves, but that they might serve as a guard against invaders.

Of all these people, the most famed for valor are the Batavi; whose territories comprise but a small part of the banks of the Rhine, but consist chiefly of an island within it. These were formerly a tribe of the Catti, who, on account of an intestine division, removed to their present settlements, in order to become a part of the Roman empire. They still retain this honour, together with a memorial of their ancient alliance; for they are neither insulted by taxes, nor oppressed by farmers of the revenue. Exempt from fiscal burdens and extraordinary contributions, and kept apart for military use alone, they are reserved, like a magazine of arms, for the purposes of war. The nation of the Mattiaci is under a degree of subjection of the same kind: for the greatness of the Roman people has carried a reverence for the empire beyond the Rhine and the ancient limits. The Mattiaci, therefore, though occupying a settlement and borders on the opposite side of the river, from sentiment and attachment act with us; resembling the Batavi in every respect, except that they are animated with a more vigorous spirit by the soil and air of their own country. I do not reckon among the people of Germany those who occupy the Decumate lands, although inhabiting between the Rhine and Danube. Some of the most fickle of the Gauls, rendered daring through indigence, seized upon this district of uncertain property. Afterwards, our boundary line being advanced, and a chain of fortified posts established, it became a skirt of the empire, and part of the Roman province.

Beyond these dwell the Catti, whose settlements, beginning from the Hercynian forest, are in a tract of country less open and marshy than those which overspread the other states of Germany; for it consists of a continued range of hills, which gradually become more scattered; and the Hercynian forest both accompanies and leaves behind, its Catti. This nation is distinguished by hardier frames, compactness of limb, fierceness of countenance, and superior vigour of mind. For Germans, they have a considerable share of understanding and sagacity; they choose able persons to command, and obey them when chosen; keep their ranks; seize opportunities; restrain impetuous motions; distribute properly the business of the day; entrench themselves against the night; account fortune dubious, and valour only certain; and, what is extremely rare, and only a consequence of discipline, depend more upon the general than the army. Their force consists entirely in infantry; who, besides their arms, are obliged to carry tools and provisions. Other nations appear to go to a battle; the Catti, to war. Excursions and casual encounters are rare amongst them. It is, indeed, peculiar to cavalry soon to obtain, and soon to yield, the victory. Speed borders upon timidity; slow movements are more akin to steady valour.

A custom followed among the other German nations only by a few individuals, of more daring spirit than the rest, is adopted by general consent among the Catti. From the time they arrive at years of maturity they let their hair and beard grow; and do not divest themselves of this votive badge, the promise of valour, till they have slain an enemy. Over blood and spoils they unveil the countenance, and proclaim that they have at length paid the debt of existence, and have proved themselves worthy of their country and parents. The cowardly and effeminate continue in their squalid disguise. The bravest among them wear also an iron ring (a mark of ignominy in that nation) as a kind of chain, till they have released themselves by the slaughter of a foe. Many of the Catti assume this distinction, and grow hoary under the mark, conspicuous both to foes and friends. By these, in every engagement, the attack is begun: they compose the front line, presenting a new spectacle of terror. Even in peace they do not relax the sternness of their aspect. They have no house, land, or domestic cares: they are maintained by whomsoever they visit: lavish of another’s property, regardless of their own; till the debility of age renders them unequal to such a rigid course of military virtue.

Next to the Catti, on the banks of the Rhine, where, now settled in its channel, it is become a sufficient boundary, dwell the Usipii and Tencteri. The latter people, in addition to the usual military reputation, are famed for the discipline of their cavalry; nor is the infantry of the Catti in higher estimation than the horse of the Tencteri. Their ancestors established it, and are imitated by posterity. Horsemanship is the sport of their children, the point of emulation of their youth, and the exercise in which they persevere to old age. Horses are bequeathed along with the domestics, the household gods, and the rights of inheritance: they do not, however, like other things, go to the eldest son, but to the bravest and most warlike.

Contiguous to the Tencteri were formerly the Bructeri; but report now says that the Chamavi and Angrivarii, migrating into their country, have expelled and entirely extirpated them, with the concurrence of the neighbouring nations, induced either by hatred of their arrogance, love of plunder, or the favour of the gods towards the Romans. For they even gratified us with the spectacle of a battle, in which above sixty thousand Germans were slain, not by Roman arms, but, what was still grander, by mutual hostilities, as it were for our pleasure and entertainment. May the nations retain and perpetuate, if not an affection for us, at least an animosity against each other! since, while the fate of the empire is thus urgent, fortune can bestow no higher benefit upon us, than the discord of our enemies.

Contiguous to the Angrivarii and Chamavi backwards lie the Dulgibini, Chasauri, and other nations less known. In front, the Frisii succeed; who are distinguished by the appellations of Greater and Lesser, from their proportional power. The settlements of both stretch along the border of the Rhine to the ocean; and include, besides, vast lakes, which have been navigated by Roman fleets. We have even explored the ocean itself on that side; and fame reports that columns of Hercules are still remaining on that coast; whether it be that Hercules was ever there in reality, or that whatever great and magnificent is anywhere met with is, by common consent, ascribed to his renowned name. The attempt of Drusus Germanicus to make discoveries in these parts was sufficiently daring; but the ocean opposed any further inquiry into itself and Hercules. After a while no one renewed the attempt; and it was thought more pious and reverential to believe the actions of the gods, than to investigate them.

Hitherto we have traced the western side of Germany. It turns from thence with a vast sweep to the north: and first occurs the country of the Chauci, which, though it begins immediately from Frisia, and occupies part of the seashore, yet stretches so far as to border on all the nations before mentioned, till it winds round so as to meet the territories of the Catti. This immense tract is not only possessed, but filled by the Chauci; a people the noblest of the Germans, who choose to maintain their greatness by justice rather than violence. Without ambition, without ungoverned desires, quiet and retired, they provoke no wars, they are guilty of no rapine or plunder; and it is a principal proof of their power and bravery, that the superiority they possess has not been acquired by unjust means. Yet all have arms in readiness; and, if necessary, an army is soon raised: for they abound in men and horses, and maintain their military reputation even in inaction.

Bordering on the Chauci and Catti are the Cherusci; who, for want of an enemy, long cherished a too lasting and enfeebling peace: a state more flattering than secure; since the repose enjoyed amidst ambitious and powerful neighbours is treacherous; and when an appeal is made to the sword, moderation and probity are names appropriated by the victors. Thus, the Cherusci, who formerly bore the titles of just and upright, are now charged with cowardice and folly; and the good fortune of the Catti, who subdued them, has grown into wisdom. The ruin of the Cherusci involved that of the Fosi, a neighbouring tribe, equal partakers of their adversity, although they had enjoyed an inferior share of their prosperity.

In the same quarter of Germany, adjacent to the ocean, dwell the Cimbri; a small state at present, but great in renown. Of their past grandeur extensive vestiges still remain, in encampments and lines on either shore, from the compass of which the strength and numbers of the nation may still be computed, and credit derived to the account of so prodigious an army. It was in the 640th year of Rome that the arms of the Cimbri were first heard of, under the consulate of Caecilius Metellus and Papirius Carbo; from which era to the second consulate of the emperor Trajan is a period of nearly 210 years. So long has Germany withstood the arms of Rome. During this long interval many mutual wounds have been inflicted. Not the Samnite, the Carthaginian, Spain, Gaul, or Parthia, have given more frequent alarms; for the liberty of the Germans is more vigorous than the monarchy of the Arsacidae. What has the East, which has itself lost Pacorus, and suffered an overthrow from Ventidius, to boast against us, but the slaughter of Crassus? But the Germans, by the defeat or capture of Carbo, Cassius, Scaurus Aurelius, Servilius Caepio, and Cneius Manlius, deprived the Roman people of five consular armies; and afterwards took from Augustus himself Varus with three legions. Nor did Caius Marius in Italy, the deified Julius in Gaul, or Drusus, Nero, or Germanicus in their own country, defeat then without loss. The subsequent mighty threats of Caligula terminated in ridicule. Then succeeded tranquillity; till, seizing the occasion of our discords and civil wars, they forced the winter-quarters of the legions, and even aimed at the possession of Gaul; and, again expelled thence, they have in latter times been rather triumphed over than vanquished.

We have now to speak of the Suevi; who do not compose a single state, like the Catti or Tencteri, but occupy the greatest part of Germany, and are still distributed into different names and nations, although all hearing the common appellation of Suevi. It is a characteristic of this people to turn their hair sideways, and tie it beneath the poll in a knot. By this mark the Suevi are distinguished from the rest of the Germans; and the freemen of the Suevi from the slaves. Among other nations, this mode, either on account of some relationship with the Suevi, or from the usual propensity to imitation, is sometimes adopted; but rarely, and only during the period of youth. The Suevi, even till they are hoary, continue to have their hair growing stiffly backwards, and often it is fastened on the very crown of the head. The chiefs dress it with still greater care: and in this respect they study ornament, though of an non-debasing kind. For their design is not to make love, or inspire it; they decorate themselves in this manner as they proceed to war, in order to seem taller and more terrible; and dress for the eyes of their enemies.

The Semnones assert themselves to be the most ancient and noble of the Suevi; and their pretensions are confirmed by religion. At a stated time, all the people of the same lineage assemble by their delegates in a wood, consecrated by the auguries of their forefathers and ancient terror, and there by the public slaughter of a human victim celebrate the horrid origin of their barbarous rites. Another kind of reverence is paid to the grove. No person enters it without being bound with a chain, as an acknowledgement of his inferior nature, and the power of the deity residing there. If he accidentally fall, it is not lawful for him to be lifted or to rise up; they roll themselves out along the ground. The whole of their superstition has this import: that from this spot the nation derives its origin; that here is the residence of the Deity, the Governor of all, and that everything else is subject and subordinate to him. These opinions receive additional authority from the power of the Semnones, who inhabit a hundred cantons, and, from the great body they compose, consider themselves as the head of the Suevi.

The Langobardi, on the other hand, are ennobled by, the smallness of their numbers; since though surrounded by many powerful nations, they derive security, not from obsequiousness, but from their martial enterprise. The neighboring Reudigni, and the Avions, Angli, Varini, Eudoses, Suardones, and Nuithones, are defended by rivers or forests. Nothing remarkable occurs in any of these; except that they unite in the worship of Hertha, or Mother Earth; and suppose her to interfere in the affairs of men, and to visit the different nations. In an island of the ocean stands a sacred and unviolated grove, in which is a consecrated chariot, covered with a veil, which the priest alone is permitted to touch. He becomes conscious of the entrance of the goddess into this secret recess; and with profound veneration attends the vehicle, which is drawn by yoked cows. At this season, all is joy; and every place which the goddess deigns to visit is a scene of festivity. No wars are undertaken; arms are untouched; and every hostile weapon is shut up. Peace abroad and at home are then only known; then only loved; till at length the same priest re conducts the goddess, satiated with mortal intercourse, to her temple. The chariot, with its curtain, and, if we may believe it, the goddess herself, then undergo ablution in a secret lake. This office is performed by slaves, whom the same lake instantly swallows up. Hence proceeds a mysterious horror; and a holy ignorance of what that can be, which is beheld only by those who are about to perish. This part of the Suevian nation extends to the most remote recesses of Germany.

If we now follow the course of the Danube, as we before did that of the Rhine, we first meet with the Hermunduri; a people faithful to the Romans, and on that account the only Germans who are admitted to commerce, not on the bank alone, but within our territories, and in the flourishing colony established in the province of Rhaetia. They pass and re pass at pleasure, without being attended by a guard; and while we exhibit to other nations our arms and camps alone, to these we lay open our houses and country seats, which they behold without coveting. In the country of the Hermunduri rises the Elbe; a river formerly celebrated and known among us, now only heard of by name.

Contiguous to the Hermunduri are the Narisci; and next to them, the Marcomanni and Quadi. Of these, the Marcomanni are the most powerful and renowned; and have even acquired the country which they inhabit, by their valour in expelling the Boii. Nor are the Narisci and Quadi inferior in bravery; and this is, as it were, the van of Germany as far as it is bordered by the Danube. Within our memory, the Marcomanni and Quadi were governed by kings of their own nation, of the noble line of Maroboduus and Tudrus. They now submit even to foreigners; but all the power of their kings depends upon the authority of the Romans. We seldom assist them with our arms, but frequently with our money; nor are they the less potent on that account.

Behind these are the Marsigni, Gothini, Osi, and Burrii, who close the rear of the Marcomanni and Quadi. Of these, the Marsigni and Burrii in language and dress resemble the Suevi. The Gothini and Osi prove themselves not to be Germans; the first, by their use of the Gallic, the second, of the Pannonian tongue; and both, by their submitting to pay tribute: which is levied on them, as aliens, partly by the Sarmatians, partly by the Quadi. The Gothini, to their additional disgrace, work iron mines. All these people inhabit but a small proportion of champaign country; their settlements are chiefly amongst forests, and on the sides and summits of mountains; for a continued ridge of mountains separates Suevia from various remoter tribes. Of these, the Lygian is the most extensive, and diffuses its name through several communities. It will be sufficient to name the most powerful of them–the Arii, Helvecones, Manimi, Elysii, and Naharvali. In the country of the latter is a grove, consecrated to religious rites of great antiquity. A priest presides over them, dressed in woman’s apparel; but the gods worshipped there are said, according to the Roman interpretation, to be Castor and Pollux. Their attributes are the same; their name, Alcis. No images, indeed, or vestiges of foreign superstition, appear in their worship; but they are revered under the character of young men and brothers. The Arii, fierce beyond the superiority of strength they possess over the other just enumerated people, improve their natural ferocity of aspect by artificial helps. Their shields are black; their bodies painted: they choose the darkest nights for an attack; and strike terror by the funereal gloom of their sable bands–no enemy being able to sustain their singular, and, as it were, infernal appearance; since in every combat the eyes are the first part subdued. Beyond the Lygii are the Gothones, who live under a monarchy, somewhat more strict than that of the other German nations, yet not to a degree incompatible with liberty. Adjoining to these are the Rugii and Lemovii, situated on the sea-coast–all these tribes are distinguished by round shields, short swords, and submission to regal authority.

Next occur the communities of the Suiones, seated in the very Ocean, who, besides their strength in men and arms, also possess a naval force. The form of their vessels differs from ours in having a prow at each end, so that they are always ready to advance. They make no use of sails, nor have regular benches of oars at the sides: they row, as is practised in some rivers, without order, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other, as occasion requires. These people honour wealth; for which reason, they are subject to monarchical government, without any limitations, or precarious conditions of allegiance. Nor are arms allowed to be kept promiscuously, as among the other German nations: but are committed to the charge of a keeper, and he, too, a slave. The pretext is, that the Ocean defends them from any sudden incursions; and men unemployed, with arms in their hands, readily become licentious. In fact, it is for the king’s interest not to entrust a noble, a freeman, or even an emancipated slave, with the custody of arms.

Beyond the Suiones is another sea, sluggish and almost stagnant, by which the whole globe is imagined to be girt and enclosed, from this circumstance, that the last light of the setting sun continues so vivid till its rising, as to obscure the stars. Popular belief adds, that the sound of his emerging from the ocean is also heard; and the forms of deities, with the rays beaming from his head, are beheld. Only thus far, report says truly, does nature extend. On the right shore of the Suevic sea dwell the tribes of the Aestii, whose dress and customs are the same with those of the Suevi, but their language more resembles the British. They worship the mother of the gods; and as the symbol of their superstition, they carry about them the figures of wild boars. This serves them in place of armour and every other defence: it renders the votary of the goddess safe even in the midst of foes. Their weapons are chiefly clubs, iron being little used among them. They cultivate corn and other fruits of the earth with more industry than German indolence commonly exerts. They even explore the sea; and are the only people who gather amber, which by them is called Glese, and is collected among the shallows and upon the shore. With the usual indifference of barbarians, they have not inquired or ascertained from what natural object or by what means it is produced. It long lay disregarded amidst other things thrown up by the sea, till our luxury gave it a name. Useless to them, they gather it in the rough; bring it unwrought; and wonder at the price they receive. It would appear, however, to be an exudation from certain trees; since reptiles, and even winged animals, are often seen shining through it, which, entangled in it while in a liquid state, became enclosed as it hardened. I should therefore imagine that, as the luxuriant woods and groves in the secret recesses of the East exude frankincense and balsam, so there are the same in the islands and continents of the West; which, acted upon by the near rays of the sun, drop their liquid juices into the adjacent sea, whence, by the force of tempests, they are thrown out upon the opposite coasts. If the nature of amber be examined by the application of fire, it kindles like a torch, with a thick and odorous flame; and presently resolves into a glutinous matter resembling pitch or resin. The several communities of the Sitones succeed those of the Suiones; to whom they are similar in other respects, but differ in submitting to a female reign; so far have they degenerated, not only from liberty, but even from slavery. Here Suevia terminates.

All our further accounts are intermixed with fable; as, that the Hellusii and Oxionae have human faces, with the bodies and limbs of wild beasts. These unauthenticated reports I shall leave untouched.

Juvenal and Martial

Juvenalis. From the Satires.

Moralists without Morals

Our arms indeed we have pushed beyond Juverna’s shores, to the new-conquered Orcades and the short-nighted Britons; but the things which we do in our victorious city will never be done by the men whom we have conquered. And yet they say that one Zalaces, an Armenian more effeminate than any of our youth, has yielded to the ardour of a Tribune! Just see what evil communications do! He came as a hostage: but here boys are turned into men. Give them a long sojourn in our city, and lovers will never fail them. They will throw away their trousers and their knives, their bridles and their whips, and carry back to Artaxata the manners of our Roman youth.

A tale of a turbot.

“A mighty presage hast thou, O Emperor! of a great and glorious victory. Some King will be thy captive; or Arviragus will be hurled from his British chariot. The brute is foreign-born: dost thou not see the prickles bristling upon his back?” Nothing remained for Fabricius but to tell the turbot’s age and birthplace.

“What then do you advise?” quoth the Emperor. “Shall we cut it up?” “Nay, nay,” rejoins Montanus; “let that indignity be spared him. Let a deep vessel be provided to gather his huge dimensions within its slender walls; some great and unforeseen Prometheus is destined for the dish! Haste, haste, with clay and wheel! but from this day forth, O Caesar, let potters always attend upon thy camp!” This proposal, so worthy of the man, gained the day. Well known to him were the old debauches of the Imperial Court, which Nero carried on to midnight till a second hunger came and veins were heated with hot Falernian. No one in my time had more skill in the eating art than he. He could tell at the first bite whether an oyster had been bred at Circeii, or on the Lucrine rocks, or on the beds of Rutupiae; one glance would tell him the native shore of a sea-urchin.

The Council rises, and the councillors are dismissed: men whom the mighty Emperor had dragged in terror and hot haste to his Alban castle, as though to give them news of the Chatti, or the savage Sycambri, or as though an alarming despatch had arrived on wings of speed from some remote quarter of the earth.

The Ways of Women

Do the concerns of a private household and the doings of Eppia affect you? Then look at those who rival the Gods, and hear what Claudius endured. As soon as his wife perceived that her husband was asleep, this august harlot was shameless enough to prefer a common mat to the imperial couch. Assuming a night-cowl, and attended by a single maid, she issued forth; then, having concealed her raven locks under a light-coloured peruque, she took her place in a brothel reeking with long-used coverlets. Entering an empty cell reserved for herself, she there took her stand, under the feigned name of Lycisca, her nipples bare and gilded, and exposed to view the womb that bore thee, O nobly-born Britannicus! Here she graciously received all comers, asking from each his fee; and when at length the keeper dismissed the rest, she remained to the very last before closing her cell, and with passion still raging hot within her went sorrowfully away. Then exhausted but unsatisfied, with soiled cheeks, and begrimed with the smoke of lamps, she took back to the imperial pillow all the odours of the stews.

The Ways of Women

If you are not to love the woman betrothed and united to you in due form, what reason have you for marrying? Why waste the supper, and the wedding cakes to be given to the well-filled guests when the company is slipping away—-to say nothing of the first night’s gift of a salver rich with glittering gold inscribed with Dacian or Germanic victories? If you are honestly uxorious, and devoted to one woman, then bow your head and submit your neck to the yoke. Never will you find a woman who spares the man who loves her; for though she be herself aflame, she delights to torment and plunder him. So the better the man, the more desirable he be as a husband, the less good will he get out of his wife. No present will you ever make if your wife forbids; nothing will you ever sell if she objects; nothing will you buy without her consent. She will arrange your friendships for you; she will turn your now-aged friend from the door which saw the beginnings of his beard. Panders and trainers can make their wills as they please, as also can the gentlemen of the arena; but you will have to write down among your heirs more than one rival of your own.

Learning and Letters Unprofitable

On Caesar alone hang all the hopes and prospects of the learned; he alone in these days of ours has cast a favouring glance upon the sorrowing Muses—-at a time when poets of name and fame thought of hiring baths at Gabii, or bakehouses in Rome, while others felt no shame in becoming public criers, and starving Clio herself, bidding adieu to the vales of Aganippe, was flitting to the auction rooms. For if you see no prospect of earning a groat within the Muses’ grove, you had better put up with Machaera’s name and profits and join in the battle of the sale-room, selling to the crowd winejars, tripods, book-cases and cupboards—-the Alcithoe of Paccius, the Thebes or the Tereus of Faustus! How much better that than to say before a judge “I saw” what you did not see! Leave that to the Knights of Asia, of Bithynia and Cappadocia—-gentry that were imported bare-footed from New Gaul!

Trust in eloquence, indeed? Why, no one would give Cicero himself two hundred pence nowadays unless a huge ring were blazing on his finger. The first thing that a litigant looks to is, Have you eight slaves and a dozen retainers? Have you a litter to wait on you, and gowned citizens to walk before you? That is why Paulus used to hire a sardonyx ring; that is why he earned a higher fee than Gallus or Basilus. When is eloquence ever found beneath a shabby coat? When does Basilus get the chance of producing in court a weeping mother? Who would listen to him, however well he spoke? Better go to Gaul or to Africa, that nursing mother of lawyers, if you would make a living by your tongue!

Stemmata quid Faciunt?

Who is it whom I admonish thus? It is to you, Rubellius Blandus, that I speak. You are puffed up with the lofty pedigree of the Drusi, as though you had done something to make you noble, and to be conceived by one glorying in the blood of Iulus, rather than by one who weaves for hire under the windy rampart. “You others are dirt,” you say; “the very scum of our populace; not one of you can point to his father’s birthplace; but I am one of the Cecropidae!” Long life to you! May you long enjoy the glories of your birth! And yet among the lowest rabble you will find a Roman, who has eloquence, one who will plead the cause of the unlettered noble; you must go to the toga-clad herd for a man to untie the knots and riddles of the law. From them will come the brave young soldier who marches to the Euphrates, or to the eagles that guard the conquered Batavians, while you are nothing but a Cecropid, the image of a limbless Hermes! For in no respect but one, have you the advantage over him: his head is of marble, while yours is a living effigy!

Stemmata quid Faciunt?

Very different in days of old were the wailings of our allies and the harm inflicted on them by losses, when they had been newly conquered and were wealthy still. Their houses then were all well-stored; they had piles of money, with Spartan mantles and Coan purples; beside the paintings of Parrhasius, and the statues of Myron, stood the living ivories of Phidias; everywhere the works of Polyclitus were to be seen; few tables were without a Mentor. But after that came now a Dolabella, now an Antonius, and now a sacrilegious Verres, loading big ships with secret spoils, peace-trophies more numerous than those of war. Nowadays, on capturing a farm, you may rob our allies of a few yoke of oxen, or a few mares, with the sire of the herd; or of the household gods themselves, if there be a good statue left, or a single Deity in his little shrine; such are the best and choicest things to be got now. You despise perchance, and deservedly, the unwarlike Rhodian and the scented Corinthian: what harm will their resined youths do you, or the smooth legs of the entire breed? But keep clear of rugged Spain, avoid the land of Gaul and the Dalmatian shore; spare, too, those harvesters who fill the belly of a city that has no leisure save for the Circus and the play: what great profit can you reap from outrages upon Libyans, seeing that Marius has so lately stripped Africa to the skin? Beware above all things to do no wrong to men who are at once brave and miserable. You may take from them all the gold and silver that they have; but plundered though they be, they will still have their arms; they will still have their shields and their swords, their javelins and helmets.

Stemmata quid Faciunt?

Where can be found, O Catiline, nobler ancestors than thine, or than thine, Cethegus? Yet you plot a night attack, you prepare to give our houses and temples to the flames as though you were the sons of trousered Gauls, or sprung from the Senones, daring deeds that deserved the shirt of torture. But our Consul is awake, and beats back your hosts. Born at Arpinum, of ignoble blood, a municipal knight new to Rome, he posts helmeted men at every point to guard the affrighted citizens, and is alert on every hill. Thus, within the walls his toga won for him as much name and honour as Octavius gained by battle in Leucas; as much as Octavius won by his blood-dripping sword on the plains of Thessaly; but then Rome was yet free when she styled him the Parent and Father of his country! Another son of Arpinum used to work for hire upon the Volscian hills, toiling behind a plough not his own; after that, a centurion’s knotty staff would be broken over his head if his pick were slow and sluggish in the trench. Yet it is he who faces the Cimbri, and the mightiest perils; alone he saves the trembling city. And so, when the ravens, who had never before seen such huge carcasses, flew down upon the slaughtered Cimbri, his high-born colleague is decorated with the second bay.

The Vanity of Human Wishes

In all the lands that stretch from Gades to the Ganges and the Morn, there are but few who can distinguish true blessings from their opposites, putting aside the mists of error. For when does Reason direct our desires or our fears? What project do we form so auspiciously that we do not repent us of our effort and of the granted wish? Whole households have been destroyed by the compliant Gods in answer to the masters’ prayers; in camp and city alike we ask for things that will be our ruin. Many a man has met death from the rushing flood of his own eloquence; others from the strength and wondrous thews in which they have trusted. More still have been ruined by money too carefully amassed, and by fortunes that surpass all patrimonies by as much as the British whale exceeds the dolphin. It was for this that in the dire days Nero ordered Longinus and the great gardens of the over-wealthy Seneca to be put under siege; for this was it that the noble Palace of the Laterani was beset by an entire cohort; it is but seldom that soldiers find their way into a garret!

The Terrors of a Guilty Conscience

Manufacturers and sellers of poison, and the man who should be cast into the sea inside an ox’s hide, with whom a luckless destiny encloses a harmless ape. What a mere fraction these of the crimes which Gallicus, the guardian of our city, has to listen to from dawn to eve! If you would know what mankind is like, that one court-house will suffice; spend a few days in it, and when you come out, dare to call yourself unfortunate. Who marvels at a swollen throat in the Alps? or in Meroe at a woman’s breast bigger than her sturdy babe? Who is amazed to see a German with blue eyes and yellow hair, twisting his greasy curls into a horn? We marvel not, clearly because this one nature is common to them all. The Pygmy warrior marches forth in his tiny arms to encounter the sudden swoop and clamorous cloud of Thracian birds; but soon, no match for his foe, he is snatched up by the savage crane and borne in his crooked talons through the air. If you saw this in our own country, you would shake with laughter; but in that land, where the whole host is only one foot high, though like battles are witnessed every day, no one laughs! “What? Is there to be no punishment for that perjured soul and his impious fraud?” Well, suppose him to have been hurried off in heavy chains, and slain (what more could anger ask?) at our good pleasure; yet your loss still remains, your deposit will not be saved; and the smallest drop of blood from that headless body will bring you hatred along with your consolation. “O! but vengeance is good, sweeter than life itself.” Yes; so say the ignorant, whose passionate hearts you may see ablaze at the slightest cause, sometimes for no cause at all; any occasion, indeed, however small it be, suffices for their wrath. But so will not Chrysippus say, or the gentle Thales, or the old man who dwelt near sweet Hymettus, who would have given to his accuser no drop of the hemlock-draught which was administered to him in that cruel bondage. Benign Philosophy, by degrees, strips from us most of our vices, and all our mistakes; it is she that first teaches us the right. For vengeance is always the delight of a little, weak, and petty mind; of which you may straightway draw proof from this—-that no one so rejoices in vengeance as a woman.

No Teaching like that of Example

Such were the maxims which those ancients taught the young; but now, when autumn days are over, the father rouses his sleeping son after midnight with a shout: “Awake, boy, and take your tablets; scribble away and get up your cases; read through the red-lettered laws of our forefathers, or send in a petition for a centurion’s vine-staff. See that Laelius notes your uncombed head and hairy nostrils, and admires your broad shoulders; destroy the huts of the Moors and the forts of the Brigantes, that your sixtieth year may bring you the eagle that will make you rich. Or if you are too lazy to endure the weary labours of the camp, if the sound of horn and trumpet melts your soul within you, buy something that you can sell at half as much again; feel no disgust at a trade that must be banished to the other side of the Tiber; make no distinction between hides and unguents: the smell of gain is good whatever the thing from which it comes. Let this maxim be ever on your lips, a saying worthy of the Gods, and of Jove himself if he turned poet: ‘No matter whence the money comes, but money you must have.'” These are the lessons taught by skinny old nurses to little boys before they can walk; this is what every girl learns before her ABC!

An Egyptian Atrocity

The Vascones, fame tells us, once prolonged their lives by such food as this; but their case was different. Unkindly fortune had brought on them the last dire extremity of war, the famine of a long siege. In a plight like that of the people just named, resorting to such food deserves our pity, inasmuch as not till they had consumed every herb, every living thing, and everything else to which the pangs of an empty belly drove them—-not till their very enemies pitied their pale, lean and wasted limbs—-did hunger make them tear the limbs of other men, being ready to feed even upon their own. What man, what God, would withhold a pardon from bellies which had suffered such dire straits, and which might look to be forgiven by the Manes of those whose bodies they were devouring? To us, indeed, Zeno gives better teaching, for he permits some things, though not indeed all things, to be done for the saving of life; but how could a Cantabrian be a Stoic, and that too in the days of old Metellus? To-day the whole world has its Greek and its Roman Athens; eloquent Gaul has trained the pleaders of Britain, and distant Thule talks of hiring a rhetorician. Yet the people I have named were a noble people; and the people of Zacynthos, their equals in bravery and honour, their more than equals in calamity, offer a like excuse. But Egypt is more savage than the Maeotid altar; for if we may hold the poet’s tales as true, the foundress of that accursed Tauric rite does but slay her victims; they have nought further or more terrible than the knife to fear. But what calamity drove these Egyptians to the deed? What extremity of hunger, what beleaguering army, compelled them to so monstrous and infamous a crime? Were the land of Memphis to run dry, could they do aught else than this to shame the Nile for being loth to rise? No dread Cimbrians or Britons, no savage Scythians or monstrous Agathyrsians, ever raged so furiously as this unwarlike and worthless rabble that hoists tiny sails on crockery ships, and plies puny oars on boats of painted earthenware! No penalty can you devise for such a crime, no fit punishment for a people in whose minds rage and hunger are like and equal things. When Nature gave tears to man, she proclaimed that he was tender-hearted; and tenderness is the best quality in man. She therefore bids us weep for the misery of a friend upon his trial, or when a ward whose streaming cheeks and girlish locks raise a doubt as to his sex brings a defrauder into court. It is at Nature’s behest that we weep when we meet the bier of a full-grown maiden, or when the earth closes over a babe too young for the funeral pyre. For what good man, what man worthy of the mystic torch, and such as the priest of Ceres would wish him to be, believes that any human woes concern him not? It is this that separates us from the dumb herd; and it is for this that we alone have had allotted to us a nature worthy of reverence, capable of divine things, fit to acquire and practise the arts of life, and that we have drawn from on high that gift of feeling which is lacking to the beasts that grovel with eyes upon the ground. To them in the beginning of the world our common maker gave only life; to us he gave souls as well, that fellow-feeling might bid us ask or proffer aid, gather scattered dwellers into a people, desert the primeval groves and woods inhabited by our forefathers, build houses for ourselves, with others adjacent to our own, that a neighbour’s threshold from the confidence that comes of union, might give us peaceful slumbers; shield with arms a fallen citizen, or one staggering from a grievous wound, give battle signals by a common trumpet, and seek protection inside the same city walls, and behind gates fastened by a single key.

Extracts from Martial

Martial, to Quintus Ovidius.

You, Quintus Ovidius, who are about to visit the Caledonian Britons, and the green Tethys, and father Ocean; will you then resign Numa’s hills, and the comfort of Nomentan retreats? and does the country, and your own fireside, fail to retain you in your old age? You defer enjoyment, but Atropos does not at the same time lay aside her spindle, and every passing hour is placed to your account. You show by performing a kindness to a dear friend (and who would not praise such conduct?) that a sacred regard to your word is clearer to you than life. But may you at length be restored to your Sabine estate, long to remain there, and remember yourself among your friends!

Martial, on his own writings.

It is not the idle people of the city only that delight in my Muse, nor is it alone to listless ears that these verses are addressed, but my book is thumbed amid Getic frosts, near martial standards, by the stern centurion; and even Britain is said to sing my verses. Yet of what advantage is it to me? My purse benefits nothing by my reputation. What immortal pages could I not have written and what wars could I not have sung to the Pierian trumpet, if, when the kind deities gave a second Augustus2 to the earth, they had likewise given to you, O Rome, a second Maecenas.

Martial, on Lydia.

Lydia is as widely developed as the rump of a bronze equestrian statue, as the swift hoop that resounds with its tinkling rings, as the wheel so often struck from the extended springboard , as a worn-out shoe drenched by muddy water, as the wide-meshed net that lies in wait for wandering thrushes, as an awning that does not belly to the wind in Pompey’s theatre, as a bracelet that has slipped from the arm of a consumptive catamite, as a pillow widowed of its Leuconian stuffing, as the aged breeches of a pauper Briton, and as the foul throat of a pelican of Ravenna . This woman I am said to have embraced in a marine fishpond; I don’t know; I think I embraced the fishpond itself.

Martial, on Claudia Rufina.

Martial, to Rome, in praise of Trajan.

Rome, goddess of the earth and its people, to whom there is nothing equal, nothing second, when she was recently computing with joy the long series of years destined for the life of Trajan, and saw in our great leader so much bravery, youth, and martial ardour, Rome, I say, glorying in such a ruler, exclaimed: “You princes of the Parthians, you leaders of the Scythians, you Thracians, Sarmatians, Getae, and Britons, approach, I can show you a Caesar.”

Martial, a basket.

I, a barbarian basket, came from the painted Britons; but now Rome claims me for her own.

101 – 199. Hadrian, Lucius, Severus.

101 – 199

Trajan Emperor 98-117

St Evaristus Pope 97-105

St Alexander 1 Pope 105-115

106. Annals of the Four Masters

Tuathal Teachtmhar, after having been thirty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, was slain by Mal, son of Rochraidhe, King of Ulster, in Magh Line, at Moin An Chatha, in Dal Araidhe, where the two rivers, Ollar and Ollarbha, spring. Ceanngubha is the name of the hill on which he was killed, as this quatrain proves:

. Ollar and Ollarbha,

Ceann Gubha, lordly, noble,

Are not names given without a cause,

The day that Tuathal was killed.

And as was also said:

Tuathal, for whom the land was fair,

Chief of Meath of a thousand heroes,

Was wounded,—that chief of fair Freamhainn,

On the side of the hill of Gleann an Ghabhann.

107. Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of Mal, son of Rochraidhe, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

110. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Bishop Ignatius suffered.

110. Annals of the Four Masters.

After Mal, son of Rochraidhe, had been four years king over Ireland, he was slain by Feidhlimidh Rechtmhar.

111. The first year of the reign of Feidhlimidh Reachtmhar, son of Tuathal Teachtmhar, as king over Ireland. Baine, daughter of Scal, was the mother of this Feidhlimidh. It was from her Cnoc Baine, in Oirghialla, for it was there she was interred. It was by her also Rath Mor, of Magh Leamhna, in Ulster, was erected.

The Annals of Clonmacnoise.

Fiagha Finn of whom Dalviagha is called reigned 3 years and was slain by Fiagha Finnolay about the yeare of our Lord 95.

Fiagha Finnolay was king 7 yeares & was then slaine by Elym m’Conragh. The s d Fiagha was of the sept of Heremon. Elym was K. 2 20 yeares & was slaine by Twahal Teaght- war s sonn of king Fiagha Finnolay & was left fatherless in his mothers wombe, shee being the K. of Scotlands daughter, who soone after her husbands death fled secretly into Scotland, where she was Delivered of a goodly sonne called Twahall, whoe was by her brought up in all princely qualities untill he was 20 years old, at w ch time he came into Ireland accompanyed w th his said mother & few others of his friends, where after his landing in this kingdom one Fiachra Cassan and others euil contented with their estates to the number of 800 chosen men mett him and Presently saluted him as K. of the Realm, & soe went forward with the said Company & fought a battle against K. Elym & was therein slaine by the said Twahall. Hee Discomfitted the Ulstermen

116. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Hadrian the Caesar began to reign.

Hadrian Emperor 117-138

St Sixtus Pope 115-125

120. Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of Cathaeir Mor, son of Feidhlimidh Firurghlais, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

c 120. Historia Augusta.

The Life of Hadrian

On taking possession of the imperial power Hadrian at once resumed the policy of the early emperors, and devoted his attention to maintaining peace throughout the world. For the nations which Trajan had conquered began to revolt; the Moors, moreover, began to make attacks, and the Sarmatians to wage war, the Britons could not be kept under Roman sway, Egypt was thrown into disorder by riots, and finally Libya and Palestine showed the spirit of rebellion.

(Part removed)

After this he travelled to the provinces of Gaul, and came to the relief of all the communities with various acts of generosity; and from there he went over into Germany. Though more desirous of peace than of war, he kept the soldiers in training just as if war were imminent, inspired them by proofs of his own powers of endurance, actually led a soldier’s life among the maniples, and, after the example of Scipio Aemilianus, Metellus, and his own adoptive father Trajan, cheerfully ate out of doors such camp-fare as bacon, cheese and vinegar. And that the troops might submit more willingly to the increased harshness of his orders, he bestowed gifts on many and honours on a few. For he reestablished the discipline of the camp, which since the time of Octavian had been growing slack through the laxity of his predecessors. He regulated, too, both the duties and the expenses of the soldiers, and now no one could get a leave of absence from camp by unfair means, for it was not popularity with the troops but just deserts that recommended a man for appointment as tribune. He incited others by the example of his own soldierly spirit; he would walk as much as twenty miles fully armed; he cleared the camp of banqueting-rooms, porticoes, grottos, and bowers, generally wore the commonest clothing, would have no gold ornaments on his sword-belt or jewels on the clasp, would scarcely consent to have his sword furnished with an ivory hilt, visited the sick soldiers in their quarters, selected the sites for camps, conferred the centurion’s wand on those only who were hardy and of good repute, appointed as tribunes only men with full beards or of an age to give to the authority of the tribuneship the full measure of prudence and maturity, permitted no tribune to accept a present from a soldier, banished luxuries on every hand, and, lastly, improved the soldiers’ arms and equipment. Furthermore, with regard to length of military service he issued an order that no one should violate ancient usage by being in the service at an earlier age than his strength warranted, or at a more advanced one than common humanity permitted. He made it a point to be acquainted with the soldiers and to know their numbers. Besides this, he strove to have an accurate knowledge of the military stores, and the receipts from the provinces he examined with care in order to make good any deficit that might occur in any particular instance. But more than any other emperor he made it a point not to purchase or maintain anything that was not serviceable.

And so, having reformed the army quite in the manner of a monarch, he set out for Britain, and there he corrected many abuses and was the first to construct a wall, eighty miles in length, which was to separate the barbarians from the Romans.

He removed from office Septicius Clarus, the prefect of the guard, and Suetonius Tranquillus, the imperial secretary, and many others besides, because without his consent they had been conducting themselves toward his wife, Sabina, in a more informal fashion than the etiquette of the court demanded. And, as he was himself wont to say, he would have sent away his wife too, on the ground of ill-temper and irritability, had he been merely a private citizen. Moreover, his vigilance was not confined to his own household but extended to those of his friends, and by means of his private agents he even pried into all their secrets, and so skilfully that they were never aware that the Emperor was acquainted with their private lives until he revealed it himself. In this connection, the insertion of an incident will not be unwelcome, showing that he found out much about his friends. The wife of a certain man wrote to her husband, complaining that he was so preoccupied by pleasures and baths that he would not return home to her, and Hadrian found this out through his private agents. And so, when the husband asked for a furlough, Hadrian reproached him with his fondness for his baths and his pleasures. Whereupon the man exclaimed: “What, did my wife write you just what she wrote to me?” And, indeed, as for this habit of Hadrian’s, men regard it as a most grievous fault, and add to their criticism the statements which are current regarding the passion for males and the adulteries with married women to which he is said to have been addicted, adding also the charge that he did not even keep faith with his friends.

After arranging matters in Britain, he crossed over toGaul, for he was rendered anxious by the news of a riot in Alexandria,

122. Annals of the Four Masters.

Cathaeir Mor, after having been three years king over Ireland, was slain by Conn, and the Luaighni of Teamhair, in the battle of Magh hAgha.

123. The first year of Conn of the Hundred Battles as king over Ireland.

The night of Conn’s birth were discovered five principal roads leading to Teamhair, which were never observed till then. These are their names: Slighe Asail, Slighe Midhluachra, Slighe Cualann, Slighe Mor, Slighe Dala. Slighe Mor is that called Eiscir Riada, i.e. the division line of Ireland into two parts, between Conn and Eoghan Mor.

The Annals of Clonmacnoise.

Conn Kedcahagh having thus slaine K. Cahire, he succeeded himself, & was more famous then any of his auncestors for his many victoryes & Good Government, he was called Conn Kedcahagh of 100 battles Given by him in his time, he is the Common auncestor for the most part of the north of Ireland except the Clanna Rowries and the sept of Lauthus, son of Ithus. He had three goodly sonnes, Conly, Crienna, & Artemar, and three daughters, Moyne, Saw, & Sarad; Saw was married to the K. of Munster, by whom shee had many sonns, as the auncestors of the Macarthyes, o’Bryans, o’Kervells, o’Mahons, & divers others of the west part of Ireland. By wich meanes they have Gotten themselves to that selected & Choyse name much used by the Irish poets at the time of their Comendations and prayses called Sile Sawa wich is as much in English as the Issue of Saw.

Owen More ats Moynod warred upon him a long time, he was king of Munster & was soe strong that he brought the K. to Divide with him & to allow him as his share from Esker-Riada, beginning at Dublin whereupon the high street is sett, & extending to Athkleyh Mearye in thomond, Owen’s share was of ye south wich of him took the name Lehmoye four or Moyes half in Deale, K. Conn’s share stood of the north of the said Eisker, wich of him was likewise Called leagh Conn or Conns halfe in Deale, & doe retaine these names since.

St Telesphorus Pope 125-136

125. Dionysius Periegetes.

Extracts from what may have been an Alexandrian school book.

Where in the north the cold stream of Ocean flows, there dwell the Bretanoi and the fair tribes of the fierce Germans…

Beneath the sacred promontory, which they call the head of Europe, the wealthy sons of the noble Iberians inhabit the Hesperides islands, from which comes tin. But by the northern shores of Ocean are two other islands, the Bretanides opposite the Rhine, for there it pours its final flood into the sea. Great is their size, nor does any of the islands equal the Bretanides in extent. At the sacred Promontory… are ten Casiterides islands, near to each other and lying towards the north, which Dionysius calls Hesperides, because of their position; for they are in the west. To the north where the Rhine pours its final flood into the ocean, are the two Bretannides islands, Ivernia and Alvion (Ibernia and Albion). Not only Dionysius stresses the size of the Brettanides islands, which others, as has been said, call Prettanides, but also Ptolomy in his Geography. But there are some who, following the older usage, write Ambrax and call the region Ampracia, similarly they write the Brettanic islands as Prettanic…

But cutting a way much further through the Ocean you would come in your well-built ship to the island of Thule, where the sun enters the region of the bears its fire is always visible day and night alike.

Xiphilinus.

From Epitome Dionis Nicaeensis (Written in the 11th century but presumably referring to earlier times.)

There are two very great races of Brettani, the Caledonii and Maeatae and the names of the others have, so to say, been merged in them. The Maeatae dwell near the cross-wall which cuts the island in two, and the Caledonii beyond them, and bothe inhabit wild and waterless mountains and desolate and marshy plains, having no walls nor cities nor tilled land, but living off flocks and wild animals and some fruits; for they do not eat the fish which exists in huge and inexhaustible quantities. They live in tents, naked and unshod, holding their women in common and rearing all their offspring together. They are organised democratically for the most part and they delight in plundering. They go to war in chariots, using small and swift horses, and also on foot. They are very fast in running and very firm in standing their ground. Their arms are a shield and a short spear with a bronze apple on the end of the shaft, so that when it is shaken it clashes, to the dismay of the enemy; they also have daggers. They can bear hunger and cold and all kinds of hardship; for having plunged into marshes they endure many days with only their head out of the water, and in the woods they live on bark and roots; and for all circumstances they prepare a food of which if they eat a piece the size of a bean they neither hunger nor thirst. Such is the island of Britannia and such are its inhabitants, at least of the hostile part of it. For it is an island and this, as I said was clearly proved at this time. Its length is 7,132 stades, its greatest breadth 2310 and its least 300. Of these lands we hold not much less than half.

133. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

In Jerusalem he (Hadrian) founded a city in place of the one razed to the ground, naming it Aelia Capitolina, and on the site of the temple of the god he raised a new temple to Jupiter. This brought on a war that was not slight nor of brief duration, for the Jews deemed it intolerable that foreign races should be settled in their city and foreign religious rites be planted there. While Hadrian was close by in Egypt and again in Syria, they remained quiet, save in so far as they purposely made the weapons they were called upon to furnish of poorer quality, to the end that the Romans might reject them and they have the use of them. But when he went farther away, they openly revolted. To be sure, they did not dare try conclusions with the Romans in the open field, but they occupied advantageous positions in the country and strengthened them with mines and walls, in order that they might have places of refuge whenever they should be hard pressed, and meet together unobserved under ground; and in these subterranean passages they sunk shafts from above to let in air and light. At first the Romans made no account of them. Soon, however, all Judaea had been up-heaved, and the Jews all over the world were showing signs of disturbance, were gathering together, and giving evidence of great hostility to the Romans, partly by secret and partly by open acts; many other outside nations, too, were joining them through eagerness for gain, and the whole earth, almost, was becoming convulsed over the matter. Then, indeed, did Hadrian send against them his best generals, of who Julius Severus was the first to be despatched, from Britain, of which he was governor, against the Jews. He did not venture to attack his opponents at any one point, seeing their numbers and their desperation, but by taking them in separate groups by means of the number of his soldiers and his under-officers and by depriving them of food and shutting them up he was able, rather slowly, to be sure, but with comparatively little danger, to crush and exhaust and exterminate them. Very few of them survived.

St Hyginus Pope 136- 140

Antoninus Pius Emperor 138-161

138. Historia Augusta.

The Life of Antoninus Pius

After his accession to the throne he removed none of the men whom Hadrian had appointed to office, and, indeed, was so steadfast and loyal that he retained good men in the government of provinces for terms of seven and even nine years. He waged a number of wars, but all of them through his legates. For Lollius Urbicus, his legate, overcame the Britons and built a second wall, one of turf, after driving back the barbarians. Through other legates or governors, he forced the Moors to sue for peace, and crushed the Germans and the Dacians and many other tribes, and also the Jews, who were in revolt. In Achaea also and in Egypt he put down rebellions and many a time sharply checked the Alani in their raiding. His procurators were ordered to levy only a reasonable tribute, and those who exceeded a proper limit were commanded to render an account of their acts, nor was he ever pleased with any revenues that were onerous to the provinces. Moreover, he was always willing to hear complaints against his procurators.

138. Pausanius.

Antoninus, the benefactor of Pallantium, never willingly involved the Romans in war; but when the Moors (who form the greatest part of the independent Libyans, being nomads, and more formidable enemies than even the Scythians in that they wandered, not on wagons, but on horseback with their womenfolk), when these, I say, began an unprovoked war, he drove them from all their country, forcing them to flee to the extreme parts of Libya, right up to Mount Atlas and to the people living on it.

He also took away from the Brigantes in Britain the greater part of their territory, because they too had begun an unprovoked war on the province of Genunia, a Roman dependency. The cities of Lycia and of Caria, along with Cos and Rhodes, were overthrown by a violent earthquake that smote them. These cities also were restored by the emperor Antoninus, who was keenly anxious to rebuild them, and devoted vast sums to this task. As to his gifts of money to Greeks, and to such non-Greeks as needed it, and his buildings in Greece, Ionia, Carthage and Syria, others have written of them most exactly.

St Pius 1 Pope 140-155

145. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Marcus Antoninus and Aurelius his brother succeeded to the empire.

147. Liber Britannicus.

After one hundred and forty-seven years from the birth of Christ, the Emperor and the Pope, viz., Eleutherius, sent clerks from them with letters to Lucius King of Britain, in order that the king might be baptized, and the other kings of Britain in like manner.

SBG St Lucius.

A homily of the 9th century in the Library of S. Gall gives the following story. S. Paul sent his disciple Timothy into Gaul. Encouraged thereto by a Gaulish king. Timothy pushed on into Britain, where King Lucius ruled over a pagan people. Lucius summoned Timothy before him, believed, and was converted and baptised along with his family and a great number of his subjects. Later, he resolved on leaving his kingdom, and preaching the Gospel elsewhere. He passed through Gaul, and visited Augsburg, where he was well received by the patrician Campesterius, and founded the first Christian community in that city. CamStow in his Chronicle says that the Church of S. Peter, Cornhill, London, was founded by S. Lucius, and he gives an inscription in that church testifying to this. Stow says “he was after some chronicle bueried in london and after some chronicle bueried at Gloucester”. Gloucester to this day claims his tomb.

Liber Pontificalis.

Eleutherus.

He was bishop in the time of Antoninus and Commodus until the year when Paternus and Bradua were consuls (a.d. 185). He received a letter from Lucius, king of Britain, asking him to appoint a way by which Lucius might become a Christian. He also decreed. He also confirmed again the decree, that no kind of food in common use should be rejected especially by the Christian faithful, inasmuch as God created it; provided, however, it was rational food and fit for human kind. He held 3 ordinations in the month of December, 12 priests, 8 deacons, 15 bishops in divers places. He also was buried near the body of the blessed Peter in the Vatican, May 24, And the bishopric was empty 15 days.

SBG St Gwyddalus.

In the parish of Dihewyd (subject to Llanerchaeron) in Cardiganshire is a place called Llanwyddalus. It preserved the name of a now extinct church or chapel dedicated to S. Gwyddalus or Gwyddalys, whom some regard as a Welsh saint, others treat the name as the Welsh form of Vitalis. He is thus identified with the S Vitalis, who with his wife Valeria, was martyred in the second century, at Ravenna. But we should hardly expect to find a comparatively obscure Roman saint culted in Cardiganshire.

St Anicetus pope 155-166

Bede.

CHAP. IV.

How Lucius, king of Britain, writing to Pope Eleutherus, desired to be made a Christian.

In the year of our Lord 156, Marcus Antoninus Verus, the fourteenth from Augustus, was made emperor, together with his brother, Aurelius Commodus.

[Editor’s note: Marcus Antoninus Verus, commonly called Marcus Aurelius, succeeded in 161 A.D. His colleague in the empire was his adopted brother, Lucius Verus, whose full adoptive name was Lucius Aurelius Antoninus Verus Commodus. He died in 169. Eleutherus became Pope between 171 and 177. Bede’s chronology is therefore wrong.]

In their time, whilst the holy Eleutherus presided over the Roman Church, Lucius, king of Britain, sent a letter to him, entreating that by a mandate from him he might be made a Christian. He soon obtained his pious request, and the Britons preserved the faith, which they had received, uncorrupted and entire, in peace and tranquillity until the time of the Emperor Diocletian.

158. Annals of the Four Masters The first year of Conaire, son of Modh Lamha, in sovereignty over Ireland.

Marcus Aurelius Emperor 161-180

(L Verus Emperor 161-166)

162. Historia Augusta.

The Life of Marcus Aurelius

And now, after they had assumed the imperial power, the two emperors acted in so democratic a manner that no one missed the lenient ways of Pius; for though Marullus, a writer of farces of the time, irritated them by his jests, he yet went unpunished. They gave funeral games for their father. And Marcus abandoned himself to philosophy, at the same time cultivating the good-will of the citizens. But now to interrupt the emperor’s happiness and repose, there came the first flood of the Tiber —the severest one of their time —which ruined many houses in the city, drowned a great number of animals, and caused a most severe famine; all these disasters Marcus and Verus relieved by their own personal care and aid. At this time, moreover, came the Parthian war, which Vologaesus planned under Pius and declared under Marcus and Verus, after the rout of Attidius Cornelianus, then governor of Syria. And besides this, war was threatening in Britain, and the Chatti had burst into Germany and Raetia. Against the Britons Calpurnius Agricola was sent; against the Chatti, Aufidius Victorinus. But to the Parthian war, with the consent of the senate, Marcus despatched his brother Verus, while he himself remained at Rome, where conditions demanded the presence of an emperor.

(Part removed)

And since the pestilence was still raging at this time, he both zealously revived the worship of the gods and trained slaves for military service — just as had been done in the Punic war — whom he called Volunteers, after the example of the Volones. He armed gladiators also, calling them the Compliant, and turned even the bandits of Dalmatia and Dardania into soldiers. He armed the Diogmitae, besides, and even hired auxiliaries from among the Germans for service against Germans. And besides all this, he proceeded with all care to enrol legions for the Marcomannic and German war. And lest all this prove burdensome to the provinces, he held an auction of the palace furnishings in the Forum of the Deified Trajan, as we have related, and sold there, besides robes and goblets and golden flagons, even statues and paintings by great artists. He overwhelmed the Marcomanni while they were crossing the Danube, and restored the plunder to the provincials. Then, from the borders of Illyricum even into Gaul, all the nations banded together against us — the Marcomanni, Varistae, Hermunduri and Quadi, the Suebians, Sarmatians, Lacringes and Buri, these and certain others together with the Victuali, namely, Osi, Bessi, Cobotes, Roxolani, Bastarnae, Alani, Peucini, and finally, the Costoboci. Furthermore, war threatened in Parthia and Britain. Thereupon, by immense labour on his own part, while his soldiers reflected his energy, and both legates and prefects of the guard led the host, he conquered these exceedingly fierce peoples, accepted the surrender of the Marcomanni, and brought a great number of them to Italy.

Ammianus Marcellinus.

But in all Assyria there are many cities, among which Apamia, formerly called Mesene and Teredon, Apollonia and Vologessia, and many similar ones are conspicuous. But these three are especially magnificent and widely known: Babylon, whose walls Semiramis built with bitumen (for the ancient king Belus built the citadel), and Ctesiphon, which Vardanes founded long ago; and later king Pacorus strengthened it with additional inhabitants and with walls, gave it a Greek name, and made it the crowning ornament of Persia. And finally, there is Seleucia, the splendid work of Seleucus Nicator. When this city was stormed by the generals of Verus Caesar (as I have related before), the statue of Apollo Comaeus was torn from its place and taken to Rome, where the priests of the gods set it up in the temple of the Palatine Apollo. And it is said that, after this same statue had been carried off and the city burned, the soldiers in ransacking the temple found a narrow crevice; this they widened in the hope of finding something valuable; but from a kind of shrine, closed by the occult arts of the Chaldaeans, the germ of that pestilence burst forth, which after generating the virulence of incurable diseases, in the time of the same Verus and of Marcus Antoninus polluted everything with contagion and death, from the frontiers of Persia all the way to the Rhine and to Gaul.

165. Annals of the Four Masters.

Conaire, son of Mogh Lamha, after having been eight years in the sovereignty of Ireland, fell by Neimhidh, son of Sruibhgheann. This Conaire had three sons, Cairbre Musc, from whom the Muscraighe are called; Cairbre Baschaein, from whom are the Baiscnigh, in Corca Baiscinn; and Cairbre Riadal, from whom are the Dal Riada. Saraid, daughter of Conn of the Hundred Battles, was the mother of these sons of Conaire, son of Modh Lamha.

166. The frst year of the reign of Art, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles.

St Soter Pope 166-175

167. Anglo Saxon Chronicle

This year Eleutherius succeeded to the popedom, and held it fifteen years; and in the same year Lucius, king of the Britons, sent and begged baptism of him. And he soon sent it him, and they continued in the true faith until the time of Diocletian.

SBG St Dyfanog.

The companion of St. Ffagan, sent by Bushop Eleutherius to the Bryttaines to preach the word of life 186 yeares after the ascention of our Saviour Jesus Christ, Lucius then beinge Kinge of Brittaine.

SBG St Elfan.

One account makes him a Roman. An application was made by King Lleurwg or Lucius to Pope Eleutherius for instruction in the Christian Faith, and Eleutherius sent him four persons, Dyfan, Ffagan, Medwy and Elfan to instruct him. According to the other account he was a Briton. The Book of Llan Ddv, compiled in the twelfth century, states that in the year 156, Lucius, king of the Britons, sent his ambassadors, Elvanus and Medwinus, to Pope Eleutherius. ” They implore that, by the Pope’s admonition, he might be made a Christian.” Eleutherius accordingly baptized the legates, and ordained Elvanus a bishop, and Medwinus a doctor. Through their preaching Lucius himself and the nobles of all Britain received baptism.

It is further stated that he ” was a bishop in Glastonbury, where his church and cor are. Cor Elfan accommodated a thousand Saints. He is also said to have had a church in Glamorgan.

SBG St Ffagan or Fagan.

Ffagan was sent, with Dyfan, by Pope Eleutherius a man of Italy, who came as a bishop to Wales,” and was ” bishop at Llansantffagan, where his church is.” He was penrhaith, or principal, of Cor Ffagan there, and one document credits him with the foundation of two churches, Llanffagan Fawr, now S. Pagans (S. Mary), near Cardiff, and Llanffagan Fach, now Llanmaes (S. Cadoc), near Llantwit Major. Leland says, ” The Paroch Chirch of S. Fagan is now of our Lady; but ther is yet by the Village a Chapelle of S. Fagan sumtime the Paroch Chirch.” To him is dedicated the parish church of S. Fagan, a parish formed (1856) out of Aberdare. He and Dyfan are reputed to have founded the ancient see of Congresbury, which lasted till 721, when it was removed to a village called Tydenton, now Wells. In a late lolo list he is entered among the chorepiscopi of Llandaff prior to the time of S. Dubricius.

167. Nennius.

After the birth of Christ, one hundred and sixty-seven years, king Lucius, with all the chiefs of the British people, received baptism, in consequence of a legation sent by the Roman emperors and pope Evaristus.

(V.R. Eucharistus. A marginal note in the Arundel MS. adds, “He is wrong, because the first year of Evaristus was A.D. 79, whereas the first year of Eleutherius, whom he ought to have named, was A.D. 161.” Usher says, that in one MS, of Nennius he found the name of Eleutherius.) (Ed, see also this work at the years 97 & 189)

171. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

Against Ariogaesus Marcus was so bitter that he issued a proclamation to the effect that any one who would bring him alive should receive a thousand gold pieces, and any one who killed him and exhibited his head, five hundred. Yet in other cases this emperor was always accustomed to treat even his most stubborn foes humanely; for instance, he did not kill, but merely sent to Britain Tiridates, a satrap who roused a tumult in Armenia and the person who slew the king of the Heniochi and then held the sword in Verus’s face, when the latter rebuked him for it. This, then, shows the extent of his irritation against Ariogaesus at the time. However, when the man was later captured he did him no harm, but sent him away to Alexandria.

172. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

Many of the Celtae, too, across the Rhine, advanced to the confines of Italy and inflicted much serious harm upon the Romans. They, in turn, were followed up by Marcus, who opposed to them the lieutenants Pompeianus and Pertinax. Pertinax, who later became emperor, greatly distinguished himself. Among the corpses of the barbarians were found also the bodies of women in armor.

[Sidenote: A.D. 168(?)] Yet, when a most violent struggle and brilliant victory had taken place, the emperor nevertheless refused the petition of the soldiers for money, making this statement: “Whatever excess they obtain above the customary amount will be wrung from the blood of their parents and their kinsmen. For respecting the fate of the empire Heaven alone can decide.”–And he ruled them so temperately and firmly that even in the course of so many and great wars he was impelled neither by flattery nor by fear to do aught that was unfitting.

[Sidenote: A.D. 172 (a.u. 925)] After conquering them Marcus received the title of Germanicus. We give the name “Germans” to those who dwell in the northern regions.

St Eleutherius Pope 175-189

c175. Historia Augusta

The Life of Pertinax

Publius Helvius Pertinax was the son of a freedman, Helvius Successus by name, who confessed that he gave this name to his son because of his own long-standing connection with the timber-trade, for had conducted that business with pertinacity. Pertinax himself was born in the Apennines on an estate which belonged to his mother. The hour he was born a black horse climbed to the roof, and after remaining there for a short time, fell to the ground and died. Disturbed by this occurrence, his father went to a Chaldean, and he prophesied future greatness for the boy, saying that he himself had lost his child. As a boy, Pertinax was educated in the rudiments of literature and in arithmetic and was also put under the care of a Greek teacher of grammar and, later, of Sulpicius Apollinaris; after receiving instruction from this man, Pertinax himself took up the teaching of grammar.

But when he found little profit in this profession, with the aid of Lollianus Avitus, a former consul and his father’s patron, he sought an appointment to a command in the ranks. Soon afterwards, in the reign of Titus Aurelius, he set out for Syria as prefect of a cohort, and there, because he had used the imperial post without official letters of recommendation, he was forced by the governor of Syria to make his way from Antioch to his station on foot. Winning promotion because of the energy he showed in the Parthian war, he was transferred to Britain and there retained. Later he led a squadron in Moesia, and after that he supervised the distribution of grants to the poor on the Aemilian Way. Next, he commanded the German fleet. His mother followed him all the way to Germany, and there she died, and her tomb is said to be still standing there. From this command, he was transferred to Dacia at a salary of two hundred thousand sesterces, but through the machinations of certain persons he came to be distrusted by Marcus and was removed from this post;

175. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

The Iazyges, also, when they had experienced reverses, came to an agreement, Zanticus himself appearing as suppliant before Antoninus. Previously they had imprisoned Banadaspus, their second king, for making proposals to him. Now, however, all the foremost men came in company with Zanticus and made the same compact as that accepted by the Quadi and the Marcomani, except in so far as they were required to dwell twice as far away from the Ister as those tribes. It was his wish to root them out utterly. That they were still strong at this time and could have done the Romans great harm is evident from the fact that they gave back one hundred thousand captives out of a body in which many had been sold, many were dead, and many had run away and been recaptured. They supplied Antoninus at once with a cavalry force of eight thousand allies, fifty-five hundred of whom he sent to Britain.

Commodus Emperor 180-192

Liber Britannicus.

Ab incarnatione Domini clvi. Marcus Antonus with his brother, i. e. Lucidus Aurelius Commodus, devastated the island of Britain.

180. Theophilus of Antioch

CHAP. XXXII. HOW THE HUMAN RACE WAS DISPERSED.

Hence, therefore, may the loves of learning and of antiquity understand the history, and see that those things are recent which are told by us apart from the holy prophets. For though at first there were few men in the land of Arabia and Chaldaea, yet, after their languages were divided, they gradually began to multiply and spread over all the earth; and some of them tended towards the east to dwell there, and others to the parts of the great continent, and others northwards, so as to extend as far as Britain, in the Arctic regions. And others went to the land of Canaan, which is called Judaea, and Phoenicia, and the region of Ethiopia, and Egypt, and Libya, and the country called torrid, and the parts stretching towards the west; and the rest went to places by the sea, and Pamphylia, and Asia, and Greece, and Macedonia, and, besides, to Italy, and the whole country called Gaul, and Spain, and Germany; so that now the whole world is thus filled with inhabitants.

184. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

Commodus displayed in Rome itself many marks of wealth and very many more, even, of love for the beautiful. Indeed, he performed one or two acts of public benefit. Manilius, a kinsman of Cassius, who had been secretary of his Latin letters and had possessed the greatest influence with him, was caught after a flight, but the emperor would not listen to a word of his, though he promised to lay a great deal of information, and burned all the conspirator’s documents without reading them. He had also some wars with the barbarians beyond Dacia, in which Albinus and Niger, who later fought the emperor Severus, won fame, but the greatest conflict was the one in Britain. When the tribes in the island, passing beyond the wall that separated them from the Roman legions, proceeded to commit many outrages and cut down a general, together with the soldiers that he had, Commodus was seized with fear and sent Marcellus Ulpius against them. This man, who was temperate and frugal and always followed strict military rules in regard to food and all other details when he was at war, became in course of time haughty and arrogant. He was conspicuously incorruptible in the matter of bribes, but was not of a pleasant or kindly nature. He showed himself more wakeful than any other general, and, as he desired his associates also to be alert, he wrote orders on twelve tablets (such as are made out of linden wood) [almost] every evening, and bade a man carry them to various persons at various hours, that they, believing the general to be always awake, might not themselves take their fill of sleep. Nature had made him able in the first place to go without sleep and he had developed this faculty a great deal more by abstinence from food. [Of scarcely anything did he eat his fill and] in order to avoid satisfying his hunger even with bread he sent to Rome for the loaves: [this was not because he could not eat what was prepared in that region, but] it was done with the purpose that the age of the article might prevent him eating ever so little more than what was absolutely necessary. [His gums, which were sore, were easily made to bleed by the dryness of the bread. And he made it his practice to affect sleeplessness even more than was the case, that he might have a reputation for being always awake.] This was the kind of man Marcellus was, who inflicted great damage upon the barbarians in Britain. Later he narrowly escaped being destroyed by Commodus on account of his peculiar excellence, but was, nevertheless, released.

Perennis, commander of the Pretorians after Paternus, met destruction on account of a rebellion of the soldiers. For, since Commodus had devoted himself to chariot-racing and licentiousness and paid scarcely any attention to matters pertaining to the empire, Perennis was compelled to manage not only military affairs, but everything else, and to preside over the government. The soldiers, accordingly, when anything did not go to suit them, laid the blame upon Perennis and cherished anger against him.

The soldiers in Britain chose Priscus, a lieutenant, emperor. But he deprecated their action, saying “I am as little suited for emperor as you are for soldiers.”

The lieutenants in Britain had been rebuked for their turbulence (indeed, they had not become quiet until Pertinax put a stop to their discord), and now they chose of their number fifteen hundred javelin-slingers, whom they sent into Italy. They had approached Rome without meeting any hindrance, when Commodus met them and enquired: “Why is this, fellow-soldiers? What does your presence signify?” Their answer was: “We are here because Perennis is plotting against you, and intends to make his son emperor.” Commodus believed them, especially since Cleander dwelt at length upon the point. (The latter was often prevented by Perennis from doing all that he desired, and consequently entertained a bitter hatred for him). Therefore he delivered the prefect to the soldiers of whom he was commander, and did not venture to despise fifteen hundred men, though he had many times that number of Pretorians. So Perennis was abused and struck down, and his wife and sister and two sons were also killed.

[Public opinion regarding Pertinax was so different from that in the case of Commodus that those who heard what had happened, suspecting that this story had been spread by Commodus to test them, in several instances (governors of provinces being particularly involved) imprisoned the men who brought the news. It was not that they did not wish it to be true, but they were more afraid of seeming to have helped destroy Commodus than of not attaching themselves to Pertinax. For under the

latter one who even committed an error of this kind might still breathe freely, but under the former not even a faultless person could feel safe.]

While he was still in Britain, after that great revolt which he quelled, and was being accorded praise on all sides, a horse named Pertinax won a race at Rome. It belonged to the Greens and was picked as a winner by Commodus. So, when its partisans raised a great shout, proclaiming “It is Pertinax,” the others, their opponents, in disgust at Commodus likewise prayed (speaking with reference to the man, not the horse): “Would that it might be so!” Later, when this same horse by reason of age had given up racing and was in the country, it was sent for by Commodus, who brought it into the hippodrome, gilded its hoofs, and adorned its back with a gilded skin. And people suddenly seeing it cried out again: “It is Pertinax!” The very expression was itself ominous, since it occurred at the last horse-race that year, and immediately after it the sovereignty passed to Pertinax. A similar import was attached to the club, for Commodus when about to fight on the final day had given it to Pertinax.

185. Historia Augusta.

The Life of Commodus.

At this time Claudius also, whose son had previously come into Commodus’ presence with a dagger, was slain, ostensibly by bandits, and many other senators were put to death, and also certain women of wealth. And not a few provincials, for the sake of their riches, were charged with crimes by Perennis and then plundered or even slain; some, against whom there was not even the imputation of a fictitious crime, were accused of having been unwilling to name Commodus as their heir.

About this time, the victories in Sarmatia won by other generals were attributed by Perennis to his own son. Yet in spite of his great power, suddenly, because in the war in Britain he had dismissed certain senators and had put men of the equestrian order in command of the soldiers, this same Perennis was declared an enemy to the state, when the matter was reported by the legates in command of the army, and was thereupon delivered up to the soldiers to be torn to pieces. In his place of power Commodus put Cleander, one of his chamberlains.

(Part removed)

Meanwhile, because he had appointed to the consulship a former lover of his mother’s, the senate mockingly gave Commodus the name Pius; and after he had executed Perennis, he was given the name Felix, as though, amid the multitudinous executions of many citizens, he was a second Sulla. And this same Commodus, who was called Pius, and who was called Felix, is said to have feigned a plot against his own life, in order that he might have an excuse for putting many to death. Yet as a matter of fact, there were no rebellions save that of Alexander, who soon killed himself and his near of kin, and that of Commodus’ sister Lucilla. He was called Britannicus by those who desired to flatter him, whereas the Britons even wished to set up an emperor against him. He was called also the Roman Hercules, on the ground that he had killed wild beasts in the amphitheatre the Lanuvium; and, indeed, it was his custom to kill wild beasts on his own estate. He had, besides, an insane desire that the city of Rome should be renamed Colonia Commodiana. This mad idea, it is said, was inspired in him while listening to the blandishments of Marcia.

(Part removed)

The Moors and the Dacians were conquered during his reign, and peace was established in the Pannonias, but all by his legates, since such was the manner of his life. The provincials in Britain,Dacia, and Germany attempted to cast off his yoke, but all these attempts were put down by his generals. Commodus himself was so lazy and careless in signing documents that he answered many petitions with the same formula, while in very many letters he merely wrote the word “Farewell”. All official business was carried on by others, who, it is said, even used condemnations to swell their purses. And because he was so careless, moreover, a great famine arose in Rome, not because there was any real shortage of crops, but merely because those who then ruled the state were plundering the food supply.

c185. Historia Augusta.

The Life of Pertinax.

After Perennis had been put to death, Commodus made amends to Pertinax, and in a letter asked him to set out for Britain. After his arrival there he kept the soldiers from any revolt, for they wished to set up some other man as emperor, preferably Pertinax himself. And now Pertinax acquired an evil character for enviousness, for he was said to have laid before Commodus the charge that Antistius Burrus and Arrius Antoninus were aspiring to the throne. And certainly, he did suppress a mutiny against himself in Britain, but in so doing he came into great danger; for in a mutiny of a legion he was almost killed, and indeed was left among the slain. This mutiny Pertinax punished very severely. Later on, however, he petitioned to be excused from his governorship, saying that the legions were hostile to him because he had been strict in his discipline. After he had been relieved of his post, he was put in charge of the grants to the poor. Next, he was made proconsul of Africa. During this proconsulship, it is said, he suppressed many rebellions by the aid of prophetic verses which issued from the temple of Caelestis. Next he was made prefect of the city, and in this office, as successor to Fuscianus, a very stern man, Pertinax was exceedingly gentle and considerate, and he proved very pleasing to Commodus himself, for he was, when Pertinax was made consul for the second time. And while in this position, Pertinax did not avoid complicity in the murder of Commodus, when a share in this plot was offered to him by the other conspirators.

After Commodus was slain, Laetus, the prefect of the guard, and Eclectus, the chamberlain, came to Pertinax and reassured him, and then led him to the camp.

186. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twenty first year of Art, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

The battle of Ceannfeabhrat by the sons of Oilioll Olum and the three Cairbres, i.e. Cairbre Musc, Cairbre Riada, and Cairbre Bascainn, against Dadera, the Druid; Neimhidh, son of Sroibhcinn; and the south of Ireland; where fell Neimhidh, son of Sroibhcinn, King of the Ernai of Munster; and Dadera, the Druid of the Dairinni. Dadera was slain by Eoghain, son of Oilioll; Neimhidh, son of Sroibhcinn, by Cairbre Rioghfhoda, son of Conaire, in revenge of his own father, i.e. Conaire.Cairbre Musc wounded Lughaidh, i.e. Mac Con, in the thigh, so that he was ever afterwards lame. The cause of this cognomen was: Lughaidh was agreeable to a greyhound that was suckling her whelps in the house of his foster father, and he was used to suckle the teat of the aforesaid greyhound, so that Mac Con son of the greyhound adhered to him as a soubriquet.

St Victor 1 Pope 189-199

189. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Severus came to the empire; and went with his army into Britain, and subdued in battle a great part of the island. Then wrought he a mound of turf, with a broad wall thereupon, from sea to sea, for the defence of the Britons. He reigned seventeen years; and then ended his days at York. His son Bassianus succeeded him in the empire. His other son, who perished, was called Geta. This year Eleutherius undertook the bishopric of Rome, and held it honourably for fifteen winters. To him Lucius, king of the Britons, sent letters, and prayed that he might be made a Christian. He obtained his request; and they continued afterwards in the right belief until the reign of Diocletian.

(Ed see also this work at year 167)

Bede.

CHAP. V.

How the Emperor Severus divided from the rest by a rampart that part of Britain which had been recovered.

In the year of our Lord 189, Severus, an African, born at Leptis, in the province of Tripolis, became emperor. He was the seventeenth from Augustus; and reigned seventeen years. Being naturally of a harsh disposition, and engaged in many wars, he governed the state vigorously, but with much trouble. Having been victorious in all the grievous civil wars which happened in his time, he was drawn into Britain by the revolt of almost all the confederated tribes; and, after many great and severe battles, he thought fit to divide that part of the island, which he had recovered, from the other unconquered nations, not with a wall, as some imagine, but with a rampart. For a wall is made of stones, but a rampart, with which camps are fortified to repel the assaults of enemies, is made of sods, cut out of the earth, and raised high above the ground, like a wall, having in front of it the trench whence the sods were taken, with strong stakes of wood fixed above it. Thus Severus drew a great trench and strong rampart, fortified with several towers, from sea to sea. And there, at York, he fell sick afterwards and died, leaving two sons, Bassianus and Geta; of whom Geta died, adjudged an enemy of the State; but Bassianus, having taken the surname of Antonius, obtained the empire.

190. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

Still, the effect of Commodus upon the Romans was worse than that of all pestilences and all villanies. One feature was that whatever honors they were wont to vote to his father out of pure regard they were compelled by fear and by strict injunction to assign also to the son. He gave orders that Rome itself be called Commodiana, the legions “Commodian,” and the day on which this measure was voted “Commodiana.” Upon himself he bestowed, in addition to very many other titles, that of Hercules. Rome, he termed “the Immortal,” “the Fortunate,” “the Universal Colony of the Earth” (for he wished it to seem a settlement of his own). In his honor a gold statue was erected of a thousand pounds’ weight, together with a bull and a cow. Finally, all the months were likewise called after him, so that they were enumerated as follows: Amazonian, Invincible, Fortunate, Pious, Lucius, Aelius, Aurelius, Commodus, August, Herculean, Roman, Transcendent. For he had assumed these different names at different times. “Amazonian” and “Transcendent,” however, he applied exclusively to himself, to indicate that in absolutely every respect he unapproachably surpassed all mankind. So extravagantly did the wretch rave. And to the senate he would send a despatch couched in these terms: “Caesar Imperator, Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus, Augustus, Pius, Beatus, Sarmaticus, Germanicus, Maximus, Britannicus, Peacemaker of the World, Invincible, Roman Hercules, High Priest, Holder of Tribunician Authority for the eighteenth term, Imperator for the eighth time, Consul for the seventh time, Father of the Fatherland, to consuls, praetors, tribunes and the Commodian Fortunate Senate, Greeting.” Great numbers of statues were erected displaying him in the garb of Hercules. And it was voted that his age should be called the “Golden Age” and that entries to correspond with this should in every case be made in the records.

Pertinax Emperor 192-193

192. Historia Augusta.

The Life of Clodius Albinus

We do not believe it wholly irrelevant to recount the causes which won Clodius Albinus the love of the senate. After Commodus had bestowed upon him the name of Caesar, and while by the Emperor’s orders he was in command of the troops in Britain, false tidings were brought that Commodus had been slain. Then he came forth before the soldiers and delivered the following speech: “If the senate of the Roman people but had its ancient power, and if this vast empire were not under the sway of a single man, it would never have come to pass that the destiny of the state should fall into the hands of a Vitellius, a Nero, or a Domitian. Under the rule of consuls there were those mighty families of ours, the Ceionii, the Albini, and the Postumii, of whom your fathers heard from their grandsires and from whom they learned many things. It was surely the senate, moreover, that added Africa to the dominions of Rome, the senate that conquered Gaul and the Spains, the senate that gave laws to the tribes of the East, and the senate that dared to attack the Parthians — and would have conquered them, too, had not the fortune of Rome just then assigned our army so covetous a leader. Britain, to be sure, was conquered by Caesar, but he was still a senator and not yet dictator. Now as for Commodus himself, how much better an emperor would he had been had he stood in awe of the senate! Even as late as the time of Nero, the power of the senate prevailed, and the senators did not fear to deliver speeches against a base and filthy prince and condemn him, even though he still retained both power of life and death and the empire too. Wherefore, my comrades, the name of Caesar, which Commodus now confers on me, I do not wish to accept. May the gods grant that no one else may wish it! Let the senate have rule, let the senate distribute the provinces and appoint us consuls. But why do I say the senate? It is you, I mean, and your fathers; you yourselves shall be the senators.”

This harangue was reported at Rome while Commodus was still alive and roused him greatly against Albinus. He forthwith despatched one of his aides, Junius Severus, to replace him. The senate, however, was so much pleased that it honoured Albinus, though absent, with marvellous acclamations, both while Commodus still lived and, later, after his murder. Some even counselled Pertinax to ally himself with Albinus, and as for Julianus, Albinus’ influence had the greatest weight in his plan for murdering Pertinax.In proof, moreover, that my statements are true, I will quote a letter written by Commodus to the prefects of the guard, in which he makes clear his intention of killing Albinus; “Aurelius Commodus to his prefects, greeting. You have heard, I believe, in the first place, the false statement that I had been slain by a conspiracy of my household; in the second, that Clodius Albinus has delivered an harangue to the senate at great length — and not for nothing, it seems to me. For whoever asserts that the state ought not to be under the sway of one man, and that the senate should rule the empire, he is merely seeking to get the empire himself through the senate. Keep a diligent watch then; for now, you know the man whom you and the troops and the people must avoid.”

When Pertinax found this letter, he desired to make it public in order to stir up hatred against Albinus; and for this reason, Albinus advised Julianus to bring about Pertinax’s death.

Didius Julianus Emperor 193.

193. Historia Augusta.

The Life of Didius Julianus.

The populace, however, kept inveighing with the utmost violence against the soldiers, who had slain Pertinax, so they said, for money. And so, in order to win favour with the people, Julianus restored many measures which Commodus had enacted and Pertinax had repealed. Concerning Pertinax himself he took no steps either good or evil, a fact which to very many seemed a serious matter. It is generally agreed, however, that it was his fear of the soldiers that caused him to keep silent about the honours due Pertinax. As a matter of fact, however, Julianus had no fear of either the British or the Illyrian army; but being chiefly afraid of the Syrian army, he despatched a centurion of the first rank with orders to murder Niger. Consequently, Pescennius Niger in Syria and Septimius Severus in Illyricum, together with the armies which they commanded, revolted from Julianus.

193. Cassius Dio Cocceianus

This was what went on in Rome. Now I shall speak about what happened outside and the various revolutions. There were three men at this time who were commanding each three legions of citizens and many foreigners besides, and they all asserted their claims, Severus, Niger, and Albinus. The last-named governed Britain, Severus Pannonia, and Niger Syria. These were the three persons darkly indicated by the three stars that suddenly came to view surrounding the sun, when Julianus in our presence was offering the Sacrifices of Entrance in front of the senate-house. These heavenly bodies were so very brilliant that the soldiers kept continually looking at them and pointing them out to one another, declaring moreover that some dreadful fate would befall the usurper. As for us, however much we hoped and prayed that it might so prove, yet the fear of the moment would not permit us to gaze at them, save by occasional glances. Such are the facts that I know about the matter.

Septimus Severus Emperor 193-211

(Presennius Niger Emperor 193-94)

(Clodius Albinus Emperor 193-197)

193. Liber Britannicus.

Severus was the third king that came to Britain; and it was by him was made the Saxon ditch against the barbarians, i. e. the Cruithnians, 2130 paces long, and the name of that ditch among the Britons was GUAUL. And he commanded another ditch to be made against the Gaels and the Cruithnians, i. e. Cladh na muice, and he was afterwards killed by the Britons, with his chieftains.

Ab incarnatione Domini clxxxix. Severus Afer Tripolitanus came into the island of Britain. Leipis was the name of the city in Africa where he was born; he was the seventeenth king after Juil: it was for him was made the Saxon ditch; he died at Caer Abrog. He had two sons, Basianus and Geta. It was he (the former) that succeeded to the kingdom by the name of Anton.

Nennius.

Severus was the third emperor who passed the sea to Britain, where, to protect the provinces recovered from barbaric incursions, he ordered a wall and a rampart to be made between the Britons, the Scots, and the Picts, extending across the island from sea to sea, in length one hundred and thirty-three miles: and it is called in the British language Gwal. Moreover, he ordered it to be made between the Britons, and the Picts and Scots; for the Scots from the west, and the Picts from the north, unanimously made war against the Britons; but were at peace among themselves. Not long after Severus dies in Britain.

(One MS. here adds, “The above-mentioned Severus constructed it of rude workmanship in length 132 miles; i.e. from Penguaul, which village is called in Scottish Cenail, in English Peneltun, to the mouth of the river Cluth and Cairpentaloch, where this wall terminates; but it was of no avail. The emperor Carausius afterwards rebuilt it, and fortified it with seven castles between the two mouths: he built also a round house of polished stones on the banks of the river Carun (Carron): he likewise erected a triumphal arch, on which he inscribed his own name in memory of his victory.”)

Herodian of Antioch.

SEVERUS made preparations for the war with great care. A thorough and cautious man, he had his doubts about the army in Britain, which was large and very powerful, manned by excellent soldiers. Britain was then under the command of Albinus, a man of the senatorial order who had been reared in luxury on money inherited from his ancestors. Severus, wishing to gain the friendship of this man, deceived him by a trick; he feared that Albinus, having strong stimuli to encourage him to seize the throne, and made bold by his ancestry and wealth, a powerful army, and his popularity among the Romans, might seize the empire and occupy Rome while Severus was busy with affairs in the East. And so, he deceived the man by pretending to do him honor. Albinus, conceited and somewhat naive in his judgment, really believed the many things which Severus swore on oath in his letters. Severus appointed him Caesar, to anticipate his hope and desire for a share of the imperial power. He wrote Albinus the friendliest of letters, deceitful, of course, in which he begged the man to devote his attention to the welfare of the empire. He wrote him that the situation required a man of the nobility in the prime of life; he himself was old and afflicted with gout, and his sons were still very young. Believing Severus, Albinus gratefully accepted the honor, delighted to be getting what he wanted without fighting and without risk. After making these same proposals to the senate, to increase their faith in him, Severus ordered coins to be struck bearing his likeness, and he increased the favor he had won by erecting statues of himself and assuming the rest of the imperial honors. When he had, by his cunning, arranged matters securely with respect to Albinus and consequently had nothing to fear from Britain, the emperor, accompanied by the entire army of Illyricum, set out against Niger, convinced that he had arranged to his own advantage everything affecting his reign.

(Herodian now describes the war in the east)

AFTER settling Eastern affairs in what he thought was the most advantageous way, Severus wished to take the field immediately against the Atrenian king and invade Parthia also, charging both of these kings with friendship for Niger. He put off these projects until later, however, wishing to seize the Roman empire first and make it secure for himself and his sons. Even though Niger had been eliminated, Severus considered Albinus still a menace. He now heard that this man, delighted with the title of Caesar, was acting more and more like an emperor; he was informed also that a great many men, particularly the most distinguished senators, were writing public and private letters to the Caesar, trying to persuade him to come to Rome while Severus was absent and occupied elsewhere. The fact is that the aristocracy much preferred Albinus as emperor because he belonged to a noble family and was reputed to have a mild nature. When he learned of these developments, Severus declined to initiate open hostility against Albinus and start a war with him since he lacked a reasonable excuse for such action. He thought it best to try to eliminate his Caesar by tricking him without warning. He therefore sent his most trusted imperial messengers to Britain with secret orders to hand Albinus the dispatches openly if they were admitted to his presence. They were then to ask him to meet them privately to receive secret instructions; when Albinus agreed to this and his bodyguards were not present, the messengers were to attack him without warning and cut him down. Severus provided them with deadly poisons so that, if the opportunity presented itself, they might persuade one of his cooks or cupbearers to administer a dose in secret. Albinus’ advisers, however, were suspicious of the emperor’s messengers, and warned him to be on his guard against this cunning schemer. Severus’ actions against Niger’s governors had seriously damaged his reputation; after forcing them through their children to betray Niger, as has been related above, and after making good use of their assistance, he put them to death with their children after he had got from them everything he wanted. His actions on this occasion clearly revealed Severus’ despicable character. The efforts of Severus now led Albinus to increase the size of his bodyguard. None of the emperor’s men was admitted into the Caesar’s presence until he had first been stripped and searched for concealed weapons. Now when the messengers from Severus arrived, they handed over the dispatches to Albinus openly and asked him to retire with them to receive secret orders. But Albinus, suspicious, had the men seized, and, putting them to torture privately, discovered the entire plot; after killing the messengers, he prepared to resist his revealed enemy.

WHEN he was informed of what had occurred, Severus took effective and energetic action; by nature quick to anger, he no longer concealed his hostility toward Albinus. Calling together the entire army, he spoke to them as follows:

“Let no one charge us with capricious inconsistency in our actions against Albinus, and let no one think that I am disloyal to this alleged friend or lacking in feeling toward him. We gave this man everything, even a share of the established empire, a thing which a man would hardly do for his own brother. Indeed, I bestowed upon him that which you entrusted to me alone. Surely Albinus has shown little gratitude for the many benefits I have lavished upon him. Now he is collecting an army to take up arms against us, scornful of your valor and indifferent to his pledge of good faith to me, wishing in his insatiable greed to seize at the risk of disaster that which he has already received in part without war and without bloodshed, showing no respect for the gods by whom he has often sworn, and counting as worthless the labors you performed on our joint behalf with such courage and devotion to duty. In what you accomplished, he also had a share, and he would have had an even greater share of the honor you gained for us both if he had only kept his word. For, just as it is unfair to initiate wrong actions, so also it is cowardly to make no defense against unjust treatment. Now when we took the field against Niger, we had reasons for our hostility, not entirely logical, perhaps, but inevitable. We did not hate him because he had seized the empire after it was already ours, but rather each one of us, motivated by an equal desire for glory, sought the empire for himself alone, when it was still in dispute and lay prostrate before all. But Albinus has violated his pledges and broken his oaths, and although he received from me that which a man normally gives only to his son, he has chosen to be hostile rather than friendly and belligerent instead of peaceful. And just as we were generous to him previously and showered fame and honor upon him, so let us now punish him with our arms for his treachery and cowardice. His army, small and island-bred, will not stand against your might. For you, who by your valor and readiness to act on your own behalf have been victorious in many battles and have gained control of the entire East, how can you fail to emerge victorious with the greatest of ease when you have so large a number of allies and when virtually the entire army is here. Whereas they, by contrast, are few in number and lack a brave and competent general to lead them. Who does not know Albinus’ effeminate nature? Who does not know that his way of life has prepared him more for the chorus than for the battlefield? Let us therefore go forth against him with confidence, relying on our customary zeal and valor, with the gods as our allies, gods against whom he has acted impiously in breaking his oaths, and let us be mindful of the victories we have won, victories which that man ridicules.”

When Severus had finished speaking, the entire army called Albinus enemy and shouted their approval of Severus, promising him their wholehearted support; as a result, he was inspired even more and encouraged to anticipate greater things. After making generous gifts to the soldiers, Severus publicly announced his expedition against Albinus. He also sent troops to continue the siege of Byzantium, which was still under blockade because the soldiers of Niger had fled there. At a later date, Byzantium was captured as a result of famine, and the entire city was razed. Stripped of its theaters and baths and, indeed, of all adornments, the city, now only a village, was given to the Perinthians to be subject to them; in the same way Antioch was given to the Laodiceans. Severus made available a huge sum of money for rebuilding the cities destroyed by Niger’s soldiers. The emperor himself set out on the march, scorning heat and cold alike, and gave the army no respite for holidays or rest. Often when he was journeying through very high and very cold mountains, the emperor strode along bareheaded through rain and snow, setting an example of courage and constancy for his soldiers, who endured hardships not only from fear and from training but also in imitation of their emperor. Severus sent a general ahead with a unit of soldiers to seize the passes of the Alps and guard the approaches to Italy.

WHEN it was reported that Severus was not merely threatening to come but would soon appear in person, Albinus was in a state of complete confusion amid the negligence and revelry. Crossing over to the mainland of Gaul opposite Britain, he established his headquarters there. He then sent messages to the governors of the provinces ordering them to provide food and money for his army. Some obeyed and sent supplies, to their own destruction, since they suffered for it later; those who did not obey him saved themselves, more by luck than good judgment. The outcome of the affair and the fortunes of war determined the wisdom of each decision. When the army of Severus came to Gaul, a few minor skirmishes occurred here and there, but the final battle was fought near the large and prosperous city of Lugdunum [Lyon]. Albinus shut himself up in that city, remaining behind when he sent the army out to do battle. A major engagement developed, and for a long time each side’s chances of victory were equal, for in courage and ruthlessness the soldiers from Britain were in no way inferior to the soldiers from Illyria. When these two magnificent armies were locked in combat, it was no easy matter to put either one to flight. As some contemporary historians recorded— saying it not to curry favor but in the interests of accuracy —the division of the army stationed opposite the sector where Severus and his command were fighting proved far superior; the emperor slipped from his horse and fled, managing to escape by throwing off the imperial cloak. But while the soldiers from Britain were pursuing the Illyrians, chanting paeans of praise as if they were already victorious, they say that Laetus, one of Severus’ generals, appeared with the troops under his command fresh and not yet committed in the battle. The historians accuse Laetus of watching the progress of the battle and deliberately waiting, holding his troops out of the fighting and appearing only after he was informed that Severus had been beaten. The aftermath of the affair substantiates the charge that Laetus coveted the empire himself. Later, when Severus had set everything straight and was living an orderly life, he gave generous rewards to the rest of his commanders, but Laetus alone he put to death, as seems reasonable under the circumstances, considering the general’s past performances. All this happened at a much later date, however. On this occasion, when Laetus appeared with fresh troops, as has been related above, Severus’ soldiers, taking heart, wrapped the emperor in the imperial cloak again and mounted him on his horse. But Albinus’ soldiers, thinking that the victory was theirs, now found themselves in disorder when this powerful and as yet uncommitted army suddenly attacked; after a brief resistance they broke and ran. When the rout became general, Severus’ soldiers pursued and slaughtered the fugitives until they drove them into Lugdunum. Each contemporary historian has recorded to suit his own purpose the actual number of those killed and captured on each side. The emperor’s troops captured Lugdunum and burned it. When they caught Albinus they cut off his head and sent it to Severus [A.D. 197]. The emperor thus won two magnificent victories, one in the East and one in the West. No battles and no victories can be compared to those of Severus, and no army to the size of his army; there are no comparable uprisings among nations, or total number of campaigns, or length and speed of marches.

Momentous indeed were the battles of Caesar against Pompey, when Roman fought Roman; equally momentous were the battles fought by Augustus against Antony and the sons of Pompey, and the struggles of Sulla and Marius at an earlier date, in the Roman civil and foreign wars. But here is one man who overthrew three emperors after they were already ruling, and got the upper hand over the praetorians by a trick: he succeeded in killing Julianus, the man in the imperial palace; Niger, who had previously governed the people of the East and was saluted as emperor by the Roman people; and Albinus, who had already been awarded the honor and authority of Caesar. He prevailed over them all by his courage. It is not possible to name another like Severus.

Such was the fate suffered by Albinus, who was stripped of the honor which destroyed him after a brief time.

THEN the angry emperor took vengeance upon Albinus’ friends at Rome. He sent the man’s head to the city and ordered that it be displayed. When he reported his victory in dispatches, he added a note stating that he had sent Albinus’ head to be put on public view so that the people might know the extent of his anger against them. After settling affairs in Britain, he divided this region into two provinces, each under its own governor. When he had also arranged matters in Gaul in what he considered the most advantageous way, he put all the friends of Albinus to death and confiscated their property, indifferent to whether they had supported the man by choice or by necessity. He then took his entire army to Rome in order to inspire the utmost terror there. When he had completed the journey at his usual rapid pace, he entered Rome, raging at Albinus’ surviving friends. The citizens, carrying laurel branches, welcomed him with all honor and praise; the senate also came out to greet him, most of them standing before him in abject dread, convinced that he would not spare their lives. Since his malevolence, a natural character trait, was deadly even when he had little provocation, now that he seemed to have every reason to treat them harshly, the members of the senate were terror-stricken.

195. Annals of the Four Masters

After Art, the son of Conn of the Hundred Battles, had been thirty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he fell in the battle of Magh Mucruimhe, by Maccon and his foreigners. In the same battle, along with Art, fell also the sons of his sister, Sadhbh, daughter of Conn, namely, the seven sons of Oilioll Olum, who had come with him against Maccon, their brother. Eoghan Mor, Dubhmerchon, Mughcorb, Lughaidh, Eochaidh, Diochorb, and Tadhg, were their names; and Beinne Brit, King of Britain, was he who laid violent hands upon them. Beinne was slain by Lughaidh Lagha, in revenge of his relatives. Lioghairne of the Long Cheeks, son of Aenghus Balbh, son of Eochaidh Finn Fuathairt, was he who laid violent hands upon Art in this battle of Magh Mucruimhe, after he had joined the forces of Maccon.

196. Annals of the Four Masters

The first year of Lughaidh, i.e. Maccon, son of Maicniadh, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

197 Cassius Dio Cocceianus

[In Britain at this period, because the Caledonians did not abide by their promises but made preparations to aid the Maeatians, and because Severus at the time was attending to the war abroad, Lupus was compelled to purchase peace for the Maeatians at a high figure, and recovered some few captives.]

St Zepyrinus Pope 199-217

199. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

In this year was found the holy rood.

Late 2nd Century Oppian of Cilicia

Tracking the dim trail is of two sorts, by men and by dogs. Men, cunning of counsel, divine and mark the trail by the eyes; dogs trace all tracks by the nostrils. Now for men winter is a favourable season and they track the quarry with untroubled eyes, since every mark is written in the snow to see and the likeness of the foot remains imprinted in the mud. For dogs spring is hostile but autumn kindly; for in spring the grassy earth is many-scented and over-full of herbs and flowers, and all around the fair-crowned meadows without tillage are purple, while the tilled fields destroy all the scent which is the ambassadress to the keen-nosed tracking dogs. But in autumn, rich in fruit and sweet grapes,

466-486 Cynegetica.

Grass and herbs and flowers wax old and the scent of the wild beasts remains naked for the hounds. There is one valiant breed of tracking dogs, small indeed but as worthy as large dogs to be the theme of song; bred by the wild tribes of the painted Britons and called by the name of Agassaeus. Their size is like that of the weak and greedy domestic table dog: round, very lean, shaggy of hair, dull of eye, it has its feet armed with grievous claws and its mouth sharp with close-set venomous tuskes. With its nose, especially the Agassian dog is most excellent and in tracking it is best of all; for it is very clever at finding the track of things that walk the earth but skilful too to mark the airy scent.

When some hunter desires to make trial of his dogs, he carries in his hands before the high gates a hare, dead or alive, and walks forward on a devious path, now pursuing a straight course, now aslant, left and right wining his crooked way; but when he has come very far from the city and the gates, then he digs a trench and buries the hare. Returning back to the city, he straightway brings nigh the path the cunning dog; and immediately it is excited and snorts at the scent of the hare, and seeks the track upon the ground, but for all its eagerness is not able to find it and roams about in great distress. Even as when a girl in the tenth lunar month, smitten by the birth-pangs of her first child, undoes her hair and undoes the draper)’ of her breasts and, poor girl, without tunic and without snood, roams every-where about the house, and in her anguish now goes to the hall and anon rushes to her bed, and sometimes throws herself in the dust and mars her rosy cheeks ; so the dog, distressed by devouring grief, rushes this way and that and searches every stone in turn and every knoll and every path and trees and garden vines and dykes and threshing-floors. And when at last he hits the airy trail, he gives tongue and whines for joy; even as the little calves leap about the uddered cows, so the dog rejoices exceedingly, and in haste he winds his way over the mazy fields; nor couldst thou lead him astray, even if thou shouldst then drive him very far, but he runs straight on, holding steadfastly to the sweet scent, until he reaches the end of his labour and to his goal. But if thou wert to array him against the hare difficult of capture, stealthily he draws nigh, planting step on step, hiding low under vines or stubble, even as the robber thief of kids who, watching near at hand the sleeping shepherd, quietly steals upon the fold. But when he approaches the covert of the hare, swiftly he springs, like an arrow from the bow or like the hissing snake which some harvester or ploughman has disturbed when lying quietly in front of his venomous lair. So the dog gives tongue and springs; and if he hit his quarry, easily he will overcome him with his sharp claws and take his great load in his mouth and go to meet his master : swiftly he carries his burden but labouring and heavy-laden he draws near. As the wain brings from the cornfield the fruits of harvest and comes to the steading laden with wheat and the rustics when they see it rush forth together to meet it in front of the yard ; one presses on the wheels, another on the frame, another on the axle to help the oxen ; and when they come into the yard they unstrap the pole and the sweating steers have respite from their toil, and the heart of the linked teamster rejoices exceedingly ; even so the dog comes bringing his burden in his mouth. And the swift hunter meets him joyfully and lifting both high from mother earth he puts in his bosom both the beast and the dog himself that slew the beast.

Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

At this time, in the consulship of Cornelius and Valerius Messala, earthquakes of ill omen occurred and the Tiber tore away the bridge so that the City was under water for seven days. There was an eclipse of the sun, and famine set in. This same year Agrippa was enrolled among the iuvenes, but obtained none of the same privileges as his brother. The senators attended the horse-races separately and the knights also separately from the remainder of the populace, as is done nowadays. And since the noblest families did not show themselves inclined to give their daughters for the service of Vesta, a law was passed that the daughters of freedmen might likewise be consecrated. Many contended for the honor, and so they drew lots in the senate in the presence of their fathers; no priestess, however, was appointed from this class.

The soldiers were displeased at the small size of the prizes for the wars that had taken place at this period and no one was willing to carry arms for longer than the specified term of his service. It was therefore voted that five thousand denarii be given to members of the pretorian guard when they had ended sixteen, and three thousand to the other soldiers when they had completed twenty years’ service. Twenty-three legions were being supported at that time, or, as others say, twenty-five, of citizen soldiers.

Only nineteen of them now remain. The Second (Augusta) is the one that winters in Upper Britain. Of the Third there are three divisions, the Gallic, in Phoenicia; the Cyrenaic, in Arabia; the Augustan, in Numidia. The Fourth. (Scythian) is in Syria, the Fifth (Macedonian), in Dacia. The Sixth is divided into two parts, of which the one (Victrix) is in Lower Britain, and the other (Ferrata) is in Judaea. The soldiers of the Seventh, generally called Claudians, are in Upper Moesia. Those of the Eighth, Augustans, are in Upper Germany. Those of the Tenth are both in Upper Pannonia (Legio Gemina) and in Judaea. The Eleventh, in Lower Moesia, is the Claudian. This name two legions received from Claudius because they had not fought against him in the insurrection of Camillus. The Twelfth (Fulminata) is in Cappadocia: The Thirteenth (Gemina) in Dacia: The Fourteenth (Gemina) in Upper Pannonia: The Fifteenth (Apollinaris) in Cappadocia. The Twentieth, called both Valeria and Victrix, is also in Upper Britain. These, I believe, together with those that have the title of the Twenty second and winter in Upper Germany Augustus took in charge and kept; and this I say in spite of the fact that they are by no means called Valerians by all and do not themselves use the title any longer. These are preserved from the Augustan legions. Of the rest, some have been scattered altogether and others were mixed in with different legions by Augustus himself and by the other emperors, from which circumstance they are thought to have been called Gemina.

Now that I have once been brought into a discussion of the legions, I shall speak of the forces as they are at present according to the disposition made by subsequent emperors: in this way any one who desires to learn anything about them may do so easily, finding all his information written in one place. Nero organized the First legion, called the Italian, and now wintering in Lower Moesia; Galba, the First legion, called Adiutrix, in Lower Pannonia, and the Seventh (Gemina), which is in Spain; Vespasian, the Second, Adiutrix, in Lower Pannonia, and the Fourth (the Flavian) in Syria; Domitian, the First (Minervia), in Lower Germany; Trajan, the Second (the Egyptian), and the Thirtieth (Germanic), which he also named after himself. Marcus Antoninus organized the Second, which is in Noricum, and the Third, in Rhaetia; these are also called Italian: Severus the Parthian legions, i. e., the First and the Third inMesopotamia and between them the Second, the one in Italy.

This is at present the number of legions which are enrolled in the service, exclusive of the cohortes urbanae and the pretorian guard. At that time, in the days of Augustus, those I mentioned were being supported, whether twenty-three or twenty-five altogether; and then there was some allied force, whatever the size, of infantry and cavalry and sailors. I can not state the exact figures. The body-guards, ten thousand in all, were divided into ten portions, and the six thousand warders of the city into four portions, and there were picked foreign horsemen to whom the name Batavians is applied (from the island Batavia in the Rhine), because the Batavians are noted for superiority in horsemanship. I can not, however, state their exact number any more than that of the evocati. He began to reckon in the latter from the time that he called the warriors who had previously supported his father to arms again against Antony; and he retained control of them. They constitute even now a special corps and carry rods, like the centurions.

For the distribution mentioned he needed money and therefore introduced a motion into the senate to the effect that a definite permanent fund be created, in order that without troubling any private citizen they might obtain abundant support and rewards from the proposed appropriation. The means for such a fund was accordingly sought. As no one showed a willingness to become aedile, some from the ranks of ex-quaestors and ex-tribunes were compelled by lot to take the office. This happened frequently at other times.

Sybylline Oracle.

Book XII 230.

Of the first unit shall another king
Bear the rule; and another after him
Shall be commander, of tens numbering seven;
And their names shall be honored; and they shall
Themselves destroy men marked by many a spot,
Britons and mighty Moors and Dacians
And the Arabians. But when the last
Of these shall perish, fearful Ares then,
He that before was wounded, shall again
Against the Parthians come, and utterly
Shall he destroy them.

After 2^nd Century. Pseudo-Agathemerus.

Europe. Islands of this continent worthy of note in the outer sea are the two Bretanikai, Ivernia and Alvion, lying further west, extends some way to Spain; Alvion, in which forts are situated, is the greatest and most extensive; for beginning in the north it stretches to the west as far as the middle of Tarraconensis, to the east almost to the middle of Germany. Also, noteworthy would be Thule and Great Skandia.

Tertullian.

Romans and sojourners, yes, and in Jerusalem Jews, and all other nations; as, for instance, by this time, the varied races of the Gaetulians, and manifold confines of the Moors, all the limits of the Spains, and the diverse nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons inaccessible to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ, and of the Sarmatians, and Dacians, and Germans, and Scythians, and of many remote nations, and of provinces and islands many, to us unknown, and which we can scarce enumerate? In all which places the name of the Christ who is already come reigns, as of Him before whom the gates of all cities have been opened, and to whom none are closed, before whom iron bars have been crumbled, and brazen gates opened. Although there be withal a spiritual sense to be affixed to these expressions, that the hearts of individuals, blockaded in various ways by the devil, are unbarred by the faith of Christ, still they have been evidently fulfilled, inasmuch as in all these places dwells the “people” of the Name of Christ. For who could have reigned over all nations but Christ, God’s Son, who was ever announced as destined to reign over all to eternity? For if Solomon “reigned,” why, it was within the confines of Judea merely: “from Beersheba unto Dan” the boundaries of his kingdom are marked. If, moreover, Darius “reigned” over the Babylonians and Parthians, he had not power over all nations; if Pharaoh, or whoever succeeded him in his hereditary kingdom, over the Egyptians, in that country merely did he possess his kingdom’s dominion; if Nebuchadnezzar with his petty kings, “from India unto Ethiopia” he had his kingdom’s boundaries; if Alexander the Macedonian he did not hold more than universal Asia, and other regions, after he had quite conquered them; if the Germans, to this day they are not suffered to cross their own limits; the Britons are shut within the circuit of their own ocean; the nations of the Moors, and the barbarism of the Gaetulians, are blockaded by the Romans, lest they exceed the confines of their own regions.

Chapter VI. Of Dyeing the Hair.

I see some (women) turn (the colour of) their hair with saffron. They are ashamed even of their own nation, (ashamed) that their procreation did not assign them to Germany and to Gaul: thus, as it is, they transfer their hair (thither)! Ill, ay, most ill, do they augur for themselves with their flame-coloured head, and think that graceful which (in fact) they are polluting! Nay, moreover, the force of the cosmetics burns ruin into the hair; and the constant application of even any undrugged moisture, lays up a store of harm for the head; while the sun’s warmth, too, so desirable for imparting to the hair at once growth and dryness, is hurtful. What “grace” is compatible with “injury? “What “beauty” with “impurities? “Shall a Christian woman heap saffron on her head, as upon an altar? For, whatever is wont to be burned to the honour of the unclean spirit, that—-unless it is applied for honest, and necessary, and salutary uses, for which God’s creature was provided—-may seem to be a sacrifice. But, however, God saith, “Which of you can make a white hair black, or out of a black a white? ” And so, they refute the Lord! “Behold!” say they, “instead of white or black, we make it yellow, more winning in grace.”

Chapter VI. Of Precious Stones and Pearls.

But, in the next place, what am I to interpret those jewels to be which vie with gold in haughtiness, except little pebbles and stones and paltry particles of the self-same earth; but yet not necessary either for laying down foundations, or rearing party-walls, or supporting pediments, or giving density to roofs? The only edifice which they know how to rear is this silly pride of women: because they require slow rubbing that they may shine, and artful underlaying that they may show to advantage, and careful piercing that they may hang; and (because they) render to gold a mutual assistance in meretricious allurement. But whatever it is that ambition fishes up from the British or the Indian sea, it is a kind of conch not more pleasing in savour than—-I do not say the oyster and the sea-snail, but—-even the giant muscle.

Chapter X. If the Female Virgins are to Be Thus Conspicuous, Why Not the Male as Well?

Nor, similarly, (is it permitted) on the ground of any distinctions whatever. Otherwise, it were sufficiently discourteous, that while females, subjected as they are throughout to men, bear in their front an honourable mark of their virginity, whereby they may be looked up to and gazed at on all sides and magnified by the brethren, so many men-virgins, so many voluntary eunuchs, should carry their glory in secret, carrying no token to make them, too, illustrious. For they, too, will be bound to claim some distinctions for themselves—-either the feathers of the Garamantes, or else the fillets of the barbarians, or else the cicadas of the Athenians, or else the curls of the Germans, or else the tattoo-marks of the Britons; or else let the opposite course be taken, and let them lurk in the churches with head veiled.

Ptolomy, Geography.

About 140 Ptolomy.

Of the Characteristics of the Inhabitants of the General Climes.

Those who live under the more northern parallels, those, I mean, who have the Bears over their heads, since they are far removed from the zodiac and the heat of the sun, are therefore cooled; but because they have a richer share of moisture, which is most nourishing and is not there exhausted by heat, they are white in complexion, straight-haired, tall and well-nourished, and somewhat cold by nature; these too are savage in their habits because their dwelling-places are continually cold. The wintry character of their climate, the size of their plants, and the wildness of their animals are in accord with these qualities. We call these men, too, by a general name, Scythians.

The inhabitants of the region between the summer tropic and the Bears, however, since the sun is neither directly over their heads nor far distant at its noon-day transits, share in the equable temperature of the air, which varies, to be sure, but has no violent changes from heat to cold. They are therefore medium in colouring, of moderate stature, in nature equable, live close together, and are civilized in their habits. The southernmost of them are in general more shrewd and inventive, and better versed in the knowledge of things divine because their zenith is close to the zodiac and to the planets revolving about it. Through this affinity, the men themselves are characterized by an activity of the soul which is sagacious, investigative, and fitted for pursuing the sciences specifically called mathematical. Of them, again, the eastern group are more masculine, vigorous of soul, and frank in all things, because one would reasonably assume that the orient partakes of the nature of the sun. This region therefore is diurnal, masculine, and right-handed, even as we observe that among the animals too their right-hand parts are better fitted for strength and vigour. Those to the west are more feminine, softer of soul, and secretive, because this region, again, is lunar, for it is always in the west that the moon emerges and makes its appearance after conjunction. For this reason, it appears to be a nocturnal clime, feminine, and, in contrast with the orient, left-handed.

And now in each of these general regions certain special conditions of character and customs naturally ensue. For as likewise, in the case of the climate, even within the regions that in general are reckoned as hot, cold, or temperate, certain localities and countries have special peculiarities of excess or deficiency by reason of their situation, height, lowness, or adjacency; and again, as some peoples are more inclined to horsemanship because theirs is a plain country, or to seamanship because they live close to the sea, so also would one discover special traits in each arising from the natural familiarity of their particular climes with the stars in the signs of the zodiac. These traits, too, would be found generally present, but not in every individual. We must, then, deal with the subject summarily, in so far as it might be of use for the purpose of particular investigations.

Of the Familiarities between Countries and the Triplicities and Stars.

Under this arrangement, the remainder of the first quarter, by which I mean the European quarter, situated in the north-west of the inhabited world, is in familiarity with the north-western triangle, Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, and is governed, as one would expect, by the lords of the triangle, Jupiter and Mars, occidental. In terms of whole nations these parts consist of Britain, (Transalpine) Gaul, Germany, Bastarnia, Italy, (Cisalpine) Gaul, Apulia, Sicily, Tyrrhenia, Celtica, and Spain. As one might expect, it is the general characteristic of these nations, by reason of the predominance of the triangle and the stars which join in its government, to be independent, liberty-loving, fond of arms, industrious, very warlike, with qualities of leadership, cleanly, and magnanimous. However, because of the occidental aspect of Jupiter and Mars, and furthermore because the first parts of the aforesaid triangle are masculine and the latter parts feminine, they are without passion for women and look down upon the pleasures of love, but are better satisfied with and more desirous of association with men. And they do not regard the act as a disgrace to the paramour, nor indeed do they actually become effeminate and soft thereby, because their disposition is not perverted, but they retain in their soul’s manliness, helpfulness, good faith, love of kinsmen, and benevolence. Of these same countries Britain, (Transalpine) Gaul, Germany, and Bastarnia are in closer familiarity with Aries and Mars. Therefore for the most part their inhabitants are fiercer, more headstrong, and bestial. But Italy, Apulia, (Cisalpine) Gaul, and Sicily have their familiarity with Leo and the sun; wherefore these peoples are more masterful, benevolent, and co-operative. Tyrrhenia, Celtica, and Spain are subject to Sagittarius and Jupiter, whence their independence, simplicity, and love of cleanliness. The parts of this quarter which are situated about the centre of the inhabited world, Thrace, Macedonia, Illyria, Hellas, Achaia, Crete, and likewise the Cyclades, and the coastal regions of Asia Minor and Cyprus, which are in the south-east portion of the whole quarter, have in addition familiarity with the south-east triangle, Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn, and its co-rulers Venus, Saturn, and Mercury. As a result, the inhabitants of those countries are brought into conformity with these planets and both in body and soul are of a more mingled constitution. They too have qualities of leadership and are noble and independent, because of Mars; they are liberty-loving and self-governing, democratic and framers of law, through Jupiter; lovers of music and of learning, fond of contests and clean livers, through Venus; social, friendly to strangers, justice-loving, fond of letters, and very effective in eloquence, through Mercury; and they are particularly addicted to the performance of mysteries, because of Venus’s occidental aspect. And again, part by part, those of this group who live in the Cyclades and on the shores of Asia Minor and Cyprus are more closely familiar to Taurus and Venus. For this reason, they are, on the whole, luxurious, clean, and attentive to their bodies. The inhabitants of Hellas, Achaia, and Crete, however, have a familiarity with Virgo and Mercury, and are therefore better at reasoning, and fond of learning, and they exercise the soul in preference to the body. The Macedonians, Thracians, and Illyrians have familiarity with Capricorn and Saturn, so that, though they are acquisitive, they are not so mild of nature, nor social in their institutions.

Let this be our brief exposition of the familiarities of the planets and the signs of the zodiac with the various nations, and of the general characteristics of the latter. We shall also set forth, for ready use, a list of the several nations which are in familiarity, merely noted against each of the signs, in accordance with what has just been said about them, thus:—

Aries: Britain, Gaul, Germania, Bastarnia; in the centre, Coelê Syria, Palestine, Idumaea, Judaea.

ALBION

A description of the northern coast, above which is the Duecaledonius ocean.

Novantarum peninsula, and promontory of the same name 21*00 – 61°40

Rerigonius bay 20*30 -60°50

Vindogara bay 21*20-60°30

Clota estuary 22*15-59°20

Lemannonius bay 24*00- 60°00

Epidium promontory 23*00-60°40

Mouth of the Longus river 24*30-60°40

Mouth of the Itis river 27*00-60°40

Volas bay 29*00-60°30

Mouth of the Navarus river 30*00 -60°30

Tarvedum or Orcas promontory 31*20-60°15

Description of the west side which borders on the Hibernian ocean and the Vergionius ocean.

From the Novantian promontory 21*00-61°40

Mouth of the Abravannus river 19*20-61°00

Iena estuary 19*00-60°30

Mouth of the Devas river 18*00-60°00

Mouth of the Novius river 18*20-59°30

Ituna estuary 18*20-59°30

Moricambe estuary 17*30-58°20

Setantiorum harbor 17*20-57°45

Belisama estuary 17*30-57°20

Seteia estuary 17*00-57°00

Caeanganorum promontory 15*00-57°00

mouth of the Toesobis river 15*40-56°20

mouth of the Stuccia river 15*20-55°30

mouth of the Tuerobis river 15*00-55°00

Octapitarum promontory 14*20-54°30

mouth of the Tobius river 15*30-54°30

mouth of the Ratostabius river 16*30-54°30

Sabrina estuary 17*20-54°30

Uxella estuary 16*00-16*00

Herculis promontory 14*00-52°45

Antivestaeum or Bolerium promontory 11*30 -52°30

Damnonium or Ocrium promontory 12*00-51°30

Description of the south side below which is the Britannic ocean. After the Ocrium promontory is

the mouth of the Cenio river 14*51-51°45

mouth of the Tamarus river 15*40-52°10

mouth of the Iscas river 17*40-52°20

mouth of the Alaunus river 17*40-52°40

Magnus Portus 19*00-53°00

mouth of the Trisantonis river 20*20-53°00

New harbour 20*20-53°00

Cantium promontory 22*00-54°00

A description of the eastern and the southern side next to which is the Germanic ocean. After the Tarvedum promontory, or Orcades, by which it is known,

Virvedrum promontory 31*00-60°00

Verubium promontory 30*30-59°40

mouth of the Ila river 30*00-59°40

a high shore 29*00-59°40

Varar estuary 28*00-59°40

mouth of the Loxa river 27*30-59°40

Tuesis estuary 27*00-59°00

mouth of the Caelis river 27*00-58°45

Taezalon promontory 27*30-58°30

mouth of the Deva river 26*00-58°30

mouth of the Tina river 24*00-58°30

Boderia estuary 22*30-59°00

mouth of the Alaunus river 21*20-58°30

mouth of the Vedra river 20*10-58°30

Dunum bay 20*15-57°30

Gabrantuicorum bay with many harbors 21*00-57°00

Ocelus promontory 21*15-56°40

mouth of the Abi river 21*00-56°30

Metaris estuary 20*30-55°40

mouth of the Gariennus river 20*50-55°40

A promontory 21*15-55°05

mouth of the Sidumanis river 20*10-55°00

Tamesa estuary 20*30- 54°30

Next to this the Cantium promontory 22*00-54°00

The Novantae dwell on the side toward the north below the peninsula of this name, among whom are the following towns:

Locopibia 19*00-60°20

Rerigonium 20*10-60°40

Below are the Selgovae, among whom are the following towns

Carbantorigum 19*00-59°30

Uxellum 18*30-59°20

Corda 20*00-59°40

Trimontium 19*00-59°00

From these toward the east, but more northerly, are the Damnoni, among whom are the following towns:

Colanica 20*45-59°10

Vindogara 21*20-60°00

Coria 21*30-59°20

Alauna 22*45-59°50

Lindum 23*00-59°30

Victoria 23*30-59°00

Further south are the Otalini, among whom are the following towns:

Coria 20*10-59°00

Alauna 23*00-58°40

Bremenium 21*00-58°45

Next to the Damnoni, but more toward the east near the Epidium promontory are the Epidi and next to these the Cerones; then the Carnonacae, and the Caereni but more toward the east; and in the extreme east dwell the Cornavi; from the Lemannonis bay as far as the Varar estuary are the Caledoni, and above these is the Caledonian forest, from which toward the east are the Decantae, and next to these the Lugi extending to the Cornavi boundary, and above the Lugi are the Smertae; below Caledonia are the Vacomagi, among whom are the following towns:

Bannatia 24*00-59°30

Tamia 25*00-59°20

Pinnata camp 27*15-59°20

Tuesis 26*45-59°10

Below these toward the west are the Venicones, whose town is Orrea 24*00-58°45

More toward the east are the Taezali and the town Devana 26*00-59°00

Below the Selgovae and Otalini are the Brigantes extending to both seas, among whom are the following towns:

Epiacum 18*30-58°30

Vinovium 17*45-58°00

Caturactonium 20*00-58°00

Calatum 19*00-57°45

Isurium 20*00-57°40

Rigodunum 18*00-57°30

Olicana 19*00-57°30

Eboracum, Legio VI Victrix 20*00-57°20

Camulodunum 18*00-57°45

Near which on the Opportunum bay are the Parisi and the town Petuaria 20*40-56°40

Below these are the Brigantes but some distance toward the west are the Ordovices, among whom are the towns:

Mediolanum 16*45-56°40

Brannogenium 16*45 – 56°15

From these toward the east are the Cornavi, among whom are the towns:

Deva, Legio XX Victrix 17*30-56°45

Viroconium 16*45-55°45

Next to these are the Coritani, among whom are the towns:

Lindum 18*40-56°30

Ratae 18*00-55°30

Next are the Catuvellauni, among whom are the towns:

Salinae 20*45-55°50

Urolanium 19*20-55°30

Next to these are the Iceni, whose town is called Venta 20*30 -55°20

Farther eastward and near the estuary of the Tamesa are the Trinovantes and the town Camulodunum 21*00 -55°00

Below the peoples we have mentioned, but more toward the west are the Demetae, whose towns are:

Luentinum 15*45-55°10

Maridunum 15*30-54°40

More toward the east are the Silures whose town is Bullaeum 16*50-55°00 (Usk)

Next to these are the Dobuni, Corinium 18*00 -54°10

then the Atrebati and their town Caleva 19*00 -54°15

Next to these, but farther eastward, are the Canti among whom are the towns:

Londinium 20*00 -54°00

Daruernum 21*00 -54°00

Rutupie 21*45-54°00

Below the Atrebati and the Canti are the Regni and the town Noeomagus 19*45-53°05

Below the Dobuni are the Belgae and the towns:

Iscalis 16*00 -53°40

Aquae calidae 17*20-53°40

Venta 18*40 -53°00

Toward the west and south of these are the Durotriges whose town is Dunium 18*00 -52°40

Next to these, but more to the west, are the Dumnoni, whose towns are:

Voliba 14*45—52°00

Uxella 15*00 -52°45

Tamara 15*00 -52°15

Isca, where is located Legio II Augusta 17*30-52°45

The islands which are near Albion island and the Orcades promontory are:

Scetis island 32*40 -60°45

Dumna island 30*00 -61°20

Above these islands are the Orcades, about thirty in number, the middle of which is in 30*00 -61°40

Far above these is the island Thule.

The part of this which extends much toward the west is in 29*00 -63°00

that which is farthest eastward is 31*40-63°00

that which is farthest northward is 30*20 -63°15

that which is farthest southward is 30*20 -62°40

the middle is in 30*20 -63°00

Eastward from the Trinovantes region there are two islands: Toliapis 23*00-54°20. Counus island 24*00-54°30

Below Magnus Portus is the island Vectis, the middle of which is in 19*20-52°20

HIBERNIA

A description of the north coast, beyond which is located the Hyperborean ocean:

Boreum promontory 11*00-61°00

Vennicnium promontory 12*50-61°20

mouth of the Vidua river 13*00 -61°00

mouth of the Argita river 14*30 -61°30

Rhobogdium promontory 16*20 -61°30

The Vennicni inhabit the west coast; next to them and toward the east are the Rhobogdi

A description of the west side, which borders on the Western ocean

from the Boreum promontory which is in 11*00-61°00

mouth of the Ravius river 11*20-60°40

Magnata city 11*15-60°15

mouth of the Libnius river 10*30 -60°00

mouth of the Ausoba river 10*30 -59°30

mouth of the Senus river 9*30-59°30

mouth of the Duris river 9*40-58°40

mouth of the Iernus river 8*00 -58°00

Southern promontory 7*40 -57°45

The Erdini inhabit the coast next to the Vennicni, and between these are the Magnatae; then the Autini; and the Gangani; below whom are the Vellabori.

Description of the south coast, which adjoins the Vergionius ocean, from the southern promontory which is in 7*40-57°40

mouth of the Dabrona river 11*15-57°00

mouth of the Birgus river 12*30 -57°30

Sacrum promontory 14*00 -57°50

A description of the east side touching the ocean which is called Hibernian,

beginning at the Sacrum promontory which is in 14*00 -57°50

mouth of the Modonnus river 13*40 -58°40

Manapia town 13*30 -58°40

mouth of the Oboca river 13*10-59°00

Eblana town 14*00 -59°30

mouth of the Bubindas river 14*40 -59°40

Isamnium promontory 15*00 -60°00

mouth of the Vinderis river 15*00 -60°15

mouth of the Logia river 15*20-60°40

Next to this is the Robogdium promontory.

On the side next to the Robogdi dwell the Darini, below whom are the Volunti; then the Eblani; then the Cauci; below whom are the Manapi; then the Coriondi who dwell above the Brigantes.

The following are the inland towns:

Regia 13*00 -60°20

Rhaeba 12*00 -59°45

Laberus 13*00-59°15

Macolicum 11*30 -58°40

another Regia 11*00 59°15

Dunum 12*30-58°45

Hibernis 11*00 -58°10

Above Hibernia are the Ebuda islands five in number,

the largest of which toward the west is called Ebuda 15*00 -62°00

next to this toward the east likewise is Ebuda island 15*40 -62°00

then Rhicina 17*00 -62°00

then Malaeus 17*30 -62°30

then Epidium 18*30 -62°00

Toward the east of Hibernia are these islands:

Monaoeda island 17*40-61°30

Mona island 15*00 -57°40

Adru which is barren 15*00-59°30

Limnu which is barren 15*00 -59°00

GERMANY(Extract)

There are three islands located above Germany at the mouths of the Albis, which are called Saxon, and the one in the middle is located at 31*00-57”20

The shore *praeter* the Ocean is inhabited above the Bructeriup to the Amisia river, most to the north the Cimbri; after the Saxons from the Chalusus river to the Suevian river the Farodini, then the Sidini up to the Viadua river, and after these the Rugiclei up to the Vistula river.

Of the people of the interior and those who live inland the most important are the Suevi Angili, who are to the east of the Langobardi extending towards the north and up to the central part of the Albis river, and the Suevi Semnones, whose boundaries beyond the Albis extend from the area we mentioned towards the east up to the Suevus river, and the Burguntae, who inhabit from there to the Vistula.

200 – 299. Severus. Saint Alban.

200 to 299

Septimus Severus Emperor 193-211

c200. Historia Augusta.

The Three Gordians.

He (Gordian the Elder) served his quaestorship most splendidly. When he was aedile he gave the Roman people twelve exhibitions, that is one for each month, at his own expense; at times, indeed, he provided five hundred pairs of gladiators, and never less than a hundred and fifty. He produced a hundred wild beasts of Libya at once, and likewise at one time a thousand bears. There exists also today a remarkable wild-beast hunt of his, pictured in Gnaeus Pompey’s “House of the Beaks”; this palace belonged to him and to his father and grandfather before him until your privy-purse took it over in the time of Philip. In this picture at the present day are contained two hundred stags with antlers shaped like the palm of a hand, together with stags of Britain, thirty wild horses, a hundred wild sheep, ten elks, a hundred Cyprian bulls, three hundred red Moorish ostriches, thirty wild asses, a hundred and fifty wild boars, two hundred chamois, and two hundred fallow deer. And all these he handed over to the people to be killed on the day of the sixth exhibition that he gave.

208. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

Severus, seeing that his children were departing from their accustomed modes of life and that his legions were becoming enervated by idleness, set out on a campaign against Britain, though he knew that he should not return. He knew this chiefly from the stars under which he had been born, for he had them painted upon the ceilings of the two halls in the palace where he was wont to hold court. Thus, they were visible to all, save the portion which “regarded-the-hour” when he first saw the light. This he had not engraved in the same way in both the rooms. He knew it also by the report of the seers. And a thunderbolt struck a statue of his standing near the gates through which he intended to march out and looking off along the road leading to his destination, and it had erased three letters from his name. For this reason, as the seers indicated, he did not come back again but departed from life two years after this. He took with him very great sums of money.

There are two principal races of the Britons, the Caledonians and the Maeatians. The titles of the rest have all been reduced to these two. The Maeatians live near the cross wall which cuts the island in two, and the Caledonians are behind them. Both inhabit wild and waterless mountains, desolate and swampy plains, holding no walls, nor cities, nor tilled fields, but living by pasturage and hunting and a few fruit trees. The fish, which are inexhaustible and past computing for multitude, they do not taste. They dwell coatless and shoeless in tents, possess their women in common, and rear all the offspring as a community. Their form of government is mostly democratic and they are very fond of plundering.

Consequently, they choose their boldest spirits as leaders. They go into battle on chariots with small, swift horses. There are also infantry, very quick at running and very firm in standing their ground. Their weapons are shield and short spear, with a bronze apple attached to the end of the ground-spike, so that when the instrument is shaken it may clash and inspire the enemy with terror. They also have daggers. They can endure hunger and cold and any kind of wretchedness. They plunge into the swamps and exist there for many days with only their heads above water, and in the forests they support themselves upon bark and roots and in all cases they have ready a kind of food of which a piece the size of a bean when eaten prevents them from being either hungry or thirsty. Of such a nature is the island of Britain, and such are the inhabitants that the enemy’s country has. For it is an island, and the fact (as I have stated) was clearly proved at this time. The length of it is seven thousand one hundred and thirty-two stades. Its greatest breadth is two thousand three hundred and ten, and its least is three hundred.

Of all this we hold a little less than a half. So, Severus, desiring to subjugate the whole of it, invaded Caledonia. While traversing the territory he had untold trouble in cutting down the forests, reducing the levels of heights, filling up the swamps, and bridging the rivers. He fought no battle and beheld no adversary in battle array. The enemy purposely put sheep and cattle in front of them for the soldiers to seize, in order that the latter might be deceived for a longer time and wear themselves out. The Romans received great damage from the streams and were made objects of attack when they were scattered. Afterward, being unable to walk, they were slain by their own friends to avoid capture, so that nearly as many as fifty thousand died.

But the emperor did not desist till he had approached the extremity of the island. Here he observed very accurately to how slight a degree the sun declined below the horizon and the length of days and nights both summer and winter. Thus having been conveyed through practically the whole of the hostile region, for he was really conveyed in a covered chair most of the way on account of his weakness, he returned to friendly territory, first forcing the Britons to come to terms on condition that he should abandon a good part of their territory.

Antoninus also disturbed him and involved him in vain worry by his intemperate life, by his evident intention to murder his brother if the chance should present itself, and finally by plotting against his own father. Once he leaped suddenly out of his quarters, shouting and bawling and feigning to have been wronged by Castor. This man was the best of the Caesarians attending upon Severus, had been trusted with his opinions, and had been assigned the duties of chamberlain. Certain soldiers with whom previous arrangements had been made hereupon gathered and joined the outcry; but they were checked in short order, as Severus himself appeared on the scene and punished the more unruly among them.

On another occasion, both were riding to meet the Caledonians for the purpose of receiving them and holding a conference about a truce, and Antoninus undertook to kill his father outright with his own hand. They were going along on their horses, for Severus, although his feet were rather shrunken by an ailment, nevertheless was on horseback himself and the rest of the army was following: the enemy’s force, too, was likewise a spectator. At this juncture, in the midst of the silence and order, Antoninus reined up his horse and drew his sword, apparently intending to strike his father in the back. Seeing this, the other horsemen in the detachment raised a cry of alarm, which scared the son, so that he did nothing further. Severus turned at their shout and saw the sword; however, he uttered not a syllable but ascended the tribunal, finished what he had to do, and returned to the general’s tent. Then he called his son and Papinianus and Castor, ordered a sword to be placed within easy reach, and upbraided the youth for having dared to do such a thing at all and especially for having been on the point of committing so great a crime in the presence of all the allies and the enemy. Finally he said: “Now if you desire to slay me and have done, put an end to me here. You are strong: I am an old man and prostrate. If you have no objection to this, but shrink from becoming my actual murderer, there stands by your side Papinianus the prefect, whom you may order to put me out of the way. He will certainly do anything that you command, since you are emperor.” Though he spoke in this fashion, he still did the plotter no harm, in spite of the fact that he had often blamed Marcus for not ending the life of Commodus and that he had himself often threatened his son with this treatment. Such words, however, were invariably spoken in a fit of anger: on this occasion he allowed his love of offspring to get the better of his love of country; yet in doing so he simply betrayed his other child, for he well knew what would happen.

Upon another revolt of the inhabitants of the island he summoned the soldiers and bade them invade the rebels’ country, killing whomsoever they should encounter. He added these verses:

“Let none escape utter destruction At our hands. Yea, whatso is found in

the womb of the mother, Child unborn though it be, let it not escape

utter destruction!”

When this had been done and the Caledonians as well as the Maeatians revolted, he proceeded with preparations to make war upon them in person. While he was thus engaged, his sickness carried him off on the fourth of February.

Antoninus, it is said, contributed something to the result. Before he closed his eyes he is reputed to have spoken these words to his children (I shall use the exact phraseology without embellishment): “Be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, scorn everybody else.” After this his body arrayed in military garb was placed upon a pyre, and as a mark of honor the soldiers and his children ran about it. Those present who had any military gifts threw them upon it and the sons applied the fire. Later his bones were put in a jar of purple stone, conveyed to Rome, and deposited in the tomb of the Antonines. It is said that Severus sent for the jar a little before his death and after feeling it over remarked: “Thou shalt hold a man that the world could not hold.”

He was slow-moulded but strong, though he eventually grew very weak from gout: mentally he was very keen and very firm. He wished for more education than he got and for this reason he was sagacious rather than a good talker. Toward friends not forgetful, to enemies most oppressive, he was capable of everything that he desired to accomplish but careless of everything said about him. Hence, he gathered money from every source (save that he killed no one to get it) [and met all necessary expenditures quite ungrudgingly. He restored very many of the ancient buildings and inscribed upon them his own name to signify that he had repaired them so as to be new structures, and from his private funds. Also, he spent a great deal uselessly upon renovating and repairing other places, erecting, for instance, to Bacchus and Hercules a temple of huge size. Yet, though his expenses were enormous, he left behind not merely a few myriad denarii, easily reckoned, but a great many. Again, he rebuked such persons as were not chaste, even going to the extent of enacting certain laws in regard to adultery, with the result that there were any number of prosecutions for that offence. When consul I once found three thousand entered on the docket. But inasmuch as very few persons appeared to conduct their cases, he too ceased to trouble his head about it.

Apropos of this, a quite witty remark is reported of the wife of Argentocoxus, a Caledonian, to Julia Augusta, when the latter after the treaty was joking her about the free intercourse of her sex in Britain with men. Thereupon the foreigner asserted: “We fulfill the necessities of nature in a much better way than you Roman women. We have dealings openly with the best men, whereas you let yourselves be debauched in secret by the vilest.” This is what the British woman said.

The following is the style of life that Severus led in time of peace. He was sure to be doing something before dawn, while it was still night, and after this he would go to walk, telling and hearing of the interests of the empire. Then he held court, and separately (unless there were some great festival); and indeed, he did this very well. Those on trial were allowed plenty of water [Footnote: The water-clock] and he granted us, his coadjutors, full liberty to speak. He continued to preside till noonday. After that he went riding as much as he could. Next, he took some kind of exercise and a bath. He then consumed a not meagre lunch, either by himself or with his children. Next, as a rule, he enjoyed a nap. Later he rose, attended to his remaining duties of administration, and while walking about occupied himself with discussions of both Greek and Latin lore. Then, toward evening, he would bathe again and dine with his attendants. Very seldom did he have any outsider to dinner and only on days when it was quite unavoidable did he arrange expensive banquets. He lived sixty-five years, nine months, and twenty-five days, for he was born on the eleventh of April. Of this he had ruled seventeen years, eight months and three days. In fine, he showed himself so active that even expiring he gasped: “Come, give it to us, if we have anything to do!”

Geta Emperor 211

Antoninus (Caracalla) Emperor 211-217

213. Cassius Dio Cocceianus.

The Celtic nations, however, afforded him neither pleasure nor any pretence of cleverness or courage but proved him to be nothing more nor less than a cheat, a simpleton, and an arrant coward. Antoninus made a campaign among the Alamanni and wherever he saw a spot suitable for habitation he would order: “There let a fort be erected: there let a city be built.” To those spots, he applied names relating to himself, yet the local designations did not get changed; for some of the people were unaware of the new appellations and others thought he was joking. Consequently, he came to entertain a contempt for them and would not keep his hands off this tribe even; but, whereas he had been saying that he had come as an ally, he accorded them treatment to be expected of a most implacable foe. He called a meeting of their men of military age under promise that they were to receive pay, and then at a given signal, his raising aloft his own shield, he had them surrounded and cut down; he also sent cavalry around and arrested all others not present.

Antoninus commended in the senate by means of a letter Pandion, a fellow who had previously been an understudy of charioteers but in the war against the Alamanni drove his chariot for him and in this capacity, was his comrade and fellow soldier. And he asserted that he had been saved by this man from a portentous danger and was not ashamed to evince greater gratitude to him than to the soldiers, whom in their turn he regarded as our superiors.

Some of the most distinguished men whom Antoninus slew he ordered to be cast out unburied.

He made a search for the tomb of Sulla and repaired it, and reared a cenotaph to Mesomedes, who had written a compilation of citharoedic modes. He honored the latter because he was himself learning to sing to the zither and the former because he was emulating his cruelty.

Still, in cases of necessity and urgent campaigns, he was simple and frugal, toiling with painstaking care in menial offices as much as the rest. He trudged beside the soldiers and ran beside them, not taking a bath nor changing his clothing, but helping them in every labor and choosing absolutely the same food as they had. Often, he would send to distinguished champions on the enemy’s side and challenge them to single combat. The details of generalship in which he certainly ought to have been most versed he managed least well, as if he thought that victory lay in the performance of those services mentioned and not in this science of commanding.

He conducted war also against a certain Celtic tribe of Cenni. These warriors are said to have assailed the Romans with the utmost fierceness, using their mouths to pull from their flesh the missiles with which the Osrhoeni wounded them, that they might give their hands no respite in slaughtering the foe. Nevertheless, even they, after selling the name of defeat at a high figure, made an agreement with him to go into Germany on condition of being spared. Their women [and those of the Alamanni] all who were captured [would not, in truth, await a servile doom, but] when Antoninus asked them whether they desired to be sold or slain, chose the latter alternative. Afterward, as they were offered for sale, they all killed themselves and some of their children as well.

[Many also of the people dwelling close to the ocean itself, near the mouth of the Albis, sent envoys to him and asked his friendship, when their real concern was to get money. For after he had done as they desired, they would frequently attack him, threatening to begin a war; and with all such he came to terms. Even though his offer was contrary to their principles, yet when they saw the gold pieces they were captivated. To them he gave true gold pieces, but the silver and gold money with which he provided the Romans was alloyed.] He manufactured the one of lead with a silver plating and the other of bronze with a gold plating.

The same ruler published some of his devices directly, pretending that they were excellent and worthy of commendation, however base their actual character. Other intentions he rather unwillingly made known through the very precautions which he took to conceal them, as, for example, in the case of the money. He plundered the whole land and the whole sea and left nothing whatever unharmed. The chants of the enemy made Antoninus frenzied and beside himself, hearing which some of the Alamanni asserted that they had used charms to put him out of his mind.] He was sick in body, partly with ordinary and partly with private diseases, and was sick also in mind, suffering from distressing visions; and often he thought he was being pursued by his father and his brother, armed with swords. Therefore, he called up spirits to find some remedy against them, among others the spirit of his father and of Commodus. But not one would speak a word to him except Commodus. [Geta, so they say, attended Severus, though unsummoned. Yet not even he offered any suggestion to relieve the emperor, but on the contrary terrified him the more.

This is what he said: “Draw nearer judgment, which the gods demand of thee” then something else, and finally– “having in secret places a disease hard to heal.”

For letting these facts become public many suffered unseemly outrage. But to Antoninus not one of the gods gave any response pertaining to the healing of either his body or his mind, although he showered attention upon all the most distinguished shrines. This showed in the clearest light that they regarded not his offerings, nor his sacrifices, but only his purposes and his deeds. He got no aid from Apollo Grannus nor Asclepius nor Serapis, in spite of his many supplications and his unwearying persistence. Even when abroad he sent to them prayers and sacrifices and votive offerings and many runners traveled to them daily, carrying things of the sort. He also went himself, hoping to prevail by appearing in person, and he performed all the usual practices of devotees, but he obtained nothing that wouldcontribute to health.

210. Historia Augusta.

The Life of Septimius Severus.

He built a wall across the island of Britain from sea to sea, and thus made the province secure — the crowning glory of his reign; in recognition thereof he was given the name Britannicus. He freed Tripolis, the region of his birth, from fear of attack by crushing sundry warlike tribes. And he bestowed upon the Roman people, without cost, a most generous daily allowance of oil in perpetuity.

(Part removed)

In the eighteenth year of his reign, now an old man and overcome by a most grievous disease, he died at Eboracum in Britain, after subduing various tribes that seemed a possible menace to the province. He left two sons, Antoninus Bassianus and Geta, also named by him Antoninus in honour of Marcus. Severus was laid in the tomb of Marcus Antoninus, whom of all the emperors he revered so greatly that he even deified Commodus and held that all emperors should thenceforth assume the name Antoninus as they did that of Augustus. At the demand of his sons, who gave him a most splendid funeral, he was added by the senate to the deified.

(Part removed)

On another occasion, when he was returning to his nearest quarters from an inspection of the wall at Luguvallum in Britain, at a time when he had not only proved victorious but had concluded a perpetual peace, just as he was wondering what omen would present itself, an Ethiopian soldier, who was famous among buffoons and always a notable jester, met him with a garland of cypress-boughs. And when Severus in a rage ordered that the man be removed from his sight, troubled as he was by the man’s ominous colour and the ominous nature of the garland, the Ethiopian by way of jest cried, it is said, “You have been all things, you have conquered all things, now, O conqueror, be a god.” And when on reaching the town he wished to perform a sacrifice, in the first place, through a misunderstanding on the part of the rustic soothsayer, he was taken to the Temple of Bellona, and, in the second place, the victims provided him were black. And then, when he abandoned the sacrifice in disgust and betook himself to the Palace, through some carelessness on the part of the attendants the black victims followed him up to its very doors.

His last words, it is said, were these: “The state, when I received it, was harassed on every side; I leave it at peace, even in Britain; old now and with crippled feet, I bequeath to my two Antonini an empire which is strong, if they prove good, feeble, if they prove bad.” After this, he issued orders to give the tribune the watchword “Let us toil,” because Pertinax, when he assumed the imperial power, had given the word “Let us be soldiers”. He then ordered a duplicate made of the royal statue of Fortune which was customarily carried about with the emperors and placed in their bedrooms, in order that he might leave this most holy statue to each of his sons; but later, when he realized that the hour of death was upon him, he gave instructions, they say, that the original should be placed in the bed-chambers of each of his sons, the co-emperors, on alternate days. As for this direction, Bassianus ignored it and then murdered his brother.

His body was borne from Britain to Rome, and was everywhere received by the provincials with profound reverence. Some men say, however, that only a golden urn containing Severus’ ashes was so conveyed, and that this was laid in the tomb of the Antonines, while Septimius himself was cremated where he died.

St Zephyrinus Pope 199-217

Macrinus Emperor 217-218

Emperors Elagabalus & Seleucus & Uranius & Gellius Maximus & Verus 218-222

St Callistus 1 Pope 217-222 Callistus and the following three popes were opposed by St. Hippolytus, antipope (217-236)

St Urban 1 Pope 222-230

Severus Alexander Emperor 222-235

L Seius Sallustius Emperor 225-227

225. Annals of the Four Masters.

After Lughaidh, i.e. Maccon, son of Macniadh, had been thirty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he fell by the hand of Feircis, son of Coman Eces, after he had been expelled from Teamhair Tara by Cormac, the grandson of Conn.

226. Fearghus Duibhdeadach, son of Imchadh, was king over Ireland for the space of a year, when he fell in the battle of Crinna, by Cormac, grandson of Conn, by the hand of Lughaidh Lagha. There fell by him also, in the rout across Breagh, his two brothers, Fearghus the Long Haired and Fearghus the Fiery, who was called Fearghus Caisfhiaclach of the Crooked Teeth.

Of them was said:

1. Upon the one stone at Rathcro

Were slain the three Fearghus’s;

Cormac said this is fine,

His hand did not fail Laighe.

In the army of Cormac came Tadhg, son of Cian, and Lughaidh, to that battle; and it was as a territorial reward for the battle that Cormac gave to Tadhg the land on which are the Ciannachta, in Magh Breagh, as is celebrated in other books.

227. The first year of Cormac, son of Art, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles, as king over Ireland.

234. The eighth year of Cormac. Oilioll Olum, son of Mogh Nuadhat, King of Munster, died.

235. Historia Augusta.

The Life of Severus Alexander.

Other victories also were won —in Mauretania Tingitana by Furius Celsus, in Illyricum by Varius Macrinus, Alexander’s kinsman, and in Armenia by Junius Palmatus, and from all these places laurelled letters were sent to Alexander. When these had been read, on different occasions, before the senate and the people and wished-for tidings had arrived from Isauria also, honorary cognomina taken from the names of all these lands were conferred on the Emperor. Moreover, those who had won success in the administration of the state received the consular insignia, with the addition of priestly offices and grants of land for any who were poor and now burdened with age. The captives taken from the various nations, if their childhood or youth permitted it, were given to the Emperor’s friends, but those who were of royal blood or noble rank were enrolled for warfare, though not for any of great importance. The lands taken from the enemy were presented to the leaders and soldiers of the frontier-armies, with the provision that they should continue to be theirs only if their heirs entered military service, for, he said, men serve with greater zeal if they are defending their own lands too. He added to these lands, of course, both draught-animals and slaves, in order that they might be able to till what they had received, and that it might not come to pass that, through a lack of inhabitants or the old age of the owners, the lands bordering on the country of the barbarians should be left uninhabited, for this, he thought, would be most discreditable.

After this he was regarded with the greatest affection by both the populace and the senate, and when he set out for the war against the Germans, though all hoped for victory, they were unwilling to let him depart and escorted him on his way for a distance of a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles. It was, indeed, a very grave matter both for the state and for himself that Gaul should be plundered by German inroads, and his sense of humiliation was increased by the thought that now that the Parthians had been defeated a nation should still be hanging over the neck of the commonwealth, which, even under insignificant emperors, had seemed to be in a state of subjection. Therefore, he hastened against the enemy by long marches, and the soldiers, too, were eager. But on his arrival he found that there also the legions were ready to mutiny, and accordingly he ordered them to be disbanded. The Gallic temper, however, which is rough and surly and frequently a source of danger to emperors, would not brook his excessive strictness, which seemed all the greater after Elagabalus. And finally, while he was in quarters with a few men in Britain, or, according to some, in Gaul, in a village named Sicilia, some soldiers murdered him. This was not done in response to any general sentiment but rather as the act of an assassin, the ringleaders being men who had thriven on the gifts of Elagabalus and would not tolerate a stricter prince. Many, indeed, relate that he was slain by some recruits despatched by Maximinus (to whom they had been assigned for their training), and many others give different accounts. Nevertheless, it is generally agreed that those who killed him were soldiers, for they hurled many insults at him, speaking of him as a child and of his mother as greedy and covetous.

He ruled for thirteen years and nine days, and he lived for twenty-nine years, three months, and seven days. He did everything in accordance with his mother’s advice, and she was killed with him.

The omens portending his death were as follows: When he was praying for a blessing for his birthday the victim escaped, all covered with blood, and, as he was standing in the crowd dressed in the clothes of a consideration, it stained the white robe which he wore. In the Palace in a certain city from which he was setting out to the war, an ancient laurel-tree of huge size suddenly fell at full length. Also three fig-trees, which bear the kind of figs known as Alexandrian, fell suddenly before his tent-door, for they were close to the Emperor’s quarters. Furthermore, as he went to war a Druid prophetess cried out in the Gallic tongue, “Go, but do not hope for victory, and put no trust in your soldiers.” And when he mounted a tribunal in order to make a speech and say something of good omen, he began in this wise: “On the murder of the Emperor Elagabalus”. But it was regarded as a portent that when about to go to war he began an address to the troops with words of ill-omen.

All these portents, however, he looked upon with the profoundest contempt. And having set out for the war, he was slain in the aforementioned village in the following manner. He had lunched, as it happened, in his usual way at a general meal, that is to say, in an open tent and on the same food that was used by the troops — for no other kind of food was found in the tent by the soldiers when they tore it to pieces. And as he was resting after the meal, at about the seventh hour, one of the Germans, who was performing the duties of guard, came in while all were asleep; the Emperor, however, who alone was awake at the moment, saw him and said, “What is it, comrade? Do you bring news of the enemy?” But the fellow, terrified by his fears and having no hope that he could escape, seeing that he had burst into the Emperor’s tent, went out to his comrades and urged them to kill their rigorous prince. Whereupon a great number in arms quickly entered the tent, and after slaying all who, though unarmed, resisted, they stabbed the Emperor himself with many thrusts. Some relate that nothing at all was said and that the soldiers merely cried out, “Go forth, depart,” and thus slaughtered this excellent man. But all the military array, which Maximinus afterwards led to Germany, was Alexander’s, and it was a very powerful one, too, by reason of the soldiers from Armenia, Osroene, and Parthia, composed, as it was, of men of every race.

Alexander’s contempt for death is clearly shown both by the intrepid spirit with which he always put down the soldiery, and also by the following incident. When Thrasybulus the astrologer, with whom he was on the most friendly terms, told him that it was his destiny to fall by the sword of a barbarian, he first expressed his joy, thinking that he was fated to die in battle in a manner worthy of an emperor; then, speaking at length he pointed out that all the noblest men had died a violent death, mentioning Alexander himself, whose name he bore, then Pompey, Caesar, Demosthenes, Cicero, and other men of note, none of whom had met with a peaceful end. And such was his courage that he thought that he ought to be likened to the gods, were he to perish in battle. But the result deceived his hopes; for he did, indeed, fall by the sword of a barbarian and by the hand of a barbarian guard, but it was not in battle, though during the course of a war.

His death was greatly lamented by the soldiers, even by those whom he had discharged, and they slew the men who had committed the murder. But the Roman people and all the senate and all the inhabitants of the provinces never mourned anything with greater sorrow and bitterness of spirit; and at the same time the cruel necessity of fate seemed to be shown in the harshness and roughness of his successor Maximinus (natural enough in a soldier), on whom, together with his son, the imperial power was conferred after Alexander. The senate raised him to the rank of the gods, and he was granted the honour of a cenotaph in Gaul and a magnificent tomb in Rome. Moreover, a college of priests was appointed in his honour, called Alexandrian, and a feast-day, too, was decreed, called by his mother’s name as well as by his, which even today is scrupulously observed at Rome on the anniversary of his birth.

The cause of his murder, so others maintain, was this, namely, that his mother wished to abandon the war against the Germans and return to the East in order to display her power there, and at this the soldiers grew angry. But this is only a fiction of the friends of Maximinus, who did not wish to let it appear that the best of emperors had been slain by a friend in defiance of all law, both human and divine.

Up to this time the Roman Empire had been governed by princes who had reigns of considerable length, but after Alexander various men seized the power in rivalry with one another, of whom some reigned only six months, others for a year, and a number, again, for two or, at the most, three years, down to the time of those emperors, who extended the Empire to wider bounds — Aurelian, I mean, and his successors, concerning whom, if life be granted me, I shall publish all I have learned.

Emperors Magiminus Thrax & Magnus & Quartinus 235-238

St Pontain Pope 230-235

St Anterus Pope 235-236

St Fabian Pope 236-250

236. Annals of the Four Masters.

The tenth year of Cormac. The battle of Granard by Cormac, the grandson of Conn, against the Ulstermen this year. A battle at Eu, in Magh Aei, against Aedh, son of Eochaidh, son of Conall, King of Connaught. A battle at Eth; the battle of Ceann Daire; the battle of Sruth against the Ulstermen; the battle of Slighe Cuailgne.

237. The eleventh year of Cormac. The battle of Ath Beatha; the battle of Dumha this year by Cormac.

238. The twelfth year of Cormac. A battle at Cuiltochair thrice, and three battles at Dubhadh by Cormac.

Emperors Gordian I & Gordian II & Pupienus (Maximus) & Balbinus 238

Gordian III Emperor 238-244

239. Annals of the Four Masters.

The thirteenth year of Cormac. The battle of Allamagh, and the seven battles of Elve, by Cormac.

240. The fourteenth year of Cormac. The battle of Magh Techt, and the fleet of Cormac sailed across Magh Rein (i.e. across the sea), this year, so that it was on that occasion he obtained the sovereignty of Alba Scotland.

Sabinianus Emperor 240

Minucius Felix.

The Octavius

What is the reason of our being born? what means the desire of begetting? Is it not given by God, and that the breasts should become full of milk as the offspring grows to maturity, and that the tender progeny should grow up by the nourishment afforded by the abundance of the milky moisture? Neither does God have care alone for the universe as a whole, but also for its parts. Britain is deficient in sunshine, but it is refreshed by the warmth of the sea that flows around it.

241. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fifteenth year of Cormac. These are the battles of Cormac fought against Munster this year: the battle of Berre; the battle of Loch Lein; the battle of Luimneach; the battle of Grian; the battle of Classach; the battle of Muiresc; the battle of Fearta, in which fell Eochaidh Taebhfada of the Long Side, son of Oilioll Olum; the battle of Samhain, in which fell Cian, son of Oilioll Olum; and the battle of Ard Cam. The massacre of the girls at Cleanfearta, at Teamhair, by Dunlang, son of Enna Niadh, King of Leinster. Thirty royal girls was the number, and a hundred maids with each of them. Twelve princes of the Leinstermen did Cormac put to death together, in revenge of that massacre, together with the exaction of the Borumha with an increase after Tuathal.

Emperors: Philip The Arab & Pacatianus & Iotapianus & Silbannacus & Sponsianus & Philip Iunior 244-249

248. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twenty second year of Cormac. A battle at Fochard Muirtheimhne by Cormac this year.

Emperors: Decius& T Julius Priscus & Iulius Valens Licinianus & Herennius Etruscus & Histilian 249-251

St Cornelius Pope 251-253 Opposed by Novatian in 251

Emperors: Trebonianus Gallus & Volusianus & Uranius Antoninus & Aemilius Aemilianus 251-253

Emperors Valerian & Mareades 252-260

St Lucius 1 Pope 253-254

c255 Historia Augusta. (Ed. I imagine Generals in Britannia had a similar establishment)?

A letter from Valerian to Zosimio, the procurator of Syria:

“We have named Claudius, a man of Illyrian birth, as tribune of our most valiant and loyal Fifth Legion, the Martian, for he is superior the all the most loyal and most valiant men of old. By way of supplies you will give him each year out of our private treasury three thousand pecks of wheat, six thousand pecks of barley, two thousand pounds of bacon, three thousand five hundred pints of well-aged wine, one hundred and fifty pints of the best oil, six hundred pints of oil of the second grade, twenty pecks of salt, one hundred and fifty pounds of wax, and as much hay and straw, cheap wine, greens and herbs as shall be sufficient, thirty half-score of hides for the tents; also six mules each year, three horses each year, fifty pounds of silverware each year, one hundred and fifty Philips, bearing our likeness, each year, and as a New-year’s gift forty-seven Philips and one hundred and sixty third-Philips. Likewise, in cups and tankards and pots eleven pounds. Also, two red military tunics each year, two military cloaks each year, two silver clasps gilded, one golden clasp with a Cyprian pin, one sword-belt of silver gilded, one ring with two gems to weigh an ounce, one armlet to weigh seven ounces, one collar to weigh a pound, one gilded helmet, two shields inlaid with gold, one cuirasse, to be returned. Also, two Herculian lances, two javelins, two reaping-hooks, and four reaping-hooks for cutting hay. Also, one cook, to be returned, one muleteer, to be returned, two beautiful women taken from the captives. One white part-silk garment ornamented with purple from Girba, and one under-tunic with Moorish purple. One secretary, to be returned, and one server at table, to be returned. Two pairs of Cyprian couch-covers, two white under-garments, a pair of men’s leg-bands, one toga, to be returned, one broad-striped tunic, to be returned. Two huntsmen to serve as attendants, one waggon-maker, one headquarters-steward, one waterer, one fisherman, one confectioner. One thousand pounds of fire-wood each day, if there is an abundant supply, but if not, as much as there is and wherever it is, and four braziers of charcoal each day. One bath-man and firewood for the bath, but if there is none, he shall bathe in the public bath. All else, which cannot be enumerated here because of its insignificance you will supply in due amount, but in no case shall the equivalent in money be given, and if there should be a lack of anything in any place, it shall not be supplied, nor shall the equivalent be exacted in money. All these things I have allowed him as a special case, as though he were not a mere tribune but rather a general, because to such a man as he an even larger allowance should be made.”

Emperors Galienus & Ingenuus & Regalianus & Macrianus Senior & Macrianus Iunior & Quietus & Piso & Valens & Ballista & Mussius Aemilianus & Memor & Aureolus & Celsus & Saturninus 253-268

St Stephen 1 Pope 254-257

St Sixtus II Pope 257-258

SBG St Mellonius.

Bishop of Rouen, is said to have been a native of Cardiff, and to have been born about the year 257. He died in 311

Gallic Emperor Postumus 260-269

c260 Historia Augusta.

The Two Gallieni.

Against these same Goths a battle was fought in Achaea under the leadership of Marcianus, and being defeated they withdrew from there through the country of the Achaeans. The Scythians — they are a portion of the Goths — devastated Asia and even plundered and burned the Temple of the Moon at Ephesus, the fame of which building is known through all nations. I am ashamed to relate what Gallienus used often to say at this time, when such things were happening, as though jesting amid the ills of mankind. For when he was told of the revolt of Egypt, he is said to have exclaimed “What! We cannot do without Egyptian linen!” and when informed that Asia had been devastated both by the violence of nature and by the inroads of the Scythians, he said, “What! We cannot do without saltpetre!” and when Gaul was lost, he is reported to have laughed and remarked, “Can the commonwealth be safe without Atrebatic cloaks?” Thus, in short, with regard to all parts of the world, as he lost them, he would jest, as though seeming to have suffered the loss of some article of trifling service. And finally, that no disaster might be lacking to his times, the city of Byzantium, famed for its naval wars and the key to the Pontus, was destroyed by the soldiers of Gallienus himself so completely, that not a single soul survived. In fact, no ancient family can now be found among the Byzantines, unless some member, engaged in travel or warfare, escaped to perpetuate the antiquity and noble descent of his stock.

St Dionysius Pope 260-268

262. Annals of the Four Masters.

The thirty-sixth year of Cormac. The battle of Crionna Fregabhail was fought by Cormac against the Ulstermen, where fell Aenghus Finn, son of Fearghus Duibhdeadach i.e. the Black Toothed, King of Ulster, with the slaughter of the Ulstermen about him.

265. The thirty-ninth year of Cormac. Ceallach, son of Cormac, and Cormac’s lawgiver, were mortally wounded, and the eye of Cormac himself was destroyed with one thrust of a lance by Aenghus Gaibhuaibhtheach, son of Fiacha Suighdhe, son of Feidhlimidh the Lawgiver. Cormac afterwards fought and gained seven battles over the Deisi, in revenge of that deed, and he expelled them from their territory, so that they are now in Munster.

266. Forty years was Cormac, son of Art, son of Conn, in the sovereignty of Ireland, when he died at Cleiteach, the bone of a salmon sticking in his throat, on account of the siabhradh genii which Maelgenn, the Druid, incited at him, after Cormac had turned against the Druids, on account of his adoration of God in preference to them. Wherefore a devil attacked him, at the instigation of the Druids, and gave him a painful death. It was Cormac who composed Teagusc Na Righ, to preserve manners, morals, and government in the kingdom. He was a famous author in laws, synchronisms, and history, for it was he that established law, rule, and direction for each science, and for each covenant according to propriety; and it is his laws that governed all that adhered to them to the present time.

It was this Cormac, son of Art, also, that collected the Chroniclers of Ireland to Teamhair, and ordered them to write the chronicles of Ireland in one book, which was named the Psalter of Teamhair. In that book were entered the coeval exploits and synchronisms of the kings of Ireland with the kings and emperors of the world, and of the kings of the provinces with the monarchs of Ireland. In it was also written what the monarchs of Ireland were entitled to receive from the provincial kings, and the rents and dues of the provincial kings from their subjects, from the noble to the subaltern. In it also were described the boundaries and meares of Ireland, from shore to shore, from the province to the cantred, from the cantred to the townland, and from the townland to the traighidh of land. These things are celebrated in Leabhar Na nUidhri. They are evident in the Leabhar Dinnsenchusa.

Here is the Panegyric of Conn’s son Cormac and the Death of Finn son of Cumhall

A monarch, noble and worshipful, that attained to rule Ireland: Cormac, son of Art son of Conn of the Hundred Battles. Subsequently he reigned over her for forty years, excepting the two during which Ulster usurped: that is to say Fergus Black-knee for one year, and Eochaid Gonnat for another. Twice in fact the Ulidians deposed Cormac. The same Cormac too was for four months missing from among his people nor, until he himself came back and told his adventures, was it known in what direction he was gone.

To proceed: saving David’s son Solomon there never was in the world a king that for lustre of his intellect, for opulence oi his reign, might be likened to Cormac. For he never gave judgment but he had the three judicial requisites: that of a mind gifted with sagacity; that of judicial precedent, and that of bai bias. As a result of which judgments’ wisdom and science it was that in Cormac’s time the calf commonly was born at the term of three months’ gestation; in his day a sack of wheat was produced from every ridge; in his day the colpach-heifers were already calved cows. Any river that was but knee-deep, in his time a salmon was got there in everyone mesh of the net. In his time the cow had her udderful of biestings. In his time. it was with the finger’s tip that men might gather honey [as they walked], seeing that for the righteousness of Cormac’s governance it was rained down from Heaven. In his time it was that vessels could not be had for the milk, for the kine shed their milk without cessation.

That king was comparable to Octavius Augustus also: for even as to the former everyone paid Caesarian [i.e. imperial] tribute for his patrimony; so to Cormac likewise all men out of their own natural localities paid the royal rent, for Cormac never deprived any one of that which was his own.

In the world, there was not a king like Cormac: for he it was that excelled in form, in figure and in vesture; in size, in justice and in equity; in his eyes too, in either one of which were seven pupils, as Senuath the poet tells us when he says

“Beautiful was the difference that was between them which were a variegated pair: for in the man’s eyes fourteen pupils were extant.”

He it was that in respect of sagacity, of wisdom, of eloquence, of action and of valour, of royal sway, of domination, of splendour, of emulation, of ethics and of race, was vigorous in his Own time. Of Ireland, he made a land of promise: she being then free of theft, of rapine, of violence; exempt from all necessity of watching, of herding, and without perplexity in the matter of either meat or raiment to affect any man.

But in the way of Cormac’s eulogy this [that we have said] is all too little; for unless that an angel should instruct him a man may not declare it all. Great were his power and control over the men of Ireland, seeing that (unless one rendered Cormac military service) none of them dared abstain from work.

Now he whom Cormac had for chief of the household and for stipendiary master of the hounds was Finn son of Cumhall; for the primest leader that the king of Ireland had was his master of the hounds always.

Warrior better than Finn never struck his hand into a chief’s: inasmuch as for service he was a soldier, a hospitaller for hospitality, and in heroism a hero; in fighting functions, he was a fighting man, and in strength was a champion worthy of a king; so that ever since, and from that time until this day, it is with Finn that every such is co-ordinated. Forby all which, Finn with the king’s especial bands enjoyed general right and exercise of chase and venery throughout Ireland.

Finn’s abiding was mostly in Almha of Leinster; but when decrepitude and old age weighed on him (Cormac also being now gone) he dwelt in Almha permanently; unless that he might have occasion to make some passing excursion out of it.

She that was spouse to Finn was Fatha Canann’s daughter, Smirgat; she was a prophetess and wise woman, and had told him that whensoever he should drink a draught out of a horn that act would end his life; so that thenceforth he never took a drink out of a horn, but out of cuach [scot. ‘quaighs ‘].

One day Finn sallied out of Almha, and by-and-by found himself in the place called adharcha iuchbadh in Offaley; there on a hillside he came upon a well, out of which he took a drink. Under his ‘knowledge-tooth’ he put his thumb then, and worked the incantation of teinm laeghda, whereby it was revealed to him that the end of his term and of his life was come; and he sang these quatrains following:

The prophecy is befallen Finn…

Then he went on till he reached druim Bregh [i.e. ‘the Ridge of Bregia’], in which country existed causes of enmity to Finn and the Fianna; for by him it was that Uirgrenn, of the tribe called the Luiaghne of Tara, fell once. These gathered now, with Uirgrenn’s three sons, and Aichlech More: son namely of Duibrenn, that was third man of the sons of Uirgrenn. Between them is fought an extraordinary and a ruthless battle, manly, masculine and fierce, in which all and several recalled to mind their grievances (whether remote or more immediately touching themselves) that they had the one against the other. At Brea upon the Boyne: that is where that battle came off; they were at the hand-to-hand work for a length of time, and till on both sides their mischiefs were very many. The fight was won against Finn, and he perished in it. Duibrenn’s son Aichlech: by him Finn fell, and he it was that beheaded him; wherefore in order to the commemoration of the deed, and to bring the ignorant to the way of knowledge, the sennachie sung these quatrains:

Brea’s great battle of exploits bright …

This then, according to archaeological verity and as experts relate it, is Finn’s death; but his origin they declare variously. Some of them say that he was of the corca-Oiche in ua Fidhgeinte; others again assert (and this is the truth of the matter) that he was of the úi Tairrsigh of Offaley, which were of the Attacotti, as Maelmura has said in the chronicle: six stocks there are that shall have territorial settlement, but are not of Breogan’s people, viz, the Garbraighe of the Suca; the úi Tairrsigh; the Galeoin of Leinster [and others].

They of Leinster however state that Finn was great-grandson to Nuada Necht, and that his pedigree is this: Finn, son of Cumhail son of Sualtach son of Baeiscne son of Nuada Necht.

The above is Cormac’s Panegyric and Finn’s Death.

267. Annals of the Four Masters.

Eochaidh Gonnat in the sovereignty of Ireland, when he fell by Lughaidh Meann, son of Aenghus, one of the Ulstermen.

268. The first year of Cairbre Liffeachair, son of Cormac, son of Art, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

Emperors Claudius II Gothicus & Censorinus & Quintillus 268-270

Gallic Emperors Laelianus & Marius 269

Gallic Emperor Victorinus 269-270

St Felix 1 Pope 269-274

Emperors Aurelian & Domitianus & Urbanus & Septimus & Firmus & Felieissimus & Vaballathus 270-275

c270. Historia Augusta.

The Lives of Carus, Carinus and Numerian

I do not consider it too painstaking or yet too much in the ordinary manner to insert a story about Diocletian Augustus that seems not out of place here — an incident which he regarded as an omen of his future rule. This story my grandfather related to me, having heard it from Diocletian himself. “When Diocletian,” he said, “while still serving in a minor post, was stopping at a certain tavern in the land of the Tungri in Gaul, and was making up his daily reckoning with a woman, who was a Druidess, she said to him, ‘Diocletian, you are far too greedy and far too stingy,’ to which Diocletian replied, it is said, not in earnest, but only in jest, ‘I shall be generous enough when I become emperor.’ At this the Druidess said, so he related, ‘Do not jest, Diocletian, for you will become emperor when you have slain a Boar (Aper).'” Now Diocletian always had in his mind a desire to rule, as Maximian knew and my grandfather also, to whom he himself told these words of the Druidess. Then, however, reticent, as was his wont, he laughed and said nothing. Nevertheless, in hunting, whenever there was opportunity, he always killed the boars with his very own hand. In fact, when Aurelian received the imperial power, then Probus, then Tacitus, and then Carus himself, Diocletian remarked, “I am always killing boars, but the other man enjoys the meat.” It is now well known and a common story that when he had killed Aper, the prefect of the guard, he declared, it is said, “At last I have killed my fated Boar.” My grandfather also used to say that Diocletian himself declared that he had no other reason for killing him with his own hand than to fulfill the Druidess‘ prophecy and to ensure his own rule. For he would not have wished to become known for such cruelty, especially in the first few days of his power, if Fate had not impelled him to this brutal act of murder.

270. Historia Augusta.

The Life of Aurelian.

This may perhaps seem a marvellous thing that was learned by Diocletian and is said to have been related by Asclepiodotus to Celsinus his counsellor, but concerning there is posterity will be the judge. For he used to relate that on a certain occasion Aurelian consulted the Druid priestesses in Gaul and inquired of them whether the imperial power would remain with his descendants, but they replied, he related, that none would have a name more illustrious in the commonwealth than the descendants of Claudius. And, in fact, Constantius is now our emperor, a man of Claudius’ blood, whose descendants, I ween, will attain to that glory which the Druids foretold. And this I have put in the Life of Aurelian for the reason that this response was made to him when he inquired in person.

271. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fourth year of Cairbre. Three battles were fought by Cairbre against the men of Munster, in defence of the rights of Leinster.

Gallic Emperors Tetricius I & Tetricius II 271-274

272. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fifth year of Cairbre. Four battles by Cairbre against the men of Munster, in defence of the rights of Leinster.

Gallic Emperor Faustinus 274

Tacitus Emperor 275-276

St Eutychian Pope 275-283

Florianus Emperor 276

276. Annals of the Four Masters.

The ninth year of Cairbre in the sovereignty of Ireland. Aenghus Gaibuaibhtheach was killed this year by the sons of Cairbre Liffechair, namely, Fiacha Sraibhtine and Eochaidh Doimhlen.

Emperors Probus & Bonosus & Proculus & Saturninus & Carus & Numerianus & Carinus 276-285

276 282. Historiae Augustae.

The Life of Probus.

This done, he set out with a huge army for the provinces of Gaul, which since the death of Postumus had all been in turmoil, and after the murder of Aurelian had been seized by the Germans. There, moreover, he fought battles so great and successful that he took back from the barbarians sixty most famous communes of Gaul, besides all the booty, by which the Germans, even apart from the actual wealth, were puffed up with glory. And whereas they were wandering at large on our bank, or rather through all the country of Gaul, Probus, after slaying about four hundred thousand who had seized upon Roman soil, drove all the rest back beyond the river Neckar and the district of Alba, getting from them as much barbarian booty as they themselves had seized from the Romans. Opposite the Roman cities, moreover, he built camps on barbarian soil and in these he stationed troops. He also provided farms and store-houses, homes and rations of grain for all beyond the Rhine, for those only, that is, whom he placed in the garrisons there. All the while the heads of barbarians were brought in to him daily, now at the price of an aureus apiece, and he never ceased fighting until nine princes of different tribes came before him and prostrated themselves at his feet. From these he demanded, first hostages, which they gave him at once, then grain, and last of all their cows and their sheep. It is said, moreover, that he sharply ordered them not to use swords, since now they might count on protection from Rome in case they must be defended against any foe. It appeared, however, that this could not be accomplished, unless the Roman frontier were advanced and the whole of Germany turned into a province. Nevertheless, with the princes’ consent, he punished severely those who did not faithfully give back the booty. He took, besides, sixteen thousand recruits, all of whom he scattered through the various provinces, incorporating bodies of fifty or sixty in the detachments or among the soldiers along the frontier; for he said that the aid that Romans received from barbarian auxiliaries must be felt but not seen.

c280. Historia Augusta.

The Life of Probus.

He also had to cope with revolts of pretenders, and they were serious indeed. For Saturninus, who had seized the rule of the East, he overcame only by battles of various kinds and by his well-known valour. But when Saturninus was crushed, such quiet prevailed in the East that, as the common saying is, not even a rebel mouse was heard. Then Proculus and Bonosus seized the rule at Agrippina in Gaul, and proceeded to claim all of Britain and Spain and the provinces, also, of Farther Gaul, but these men he defeated with the aid of barbarians.

But in order that you may not ask for more information now about either Saturninus, or Proculus, or Bonosus, I will put them all in a special book, relating a little concerning them, as seems fitting, or rather, as need demands. One fact, indeed, must be known, namely, that all the Germans, when Proculus asked for their aid, preferred to serve Probus rather than rule with Bonosus and Proculus. Hence he granted permission to all the Gauls and the Spaniards and Britons to cultivate vineyards and make wines, and he himself planted chosen vines on Mount Alma near Sirmium in Illyricum, after having had the ground dug up by the hands of the soldiers.

280. Historia Augusta.

The Lives of Firmus, Saturninus, Proculus and Bonosus.

Let us now pass on to Bonosus, concerning whom I have written much less.

Bonosus was a Spaniard by birth, but in descent a Briton, though he had a Gallic mother. His father, so he himself used to say, was a rhetorician, but I have learned from others that he was only a teacher of letters. He lost his father when a child, and being reared by mother, a very brave woman, he learned nothing of literature. He served in the beginning as a legionary centurion, and next in the cavalry; he commanded in the ranks, he held tribuneships, he was general in charge of the Raetian frontier, and he drank as no man had ever drunk. In fact, Aurelian used often to say of him, “He was born, not to live, but to drink,” and yet, because of his prowess in war, he long held him in honour. Indeed, whenever the envoys of barbarian nations came from any place, they were plied with wine in order that he might make them drunken, and when they were in wine learn from them all their secrets. But however much he drank himself, he always remained calm and sober, and, as Onesimus, the author of a Life of Probus, says, when in wine he was all the wiser. He possessed, furthermore, a marvellous quality, namely, that he could always discharge all he had drunk, so that neither his stomach nor his abdomen nor his bladder ever felt any discomfort.

He, then, at the time when the Roman galleys on the Rhine were burned by the Germans, fearing that he might have to suffer punishment, seized the imperial power. This he held longer than he deserved, for he was finally defeated by Probus only after a lengthy and difficult struggle, and he put an end to his life by the noose, which gave rise to the jest that it was not a man that was being hanged but a wine-jug.

He left two sons, both of whom were spared by Probus, and his wife, too, was treated with honour and given an allowance as long as she lived. She was in fact, as my grandfather also used to declare, a woman of unequalled excellence and also of noble family, though by race a Goth; for Aurelian had given her to him as wife in order that through his help he might learn all the plans of the Goths, for she was a maiden of royal blood.

There is still in existence a letter addressed to the governor of Thrace concerning this marriage and the gifts which Aurelian wished Bonosus to receive on the occasion of his wedding, and this letter I have inserted :

” From Aurelian Augustus to Gallonius Avitus, greeting. In a previous letter I wrote you to establish the Gothic noblewomen at Perinthus, and I assigned

them rations, which they were not to receive singly, but seven of them together sharing one meal. For when they receive them singly, they get too little and the state loses too much. Now, however, since it is our wish that Bonosus take Hunila to wife, you will give her all we have ordered in the subjoined list, and you will celebrate the marriage at the expense of the state.”

The list of gifts was as follows: ” Violet tunics of part-silk provided with hoods, one tunic of part-silk with a golden stripe, to weigh a pound, two double- striped under-tunics, and all the other things that are befitting a matron. To Bonosus himself you will give one hundred Philips of gold, one thousand silver Antonines, and ten thousand bronze sesterces.”

This is what I remember having read about Bonosus.

c280. Historia Augusta.

The Lives of Carus, Carinus and Numerian.

I should like this passage to be read by Junius Messalla, with whom I will dare to find fault frankly. For he has cut off his natural heirs and bestowed his ancestral fortune on players, giving a tunic of his mother’s to an actress and a cloak of his father’s to an actor — and rightly so, I suppose, if a gold and purple mantle of his grandmother’s could be used as a costume by a tragic actor! Indeed, the name of Messalla’s wife is still embroidered on the violet mantle of a flute-player, who exults in it as the spoils of a noble house. Why, now, should I speak of those linen garments imported from Egypt? Why of those garments from Tyre and Sidon, so fine and transparent, of gleaming purple and famed for their embroidery-work? He has presented, besides, capes brought from the Atrabati and capes from Canusium and Africa, such splendour as never before was seen on the stage. All of this I have put into writing in order that future givers of spectacles may be touched by a sense of shame and so be deterred from cutting off their lawful heirs and squandering their inheritances on actors and mountebanks.

Late 3rd century Nemesianus

Dogs also get rabies, a deadly peril. Whether it emanates from taint in a heavenly body when the Sun-God shoots but languid rays from a saddened sky, raising a pallid face in a world dismayed; or whether, rather, in striking the glowing back of the fire-tressed Lion, he drives deep into our friendly dogs his feverish heats, whether earth breathes forth contagion from its bosom, or harmful air is the cause of the evil, or whether, when cool water runs short, the torrid germs of fire grow strong throughout the veins — whatever it is, it stirs the inmost marrow beneath the heart, and with black venomous foam darts forth into ferocious snarls, compelling the dog to imprint its bites in madness. Learn, therefore, the curative potions and the treatment that brings health. In such cases you will take the fetid drug got from the beaver and work it well, forcing it to grow viscous with the friction of a flint: to this should be added powder from pounded or chopped ivory, and by a long process of blending you will got both to harden together: next put in gradually the liquid flow of milk besides, to enable you to pour in through an inserted horn doses which do not stick in the throat, and so banish the melancholy Furies, and settle the dogs’ minds once more to friendliness.

But it is not only Spartan whelps or only Molossian which you must rear: sundered Britain sends us a swift sort, adapted to hunting-tasks in our world. You should not disdain the pedigree of the Pannonian breed, nor those whose progeny springs from Spanish blood. Moreover, keen whelps are produced within the confines of dry Libya, and their service you must not despise. Besides, Tuscan dogs often give a satisfaction not foreign to us. Even allowing that their shape is covered with shaggy hair and that they have limbs unlike quick-footed whelps, still they will give you an agreeable return in game; for they recognise the tracks on the meadow, though full of scents, and actually point to where a hare lies hid. Their mettle and their habits as well, and their discerning sense of smell I shall record presently; for the moment the whole equipment of the chase has to be explained, and I must deal with the attention due to horses.

St Caius Pope 283-296

238. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year suffered Saint Alban the Martyr.

Liber Britannicus.

It was in that persecution over the world that Saint Albain—and Aron, and Juil, chiefs of the city Leigionum at that time, died.

Gildas.

These rays of light were received with lukewarm minds by the inhabitants, but they nevertheless took root among some of them in a greater or less degree, until the nine years’ persecution of the tyrant Diocletian, when the churches throughout the whole world were overthrown, all the copies of the Holy Scriptures which could be found burned in the streets, and the chosen pastors of God’s flock butchered, together with their innocent sheep, in order that not a vestige, if possible, might remain in some provinces of Christ’s religion. What disgraceful flights then took place-what slaughter and death inflicted by way of punishment in divers shapes,–what dreadful apostacies from religion; and on the contrary, what glorious crowns of martyrdom then were won, –what raving fury was displayed by the persecutors, and patience on the part of the suffering saints, ecclesiastical history informs us; for the whole church were crowding in a body, to leave behind them the dark things of this world, and to make the best of their way to the happy mansions of heaven, as if to their proper home.

God, therefore, who wishes all men to be saved, and who calls sinners no less than those who think themselves righteous, magnified his mercy towards us, and, as we know, during the above-named persecution, that Britain might not totally be enveloped in the dark shades of night, he, of his own free gift, kindled up among us bright luminaries of holy martyrs, whose places of burial and of martyrdom, had they not for our manifold crimes been interfered with and destroyed by the barbarians, would have still kindled in the minds of the beholders no small fire of divine charity. Such were St. Alban of Verulam, Aaron and Julius, citizens of Carlisle, and the rest, of both sexes, who in different places stood their ground in the Christian contest.

The first of these martyrs, St. Alban, for charity’s sake saved another confessor who was pursued by his persecutors, and was on the point of being seized, by hiding him in his house, and then by changing clothes with him, imitating in this example of Christ, who laid down his life for his sheep, and exposing himself in the other’s clothes to be pursued in his stead.

So pleasing to God was this conduct, that between his confession and martyrdom, he was honoured with the performance of wonderful miracles in presence of the impious blasphemers who were carrying the Roman standards, and like the Israelites of old, who trod dry-foot on unfrequented paths whilst the ark of the covenant stood some time on the sands in the midst of Jordan; so also the martyr, with a thousand others, opened a path across the noble river Thames, whose waters stood abrupt like precipices on either side; and seeing this, the first of his executors was stricken with awe, and from a wolf became a lamb; so that he thirsted for martyrdom, and boldly underwent that for which he thirsted.

The other holy martyrs were tormented with divers sufferings, and their limbs were racked in such unheard of ways, that they, without delay, erected the trophies of their glorious martyrdom even in the gates of the city of Jerusalem. For those who survived, hid themselves in woods and deserts, and secret caves, waiting until God, who is the righteous judge of all, should reward their persecutors with judgement, and themselves with protection of their lives.

Gerald of Wales. (Writing in 1188-1194.)

Passing from thence through Caerleon and leaving far on our left hand the castle of Monmouth, and the noble forest of Dean, situated on the other side of the Wye and on this side the Severn, and which amply supplies Gloucester with iron and venison, we spent the night at Newport, having crossed the river Usk three times. Caerleon means the city of Legions, Caer, in the British language, signifying a city or camp, for there the Roman legions, sent into this island, were accustomed to winter, and from this circumstance it was styled the city of legions. This city was of undoubted antiquity, and handsomely built of masonry, with courses of bricks, by the Romans. Many vestiges of its former splendour may yet be seen; immense palaces, formerly ornamented with gilded roofs, in imitation of Roman magnificence, inasmuch as they were first raised by the Roman princes, and embellished with splendid buildings; a tower of prodigious size, remarkable hot baths, relics of temples, and theatres, all inclosed within fine walls, parts of which remain standing. You will find on all sides, both within and without the circuit of the walls, subterraneous buildings, aqueducts, underground passages; and what I think worthy of notice, stoves contrived with wonderful art, to transmit the heat insensibly through narrow tubes passing up the side walls.

Julius and Aaron, after suffering martyrdom, were buried in this city, and had each a church dedicated to him. After Albanus and Amphibalus, they were esteemed the chief protomartyrs of Britannia Major. In ancient times there were three fine churches in this city: one dedicated to Julius the martyr, graced with a choir of nuns; another to Aaron, his associate, and ennobled with an order of canons; and the third distinguished as the metropolitan of Wales. Amphibalus, the instructor of Albanus in the true faith, was born in this place. This city is well situated on the river Usk, navigable to the sea, and adorned with woods and meadows. The Roman ambassadors here received their audience at the court of the great king Arthur; and here also, the archbishop Dubricius ceded his honours to David of Menevia, the metropolitan see being translated from this place to Menevia, according to the prophecy of Merlin Ambrosius. “Menevia pallio urbis Legionum induetur.” “Menevia shall be invested with the pall of the city of Legions.”

SBG St Amphibulus,

The Confessor who St Alban saved. is an invention of Geoffrey of Monmouth.

SBG St Socrates & St Stephen.

Socrates and Stephen appear in one of the earliest amplifications of Bede’s Martyrology. Rice Rees quotes Cressy’s Church History, which says that they were ” two noble British Christians and disciples of S. Amphibalus, who were martyred in the persecution of Diocletian. Father Stanton says that the scene of their passion was probably Monmouthshire or South Wales.

283. Annals of the Four Masters

The sixteenth year of Cairbre. Finn, grandson of Baisgne, fell by Aichleach, son of Duibhdreann, and the sons of Uirgreann of the Luaighni Teamhrach, at Ath Brea, upon the Boinn Boyne, of which was said:

1. Finn was killed, it was with darts,

With a lamentable wound;

Aichleach, son of Duibhdreann, cut off

The head of the son of Mochtamuin.

2. Were it not that Caeilti took revenge,

It would have been a victory after all his true battles;

The three were cut off by him,

Exulting over the head of the royal champion.

284 . After Cairbre Liffeachair had been seventeen years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he fell in the battle of Gabhra Aichle, by the hand of Semeon, son of Cearb, one of the Fotharta; Fearcorb, the son of Cormac Cas, having brought the Fiana with him, against the king, to defend Leath Mhogha against him.

Diocletian Emperor 284-305 and Maximian 286-305

284. Liber Britannicus.

Ab incarnatione Domini cclxxxiii. Dioclistan, the thirty-third king after Juil, and Maximin, came into the island of Britain. It was in their time that Carausius held the sovereignty of Britain seven years, until Alectus killed him, and held the sovereignty himself for three years, until Asclipidotus killed him, and became king himself for ten years. Dioclistan, in the east of the world, was persecuting the Christians, and Maiscimen in the west.

284. King Alfred.

Book VI Chap XXX

In the year of Rome 1041, Diocletian succeeded to the empire, and reigned twenty years. He apointed under him a younger Ceaser, and sending him against the Gauls, who had lately raised some commotions, they were soon subdued. In those days three Kings decleared war against Diocletian, Carausius in Bretlande, Achileus in Egypt, and Narses in persia. On this occasion he appointed three Caesars, Maximianus, Constantine, and Galerius. Maximianus was sent into Africa, where he overcame the enemy; Constantine into Gaul, where he subdued the Alemani, and afterwards the island Britannia.

284. Liber Britannicus.

The Annals of Clonmacnoise.

The division of Ireland stood for one year untill Owen More als Moynod, being well ayded by his Brother in law the king of Spains sonn and a Great army of the Spaniards, picked ocation to quarrell & fall out with the K. for the Costomes of the shiping of Dublin alleging that there came more shipps of K. Conn’s side then of his side, and that he would needs have the Custome in common between them, which K. Conn refused, whereupon they were Insenced mightily against one another, met with their Great armies on the playnes & heath of Moylen in the territory of Fercall, where the army of Owen More was overthrone, himself & Fergus the king of Spaines sonn slaine & afterwards buried in two little Hillocks, now to be seen on the said plains which as some say are the tombs of the said Owen and Fergus. The K. having thus slaine & vanquished his enemies, he raigned peaceably quietly 20 years with great increase & plenty of all good things among his subjects throughout the whole kingdom, soe as all in general had noe want until the kings Brother Eochie Finn before mentioned and Fiagha Swyn seeing the K. had 3 Goodly sonns Art, Connly and Crionna, which were like to inheritt the Crowen after their fathers death sent Private message to Tiprady Tyreagh sonne of king Mall mRochrye whoe was slaine by felym Reaghtwar the said king Conn’s father as before is specified. Whereupon the said Tybrady with a very willing hart came up to Taragh accompanied with certaine other malefactors, asaulted the king of unewares and wilfully killed him on Tuesday the 2oth of October in Anno 172 in the 100 yeare of the kings age as he was makeing Great Preparation towards the great Feast of Taragh, which yearly on Hollantide and for certaine dayes after was held.

285. Annals of the Four Masters.

Fothadh was one year over Ireland, when Fothadh Cairptheach was slain by Fothadh Airgtheach. Fothadh Airgtheach was afterwards slain in the battle of Ollarba, in Magh Line, by Caeilte.

286. The first year of the reign of Fiacha Sraibhtine over Ireland.

286 – 293 Carausius Emperor of Britain.

Panagyric on Constantius Caesar. (Constantius 1 father of Constantine the Great. recovering Britain from Carausius between 288 & 293)

The Britons also, then a barbarous nation accustomed only to enemies as yet half-naked, such as the Picts and Hiberni, yielded easily to the arms and standards of Rome – nearly so easily that Ceaser should have boasted that in one campaign he had crossed the ocean.

Bede.

CHAP. VI.

Of the reign of Diocletian, and how he persecuted the Christians. [286 AD]

In the year of our Lord 286, Diocletian, the thirty-third from Augustus, and chosen emperor by the army, reigned twenty years, and created Maximian, surnamed Herculius, his colleague in the empire. In their time, one Carausius, of very mean birth, but a man of great ability and energy, being appointed to guard the sea-coasts, then infested by the Franks and Saxons, acted more to the prejudice than to the advantage of the commonwealth, by not restoring to its owners any of the booty taken from the robbers, but keeping all to himself; thus giving rise to the suspicion that by intentional neglect he suffered the enemy to infest the frontiers. When, therefore, an order was sent by Maximian that he should be put to death, he took upon him the imperial purple, and possessed himself of Britain, and having most valiantly conquered and held it for the space of seven years, he was at length put to death by the treachery of his associate Allectus. The usurper, having thus got the island from Carausius, held it three years, and was then vanquished by Asclepiodotus, the captain of the Praetorian guards, who thus at the end of ten years restored Britain to the Roman empire.

Meanwhile, Diocletian in the east, and Maximian Herculius in the west, commanded the churches to be destroyed, and the Christians to be persecuted and slain. This persecution was the tenth since the reign of Nero, and was more lasting and cruel than almost any before it; for it was carried on incessantly for the space of ten years, with burning of churches, proscription of innocent persons, and the slaughter of martyrs. Finally, Britain also attained to the great glory of bearing faithful witness to God.

286. Liber Britannicus.

Carausius afterwards came bravely to avenge Severus on the Britons, so that the King of Britain fell by him, and he assumed the royal robes in spite of the king, i. e. of the emperor; so that Alectus, the Roman champion, killed him, and he himself viz. Alectus seized the kingdom afterwards for a long time.

Nennius.

The fourth was the emperor and tyrant, Carausius, who, incensed at the murder of Severus, passed into Britain, and attended by the leaders of the Roman people, severely avenged upon the chiefs and rulers of the Britons, the cause of Severus.

289. Panegyric of Maximian.

How many ages, most invincible rulers, do you generate for yourselves and for the State by sharing the guardian ship of your world? Although its security was assured, for every foe was overcome, yet it demanded too many journeys in different directions or to places that had to be revisited. For indeed once the Parthian beyond the Tigris has been reduced to subjection, Dacia restored, the frontiers of Germany and Raetia extended right to the headwaters of the Danube, and the reclaiming of Batavia and Britain resolved upon, the empire, increased in size and about to be increased further, required greater guidance, and those who by their valour had extended the boundaries of Roman power were bound by piety to give imperial power to a son.

Panegyric on Constantine Augustus

Nor do I say that he, even with so many great and various deeds accomplished, deemed worthy of conquest the forests and swamps of the Caledonian and other Picts, nor nearby Hibernia nor furthest Thule nor, if they exist, the Isles of the Blessed.

291. Annals of the Four Masters.

The sixth year of Fiacha in the sovereignty. The battle of Duibhlinn was fought by Fiacha against the Leinstermen; three battles at Sliabh Toadh; the battle of Smear; and also the battle of Ciarmhagh, by Fiacha Sraibhtine.

Gildas.

In less than ten years, therefore, of the above-named persecution, and when these bloody decrees began to fail in consequence of the death of their authors, all Christ’s young disciples, after so long and wintry a night, begin to behold the genial light of heaven. They rebuild the churches, which had been levelled to the ground; they found, erect, and finish churches to the holy martyrs, and everywhere show their ensigns as token of their victory; festivals are celebrated and sacraments received with clean hearts and lips, and all the church’s sons rejoice as it were in the fostering bosom of a mother. For this holy union remained between Christ their head and the members of his church, until the Arian treason, fatal as a serpent, and vomiting its poison from beyond the sea, caused deadly dissension between brothers inhabiting the same house, and thus, as if a road were made across the sea, like wild beasts of all descriptions, and darting the poison of every heresy from their jaws, they inflicted dreadful wounds upon their country, which is ever desirous to hear something new, and remains constant long to nothing.

293 – 297. Allectus emperor of Britain

St Marcellius Pope 296-304

298. Ammianus Marcellinus.

While this was happening in the East, Constantius was passing the winter at Arelate, where he gave entertainments in the theatre and the circus with ostentatious magnificence. Then, on the 10th of October, which completed the thirtieth year of his reign, giving greater weight to his arrogance and accepting every false or doubtful charge as evident and proven, among other atrocities he tortured Gerontius, a count of the party of Magnentius, and visited him with the sorrow of exile. And, as an ailing body is apt to be affected even by slight annoyances, so his narrow and sensitive mind, thinking that every sound indicated something done or planned at the expense of his safety, made his victory lamentable through the murder of innocent men. For if anyone of the military commanders or ex-officials, or one of high rank in his own community, was accused even by rumour of having favoured the party of the emperor’s opponent, he was loaded with chains and dragged about like a wild beast. And whether a personal enemy pressed the charge or no one at all, as though it was enough that he had been named, informed against, or accused, he was condemned to death, or his property confiscated, or he was banished to some desert island.

Moreover, his harsh cruelty, whenever the majesty of the empire was said to be insulted, and his angry passions and unfounded suspicions were increased by the bloodthirsty flattery of his courtiers, who exaggerated everything that happened and pretended to be greatly troubled by the thought of an attempt on the life of a prince on whose safety, as on a thread, they hypocritically declared that the condition of the whole world depended. And he is even said to have given orders that no one who had ever been punished for these or similar offences should be given a new trial after a writ of condemnation had once been presented to him in the usual manner, which even the most inexorable emperors commonly allowed. And this fatal fault of cruelty, which in others sometimes grew less with advancing age, in his case became more violent, since a group of flatterers intensified his stubborn resolution.

Prominent among these was the state secretary Paulus, a native of Spain, a kind of viper, whose countenance concealed his character, but who was extremely clever in scenting out hidden means of danger for others. When he had been sent to Britain to fetch some officers who had dared to conspire with Magnentius, since they could make no resistance he autocratically exceeded his instructions and, like a flood, suddenly overwhelmed the fortunes of many, making his way amid manifold slaughter and destruction, imprisoning freeborn men and even degrading some with handcuffs; as a matter of fact, he patched together many accusations with utter disregard of the truth, and to him was due an impious crime, which fixed an eternal stain upon the time of Constantius. Martinus, who was governing those provinces as substitute for the prefects, deeply deplored the woes suffered by innocent men; and after often begging that those who were free from any reproach should be spared, when he failed in his appeal he threatened to retire, in the hope that, at least through fear of this, that malevolent man-hunter might finally cease to expose to open danger men naturally given to peace. Paulus thought that this would interfere with his profession, and being a formidable artist in devising complications, for which reason he was nicknamed “The Chain,” since the substitute continued to defend those whom he was appointed to govern, Paulus involved even him in the common peril, threatening to bring him also in chains to the emperor’s court, along with the tribunes and many others. Thereupon Martinus, alarmed at this threat, and thinking swift death imminent, drew his sword and attacked that same Paulus. But since the weakness of his hand prevented him from dealing a fatal blow, he plunged the sword which he had already drawn into his own side. And by that most ignominious death there passed from life a most just ruler, who had dared to lighten the unhappy lot of many. After perpetrating these atrocious crimes, Paulus, stained with blood, returned to the emperor’s camp, bringing with him many men almost covered with chains and in a state of pitiful filth and wretchedness. On their arrival, the racks were made ready and the executioner prepared his hooks and other instruments of torture. Many of the prisoners were proscribed, others driven into exile; to some the sword dealt the penalty of death. For no one easily recalls the acquittal of anyone in the time of Constantius when an accusation against him had even been whispered.

300 – 349. Constantine

300 to 349

Diocletian Emperor 284-305 and Maximian 286-305

St Marcellinus Pope 296-304

250-350-? Solinus.

The shores of the coast of Gaul were the end of the world but that the island Brittania of not inconsiderable size, might deserve the name of another world; for it stretches 800 and more miles, if we measure to the angle of Calidonia. In this fastness an alter inscribed with greek letters proves that Ulysses was driven to Calidonia.

It is surrounded by many not insignificant islands, of which Hibernia approaches it in size, inhuman in the savage practices of its inhabitants but otherwise so rich in fodder that if they were not kept off the pastures the herds would gorge themselves to the point of danger. There are no snakes there, few birds, and people who are unfreindly and warlike. When they have drained the blood of the slain the victors smear their faces with it. They make no distinction between right and wrong. there are no bees, and if anyone sprinkles dust or pebbles from there among the hives, the swarms will leave the honeycombs… The sea which flows between the island and Brittania is rough and stormy all the year, except for a few days when it is navigable, and those who have investigated the matter estimate that it is 120 miles wide.

A rough strait also separates the island of Silura from the shore which the Brittana tribe of the Dumnonii occupy. The inhabitants of this island preserve the ancient customs; they refuse money, give and accept things, obtain their necessities by exchange rather than by purchase, are zealous in their worship of the gods, and both men and women display a knowledge of the future.

The island of Tanatus is washed by the Fretum Gallicum and is separated from the mainland of Brittania by a narrow estuary. It rejoices in fertile plains and a rich soil which is beneficial not only to itself but to other places too: for whereas it is crawled over by no snakes, earth brought from it to any other place kills snakes. there are many other islands around Brittania, of which the most distant is Thyle, where the summer solstice, when the sun is passing through the sign of cancer, there is no night, and likewise at the winter solstice no day. We hear that beyond Thyle the sea is sluggish and frozen.

The circumference of Brittania is 4,875 miles, within which there are many great rivers and hot springs (fontes calidi) richly adorned for the use of men. Over these springs the divinity of Minerva presides and in her temple the perpetual fires never whiten into ash, but when the flame declines it turns into rocky lumps.

Further to pass over in silence the large and varied wealth of mines with rich veins in which the land of Brittania abounds, there is especially the stone jet (gagates): if you ask its appearance, it is like a black gem (nigrogemmeus), if its properties, it burns with water and is quenched with oil, if its powers, when it is warmed by rubbing it attracts things set by it, like amber.

The region is partly occupied by barbarians who, even from boyhood, have pictures representing various animals put on their bodies by tattoo artists, and the marks grow on their flesh thus inscribed as they grow up

The Cassiterides look towards the side of Celtiberia, being rich in lead. (Plumbi means lead, but plumbi albi means white lead, or tin).

SBG St Augulus.

Augulus is the martyred Bishop of London. The Orthodox Community of St Constantine The Great in York keep 7 February as the feast day of the Holy Martyr Augulus (Aule) of London who died in 303.

SBG St Ursula.

Ursula was martyred before 355. Possibly in the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian. I.E. in 300-4, certain virgins, few apparently in number, suffered martyrdom at Cologne. Their names are not recorded. The Clematian inscription makes it certain that there was a martyrium over their bodies which had been wrecked in 355 and which he rebuilt 355–75. They may have been refugees from the persecutions in Britain who came to Bataviaand then Cologne. Among them it was reported that there was a king’s daughter, named Vinnosa, whom the people of Cologne called Pinnosa. A Litany in the Cathedral Library at Cologne, of the end of the ninth century, names Martha, Saula, Sambatia, Saturnina, Gregoria, and Pinnosa.

SBG St Lleuci or Leiki or Lucia.

Of this Lucia we have no information beyond that she is stated to have suffered martyrdom, with the famous British virgin and martyr, S. Ursula, with her Eleven Thousand Virgins, at Cologne.

Galerius Emperor 305-311 in asociation with Constantius I Chlorus & Severus II & Licinius & Constantine I & Maximinus Daza.

305-6–Eutropius.

These emperors, then, having retired from the government of the state, Contstantius and Galerius were made emperors; and the Roman world was divided between them in such a manner, that Constantius had Gaul, Italy, and Africa; Galerius Illyricum, Asia, and the East; two Caesars being joined with them. Constantius, however, content with the dignity of emperor, declined the care of governing Africa. He was an excellent man, of extreme benevolence, who studied to increase the resources of the provinces and of private persons, cared but little for the improvement of the public treasury, and used to say that “it was better for the national wealth to be in the hands of individuals than to be laid up in one place of confinement.” So moderate was the furniture of his house, too, that if, on holidays, he had to entertain a greater number of friends than ordinary, his dining-rooms were set out with the plate of private persons, borrowed from their several houses. By the Gauls he was not only beloved but venerated, especially because, under his government, they had escaped the suspicious prudence of Diocletian, and the sanguinary rashness of Maximian. He died in Britain, at York, in the thirteenth year of his reign, and was enrolled among the gods.

SBG St Coel.

Coel Hen, or Coel Godebog son of Guotepauc, the son of Tecmant Godebog being his father’s name, and not his epithet, which was Hen. According to these genealogies he was the father of Garbaniaun and Ceneu. King of Ayreshire. Geoffrey of Monmouth, who styles him Earl of Gloucester, says that he had only one child, Elen Luyddog, or Helen, the wife of Constantius, and the mother of Constantine the Great. However, the old Welsh saga, the Dream of Maxen Wledig, makes Elen Luyddog the daughter of Eudaf, son of Caradog, and the wife of Maxen, Emperor Maximus.

SBG St Elen.

Helen, or as in Welsh, is generally known in Welsh tradition as Elen Luyddog, or Elen of the Hosts. Elen, the British Princess, was the daughter, variously, of Eudaf ab Caradog, Octavius dux Wisseorum, Eudaf jarll Ergig ac Euas, who was ruler of either Herefordshire, Essex, Carnarvon, or Gloucester.

She was the wife of Maximus who established himself at Treves as the capital of his portion of the Empire, and doubtless Helen was there with him. The tradition at Treves is that the present Cathedral was the palace of the Empress Helena, which she gave up to the Church. To this day it bears evidence of having been adapted from a domestic purpose to sacred usages. The atrium, open to the sky, was only domed over comparatively late in Mediaeval times. At Treves, however, Helen the British Princess, wife of Maximus, has been confounded with Helena the mother of Constantine

306–Eutropius.

Galerius, a man of excellent moral character, and skilful in military affairs, finding that Italy, by Constantius’s permission, was put under his government, created two Caesars, Maximin, whom he appointed over the east, and Severus, to whom he committed Italy. He himself resided in Illyricum. But after the death of Constantius, Constantine, his son by a wife of obscure birth, was made emperor in Britain, and succeeded his father as a most desirable ruler. In the meantime, the praetorian guards at Rome, having risen in insurrection, declared Maxentius, the son of Maximian Herculius, who lived in the Villa Publica not far from the city, emperor. At the news of this proceeding, Maximian, filled with hopes of regaining the imperial dignity, which he had not willingly resigned, hurried to Rome from Lucania, (which, on retiring into private life, he had chosen for his place of residence, spending his old age in a most delightful country), and stimulated Diocletian by letters to resume the authority that he had laid down, letters which Diocletian utterly disregarded. Severus Caesar, being despatched to Rome by Galerius to suppress the rising of the guards and Maxentius, arrived there with his army, but, as he was laying siege to the city, was deserted through the treachery of his soldiers.

The power of Maxentius was thus increased, and his government established. Severus, taking to flight, was killed at Ravenna. Maximian Herculius, attempting afterwards, in an assembly of the army, to divest his son Maxentius of his power, met with nothing but mutiny and reproaches from the soldiery. He then set out for Gaul, on a planned stratagem, as if he had been driven away by his son, that he might join his son-in-law Constantine, designing, however, if he could find an opportunity, to cut off Constantine, who was ruling in Gaul with great approbation both of the soldiers and the people of the province, having overthrown the Franks and Alemanni with great slaughter, and captured their kings, whom, on exhibiting a magnificent show of games, he exposed to wild beasts. But the plot being made known by Maximian’s daughter Fausta, who communicated the design to her husband, Maximian was cut off at Marseilles, whence he was preparing to sail to join his son, and died a well-deserved death; for he was a man inclined to every kind of cruelty and severity, faithless, perverse, and utterly void of consideration for others.

307. Liber Britannicus.

Constanst, king of Britain, was the father of Constantine, son of Eiline (Helena), the concubine of Constantin. Etrobus wrote that it was in the island of Britain that Constantin took sovereignty at first; for his father had exercised dominion over France and Spain in the life-time of Dioclistan.

Nennius

The fifth was Constantius the father of Constantine the Great. He died in Britain; his sepulchre, as it appears by the inscription on his tomb, is still seen near the city named Cair segont (near Carnarvon). Upon the pavement of the above-mentioned city he sowed three seeds of gold, silver and brass, that no poor person might ever be found in it. It is also called Minmanton.

307. Socrates Scholasticus

Chapter II.—By what Means the Emperor Constantine became a Christian.

When Diocletian and Maximian, surnamed Herculius, had by mutual consent laid aside the imperial dignity, and retired into private life, Maximian, surnamed Galerius, who had been a sharer with them in the government, came into Italy and appointed two Cæsars, Maximin in the eastern division of the empire, and Severus in the Italian. In Britain, however, Constantine was proclaimed emperor, instead of his father Constantius, who died in the first year of the two hundred and seventy-first Olympiad, on the 25th of July. And at Rome Maxentius, the son of Maximian Herculius, was raised by the prætorian soldiers to be a tyrant rather than an emperor. In this state of things Herculius, impelled by a desire to regain the sovereignty, attempted to destroy his son Maxentius; but this he was prevented by the soldiery from effecting, and he soon afterwards died at Tarsus in Cilicia. At the same time, Severus Cæsar being sent to Rome by Galerius Maximian, in order to seize Maxentius, was slain, his own soldiers having betrayed him. At length Galerius Maximian, who had exercised the chief authority, also died, having previously appointed as his successor, his old friend and companion in arms, Licinius, a Dacian by birth. Meanwhile, Maxentius sorely oppressed the Roman people, treating them as a tyrant rather than as a king, shamelessly violating the wives of the nobles, putting many innocent persons to death, and perpetrating other similar atrocities. The emperor Constantine being informed of this, exerted himself to free the Romans from the slavery under him (i.e. Maxentius), and began immediately to consider by what means he might overthrow the tyrant. Now while his mind was occupied with this great subject, he debated as to what divinity’s aid he should invoke in the conduct of the war. He began to realize that Diocletian’s party had not profited at all by the pagan deities, whom they had sought to propitiate; but that his own father Constantius, who had renounced the various religions of the Greeks, had passed through life far more prosperously. In this state of uncertainty, as he was marching at the head of his troops, a preternatural vision, which transcends all description, appeared to him. In fact, about that part of the day when the sun after posing the meridian begins to decline towards the west, he saw a pillar of light in the heavens, in the form of a cross, on which were inscribed these words, BY THIS CONQUER.

The appearance of this sign struck the emperor with amazement and scarcely believing his own eyes, he asked those around him if they beheld the same spectacle; and as they unanimously declared that they did, the emperor’s mind was strengthened by this divine and marvellous apparition. On the following night in his slumbers he saw Christ who directed him to prepare a standard according to the pattern of that which had been seen; and to use it against his enemies as an assured trophy of victory. In obedience to this divine oracle, he caused a standard in the form of a cross to be prepared, which is preserved in the palace even to the present time: and proceeding in his measures with greater earnestness, he attacked the enemy and vanquished him before the gates of Rome, near the Mulvian bridge, Maxentius himself being drowned in the river. This victory was achieved in the seventh year of the conqueror’s reign.

After this, while Licinius, who shared the government with him, and was his brother-in-law, having married his sister Constantia, was residing in the East, the emperor Constantine, in view of the great blessing he had received, offered grateful thanksgivings to God as his benefactor; these consisted in his relieving the Christians from persecution, recalling those who were in exile, liberating such as were imprisoned, and causing the confiscated property of the prescribed to be restored to them; he moreover rebuilt the churches, and performed all these things with the greatest ardor. About this time Diocletian, who had abdicated the imperial authority, died at Salona in Dalmatia.

Eusabius.

Life of Constantine

CHAPTER VIII: That he conquered nearly the Whole World.

But our emperor began his reign at the time of life at which the Macedonian died, yet doubled the length of his life, and trebled the length of his reign. And instructing his army in the mild and sober precepts of godliness, he carried his arms as far as the Britons, and the nations that dwell in the very bosom of the Western ocean. He subdued likewise all Scythia, though situated in the remotest North, and divided into numberless diverse and barbarous tribes. He even pushed his conquests to the Blemmyans and Ethiopians, on the very confines of the South nor did he think the acquisition of the Eastern nations unworthy his care. In short, diffusing the effulgence of his holy light to the ends of the whole world, even to the most distant Indians, the nations dwelling on the extreme circumference of the inhabited earth, he received the submission of all the rulers, governors, and satraps of barbarous nations, who cheerfully welcomed and saluted him, sending embassies and presents, and setting the highest value on his acquaintance and friendship; insomuch that they honoured him with pictures and statues in their respective countries, and Constantine alone of all emperors was acknowledged and celebrated by all. Notwithstanding, even among these distant nations, he proclaimed the name of his God in his royal edicts with all boldness.

Excerpta Valesiana.

The Lineage of the Emperor Constantine

Diocletian ruled with Herculius Maximianus for twenty years.

Constantius, grandson of the brother of that best of emperors Claudius, was first one of the emperor’s bodyguard, then a tribune, and later, governor of Dalmatia. With Galerius he was appointed Caesar by Diocletian; for he put away his former wife Helena and married Theodora, daughter of Maximianus, by whom he afterwards had six children, brothers of Constantine. But by his former wife Helena he already had a son Constantine, who was later the mightiest of emperors.

This Constantine, then, born of Helena, a mother of very common origin, and brought up in the town of Naissus, which he afterwards splendidly adorned, had but slight training in letters. He was held as a hostage by Diocletian and Galerius, and did valiant service under those emperors in Asia. After the abdication of Diocletian and Herculius, Constantius asked Galerius to return his son; but Galerius first exposed him to many dangers. For when Constantine, then a young man, was serving in the cavalry against the Sarmatians, he seized by the hair and carried off a fierce savage, and threw him at the feet of the emperor Galerius. Then sent by Galerius through a swamp, he entered it on his horse and made a way for the rest to the Sarmatians, of whom he slew many and won the victory for Galerius. Then at last Galerius sent him back to his father. But in order to avoid meeting Severus as he passed through Italy, Constantine crossed the Alps with the greatest haste, ordering the post-horses to be killed as he went on; and he came up with his father Constantius at Bononia, which the Gauls formerly called Gesoriacum. But his father Constantius, after winning a victory over the Picts, died at York, and Constantine was unanimously hailed as Caesar by all the troops.

In the meantime, two other Caesars had been appointed, Severus and Maximinus; to Maximinus was given the rule of the Orient; Galerius retained Illyricum for himself, as well as the Thracian provinces and Bithynia; Severus received Italy and whatever Herculius had formerly governed.But after Constantius died in Britain, and his son Constantine succeeded him, Maxentius, the son of Herculius, was suddenly hailed as emperor by the praetorian soldiers in the city of Rome. By order of Galerius, Severus took the field against Maxentius, but he was suddenly deserted by all his followers and fled to Ravenna. Thereupon Galerius, with a great army, came against Rome, threatening the destruction of the city, and encamped at Interamna near the Tiber. Then he sent Licinius and Probus to the city as envoys, asking that the son-in-law, that is Maxentius, should attain his desires from the father-in-law, that is Galerius, at the price of requests rather than of arms. Galerius’ proposal was scorned, and having learned that through Maxentius’ promises many of his own men had been led to desert his cause, he was distressed and turned back; and in order to furnish his men with whatever booty he could, he gave orders that the Flaminian Road should be plundered. Maximianustook refuge with Constantine. Then Galerius made Licinius a Caesarin Illyricum, and after that, leaving him in Pannonia, returned himself to Serdica, where he was attacked by a violent disease and wasted away so completely, that he died with the inner parts of his body exposed and in a state of corruption, a punishment for a most unjust persecution, which recoiled as a well-merited penalty upon the author of the iniquitous order. He ruled for nineteen years.

308. Zosimus.

Three years after Dioclesian died, and the reigning emperors, Constantius and Maximianus Gallerius declared Severus and Maximinus (who was nephew to Gallerius), the Caesars, giving all Italy to Severus, and the eastern provinces to Maximinus. Affairs being all regulated and the barbarians quiet, since the Romans had been so successful against them, Constantine, who was the son of Constantius by a concubine, and had previously an ambition of being emperor (but was more inflamed with that desire, since Severus and Maximinus had acquired the name and honour of Caesars), was now resolved to leave the place where he had resided, and to go to his father Constantius, who was beyond the Alps, and generally in Britain. But being apprehensive of seizure by the way, many persons being well acquainted of his anxiety for dominion, he maimed all the horses that were kept for public service, whenever he came to any stable where they were kept, except what he took for his own use. He continued to do this throughout his journey, by which means he prevented those that pursued him from going further, while he himself proceeded toward the country where his father was.

It happened that Constantius died at that time; the guards, therefore, who thought none of his legitimate children to be fit for the imperial dignity, considered that Constantine was a person capable of sustaining it, and conferred the honour upon him, in hopes of being remunerated with handsome presents. When his effigy according to custom was exhibited at Rome, Maxentius, the son of Maximianus Herculius, could not endure the sight of Constantine’s good fortune, who was the son of a harlot, while himself, who was the son of so great an emperor, remained at home in indolence, and his father’s empire was enjoyed by others. He therefore associated with himself in the enterprise Marcellianus and Marcellus, two military tribunes, and Lucianus, who distributed the swine’s flesh, with which the people of Rome were provided by the treasury, and the court-guards called Praetoriani. By them he was promoted to the imperial throne, having promised liberally to reward all that assisted him in it. For this purpose they first murdered Abellius, because he, being prefect of the city, opposed their enterprise.

307. Zosimus.

Maximianus Gallerius, when he had learned this, sent Severus Caesar against Maxentius with an army. But while he advanced from Milan with several legions of Moors, Maxentius corrupted his troops with money, and even the prefect of the court, Anullinus, and thereby conquered him with great case. On which Severus fled to Ravenna, which is a strong and populous city, provided with necessaries sufficient for himself and soldiers. When Maximianus Herculius knew this, he was doubtless greatly concerned for his son Maxentius, and therefore, leaving Lucania where he then was, he went to Ravenna. Finding that Severus could not by any means be forced out of this city, it being well fortified, and stored with provisions, he deluded him with false oaths, and persuaded him to go to Rome. But on his way thither, coming to a place called the Three Tabernae, he was taken by a stratagem of Maxentius and immediately executed. Maximianus Gallerius could not patiently endure these injuries done to Severus, and therefore resolved to go from the east to Rome, and to punish, Maxentius as he deserved. On his arrival in Italy, he found the soldiers about him so treacherous, that he returned into the east without fighting a battle.

At this period Maximianus Herculius, who lamented the tumults which disturbed the public peace, came to Dioclesian who then lived at Carnutum, a town of Gallia Celtica, and endeavoured to persuade him to resume the empire, and not to suffer the government which they had preserved so long and with so much difficulty to be exposed to the madness and folly of those who had possessed themselves of it, and who had already brought it near to ruin. But Dioclesian refused to listen to him; for he wisely preferred his own quiet, and perhaps foresaw the troubles that would ensue, being a man well versed in matters of religion. Herculius therefore, perceiving that he could not prevail with him, came to Ravenna, and so returned to the Alps to meet Constantine, who lay there. And being naturally a busy faithless man, he promised his daughter Fausta to Constantine, which he performed, but persuaded him to pursue Maximianus Gallerius, who was then leaving Italy, and to lay wait for Maxentius. To all which Constantine agreed. He then left him, designing if possible to recover the empire, as he hoped to create a quarrel between Constantine and his son Maxentius. But while he attempted these things, Maximianus Gallerius assumed Licinius, as his colleague in the empire, with whose assistance he hoped to cope with Maxentius. But while Gallerius deliberated on these affairs, he died of an incurable wound, and Licinius then also claimed the sole dominion. Maximianus Herculius endeavoured, as I have said, to recover the empire by alienating the soldiers from Maxentius. For which purpose, by gifts and insinuating addresses, having brought them over to him, he endeavoured to form a conspiracy against Constantine, in which his soldiers were to join. But Fausta revealed it to Constantine, and Herculius, who was now overborne by so many disappointments, died of a distemper at Tarsus.

Maxentius, having escaped this danger, and being of opinion that he was now well enough established in the empire, sent persons into Africa, and in particular to Carthage, to carry his image about that country. But the soldiers in that country forbade it, out of regard to Maximianus Gallerius, and the respect they had for his memory, until they heard that Maxentius was coming to make war on them on the plea of an insurrection. They then went to Alexandria, but meeting with a great army with which they were not able to contend, they returned to Carthage. Maxentius, being disturbed at this, resolved to sail for Africa, and to punish the authors of the commotion. But the soothsayers having sacrificed and given him ill omens, he was afraid to go, not only because the entrails had that appearance, but also lest Alexander, who was prefect of the court in Africa, should be his enemy. To secure his passage thither from all doubt, he sent to Alexander, desiring him to send his son as an hostage. But he, suspecting that Maxentius did not desire his son for the mere purpose of an hostage, but to deceive him, denied the request. After this, Maxentius sending other agents to him to take him off by treachery and stratagem, the plot was discovered; and the soldiers, having then got a favourable opportunity to rebel, conferred the purple robe on Alexander, though he was by birth not only a Phrygian, but a timid cowardly man, and unlit for any difficult undertaking, and was, moreover, of an advanced age.

At that time a fire happened at Rome; whether it came out of the air or earth is uncertain. It broke out in the temple of Fortune; and while the people ran to extinguish it, a soldier, speaking blasphemy against the goddess, was killed by the mob out of zeal, by which a mutiny was occasioned among the soldiers. They would have destroyed the whole city, had not Maxentius soon appeased their rage. Maxentius after this sought every occasion to make war on Constantine, and pretending grief for his father’s death, of which Constantine was the cause, he designed to go towards Rhaetia, which is contiguous both to Gaul and Illyricum. For he imagined that he should subdue Dalmatia and Illyricum, by the assistance of the generals in those parts, and of the army of Licinius. But thinking it better first to arrange affairs in Africa, he raised an army, bestowing the command of it on Rufius Volusianus, prefect of the court, and sent them into Africa. He sent Zeno also along with Rufius, who was a person not only expert in military affairs, but esteemed for his courtesy and affability. On the first charge, Alexander’s troops retired on a body of men in the rear, nor was the other party left unconquered by the enemy. Alexander himself was taken and strangled.

The war being thus at an end, a good opportunity was afforded to sycophants and informers of impeaching all the persons in Africa, who had good estates, as friends to Alexander: nor were any of the accused spared, but some of them put to death, and others deprived of all their possessions. After this he triumphed at Rome for the mischief done at Carthage. Such was the state of the affairs of Maxentius, who conducted himself with cruelty and licentiousness towards all the inhabitants of Italy, and even to Rome itself. Meantime Constantine, who had long been jealous of him, was then much more disposed to contention. Having therefore raised an army amongst the Barbarians, Germans, and Celts, whom he had conquered, and likewise drawn a force out of Britain, amounting in the whole to ninety thousand foot and eight thousand horse, he marched from the Alps into Italy, passing those towns that surrendered without doing them any damage, but taking by storm those which resisted. While he wns making this progress, Maxentius had collected a much stronger army; consisting of eighty thousand Romans and Italians, all the Tuscans on the sea coast, forty thousand men from Carthage, besides what the Sicilians sent him; his whole force amounting to a hundred and seventy thousand foot and eighteen thousand horse.

St Eusebius Pope 309 or 310

St Miltiades Pope 311-314

312 Zosimus.

Both being thus prepared, Maxentius threw a bridge over the Tiber, which was not of one entire piece, but divided into two parts, the centre of the bridge being made to fasten with irons, which might be drawn out upon occasion. He gave orders to the workmen, that as soon as they saw the army of Constantine upon the juncture of the bridge, they should draw out the iron fastenings, that the enemy who stood upon it might fall into the river.

Constantine, advancing with his. army to Rome, encamped in a field before the city, which was broad and therefore convenient for cavalry. Maxentius in the mean time shut himself up within the walls, and sacrificed to the gods, and, moreover, consulted the Sibylline oracles concerning the event of the war. Finding a prediction, that whoever designed any harm to the Romans should die a miserable death, he applied it to himself, because he withstood those that came against Rome, and wished to take it. His application indeed proved just. For when Maxentius drew out his army before the city, and was marching over the bridge that he himself had constructed, an infinite number of owls flew down and covered the wall. When Constantine saw this, he ordered his men to stand to their arms. And the two armies being drawn up opposite to each other, Constantine sent his cavalry against that of the enemy, whom they charged with such impetuosity that they threw them into disorder. The signal being given to the infantry, they likewise marched in good order towards the enemy. A furious battle having commenced, the Romans themselves, and their foreign allies, were unwilling to risk their lives, as they wished for deliverance from the bitter tyranny with which they were burdened; though the other troops were slain in great numbers, being either trod to death by the horse, or killed by the foot.

As long as the cavalry kept their ground, Maxentius retained some hopes, but when they gave way, he tied with the rest over the bridge into the city. The beams not being strong enough to bear so great a weight, they broke; and Maxentius, with the others, was carried with the stream down the river.

When the news of this victory was reported in the city, none dared to shew any joy for what had happened, because many thought it was an unfounded report. But when the head of Maxentius was brought upon a spear, their fear and dejection were changed to joy and pleasure. On this occasion Constantine punished very few, and they were only some few of the nearest friends of Maxentius; but he abolished the praetorian troops, and destroyed the fortresses in which they used to reside. At length, having arranged all things in the city, he went towards Gallia Celtica; and on his way sent for Licinius to Milan, and gave him in marriage his sister Constantia, whom he had formerly promised him, when he wished him to unite with himself against Maxentius. That solemnity over, Constantine proceeded towards the Celtae. It was not long before a civil war broke out between Licinius and Maximianus, who had a severe engagement, in which Licinius at first appeared to have the disadvantage, but he presently rallied and put Maximianus to flight. This emperor, travelling through the east into Egypt, in hopes of raising a force to renew the war, died at Tarsus.

Constantine I Emperor 311-337. In asociation with Licinius 311-324

312. Eusabius.

Life of Constantine. CHAPTER XXIV:

It was by the Will of God that Constantine became possessed of the Empire.

Thus, then the God of all, the Supreme Governor of the whole universe, by his own will appointed Constantine, the descendant of so renowned a parent, to be prince and sovereign: so that, while others have been raised to this distinction by the election of their fellow- men, he is the only one to whose elevation no mortal may boast of having contributed.

CHAPTER XXV: Victories of Constantine over the Britons.

As soon then as he was established on the throne, he began to care for the interests of his paternal inheritance, and visited with much considerate kindness all those provinces which had previously been under his father’s government. Some tribes of the barbarians who dwelt on the banks of the Rhine, and the shores of the Western ocean, having ventured to revolt, he reduced them all to obedience, and brought them from their savage state to one of gentleness. He contented himself with checking the inroads of others, and drove from his dominions, like untamed and savage beasts, those whom he perceived to be altogether incapable of the settled order of civilized life. Having disposed of these affairs to his satisfaction, he directed his attention to other quarters of the world, and first passed over to the British nations, which lie in the very bosom of the ocean. These he reduced to submission, and then proceeded to consider the state of the remaining portions of the empire, that he might be ready to tender his aid wherever circumstances might require it.

312. Sozomenus.

Extracts from the Eclesiastical History.

Under the government of Constantine, the churches flourished and increased in numbers daily, since they were honoured by the good deeds of a benevolent and well-disposed emperor, and otherwise God preserved them from the persecutions and harassments which they had previously encountered. When the churches were suffering from persecution in other parts of the world, Constantius alone, the father of Constantine, accorded the Christians the right of worshipping God without fear. I know of an extraordinary thing done by him, which is worthy of being recorded. He wished to test the fidelity of certain Christians, excellent and good men, who were attached to his palaces. He called them all together, and told them that if they would sacrifice to idols as well as serve God, they should remain in his service and retain their appointments; but that if they refused compliance with his wishes, they should be sent from the palaces, and should scarcely escape his vengeance. When difference of judgement had divided them into two parties, separating those who consented to abandon their religion from those who preferred the honour of God to their present welfare, the emperor determined upon retaining those who had adhered to their faith as his friends and counsellors; but he turned away from the others, whom he regarded as unmanly and impostors, and sent them from his presence, judging that they who had so readily betrayed their God could never be true to their king. Hence it is probable that while Constantius was alive, it did not seem contrary to the laws for the inhabitants of the countries beyond Italy to profess Christianity, that is to say, in Gaul, in Britain, or in the region of the Pyrenean mountains as far as the Western Ocean. When Constantine succeeded to the same government, the affairs of the churches became still more brilliant….

As soon as the sole government of the Roman empire was vested in Constantine, he issued a public decree commanding all his subjects in the East to honour the Christian religion, carefully to worship the Divine Being, and to recognize that only as Divine which is also essentially so, and which has the power that endures for ever and ever: for he delights to give all good things ungrudgingly to those who zealously embrace the truth; he meets their undertakings with the best hopes, while misfortunes, whether in peace or in war, whether in public or in private life, befall transgressors. Constantine then added, but without vain boasting, that, God having accounted him as a fitting servant, worthy to reign, he had been led from the British sea to the Eastern provinces in order that the Christian religion might be extended, and that those who, on account of the worship of God had remained steadfast in confessions or martyrdoms, might be advanced to public honours. After making these statements, he entered upon a myriad other details by which he thought his subjects might be drawn to religion. He decreed that all acts and judgements passed by the persecutors of the church against Christianity should be revoked; and commanded that all those who, on account of their confession of Christ, had been sent to banishment-either to the isles or elsewhere, contrary to their own inclination-and all those who had been condemned to labour in the mines, the public works, the harems, the linen factories, or had been enrolled as public functionaries, should be restored to liberty. He removed the stigma of dishonour from those upon whom it had been cast, and permitted those who had been deprived of high appointments in the army, either to re assume their former place, or with an honourable discharge, to enjoy a liberal ease according to their own choice; and when he had recalled all to the enjoyment of their former liberties and customary honours, he likewise restored their possessions. In the case of those who had been slain, and whose property had been confiscated, he enacted that the inheritance should be transferred to the next of kin, or, in default of heirs, to the church belonging to the locality where the estate was situated; and when the inheritance had passed into other hands, and had become either private or national property, he commanded it to be restored. He likewise promised to resort to the fittest and best possible arrangements when the property had been purchased by the exchequer, or had been received there from by gift. These measures, as it had been said, having been enacted by the emperor, and ratified by law, were forthwith carried into execution. Christians were thus placed in almost all the principal posts of the Roman government; the worship of false gods was universally prohibited; and the arts of divination, the dedication of statues, and the celebration of pagan festivals were interdicted.

The church having been in this manner spread throughout the whole Roman world, religion was introduced even among the barbarians themselves. The tribes on both sides of the Rhine were Christianized, as likewise the Celts and the Gauls who dwelt upon the most distant shores of the ocean; the Goths, too, and such tribes as were contiguous to them, who formerly dwelt on either of the high shores of the Danube, had long shared in the Christian faith, and had changed into a gentler and more rational observance. Almost all the barbarians had professed to hold the Christian doctrine in honour, from the time of the wars between the Romans and foreign tribes, under the government of Gallienus and the emperors who succeeded him. For when an unspeakable multitude of mixed nations passed over from Thrace into Asia and overran it, and when other barbarians from the various regions did the same things to the adjacent Romans, many priests of Christ who had been taken captive, dwelt among these tribes; and during their residence among them, healed the sick, and cleansed those who were possessed of demons, by the name of Christ only, and by calling on the Son of God; moreover they led a blameless life, and excited envy by their virtues. The barbarians, amazed at the conduct and wonderful works of these men, thought that it would be prudent on their part, and pleasing to the Deity, if they should imitate those whom they saw were better; and, like them, would render homage to God. When teachers as to what should be done, had been proposed to them, the people were taught and baptised, and subsequently were gathered into churches.

c313. Nomina Provinciarum Omnium

(Laterculus Veronensis.)

The diocese of the Britanniae includes provinces to the number of six: Prima, Secunda, Maxima Caesariensis, Flavia Caesariensis.

Barbarian nations which have emerged under the emperors: Scoti, Picti, Caledonii

St Sylvester 1 Pope 314-335

After 312. Zosimus.

When he (Constantine) was delivered from the distractions of war, he yielded himself to voluptuousness, and distributed to the people of Byzantium a present of corn, which is continued to this day. As he expended the public treasure in unnecessary and unprofitable buildings, he likewise built some which in a short time were taken down again, because being erected hastily they could not stand long. He likewise made a great change in the ancient magistracy. Till that time there had been only two prefects of the court, whose authority was equal; not only were the court soldiers under their control, but those also which guarded the city, and who were stationed in its neighbourhood. The person who had the office of prefect of the court, which was esteemed the next post of honour to that of emperor, distributed the gifts of corn, and punished all offences against military discipline, as he thought convenient. Constantine altered this good institution, and of one office or magistracy formed four. To one of those prefects he committed all Egypt and Pentapolis in Libya, and all the east as far as Mesopotamia, with Cilicia, Cappadocia, Armenia, and all the coast from Pamphylia to Trapezus and the castles near Phasis; to the same person was given all Thrace and Moesia, as far as the mountains Haemus and Rhodope, and the town of Doberus. He likewise added Cyprus and all the Cyclades, except Lemnos, Imbrus, and Samothracia. To another he assigned Macedon, Thessaly, Crete, and Greece, with the adjacent islands, both the Epiruses, the Illyrians, the Dacians, the Triballi, and the Pannonians as far as Valeria, besides the upper Moesia. To the third prefect he entrusted Italy and Sicily, with the neighbouring islands, and Sardinia and Corsica, together with all Africa westward of the Syrtes. To the fourth he committed all beyond the Alps, Gaul, Spain, and Britain. Having thus divided the power of these prefects, he invented other methods likewise of diminishing their influence. For as there used to be in all places, centurions, tribunes, and generals, he appointed officers called Magistri militum, some over the horse and others over the foot, to whom he gave authority to discipline the soldiers, and punish those that had offended, by which the power of the prefects was diminished. That this innovation was productive of great injury to public affairs both in peace and war I will immediately prove. The prefects had hitherto collected the tribute in all places by their officers, and disposed of it in war expences, the soldiers at the same time being subject to their authority, whose offences they punished at discretion. Under these circumstances, the soldiers, considering that the same person who gave them their pay had the infliction of punishments whenever they offended, did not dare to act contrary to their duty, for fear of their stipend being withheld, and of being duly punished. But now since one person is paymaster and another inspector of discipline, they act according to their own inclination.

Constantine likewise adopted another measure, which gave the Barbarians free access into the Roman dominions. For the Roman empire, as I have related, was, by the care of Dioclesian, protected on its remote frontiers by towns and fortresses, in which soldiers were placed; it. was consequently impossible for the Barbarians to pass them, there being always a sufficient force to oppose their inroads. But Constantine destroyed that security by removing the greater part of the soldiers from those barriers of the frontiers, and placing them in towns that had no need of defenders; thus depriving those who were exposed to the Barbarians of all defence, and oppressing the towns that were quiet with so great a multitude of soldiers, that many of them were totally forsaken by the inhabitants. He likewise rendered his soldiers effeminate by accustoming them to public spectacles and pleasures. To speak in plain terms, he was the first cause of the affairs of the empire declining to their present miserable state.

SBG St Cadfrawd.

Was the same as Adelfius, who is recorded to have been present at the Council of Arles in 314, the names being ” almost a translation of each other.” Caerleon may have been the seat of a bishopric, as Giraldus Cambrensis maintained, and Adelfius may have been bishop of the see, but there is no clear evidence that he came from this town or district. He is called in the entry “episcopus de civitate Colonia Londinensium.” There is evidently some error here. Haddan and Stubbs and others have suggested Legionensium for Londinensium, making it refer to Caerleon.

SBG St Ifor.

Bishop of York, present at the Council of Arles, 314.

314. Acta Concilii Arelatensis.

Eborius episcopus de civitate Eboricensi Provincia Britania.

Restitutus episcopus de civitate Londenensis Provincia qua supra.

Adelfius episcopus de civitate Colonia Londenensium, exinde Sacerdus presbyter, Arminius diaconus.

(Ed, there are Variant Latin spellings).

Ex provincia Britannia civitas Tobracentium Aerburius episcopus.

Civitas Londinientium Restitutus episcopus.

Civitas Londinientium Adelfius.

(Variant).

Ex provincia Britannia Tububiacensium Eburus episcopus.

Ex civitate Londiniensium Restitutus episcopus.

Ex civitate Colonia Londiniensis Adelfius episcopus et Menius diaconus.

(Variant).

Ex provincia Britania civitas Tubeuriacensium Eburius episcopus.

Civitas Londinensium Restitutus episcopus.

Colonia…Adelfius episcopus Sacer episcopus Arminius diaconus.

(Variant).

Ex provincia Brittinia civitas Tubiricensium Evortius episcopus.

Civitas Coloniae Lonininsium Adelfus episcopus.

322. Annals of the Four Masters.

Fiacha Sraibhtine, after having been thirty seven years as king over Ireland, was slain by the Collas, in the battle of Dubhchomar, in Crioch Rois, in Breagh.

323.The first year of Colla Uais, son of Eochaidh Doimhlen, as king over Ireland.

324. Gennadius of Massilia

Chapter XIV.—Letter written by the Emperor Constantine respecting the building of Churches

“Constantinus Augustus, the great and the victorious, to Eusebius.

“I am well aware, and am thoroughly convinced, my beloved brother, that as the servants of our Saviour Christ have been suffering up to the present time from nefarious machinations and tyrannical persecutions, the fabrics of all the churches must have either fallen into utter ruin from neglect, or, through apprehension of the impending iniquity, have been reduced below their proper dignity. But now that freedom is restored, and that dragon, through the providence of God, and by our instrumentality, thrust out from the government of the Empire, I think that the divine power has become known to all, and that those who hitherto, from fear or from incredulity or from depravity, have lived in error, will now, upon becoming acquainted with Him who truly is, be led into the true and correct manner of life. Exert yourself, therefore, diligently in the reparation of the churches under your own jurisdiction, and admonish the principal bishops, priests, and deacons of other places to engage zealously in the same work; in order that all the churches which still exist may be repaired or enlarged, and that new ones may be built wherever they are required. You, and others through your intervention, can apply to magistrates and to provincial governments for all that may be necessary for this purpose; for they have received written injunctions to render zealous obedience to whatever your holiness may command. May God preserve you, beloved brother.”

Thus the emperor wrote to the bishops in each province respecting the building of churches.

Chapter XX.—Of the destruction of the temples all over the Empire.

Now the right faithful emperor diverted his energies to resisting paganism, and published edicts in which he ordered the shrines of the idols to be destroyed. Constantine the Great, most worthy of all eulogy, was indeed the first to grace his empire with true religion; and when he saw the world still given over to foolishness he issued a general prohibition against the offering of sacrifices to the idols. He had not, however, destroyed the temples, though he ordered them to be kept shut. His sons followed in their father’s footsteps. Julian restored the false faith and rekindled the flame of the ancient fraud. On the accession of Jovian he once more placed an interdict on the worship of idols, and Valentinian the Great governed Europe with like laws. Valens, however, allowed everyone else to worship any way they would and to honour their various objects of adoration. Against the champions of the Apostolic decrees alone he persisted in waging war. Accordingly, during the whole period of his reign the altar fire was lit, libations and sacrifices were offered to idols, public feasts were celebrated in the forum, and votaries initiated in the orgies of Dionysus ran about in goat-skins, mangling hounds in Bacchic frenzy, and generally behaving in such a way as to show the iniquity of their master. When the right faithful Theodosius found all these evils he pulled them up by the roots, and consigned them to oblivion

The Epistle of the Emperor Constantine,

(extract) Quoted by Theodoretus of Cyprus.

That this impropriety should be rectified, and that all these diversities of commemoration should be resolved into one form, is the will of divine Providence, as I am convinced you will all perceive. Therefore, this irregularity must be corrected, in order that we may no more have any thing in common with those parricides and the murderers of our Lord. An orderly and excellent form of commemoration is observed in all the churches of the western, of the southern, and of the northern parts of the world, and by some of the eastern; this form being universally commended, I engaged that you would be ready to adopt it likewise, and thus gladly accept the rule unanimously adopted in the city of Rome, throughout Italy, in all Africa, in Egypt, the Spains, the Gauls, the Britains, Libya, Greece, in the dioceses of Asia, and of Pontus, and in Cilicia, taking into your consideration not only that the churches of the places above-mentioned are greater in point of number, but also that it is most pious that all should unanimously agree in that course which accurate reasoning seems to demand, and which has no single point in common with the perjury of the Jews.

Bede.

CHAP. VIII.

How, when the persecution ceased, the Church in Britain enjoyed peace till the time of the Arian heresy. [325 AD]

When the storm of persecution ceased, the faithful Christians, who, during the time of danger, had hidden themselves in woods and deserts and secret caves, came forth and rebuilt the churches which had been levelled to the ground; founded, erected, and finished the cathedrals raised in honour of the holy martyrs, and, as if displaying their conquering standards in all places, celebrated festivals and performed their sacred rites with pure hearts and lips. This peace continued in the Christian churches of Britain until the time of the Arian madness, which, having corrupted the whole world, infected this island also, so far removed from the rest of the world, with the poison of its error; and when once a way was opened across the sea for that plague, straightway all the taint of every heresy fell upon the island, ever desirous to hear some new thing, and never holding firm to any sure belief.

At this time Constantius, who, whilst Diocletian was alive, governed Gaul and Spain, a man of great clemency and urbanity, died in Britain. This man left his son Constantine [Constantine the Great] born of Helena, his concubine, emperor of the Gauls. Eutropius writes that Constantine, being created emperor in Britain, succeeded his father in the sovereignty. In his time the Arian heresy broke out, and although it was exposed and condemned in the Council of Nicaea, nevertheless, the deadly poison of its evil spread, as has been said, to the Churches in the islands, as well as to those of the rest of the world.

325 Eusabius.

Life of Constantine

CHAPTER XIX: Exhortation to follow the Example of the Greater Part of the World.

“Since, therefore, it was needful that this matter should be rectified, so that we might have nothing in common with that nation of parricides who slew their Lord: and since that arrangement is consistent with propriety which is observed by all the churches of the western, southern, and northern parts of the world, and by some of the eastern also: for these reasons, all are unanimous on this present occasion in thinking it worthy of adoption. And I myself have undertaken that this decision should meet with the approval of your Sagacities, in the hope that your Wisdoms will gladly admit that practice which is observed at once in the city of Rome, and in Africa; throughout Italy, and in Egypt, in Spain, the Gauls, Britain, Libya, and the whole of Greece; in the dioceses of Asia and Pontus, and in Cilicia, with entire unity of judgement. And you will consider not only that the number of churches is far greater in the regions I have enumerated than in any other, but also that it is most fitting that all should unite in desiring that which sound reason appears to demand, and in avoiding all participation in the perjured conduct of the Jews. In fine, that I may express my meaning in as few words as possible, it has been determined by the common judgement of all, that the most holy feast of Easter should be kept on one and the same day. For on the one hand a discrepancy of opinion on so sacred a question is unbecoming, and on the other it is surely best to act on a decision which is free from strange folly and error.

CHAPTER L: Embassy and Presents from the Indians.

ABOUT this time ambassadors from the Indians, who inhabit the distant regions of the East, arrived with presents consisting of many varieties of brilliant precious stones, and animals differing in species from those known to us. These offerings they presented to the emperor, thus allowing that his sovereignty extended even to the Indian Ocean, and that the princes of their country, who rendered homage to him both by paintings and statues, acknowledged his imperial and paramount authority. Thus the Eastern Indians now submitted to his sway, as the Britons of the Western Ocean had done at the commencement of his reign.

326. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fourth year of Colla Uais, in the sovereignty of Ireland, when Muireadhach Tireach expelled him and his brothers into Alba Scotland with three hundred along with them.

327 . The first year of Muireadhach Tireach in the sovereignty of Ireland.

At the end of this year the three Collas came to Ireland; and there lived not of their forces but thrice nine persons only. They then went to Muireadhach, having been instructed by a druid. And they scolded at him, and expressed evil words, that he might kill them, and that it might be on him the curse of the finghal should alight. As he did not oppose them, they tarried with him, and were faithful to him.

331. The fifth year of Muireadhach.

The battle of Achadh Leithdheirg, in Fearnmhagh, was fought by the three Collas against the Ulstermen, in which fell Fearghus Fogha, son of Fraechar Foirtriun, the last king of Ulster, who resided at Eamhain. They afterwards burned Eamhain, and the Ulstermen did not dwell therein since. They also took from the Ulstermen that part of the province extending from the Righe and Loch nEathach westwards. Colla Meann fell in this battle.

St Marcus Pope 336

Jordanes.

This Visimar was of the stock of the Asdingi, which is eminent among them and indicates a most warlike descent, as Dexippus the historian relates. He states furthermore that by reason of the great extent of their country they could scarcely come from Ocean to our frontier in a year’s time. At that time they dwelt in the land where the Gepidae now live, near the rivers Marisia, Miliare, Gilpil and the Grisia, which exceeds in size all previously mentioned. They then had on the east the Goths, on the west the Marcomanni, on the north the Hermunduli and on the south the Hister, which is also called the Danube. At the time when the Vandals were dwelling in this region, war was begun against them by Geberich, king of the Goths, on the shore of the river Marisia which I have mentioned. Here the battle raged for a little while on equal terms. But soon Visimar himself, the king of the Vandals, was overthrown, together with the greater part of his people. When Geberich, the famous leader of the Goths, had conquered and spoiled Vandals, he returned to his own place whence he had come. Then the remnant of the Vandals who had escaped, collecting a band of their unwarlike folk, left their ill-fated country and asked the Emperor Constantine for Pannonia. Here they made their home for about sixty years and obeyed the commands of the emperors like subjects. A long time afterward they were summoned thence by Stilicho, Master of the Soldiery, Ex-Consul and Patrician, and took possession of Gaul. Here they plunderedtheir neighbors and had no settled place of abode.

St Julius 1 Pope 337-352

Constantine II Emperor 337-340 in association with Constantius II & Constans

337. Liber Britannicus.

Constantinus, son of Constantine the Great, son of Helena, took the island of Britain, and died, and was buried at Caersegeint, i. e. Minantia, another name for that city; and letters on the gravestone point out his name, and he left three seeds in the green of that city, so that there is not a poor man in that city.

337. Zosimus

CONSTANTIUS, after having acted towards Gallus Caesar in the manner I have related, left Pannonia to proceed into Italy. But perceiving all the Roman territories to be infested by the incursions of the Barbarians, and that the Franks, the Alemanni, and the Saxons had not only possessed themselves of forty cities near the Rhine, but had likewise ruined and destroyed them, by carrying off an immense number of the inhabitants, and a proportionate quantity of spoils; and that the Sarmatians and the Quadi ravaged without opposition Pannonia and the upper Moesia ; besides which that the Persians were perpetually harassing the eastern provinces, though they had previously been tranquil in the fear of an attack from Gallus Caesar; considering these circumstances, and being in doubt what to attempt, he scarcely thought himself capable of managing affairs at this critical period. He was unwilling, however, to associate any one with himself in the government, because he so much desired to rule alone, and could esteem no man his friend. Under these circumstances he was at a loss how to act It happened, however, that when the empire was in the greatest danger, Eusebia, the wife of Constantius, who was a woman of extraordinary learning, and of greater wisdom than her sex is usually endowed with, advised him to confer the government of the nations beyond the Alps on Julianus Caesar, who was brother to Gallus, and grandson to Constantius. As she knew that the emperor was suspicious of all his kindred, she thus circumvented him. She observed to him, that Julian was a young man unacquainted with the intrigues of state, having devoted himself totally to his studies; and that he was wholly inexperienced in worldly business. That on this account he would be more fit for his purpose than any other person. That either he would be fortunate, and his success would be attributed to the emperor’s conduct, or that he would fail and perish; and that thus Constantius would have none of the imperial family to succeed to him.

337-340

Having done this, and restored as many captives as it was probable had been taken out of the forty cities which they had sacked, Caesar was at a loss what course to adopt, perceiving the cities to be completely ruined, and that the land had remained long without cultivation, which occasioned great scarcity of provisions among those who were delivered up by the Barbarians. For the neighbouring cities could not supply them, having themselves felt the violence of the Barbarians, and consequently having no great abundance for their own use. Having therefore deliberated on what course to pursue he formed this plan. As the Rhine discharges itself at the extremity of Germany into the Atlantic Ocean, and the island of Britain is about nine hundred stadia from its mouths, he cut timber from the woods on the banks of the river, and built eight hundred small vessels, which he sent into Britain for a supply of corn, and brought it up the Rhine. This was so often repeated, the voyage being short, that he abundantly supplied those who were restored to their cities with sufficiency for their sustenance, so likewise for the sowing season, and what they needed until harvest. These actions he performed when he had scarcely attained the twenty-fifth year of his age.

Constantius, perceiving that Julian was beloved by the army, for his frugality in pence and courage in war, and for the self-command he possessed in regard to riches, and the other virtues in which he excelled all persons of the age in which he lived, became envious of his great merit, and concluded that Sallustius, one of the counsellors that had been allotted to him, was the author of the policy that had acquired Julian so much honour both in military and in civil affairs. He, therefore, sent for Sallustius, as if he intended to confer the government of the eastern provinces upon him. Julian readily dismissed him, resolving to obey the emperor in all respects. Though Sallustius was removed, Julian still advanced in whatever was committed to his care; the soldiers improved in discipline as well as augmented in number, and the towns enjoyed the blessings of peace.

The Barbarians in that quarter now began almost all to despair, and expected little short of the complete destruction of all that remained alive. The Saxons, who exceed all the barbarians in those regions, in courage, strength and hardiness, sent out the Quadi, a part of their own body, against the Roman dominions. Being obstructed by the Franks who resided near them, and who were afraid of giving Caesar a just occasion of making another attack on them, they shortly built themselves a number of boats, in which they sailed along the Rhine beyond the territory of the Franks, and entered the Roman empire. On their arrival at Batavia, which is an island, so formed by the branches of the Rhine, much larger than any other river island, they drove out the Salii, a people descended from the Franks, who had been expelled from their own country by the Saxons. This island, though formerlv subject to the Romans alone, was now in the possession of the Salii. Caesar, upon learning this, endeavoured to counteract the designs of the Quadi; and first commanded his army to attack them briskly; but not: to kill any of the Salii, or prevent them from entering the Roman territories, because they came not as enemies, but were forced there by the Quadi.

As soon as the Salii heard of the kindness of Caesar, some of them went with their king into the Roman territory, and others fled to the extremity of their country, but all humbly committed their lives and fortunes to Caesar’s gracious protection. Caesar by this time perceiving that the Barbarians dared not again engage him, but were intent on secret excursions, and rapine, by which they did great damage to the country, scarcely knew how to act, until at length he invented a stratagem to confound the Barbarians. There was a man of extraordinary stature, and of courage proportioned to his size. Being by nation a Barbarian, and accustomed to plunder with the others, he had thought proper to leave his own country and go into Gallia Celtica, which was subject to the Romans.

While he was residing at Treves, which is the largest city in all the nations beyond the Alps, and saw the barbarians from beyond the Rhine, ravaging the cities on this side of the river, and committing depredations every where without opposition, (which was before Julian was made Caesar), he resolved in himself to defend those towns. As he dared not attempt this without being supported by the law, he at first went alone into the thickest part of the woods, and waited there till the Barbarians made their incursions. In the night, when they lay intoxicated and asleep, he fell on them and slew them in great numbers, bringing their heads and shewing them to the people of the town. This he practised continually to such an extent, that he abated the keenness of the Barbarians, who though unable to guess at the cause, yet were sensible of the losses they sustained, the army diminishing daily. Some other robbers having joined this man, and their number having increased to a considerable body, Charietto, (which was the name of the man who first used (his kind of ambuscade against the Barbarians) came to Caesar, and told him the whole circumstances, which few persons knew before that time. Caesar, was at this time unable to restrain their nocturnal and clandestine incursions of the Barbarians, as they robbed in small parties, straggling from each other, and when day appeared, not one of them was visible, all hiding themselves in the woods, and subsisting on what they gained by robbery. Considering therefore the difficulty of subduing such an enemy, he determined to oppose these robbers, not with an army of soldiers, but with men of similar description.

For this reason, he sent Charietto and his band, adding to them many of the Salii, against the plundering Quadi, who though they lived on what they stole, yet were probably less expert in the art of robbing, than these men who had studied it. In the day he guarded the open fields, and killed all that escaped his robbers. He did this for a long time, until the Quadi were reduced to such extremities, and to so small a number, that they and their general surrendered themselves to Caesar, who had taken a great number of prisoners in the former excursions and engagements, and among the rest the son of their king, who was taken by Charietto. From this cause, when they so lamentably petitioned for peace, and Caesar demanded some of their chiefs as hostages, and required the king’s son to be one of them; the general, or king, broke out into a most pathetic complaint, and declared with tears in his eyes that his son was one that had been lost. Caesar perceiving this compassionated his sorrow, and shewed him his son who had been nobly entertained; but told him that he would retain the youth as a hostage as well as other of the chiefs whom he had in possession. He condescended, however, to make peace with them on condition that they would never again take arms against the Romans.

Constantius II Emperor 340-361 in association with Constans 340-350

343. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year died St. Nicolaus.

350 – 399. St Patrick, Nial, Maximus

350 – 399

Constantius II Emperor 340-361 in association with Constans 340-350

350. Expositio Totius Mundi at Gentium.

Then there is another island which is called Britannia, indeed the greatest, as those who have been there tell, and outstanding among them all.

350 Sozomenus.

Extracts from the Eclesiastical History

Four years after the council of Sardica, Constans was killed in Western Gaul. Magnentius, who had plotted his murder, reduced the entire government of Constans under his own sway.

Liberius Pope 352-366 opposed by Felix II antipope 355-365

353. Cronicum Scotorum.

In this year Patrick was born.

353. Sozomenus.

Extracts from the Eclesiastical History

In the meantime, Magnentius made himself master of ancient Rome, and put numbers of the senators, and of the people, to death. Hearing that the troops of Constantius were approaching, he retired into Gaul; and here the two parties had frequent encounters, in which sometimes the one and sometimes the other was victorious. At length, however, Magnentius was defeated, and fled to Mursa, which is the fortress of this Gaul, and when he saw that his soldiers were dispirited because they had been defeated, he stood on an elevated spot and endeavoured to revive their courage. But, although they addressed Magnentius with the acclamations usually paid to emperors, and were ready to shout at his public appearance, they secretly and without premeditation shouted for Constantius as emperor in place of Magnentius. Magnentius, concluding from this circumstance, that he was not destined by God to hold the reins of empire, endeavoured to retreat from the fortress to some distant place. But he was pursued by the troops of Constantius, and being overtaken at a spot called Mount Seleucus, he escaped alone from the encounter, and fled to Lugduna. On his arrival there, he slew his own mother and his brother, whom he had named Caesar; and lastly, he killed himself. Not long after, Decentius, another of his brothers, put an end to his own existence. Still the public tumults were not quelled; for not long after, Silvanus assumed the supreme authority in Gaul; but he was put to death immediately by the generals of Constantius.

356. Annals of the Four Masters.

After Muireadhach Tireach had been thirty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he was slain by Caelbhadh, son of Crunn, King of Uladh, at Portrigh, over Dabhall.

357. After Caelbhadh, son of Crunn Badhrai, had been one year in the sovereignty of Ireland, he was slain by Eochaidh Muighmheadhoin.

Athanasius.

History of the Arians.Part IV.Second Arian Persecution under Constantius

But the inheritors of the opinions and impiety of Eusebius and his fellows, the eunuch Leontius, who ought not to remain in communion even as a layman, because he mutilated himself that he might henceforward be at liberty to sleep with one Eustolium, who is a wife as far as he is concerned, but is called a virgin; and George and Acacius, and Theodorus, and Narcissus, who are deposed by the Council; when they heard and saw these things, were greatly ashamed. And when they perceived the unanimity and peace that existed between Athanasius and the Bishops (they were more than four hundred, from great Rome, and all Italy, from Calabria, Apulia, Campania, Bruttia, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and the whole of Africa; and those from Gaul, Britain, and Spain, with the great Confessor Hosius; and also those from Pannonia, Noricum, Siscia, Dalmatia, Dardania, Dacia, Moesia, Macedonia, Thessaly, and all Achaia, and from Crete, Cyprus, and Lycia, with most of those from Palestine, Isauria, Egypt, the Thebais, the whole of Libya, and Pentapolis); when I say they perceived these things, they were possessed with envy and fear; with envy, on account of the communion of so many together; and with fear, lest those who had been entrapped by them should be brought over by the unanimity of so great a number, and henceforth their heresy should be triumphantly exposed, and everywhere proscribed.

357. Ammianus Marcellinus.

Julianus Caesar repairs the walls of the fortress on the Rhine which he had recovered. He crosses the Rhine, and after laying waste the hostile part of Alamannia compels five of their kings to sue for peace and return their prisoners. But being on the point of entering upon an urgent campaign, since he considered that some districts of the Alamanni were hostile and would venture on outrages unless they also were overthrown after the example of the rest, he was anxious and doubtful with what force and with what speed (as soon as prudence gave an opportunity) he might anticipate the news of his coming and invade their territories unexpected. And after thinking over many varied plans he at last decided to try the one which the outcome proved to be expedient. Without anyone’s knowledge he had sent Hariobaudes, an unattached tribune of tried fidelity and courage, ostensibly as an envoy to Hortarius, a king already subdued, with the idea that he could easily go on from there to the frontiers of those against whom war was presently to be made, and find out what they were plotting; for he was thoroughly acquainted with the language of the savages. When the tribune had fearlessly set out to execute these orders, Julian, since the season of the year was favourable, called together his soldiers from all quarters for a campaign, and set forth; and he thought that above all things he ought betimes to attend to this, namely, before the heat of battle to enter the cities long since destroyed and abandoned, regain and fortify them, and even build granaries in place of those that had been burned, in which he could store the grain which was regularly brought over from Britain; and both things were accomplished sooner than anyone expected. For not only did the granaries quickly rise, but a sufficiency of food was stored in them; and the cities were seized, to the number of seven: Castra Herculis, Quadriburgium, Tricensima and Novesium, Bonna, Antennacum and Vingo, where by a happy stroke of fortune the prefect Florentius also appeared unexpectedly, leading a part of the forces and bringing a store of provisions sufficient to last a long time.

358. Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of Eochaidh Muighmheadhoin in sovereignty over Ireland.

359. Sulpicius Severus Chronicle.

At the council of Ariminium (Rimini) a city in Italy. Three bishops from Britain had to be helped with public funds.

360? Sozomenus.

Extracts from the Eclesiastical History

Constantius also suspected Julian of cherishing the love of empire, and therefore put him under the custody of guards.

Eusebia, the wife of Constantius, obtained for him permission to retire to Athens; and he accordingly settled there, under pretext of attending the pagan exercises and schools; but as rumour says, he communed with diviners concerning his future prospects…..

The emperor, (Constantius) who was then in the West…..The emperor had determined to visit the East, and held on his way; he conferred the title of Caesar on his cousin Julian, and sent him to Western Gaul…

Constantius recalled him, and proclaimed him Caesar, promised him his sister Constantia in marriage, and sent him to Gaul; for the barbarians whose aid had been hired by Constantius previously against Magnentius, finding that their services were not required, had portioned out that country. As Julian was very young, generals, to whom the prudential affairs were turned over, were sent with him; but as these generals abandoned themselves to pleasure, he was present as Caesar, and provided for the war. He confirmed his soldiers in their spirit for battle, and urged them in other ways to incur danger; he also ordered that a fixed reward should be given to each one who should slay a barbarian. After he had thus secured the affections of the soldiery, he wrote to Constantius, acquainting him with the levity of the generals; and when another general had been sent, he attacked the barbarians, and obtained the victory. They sent embassies to beg for peace, and showed the letter in which Constantius had requested them to enter the Roman dominions. He purposely delayed sending the ambassador back; he attacked a number of the enemy unexpectedly and conquered them.

In the meantime, Eusebius traversed the Eastern provinces, restored those who had declined from the faith, and taught them what it was necessary to believe. After passing through Illyria, he went to Italy, and there he met with Hilarius, bishop of Poictiers in Aquitania. Hilarius had returned from exile before Eusebius, and had taught the Italians and the Gauls what doctrines they had to receive, and what to reject; he expressed himself with great eloquence in the Latin tongue, and wrote many admirable works, it is said, in refutation of the Arian dogmas. Thus did Hilarius and Eusebius maintain the doctrines of the Nicaean council in the regions of the West.

Julian Emperor 361-363

Zosimus.

Caesar, after he had thus settled affairs, added the Salii, the Quadi, and many of the inhabitants of Batavia to his legions, of whose discipline we still make use. Meanwhile the emperor Constantius was in the east, disposing of the Persian affairs, and intent only on the wars in those countries. All the nations beyond the Alps were in a state of tranquillity, from the prudent management of Caesar; nor were either Italy or Illyricum. in any danger, the Barbarians who dwelt beyond the Ister being fearful that Caesar would come through Gaul, and pass the Ister to attack them; they therefore contained themselves within the bounds of moderation. Constantius being thus occupied, the Persians, under their king Saphor, at that time ravaged Mesopotamia; and having pillaged all the places about Nisibis, they besieged the city itself with their whole forces. Lucilianus, the commander, was so well provided for a siege, that partly by the happy occasions of which he availed himself, and partly by his own contrivances, the city escaped the dangers that threatened it. The manner in which this was effected, I have thought it superfluous to explain, since Julian himself has given a relation of all the transactions of those times in a particular treatise, in which the render may easily discern the eloquence and ability of its author. At this juncture, the affairs of the east appearing tranquil, and the splendid actions of Julian occupying the discourse of the public, the mind of Constantius became the seat of the most bitter envy. Being mortified at the prosperity that attended all that had been done in Celtica and Spain, he invented pretexts, by which |73 he might gradually, and without any dishonour, diminish the authority of Julian, and then deprive him of his dignity. For this purpose, he sent a messenger to Caesar, requiring him to send two of the Celtic legions, as if he wanted their assistance. Julian, in obedience to his order, immediately sent them away, partly through ignorance of his design, and partly because he wished to avoid giving him the least cause of anger. After this he took every possible care of the affairs of Gaul, while the army daily increased, and the Barbarians, even in the most remote part of their country, were in such dread of him, that they did not even dream of making war. Constantius afterwards required more legions to be sent to him from Caesar, and having obtained the demand, sent for four other companies: according to which order Julian gave notice to the soldiers to prepare for marching. But while Julian was at Parisium, a small town in Germany, the soldiers, being ready to march, continued at supper till midnight in a place near the palace, which they so called there. They were as yet ignorant of any design against Caesar, when some tribunes, who began to suspect the contrivance against him, privately distributed a number of anonymous billets among the soldiers, in which they represented to them, that Caesar, by his judicious conduct had so managed affairs, that almost all of them had erected trophies over the Barbarians ; that he had always fought like a private soldier, and was now in extreme danger from the emperor, who would shortly deprive him of his whole army, unless they prevented it. Some of the soldiers having read these billets, and published the intrigue to the whole army, all were highly enraged. They suddenly rose from their seats in great commotion, and with the cups yet in their hands went to the palace. Breaking open the doors without ceremony, they brought out Caesar, and lifting him on a shield declared him emperor and Augustus. They then, without attending to his reluctance, placed a diadem upon his head.

362. Ammianus Marcellinus.

Book XX.

Lupicinus, master of arms, is sent with an army to Britain, to resist the inroads of the Scots and Picts.

Such was the course of events throughout Illyricum and the Orient. But in Britain in the tenth consulship of Constantius and the third of Julian raids of the savage tribes of the Scots and the Picts, who had broken the peace that had been agreed upon, were laying waste the regions near the frontiers, so that fear seized the provincials, wearied as they were by a mass of past calamities. And Julian, who was passing the winter in Paris and was distracted amid many cares, was afraid to go to the aid of those across the sea, as Constans once did (as I have told), for fear of leaving Gaul without a ruler at a time when the Alamanni were already roused to rage and war. Therefore he decided that Lupicinus, who was at that time commander-in-chief, should be sent to settle the troubles either by argument or by force; he was indeed a warlike man and skilled in military affairs, but one who raised his brows like horns and ranted in the tragic buskin (as the saying is), and about whom men were long in doubt whether he was more covetous or more cruel. Therefore, taking the light-armed auxiliaries, to wit the Aeruli, the Batavians, and two companies of Moesians, in the dead of winter the leader aforesaid came to Boulogne, and after procuring ships and embarking all his troops, he waited for a favourable breeze and then sailed to Richborough, which lay opposite, and went on to London, intending there to form his plans according to the situation of affairs and hasten quickly to take the field.

At Paris, where he was wintering, Julianus Caesar is forcibly hailed as Augustus by the Gallic legions which Constantius had ordered to be taken from him and transferred to the Orient against the Persians.

When Constantius was hastening to lend aid to the Orient, which was likely soon to be disturbed by the inroads of Persians, as deserters reported in agreement with our scouts, he was tormented by the valorous deeds of Julian, which increasingly frequent report was spreading abroad through the mouths of divers nations, carrying the great glory of his mighty toils and achievements after the overthrow of several kingdoms of the Alamanni, and the recovery of the Gallic towns, which before had been destroyed and plundered by the savages whom he himself had made tributaries and subjects. Excited by these and similar exploits, and fearing that their fame would grow greater, urged on besides, as was reported, by the prefect Florentius, he sent Decentius, the tribune and secretary, at once to take from Julian his auxiliaries, namely, the Aeruli and Batavi and the Celts with the Petulantes, as well as three hundred picked men from each of the other divisions of the army; and he ordered him to hasten their march under the pretext that they might be able to be on hand for an attack on the Parthians early in the spring.

And for speeding the departure of the auxiliaries and the divisions of three hundred Lupicinus alone was called upon (for that he had crossed over to Britain was not yet known at court); but the order to select the most active of the targeteers and the gentiles and personally lead them to the emperor was given to Sintula, then Julian’s chief stable-master.

Julian kept silence and submitted to this, leaving everything to the will of his more powerful associate. One thing, however, he could neither overlook nor pass over in silence, namely, that those men should suffer no inconvenience who had left their abodes beyond the Rhine and come to him under promise that they should never be led to regions beyond the Alps; for he declared that it was to be feared that the barbarian volunteer soldiers, who were often accustomed to come over to our side under conditions of that kind, might on having knowledge of this thereafter be kept from so doing. But his words were to no purpose. For the tribune, considering Caesar’s remonstrances of little moment, carried out the orders of Augustus, chose the strongest and most active of the light-armed troops, and made off with them, while they were filled with hope of better fortunes.

Accordingly, Leonas, having entered Paris, was received as an honoured and discreet person, and on the following day, when the prince had come to the field with a great number of soldiers and townsmen, whom he had purposely summoned, and was standing aloft on a tribunal in order to be more conspicuous from a high position, he ordered the letter to be handed to him. And after unrolling the scroll of the edict which had been sent, he began to read it from the beginning. And when he had come to the place where Constantius, rejecting all that had been done, declared that the power of a Caesar was enough for Julian, on all sides terrifying shouts arose: “Julianus Augustus,” as was decreed by authority of the province, the soldiers, and the state — a state restored indeed, but still fearful of renewed raids of the savages.

On hearing this, Leonas returned in safety, with a letter of Julian to the same purport, and Nebridius alone was admitted to the prefecture; for Caesar in his letter had openly said that such an appointment would be in accordance with his wishes. As to the master of offices, he had long before chosen for that office Anatolius, who previously had answered petitions, and some others, in accordance with what seemed to him expedient and safe.

But while matters were thus proceeding, Lupicinus was to be feared, although he was absent and even then in Britain, for he was a man of haughty and arrogant spirit and it was suspected that if he should learn of these things while across the sea, he would stir up material for a revolution; accordingly, a secretary was sent to Boulogne, to watch carefully and prevent anyone from crossing the strait. Because of this prohibition Lupicinus returned before hearing of anything that had happened, and so could cause no disturbance.

Julianus Caesar, having unexpectedly attacked the so‑ called Atthuarian Franks on the other side of the Rhine, and killed or captured the greater number of them, granted them peace at their request.

Julian, however, being now happier in his lofty station and in the confidence which the soldiers felt in him, in order not to become lukewarm or be accused of negligence and sloth, after sending envoys to Constantius set out for the frontier of Second Germany, and, thoroughly equipped with all the material that the business in hand demanded, drew near to the city of Tricensima.Then crossing the Rhine, he suddenly invaded the territory of those Franks known as Atthuarii, a restless people, who even then were lawlessly overrunning the frontiers of Gaul. Having attacked them unexpectedly, when they feared no hostile demonstration and were quite off their guard, because they could remember no invasion of their land as yet by any emperor, protected as they were by rough and difficult roads, he defeated them with slight trouble; and after having captured or killed a great many, when the rest who survived begged for peace, he granted it on his own conditions, thinking this to be to the advantage of the neighbouring settlers. From there he returned with equal speed by way of the river, and carefully examining and strengthening the defences of the frontier, he came as far as Augst; and there having recovered the places which the savages had formerly taken and were holding as their own, he fortified them with special care and went by way of Besançon to Vienne, to pass the winter.

Julianus Augustus at Vienne pretends to be a Christian, in order to win the favour of the populace; and on the day of a festival he prays to God in church among the Christians.

Julianus Augustus vainly tries to restore the temple at Jerusalem, which had been destroyed long before.

These were the events of that year, to pass over minor details. But Julian, who had already been consul three times, assumed the chief magistracy for the fourth time, taking as his colleague in the office Sallustius, prefect of Gaul.And for a private citizen to be associated with the reigning emperor seemed an innovation which no one recalled to have been made since Diocletian and Aristobulus.And although he weighed every possible variety of events with anxious thought, and pushed on with burning zeal at many preparations for his campaign, yet turning his activity to every part, and eager to extend the memory of his reign by great works, he planned at vast cost to restore the once splendid temple at Jerusalem, which after many mortal combats during the siege by Vespasian and later by Titus, had barely been stormed. He had entrusted the speedy performance of this work to Alypius of Antioch, who had once been vice-prefect of Britain. But, though this Alypius pushed the work on with vigour, aided by the governor of the province, terrifying balls of flame kept bursting forth near the foundations of the temple, and made the place inaccessible to the workmen, some of whom were burned to death; and since in this way the element persistently repelled them, the enterprise halted.

Sulpicius Severus.

Military Service of St. Martin.

Martin, then, was born at Sabaria in Pannonia, but was brought up at Ticinum, which is situated in Italy. His parents were, according to the judgment of the world, of no mean rank, but were heathens. His father was at first simply a soldier, but afterwards a military tribune. He himself in his youth following military pursuits was enrolled in the imperial guard, first under king Constantine, and then under Julian Cæsar. This, however, was not done of his own free will, for, almost from his earliest years, the holy infancy of the illustrious boy aspired rather to the service of God.

St Martin retires from Military Service.

IN the meantime, as the barbarians were rushing within the two divisions of Gaul, Julian Cæsar, bringing an army together at the city of the Vaugiones, began to distribute a donative to the soldiers. As was the custom in such a case, they were called forward, one by one, until it came to the turn of Martin. Then, indeed, judging it a suitable opportunity for seeking his discharge–for he did not think it would be proper for him, if he were not to continue in the service, to receive a donative–he said to Cæsar, “Hitherto I have served you as a soldier: allow me now to become a soldier to God: let the man who is to serve thee receive thy donative: I am the soldier of Christ: it is not lawful for me to fight.” Then truly the tyrant stormed on hearing such words, declaring that, from fear of the battle, which was to take place on the morrow, and not from any religious feeling, Martin withdrew from the service. But Martin, full of courage, yea all the more resolute from the danger that had been set before him, exclaims, “If this conduct of mine is ascribed to cowardice, and not to faith, I will take my stand unarmed before the line of battle tomorrow, and in the name of the Lord Jesus, protected by the sign of the cross, and not by shield or helmet, I will safely penetrate the ranks of the enemy.” He is ordered, therefore, to be thrust back into prison, determined on proving his words true by exposing himself unarmed to the barbarians. But, on the following day, the enemy sent ambassadors to treat about peace and surrendered both themselves and all their possessions. In these circumstances who can doubt that this victory was due to the saintly man? It was granted him that he should not be sent unarmed to the fight. And although the good Lord could have preserved his own soldier, even amid the swords and darts of the enemy, yet that his blessed eyes might not be pained by witnessing the death of others, he removed all necessity for fighting. For Christ did not require to secure any other victory in behalf of his own soldier, than that, the enemy being subdued without bloodshed, no one should suffer death.

Flavius Claudius Julianus, known also as Julian or Julian the Apostate

Julianus Epistolae 7

To Alypius: It happened that I had already recovered from my illness when you sent the geography; none the less I was glad to receive the map sent by you. For not only does it include drawings better than hitherto, but you have embellished it by adding iambic verses not, like the poet of Cyrene, to sing the war of Bupalus, but such as fair Sappho liked to fashion for her thoughts

Flavius Claudius Julianus, known also as Julian or Julian the Apostate

Extract from a play Julianus wrote for the Saturnalia in December 361 AD. In it Julius Caesar says –

“And since I have mentioned the Celts, shall we compare the exploits of Alexander against the Getae with my conquest of Gaul? He crossed the Danube once, I crossed the Rhine twice. The German conquest again is all my doing. No one opposed Alexander, but I had to contend against Ariovistus. I was the first Roman who ventured to sail the outer sea. Perhaps this achievement was not so wonderful, though it was a daring deed that may well command your admiration; but a more glorious action of mine was when I leapt ashore from my ship before all the others. Of the Helvetians and Iberians I say nothing. And still I have said not a word about my campaigns in Gaul, when I conquered more than three hundred cities and no less than two million men! But great as were these achievements of mine, that which followed was still greater and more daring For I had to contend against my fellow citizens themselves, and to subdue the invincible, the unconquerable Romans.”

Jovian Emperor 363-364

363. Sozomenus.

Extracts from the Eclesiastical History

After Jovian had reigned about eight months, he died suddenly at Dadastana, a town of Bithynia, while on his road to Constantinople. Some say that his death was occasioned by eating too plentiful a supper; others attribute it to the dampness of the chamber in which he slept; for it had been recently plastered with unslaked lime, and quantities of coals had been burnt in it during the winter for a preventive; the walls had become damp and were exceedingly moist.

On the arrival of the troops at Nicaea in Bithynia, they proclaimed Valentinian emperor. He was a good man and capable of holding the reins of the empire. He had not long returned from banishment; for it is said that Julian, immediately on his accession to the empire, erased the name of Valentinian from the Jovian legions, as they were called, and condemned him to perpetual banishment, under the pretext that he had failed in his duty of leading out the soldiers under his command against the enemy. The true reason of his condemnation, however, was the following: When Julian was in Gaul,he went one day to a temple to offer incense. Valentinian accompanied him, according to an ancient Roman law, which still prevails, and which enacted that the leader of the Jovians and the Herculeans (that is to say, the legions of soldiers who have received this appellation in honour of Jupiter and of Hercules) should always attend the emperor as his body-guard. When they were about to enter the temple, the priest, in accordance with the pagan custom, sprinkled water upon them with the branch of a tree. A drop fell upon the robe of Valentinian; he scarcely could restrain himself, for he was a Christian, and he rebuked his asperser; it is even said that he cut off, in view of the emperor, the portion of the garment on which the water had fallen, and flung it from him. From that moment Julian entertained inimical feelings against him, and soon after banished him to Melitine in Armenia, under the plea of misconduct in military affairs; for he would not have religion regarded as the cause of the decree, lest Valentinian should be accounted a martyr or a confessor. Julian treated other Christians, as we have already stated, in the same manner; for, as was said before, he perceived that to subject them to hazards only added to their reputation, and tended to the consolidation of their religion. As soon as Jovian succeeded to the throne, Valentinian was recalled from banishment to Nicaea; but the death of the emperor in the meantime took place, and Valentinian, by the unanimous consent of the troops and those who held the chief positions in the government, was appointed his successor.

Valentinian I Emperor 364-375 with Valens & Gratian after 367

After 364. Zosimus.

Affairs being thus disposed, Valentinian deemed it most prudent to place the east as far as Egypt, Bithynia, and Thrace, under the care of his brother, and to take charge of Illyricum himself. From thence he designed to proceed to Italy, and to retain in his own possession all the cities in that country, and the countries beyond the Alps, with Spain, Britain, and Africa. The empire being thus divided, Valentinian began to govern more rigorously, correcting the faults of the magistrates. He was very severe in the collection of the imposts, and particularly in observing that the soldiers were duly paid.

365. While such was the posture of affairs in that part of the empire which was attached to Valens, the emperor Valentinian, who resided beyond the Alps, was attacked by a great and unexpected danger. The Germans, recollecting their sufferings under the administration of Julian, as soon as they heard of his death, shook off all fear, and resuming their natural audacity, invaded the nations subject to the Roman empire. Being met by the emperor, a severe battle ensued, in which the Barbarians were victorious. The Roman army dishonourably fled. Valentinian, however, resolved not to save himself by flight; he therefore bore the event of the battle with apparent composure, until he had discovered those, who by their first beginning to fly had caused the disaster. Having at length by strict inquiry ascertained that the Batavian legion was guilty, he ordered the whole army to assemble in complete martial habiliments, as if to hear an oration for their information in some important affair. He then addressed them, reflecting the strongest ignominy on those who commenced the flight, and commanded the Batavians to be stripped of their arms, and to be sold to a colony as fugitive slaves. Upon this they all prostrated themselves on the ground, and intreated him not to inflict so disgraceful a punishment on his soldiers, promising in future to behave like men and worthy of the Roman name. He complied with their intreaties, requiring them to prove by their actions the sincerity of their intention. They then rose from the ground, armed themselves, and renewed the combat with such alacrity and resolution, that of an immense number of Barbarians very few returned to their own country. Thus terminated the war with the Germans.

Ammianus Marcellinus.

Valentinian’s parentage and his deeds as a ruler.

It is now in place to go back and (as we have often done) in a brief epilogue run through the deeds of this emperor, from the very birth of his father to his own decease, without omitting to distinguish his faults or his good qualities, brought to light as they were by greatness of power, which is always wont to lay bare a man’s inmost character.

His father, the elder Gratianus, was born at Cibalae, a town of Pannonia, of a humble family, and from his early boyhood was surnamed Funarius, because when he was not yet grown up and was carrying around a rope for sale, and five soldiers tried with all their might to tear it from him, he gave way not an inch; he thus rivalled Milo of Croton, from whom no possible exercise of strength could ever take an apple, when he held it tightly in his left or his right hand, as he often did. Hence, because of his mighty strength of body and his skill in wrestling in the soldiers’ fashion he became widely known, and after holding position of one of the bodyguard and of a tribune, he commanded the army in Africa with the title of count. There he incurred the suspicion of theft, but he departed long afterwards and commanded the army in Britain with the same rank; and at last, after being honourably discharged, he returned to his home. While he was living there far from the noise and bustle, his property was confiscated by Constantius, on the ground that when civil discord was raging he was said to have shown hospitality to Magnentius when the usurper was hastening through Gratianus’s land to carry out his designs.

Because of his father’s services Valentinian was favoured from early youth, and being commended also by the addition of his own merits, he was clad in the insignia of imperial majesty at Nicaea. He took as his imperial colleague his brother Valens, to whom he was greatly attached both by the tie of fraternity and by sympathy, a man with an equal amount of excellent and bad qualities, as we shall point out in the proper place. Valentinian, then, after suffering many annoyances and dangers while he was a private citizen, had no sooner begun to reign than he went to Gaul, to ho had already broken out into formidable madness and were always rushing wherever they pleased without reconnaissances, had then invaded the maritime districts, and had almost returned enriched with the spoils which they took; but by a device which was treacherous but expedient he overwhelmed and stripped of their booty the robbers thus forcibly crushed. fortify the strongholds and cities lying near the rivers; for these were exposed to the raids of the Alamanni, who were raising their heads higher after learning of the death of the emperor Julian, who was absolutely the only one whom they feared after the death of Constans. But Valentinian also was rightly dreaded by them, both because he increased the armies with a strong reinforcement and because he so fortified both banks of the Rhine with lofty castles and strongholds, that nowhere should an enemy be able to hurl himself at our territories unobserved.

And to pass over many things which he did with the authority of an established ruler, and the reforms that he effected either personally or through energetic generals, after admitting his son Gratianus to a share in his power, he secretly, since he could not do so openly, caused Vithicabius, king of the Alamanni, son of Vadomarius, a young man in the first bloom of manhood, to be stabbed, because he was rousing his people to rebellion and war. And joining battle with the Alamanni near a place called Solicinium, (367 AD) where, after falling into an ambuscade and all but losing his life, he could have utterly destroyed the entire army, had not swift flight saved a few of them under cover of darkness.

366. Zosimus

After the death of Procopius, the emperor Valens sacrificed to his resentment the lives of many persons, and confiscated the property of many others. His intended expedition into Persia was obstructed by the incursions into the Roman territories of a Scythian tribe residing beyond the Ister. Against these he directed a competent force, arresting their progress and compelling them to surrender their arms. He sent them to several of his towns on the Ister, with orders for them to be kept in prison without chains.

Claudian.

Panegyric on the Fourth Consulship of the Emperor Honorius (in 398) Refers to actions of Honorius grandfather Theodosius Flavius around 367.

Not unworthy of reverence nor but newly acquainted with war is the family of Trajan and that Spanish house which has showered diadems upon the world. No common stream was held worthy to water the homeland of so illustrious a race; Ocean laved their cradle, for it befitted the future lords of earth and sea to have their origin in the great father of all things. Hence came Theodosius, grandfather of Honorius, for whom, exultant after his northern victories, Africa twined fresh laurels won from the Massylae. ‘Twas he who pitched his camp amid the snows of Caledonia, who never doffed his helmet for all the heat of a Libyan summer, who struck terror with the Moors, brought into subjection the coasts of Britain and with equal success laid waste the north and the south. What avail against him the eternal snows, the frozen air, the uncharted sea? The Orcades ran red with Saxon slaughter; Thule was warm with the blood of Picts; ice-bound Hibernia wept for the heaps of slain Scots. Could heat stay the advance of a courageous general? No; he overran the deserts of Ethiopia, invested Atlas with troops strange to him, drank of lake Triton where was born the virgin goddess Minerva, beheld the Gorgon’s empoisoned lair, and laughed to see the common verdure of those gardens of the Hesperides which story had clothed with gold. Juba’s fortress was burned down, the frenzied valour of the Moor yielded to the sword and the palace of ancient Bocchus was razed to the ground.

But thy father’s fame far surpassed that of thy grandsire: he subdued Ocean to his governance and set the sky for border to his kingdom, ruling from Gades to the Tigris, and all that lies ‘twixt Tanais and Nile; yet all these lands won by countless triumphs of his own, he gained them not by gift of birth or from lust of power. It was his own merit secured his election. Unsought the purple begged his acceptance of itself; he alone when asked to rule was worthy to do so. For when unrest at home drove barbarian hordes over unhappy Rhodope the now deserted north had poured its tribes in wild confusion across our borders, when all the banks of Danube poured forth battles and broad Mysia rang beneath the chariots of the Getae, when flaxen-haired hordes covered the plains of Thrace and amid this universal ruin all was either prostrate or tottering to its fall, one man alone withstood the tide of disaster, quenched the flames, restored to the husbandmen their fields and snatched the cities from the very jaws of destruction. No shadow of Rome’s name had survived had not thy sire borne up the tottering mass, succoured the storm-tossed bark and with sure hand averted universal shipwreck. As when the maddened coursers broke from their path and carried Phaëthon far astray, when day’s heat grew fierce and the sun’s rays, brought near to earth, dried up both land and sea, Phoebus checked his fierce horses with his wonted voice; for they knew once more their master’s tones, and with a happier guide heaven’s harmonious order was restored; for now the chariot again accepted government and its fires control.

Thus was the East entrusted to him and thus was its salvation assured; but the other half of the world was not so entrusted: twice was the West gained by valour, twice won by dangers. In those lands of the sunset by manifold crime there arose to power tyrants twain: wild Britain produced one (Maximus), the other (Eugenius) was chosen as a tool by a Frankish outlaw (Arbogast). Both dared monstrous guilt; both stained their hands with an innocent emperor’s blood. Sudden elevation inspired Maximus with audacity, his failure taught his successor caution. Maximus was quick to arm rebellion, Eugenius careful to attempt only what was safe. The one overran the country, spreading his forces in all directions, the other kept his troops together and himself secure behind a rampart. Different were they, but in their deaths alike. To neither was it granted to escape an ignominious end and to fall in the thick of night. Gone was their glory, their weapons were reft from them and they were reduced to their former state; their arms were bound behind their backs and they stretched forth their necks to the sword’s imminent stroke, begging for pardon and for life. What a fall did pride there suffer! They who but lately had moved such countless cohorts with but a nod, into whose palm a wavering world had hung ready to drop, fall not as warriors at a victor’s hand but as malefactors before a judge; he sentences with his voice as criminals those whom he assailed in war as tyrants. With both perished their lieutenants: Andragathius hurled himself from his ship into the waves, Arbogast took his life with his own sword; the Alps mark the tomb of the one, the sea of the other. This solace at least the avenger afforded to those murdered brothers that both the authors of their deaths themselves were slain; two victims went to appease those royal ghosts. Such was Theodosius’ oblation at their tomb and with the blood of the guilty he appeased the shades of the two young emperors.

As a sailor skilled in wielding the oar is at first set in charge of but a side of the vessel, then, when he can manage the lofty prow and is able, thanks to his long experience of the sea, to know beforehand what storms and tempests the vessel is like to encounter, he has charge of the helm and is entrusted with the direction of the entire ship; so when thou hadst long given illustrious proofs of thy character, the empire of Rome summoned thee to govern not a part but the whole of itself, and set thee as ruler over all the rulers of the world. The seas of Spain, the German ocean obeyed thee and Britain, so far removed from our continent. Rivers of all lands observed thy statutes, slow-flowing Saône, swift Rhone, and Ebro rich in gold. How often did the Rhine, in those districts where the barbarians dwell, lament that the blessings of thy rule extended not to both banks! All the lands the setting sun bathes in its rays, all that its last brilliance illumines are entrusted to the charge of one man.

Soon when thou couldst stand upright and walk with firm step thy sire forbade thee enervating sloth, luxurious ease, time-wasting slumbers. He strengthened thy young limbs with hard toils and rude was the training wherewith he exercised thy tender powers. Thou wert taught to bear winter’s cruel cold, to shrink not before storm and tempest, to face the heat of summer, to swim across loud-roaring torrents, to p275climb mountains, to run o’er the plain, to leap ravines and hollows, to spend sleepless nights of watching under arms, to drink melted snow from thy casque, to shoot the arrow from the bow or hurl the acorn-missiles with a Balearic sling. And the more to inflame thy heart with love of battle he would recount to thee the deeds of thy grandsire, object of dread to Libya’s sun-scorched shores and Thule whither no ship can sail. He conquered the fleet Moors and the well-named Picts; his roaming sword pursued the flying Scot; his adventurous oars broke the surface of the northern seas. Crowned with the spoils of triumphs won beneath the northern and the southern sky he trod the wave-swept strand of either Ocean. Thus did he spur thy courage, thus sow the seeds of fame; these were the examples he gave. Not more avidly did Achilles himself drink in the Centaur’s precepts when he learnt of him how to wield the spear or play the lyre or discern healing plants.

367. Zosimus.

While Valens was engaged in these preparations, the emperor Valentinian, having favourably disposed the affairs of Germany, made provisions for the future security of the Celtic nations. With |100 this view he levied among the Barbarians near the Rhine and the husbandmen in the countries under the Roman dominion a considerable number of young men. These he incorporated with the legionary soldiers, and brought to so good a state of discipline, that from the sole dread of their military skill, during the period of nine years, the nations beyond the Rhine did not dare to make any attempt upon any of the cities belonging to the Romans. About this time, a person named Valentinian for some offence was banished to the island of Britain, and endeavouring there to render himself absolute, was at once deprived of his life and his hopes. The emperor Valentinian was now attacked by a disease which nearly cost him his life. Upon his recovery, the countries requested him to appoint a successor, lest at his decease the commonwealth should be in danger. To this the emperor consented, and declared his son Gratian emperor and his associate in the government, although he was then very young, and not yet capable of the management of affairs.

367. Ammianus Marcellinus.

While he was accomplishing these exploits with due caution, the Saxons, who had already broken out into formidable madness and were always rushing wherever they pleased without reconnaissances, had then invaded the maritime districts, and had almost returned enriched with the spoils which they took; but by a device which was treacherous but expedient he overwhelmed and stripped of their booty the robbers thus forcibly crushed. fortify the strongholds and cities lying near the rivers; for these were exposed to the raids of the Alamanni, who were raising their heads higher after learning of the death of the emperor Julian, who was absolutely the only one whom they feared after the death of Constans. But Valentinian also was rightly dreaded by them, both because he increased the armies with a strong reinforcement and because he so fortified both banks of the Rhine with lofty castles and strongholds, that nowhere should an enemy be able to hurl himself at our territories unobserved.

Again, when the Britons could not resist the hordes of enemies that were overrunning their country, he restored them to freedom and quiet peace with the hope of better conditions, and allowed almost none of the plunderers to return to his home.

At this time, as if trumpets were sounding the war-note throughout the whole Roman world, the most savage peoples roused themselves and poured across the nearest frontiers. At the same time the Alamanni were devastating Gaul and Raetia, the Sarmatae and Quadi Pannonia, while the Picts, Saxons, Scots and Attacotti were harassing the Britons with constant disasters. The Austoriani and other Moorish tribes raided Africa more fiercely than ever and predatory bands of Goths were plundering Thrace and Pannonia. The king of the Persians was laying hands on Armenia, hastening with mighty efforts to bring that country again under his sway, under the false pretext that after the death of Jovian, with whom he had concluded a treaty of peace, nothing ought to prevent his recovery of what he claimed had formerly belonged to his forefathers.

364. Cronicum Scotorum.

Muiredhach Tirech slain by Caelbadh, son of Crund, King of Uladh, at Port Riogh, over the Dabhall.

364. Eochaidh Muighmedhoin, son of Muiredhach Tirech, reigned eight years.

Patrick is carried a captive into Hibernia.

Liber Hymnorum.

As to Patrick, his origin was of the Britons of Her-cluaide; Calpurn was his fathers name, Fotaid his grandfathers, who was a deacon. Conchess further, was his mother; Lupait and Tigris were his two sisters. Now Patrick had four nomina, viz. Succat, his name with his parents; Cothraige, his name when he was in service to four persons; Magonius, his name from Germanus Celestine. Patricius, from Pope Celestine. But as to the cause of Patrick s coming into Ireland, it happened in this wise, viz., seven sons of Sechtmaide, a king of the Britons, were in exile, and they plundered Armorica of Letha. There chanced upon them at that time in Armorica a body of Britons of Her- cluaide: here Calpurn mac Fotaid, Patrick’s father, was slain, and Patrick and his two sisters were there taken prisoners afterwards. The sons of Sechtmaide then went over sea to Ireland, where Lupait was subsequently sold, viz, in Conalle Muirthemne; Patrick was sold in Dal Araide to Miliuc mac Ua Buain, and to his three brothers; and they sold his two sisters in Conalle Muirthemne, but they knew not each others lot. Well, four persons, one of them being Miliuc, bought Patrick, and hence he got the name Cothraige, from the circumstance that he was servant to a household of four. But when Miliuc saw that he was a faithful slave, he bought him from the other three, so that he served only Miliuc, for seven years after the fashion of the Hebrews; and he suffered great tribulation in the wilds of Slemish in Dal Araide, while herding Miliucs swine.

It chanced now that Miliuc saw a vision of the night, viz, he thought he saw Cothraige coming to him into the house where he was, having a flame of fire over his head and out of his nostrils and ears; and it seemed to him that the fire played threateningly over him to burn him, but he drove it from him and it did him no harm; but his son and his daughter who were in the same bed with him, these the fire burnt to ashes, and the wind scattered those ashes all over the and. Thereupon Cothraige was summoned before Miliuc, who told him his vision; and Cothraige gave judgement on it as follows: The fire thou sawest in me is the faith of the Trinity which glows in me; it is that faith I shall preach to thee in after time, and thou wilt not believe; but thy son and thy daughter will believe, and the fire of grace will burn in them.

St Basil of Caesarea.

The Hexaemeron Homily IV.

To say that the waters were gathered in one place indicates that previously they were scattered in many places. The mountains, intersected by deep ravines, accumulated water in their valleys, when from every direction the waters betook themselves to the one gathering place. What vast plains, in their extent resembling wide seas, what valleys, what cavities hollowed in many different ways, at that time full of water, must have been emptied by the command of God! But we must not therefore say, that if the water covered the face of the earth, all the basins which have since received the sea were originally full. Where can the gathering of the waters have come from if the basins were already full? These basins, we reply, were only prepared at the moment when the water had to unite in a single mass. At that time the sea which is beyond Gadeira and the vast ocean, so dreaded by navigators, which surrounds the isle of Britain and western Spain, did not exist. But, all of a sudden, God created this vast space, and the mass of waters flowed in.

365. Annals of the Four Masters.

The eighth year of Eochaidh Muighmheadhoin, son of Muireadhach Tireach, over Ireland, when he died at Teamhair.

365. Sozomenus.

Extracts from the Eclesiastical History.

The Sarmatians having invaded the western parts of the empire, Valentinian levied an army to oppose them. As soon, however, as they heard of the number and strength of the troops raised against them, they sent an embassy to solicit peace. When the ambassadors were ushered into the presence of Valentinian, he asked them whether all the Sarmatians were similar to them. On their replying that the principal men of the nation had been selected to form the embassy, the emperor exclaimed, in great fury, “A terrible thing do our subjects endure, and a calamity is surrounding the Roman government, if the Sarmatians, a barbarous race, of whom these are your best men, do not love to abide by themselves, but are emboldened to invade my government, and presume to make war at all against the Romans.” He spoke in this strain for some time in a very high pitch of voice, and his rage was so violent and so unbounded, that at length he burst simultaneously a blood-vessel and an artery. He lost, in consequence, a great quantity of blood, and expired soon after in a fortress of Gaul. He was about fifty-four years of age, and had, during thirteen years, guided the reins of government with good results and much distinction. Six days after his death his youngest son, who bore the same name as himself, was proclaimed emperor by the soldiers; and soon afterwards Valens and Gratian, his brother, formally assented to this election, although they were at first irritated at the soldiers having transferred the symbols of government to him without their previous consent.

366. About this period Liberius died, and Damasus succeeded to the see of Rome. A deacon named Ursicius, who had obtained some votes in his favor, but could not endure the defeat, therefore caused himself to be clandestinely ordained by some bishops of little note, and endeavored to create a division among the people and to hold a separate church. He succeeded in effecting this division, and some of the people respected him as bishop, while the rest adhered to Damasus. This gave rise to much contention and revolt among the people, which at length proceeded to the evil of wounds and murder. The prefect of Rome was obliged to interfere, and to punish many of the people and of the clergy; and he put an end to the attempt of Ursicius.

With respect to doctrine, however, no dissension arose either at Rome or in any other of the Western churches. The people unanimously adhered to the form of belief established at Nicaea, and regarded the three persons of the Trinity as equal in dignity and in power.

Auxentius and his followers differed from the others in opinion; he was then president of the church in Milan, and, in conjunction with a few partisans, was intent upon the introduction of innovations, and the maintenance of the Arian dogma of the dissimilarity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, according to the inquiry which had last sprung up, in opposition to the unanimous agreement of the Western priests. The bishops of Gaul and of Venetia having reported that similar attempts to disturb the peace of the Church were being made by others among them, the bishops of several provinces assembled not long after at Rome, and decreed that Auxentius and those who held his sentiments should be aliens from their communion.

366. Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of Crimhthann, son of Fidhach, son of Daire Cearb, over Ireland.

St Damasus 1 Pope 366-383 opposed by Ursicinus antipope 366-367

367. Liber Britannicus.

But Gratian, with his brother Valentinian, reigned conjointly six years. It was in his time lived the noble prelate in Milan, a teacher of Catholicity, viz. Ambrose.

Valentinian and Theothas Theodosius were in joint sovereignty eight years. It was in their time was assembled the synod in Constantinople of three hundred and fifty clerks, to banish the heresy of Macedon, viz., the denying the Holy Ghost. And it was in their time the noble priest Cirine Hieronymus flourished at Bethlehem Judah, the catholic interpreter.

The same Gratian, as we have said, and Valentinian, reigned until Maximen Maximus was made king by the soldiers in the island of Britain, and went across the sea to France; and the king, Gratian, was set at liberty by the treacherous counsel of the master of the soldiers,

Parassis Merobladis; and the king fled to Lugdon, and was taken there and put to death.

Maximen and his son Victor reigned jointly. Martin was at Torinis at that time. But Maximen was stripped of his royal robes by the consuls, i. e. by Valentinen and Theothas, at the third stone from the city Eigilia Aquileia, and his head was cut off in that place. His son Victor also fell in France by the hand of the count whose name was Arguba; from the creation of the world are 5690 years, to this event, according to all the chronicles.

Ab incarnatione ccclxvi. Gradianus was the fortieth king from Juil. It was in his time that a certain Maxim took the sovereignty of Britain.

OF THE MIRACLES OF CAIRNECH HERE.

Sarran assumed the sovereignty of Britain after this, and established his power over the Saxons and Cruithnians. And he took to wife the daughter of the king of Alban, viz., Babona, daughter of Loarn, son of Erc. And it was not she that was married to him, but her sister, viz., Erc, daughter of Loarn, until she eloped with Muiredhach, son of Eoghan, son of Niall, to Eri, and she bore him four sons, viz. Muircheartach Mac Erca, and Fearadhach, and Tighearnach, and Maian.

And Sarran had issue by Babona; and there were begotten by them five sons, viz., Luirig, and Cairnech, and Bishop Dallain, and Caemlach; and he i.e. Sarran died after victory and after triumph in the house of Martin.

Luirig then succeeded to the throne, and he extended his power over the Saxons, and he forcibly built a fort within the precincts of the monastery of Cairnech his brother. Muircheartach Mac Erca happened to be at that time with the king of Britain, learning military science, after he was expelled from Ireland for having killed the Crossans, and after having been subsequently expelled from Alba, for having killed his grandfather, Loarn, king of Alba. It happened that he was at that time getting his arms consecrated by Cairnech, the son of his mother’s sister; then Cairnech said to him, ‘Thou shalt be king of Eri and of Britain for ever, and shalt go to heaven after, provided thou canst but prevent Luirig from exercising his power against the Church.’ Then Mac Erca went to the king, and after he came he told his message, viz.: ‘Build not thy city’ (said he) ‘in the precincts of Cairnech the bishop.’ ‘As God is my judge,’ says Luirig, ‘I think more of the power of the pet wild fawn he has, than of his own power, or of the power of the Lord God whom he adores.’ Mac Erca returned to Cairnech, and told him the result. Great wrath suddenly seized Cairnech, et dixit, ‘My prayer to my Lord, to my God, is, that that very fawn may be the cause of his death, and by thy hand, O Mac Erca!’ Cairnech then commanded Mac Erca to go forth and destroy his brother, and he Mac Erca immediately took upon himself to fight him; and he went forth at the command of Cairnech to destroy the king. And God worked a great miracle there for Cairnech, viz. he sent a wild fawn out of the mountain into the king’s assembly, and the host all went in pursuit of it except the king himself and his women. Et dixit Mac Erca, ‘If you had been just, my Lord, towards your cleric, it is certain that it would give increased happiness to have the royal robe on Luirig.’ Then Mac Erca thrust his battle staff into the king’s side, so that it was balanced: and he returned to his cleric, and the head of the king with him, as a token; et dixit, ‘Lo, here is thy brother’s head for thee, O Cairnech.’ Et dixit Cairnech, ‘Leave me the bone, and eat thou the marrow, and every third coarb shall be thine for ever, here and in Eri.’Then he (Mac Erca) took the hostages and the power of the district into his own hands, conjointly with Cairnech, for seven years, as also the supreme sovereignty of Britain, and Cat, and Orc, and Saxonland. And Mac Erca then committed an additional sin, that is, he took to himself the wife of Luirig, after many battles and conflicts with the king of France, to take his daughter from him, until at last the daughter fell into Mac Erca’s hands, and she bare him four sons, viz. Constantine, and Gaedhal-Ficht (from whom descend the kings of Britain, and the kings of Britain–Cornn); Nellenn (a quo gens Nellan), and Scannal, the other son, a quo gens Scannail; i. e. it is in Eri the descendants of the two last are.

Now a great synod of the clergy of Europe was made at Tours of Martin, viz., three hundred and thirty-seven bishops, with the coarb of Peter, to meet Cairnech, Bishop of Tours and Britain–Cornn, and of all the British, to cast out every heresy, and to reduce every country to the discipline of the Church. And the chieftainship of the martyrs of the world was given to Cairnech, because martyrdom was his own choice. And Cairnech found thrice fifty bishops who made it also their choice to accompany Cairnech in pilgrimage, and that number went to Lien in pilgrimage for the sake of Mac Erca and Muiredhach.

Cairnech then set out to the Britons of Cornn or Carnticeon, and a city was built by him under ground, in order that he might not see the earth, nor the country, nor the sky; and he increased the strength and sovereignty of Mac Erca for a year, and he (i.e. Cairnech) came to Eri before him, so that he was the first bishop of the Clann-Niall and of Temhar (Tara), and he was the first martyr and the first monk of Eri, and the first Brehon of the men of Eri also.

Now, after this the Franks and the Saxons made war against Mac Erca, and he destroyed their country and their cities after a long contest; and the country and the power of the territories adjacent to him were also destroyed by the greatness of his power and of his strength; and after this he came with a large fleet to take the sovereignty of Eri. He landed at Fan-na-long on the Boyne, where he burned his ships, from which circumstance comes the name of Fan-na-long; and he killed the provincial kings of Ireland afterwards, and took their sovereignty by right for ever, for himself and for his descendants. And then the power and strength of Britain was destroyed after him.

367. Sozomenus.

Extracts from the Eclesiastical History

On reflecting that, while it was indispensably requisite to check the incursions of the barbarians of the Ister in Illyria and Thrace, his presence was equally necessary in Gaul to repel the inroads of the Alemanni, Gratian associated Theodosius with himself at Sirmich, in the government of the empire. Theodosius belonged to an illustrious family of the Pyrenees in Iberia, and had acquired so much renown in war, that before he was raised to the imperial power, he was universally considered capable of guiding the reins of the empire.

367. Ammianus Marcellinus.

That some princes commit these and similar arbitrary acts with lofty arrogance is because they do not allow their friends the opportunity of dissuading them from unjust designs or deeds, and that because of their great power they make their enemies afraid to speak. No correction is possible of the perverse actions of those who believe that what they desire to do must be the highest virtue.

When the Picts, Attacotti, and Scots, after killing a general and a count, were devastating Britain without resistance, Count Theodosius routed them and took their booty from them.

Having set out then from Amiens and hastening to Treves, Valentinian was alarmed by serious news which showed that Britain was brought into a state of extreme need by a conspiracy of the savages, that Nectaridus, the commanding general of the seacoast region, had been killed, and that another general, Fullofaudes, had been ambushed by the enemy and taken prisoner. This report aroused great horror, and the emperor sent Severus, who at that time was still commander of the household troops, to set right the disasters, if chance should offer the desired opportunity. But he was recalled a little later, and Jovinus having set out for the same regions, allowed them to return at quick step, intending to seek the support of a strong army; for he declared that this was demanded by the pressing necessities of the situation. Finally, because of the many alarming things which constant rumours reported about that same island, Theodosius, a man most favourably known for his services in war, was chosen to be sent there with all speed, and having enrolled legions and cohorts of courageous young men, he hastened to depart, preceded by brilliant expectations.

And, since in giving an account of the history of the emperor Constans I described the ebb and flow of the ocean and the situation of Britain, as well as my powers permitted, I have thought it superfluous to unfold again what has once been set forth, just as Homer’s Ulysses among the Phaeacians shrinks from repeating the details of his adventures because of the excessive difficulty of the task.

It will, however, be in place to say, that at that time the Picts, divided into two tribes, called Dicalydones and Verturiones, as well as the Attacotti, a warlike race of men, and the Scots, were ranging widely and causing great devastation; while the Gallic regions, wherever anyone could break in by land or by sea, were harassed by the Franks and their neighbours, the Saxons, with cruel robbery, fire, and the murder of all who were taken prisoners.

In order to prevent these outrages, if favourable fortune gave an opportunity, that most energetic leader hastened to the world’s end, and reached the coast of Bononia, which from the spacious lands opposite is separated only by a narrow space of sea wont in turn to swell with dreadful surges, and again, without any danger for sailors, to sink to the form of a level plain. From there he quietly crossed the strait and landed at Rutupiae, a quiet haven on the opposite coast. When the Batavi, Heruli, Jovii, and Victores, who followed him, had arrived, troops confident in their strength, he began his march and came to the old town of Lundinium, which later times called Augusta. There he divided his troops into many parts and attacked the predatory bands of the enemy, which were ranging about and were laden with heavy packs; quickly routing those who were driving along prisoners and cattle, he wrested from them the booty which the wretched tribute-paying people had lost. And when all this had been restored to them, except for a small part which was allotted to the wearied soldiers, he entered the city, which had previously been plunged into the greatest difficulties, but had been restored more quickly than rescue could have been expected, rejoicing and as if celebrating an ovation.

While he lingered there, encouraged by the successful outcome to dare greater deeds, he carefully considered what plans would be safe; and he was in doubt about his future course, since he learned from the confessions of the captives and the reports of deserters that the widely scattered enemy, a mob of various natives and frightfully savage, could be overcome only by secret craft and unforeseen attacks. Finally, he issued proclamations, and under promise of pardon summoned the deserters to return to service, as well as many others who were wandering about in various places on furlough. In consequence of this demand and strongly moved by his offer, most returned, and Theodosius, relieved of his anxious cares, asked that Civilis be sent to him to govern Britain as deputy-prefect, a man of somewhat fiery temper, but steadfast in justice and uprightness, and also Dulcitius, a general distinguished for his knowledge of the art of war.

Gildas.

The Britons, impatient at the assaults of the Scots and Picts, their hostilities and dreadful oppressions, send ambassadors to Rome with letters, entreating in piteous terms the assistance of an armed band to protect them, and offering loyal and ready submission to the authority of Rome, if they only would expel their foes. A legion is immediately sent, forgetting their past rebellion, and provided sufficiently with arms. When they had crossed over the sea and landed, they came at once to close conflict with their cruel enemies, and slew great numbers of them. All of them were driven beyond the borders, and the humiliated natives rescued from the bloody slavery which awaited them. By the advice of their protectors, they now built a wall across the island from one sea to the other, which being manned with a proper force, might be a terror to the foes whom it was intended to repel, and a protection to their friends whom it covered. But this wall, being made of turf instead of stone, was of no use to that foolish people, who had no head to guide them.

367? St Jerome.

Why should I speak of other nations when I myself as a young man in Gaul saw the Atticoti, a British people, feeding on human flesh? Moreover, when they come across herds of pigs and cattle in the forests, they frequently cut off the buttocks of the shepherds and their wives, and their nipples, regarding these alone as delicacies. The nation of the Scoto do not have individual wives, but as if they had read Plato’s Republic or followed the example of Cato, no wife belongs to a particular man, but as each desires, they indulge themselves like beasts.

368. Ammianus Marcellinus.

Theodosius restores the cities of Britain which had been devastated by the savages, repairs the fortresses, and recovers for the island the province which was called Valentia.

But Theodosius, that leader of celebrated name, filled with courageous vigour sallied forth from Augusta, which was earlier called Lundinium, with a force which he had mustered with energy and skill, and rendered the greatest aid to the troubled and confused fortunes of the Britons. He secured beforehand everywhere the places suitable for ambushing the savages, requiring nothing of the common soldiers in which he himself did not smartly take the first tasks. In this way, while he performed the duties of an active common soldier and observed the care of a distinguished general, after having routed and put to flight tribes which an insolence fostered by impunity was inflaming with a desire to attack the Romans, he completely restored the cities and strongholds which had been founded to secure a long period of peace, but had suffered repeated misfortunes.

But while he was thus engaged, a dread event had taken place, which would have resulted in grave danger, if it had not been crushed in the very beginning of its attempt. A certain Valentinus, born in Valeria, a part of Pannonia, a man of haughty spirit, brother-in-law of that pernicious vice-governor Maximinus, who was afterwards prefect, had been exiled to Britain because of a serious crime. There, impatient of quiet like a noxious beast, he roused himself to new and destructive plans, nursing a certain grudge against Theodosius, since he perceived that he was the only one who could resist his abominable designs. However, after a good deal of looking about secretly and openly, driven by the swelling gale of his vast ambition, he began to tempt exiles and soldiers by promising for bold deeds as enticing rewards as his circumstances at the time permitted. And already the time for carrying out the plans was near at hand, when that leader, eager for deeds of daring, learning of this from a prearranged source, resolved with lofty heart to punish those who were found guilty: Valentinus indeed, along with a few of his closest associates, he had consigned to the general Dulcitius, to be punished with death; but with the military knowledge in which he surpassed all his contemporaries, he divined future dangers, and as to the rest of the conspirators forbade the carrying on of investigations, lest by spreading fear among many the disturbances in the provinces, which had just been lulled to sleep, should be revived.

Then, after the danger had been wholly removed, since it was common knowledge that propitious fortune had failed him in none of his undertakings, he turned his attention to making many necessary improvements, restoring the cities and defences, as we have said, and protecting the frontiers by sentinels and outposts. And so completely did he recover a province which had passed into the enemy’s hands and restore it to its former condition, that, in the words of his report, it had a legitimate governor; and it was henceforth called Valentia, in accordance with the emperor’s wish, who, one might almost say, celebrated an ovation in his joy on hearing the priceless news.

The Saxons in Gaul, after a truce had been made, were ambushed by the Romans. Valentinian, under promise of joining forces with them, roused the Burgundians to invade Alamannia, but they, after being betrayed and deceived, killed all their prisoners and returned home.

369 Cronicum Scotorum.

Patrick was released from captivity by an angel.

SBG St Corbre.

“S. Corbre’s Church in Anglesey,” by which is intended the church of Hen Eglwys, ” the Old Church.” In one of the ” Verses of the Graves, in The Black Book of Carmarthen is”-

The grave of Ceri Gleddyfhir (the Long-sworded) is in the confine of Hen Eglwys,

On the gravelly cliff; Tarw Torment (the Bull of Conflict) in the cemetery of Corbre

Corbre is, no doubt, the original patron of Hen Eglwys. In the Extent of 1352 the villa liber a of Hen Eglwys is given as held of SS. Faustinus and Bacellinus, by whom must be meant ” Y Saint Llwy- dion.” Of Bacellinus nothing seems to be known, nor anything definitely of Faustinus; but it is curious to note that Faustinus and Bacellinus, Roman priests, are coupled together as two Luciferians that were exiled in 369, in the time of Pope Damasus.

370. Ammianus Marcellinus.

In the third consulship of the two Augusti a horde of Saxons broke out, and after overcoming the dangers of the Ocean advanced at rapid pace towards the Roman frontier, having often been glutted with the slaughter of our people. The storm of this first inroad was met by Nannenus, the general in charge of those regions, a leader approved by long experience in wars. But meeting then with a people resolved to fight to the death, after he had lost some of his men and had himself been wounded, he perceived that he would be unequal to frequent contests with them. Accordingly, having reported to the emperor what ought to be done, he managed that Severus, commander of the infantry, should come to help him in his difficult situation. When he, bringing forces adequate for the purpose, had reached the spot and the troops had been drawn up in divisions, he so terrified and confused the arrogant barbarians before the struggle began, that they did not oppose him in strife, but, dazzled by the gleam of the standards and eagles, begged for pardon and peace. And after a long and varied discussion, since it seemed to be in the interest of the state, a truce was agreed upon, and in accordance with the conditions that were proposed the Saxons gave us as hostages many young men fit for military service, and then were allowed to depart and return without hindrance to the place from which they had come. When they thought themselves now free from all fear and were preparing to return, foot-soldiers were secretly sent and laid an ambuscade in a secluded valley, from which they could attack the Saxons with slight trouble as they passed by. But the result was far otherwise than was hoped. For, excited by the sound of the approaching Saxons, some of our men rushed out before the proper time; on their sudden appearance, the savages raised terrible howls, and while the Romans were hastening to steady themselves, they were put to flight. Presently, however, they halted and massed themselves together, and as their dangerous plight gave them strength (though somewhat impaired), they were forced to fight; but after suffering great losses they were routed and would have perished to a man, had not a troop of mail-clad horsemen, which had been similarly stationed on another side, near a byway, to cause danger to the savages as they passed by, been aroused by their cries of terror, and quickly come to their aid. Then the contest became hotter and Romans with fortified courage pressed upon the Saxons from all sides, surrounded them, and slew them with their drawn swords; not one of them could again return to his native home, not a single one was allowed to survive the slaughter of his comrades. And although some just judge will condemn this act as treacherous and hateful, yet on careful consideration of the matter he will not think it improper that a destructive band of brigands was destroyed when the opportunity was at last offered.

SBG St Selyf or Salomon.

Was the son of Geraint ab Erbin, Prince of Devon. Selyf is, moreover, named as the father of S. Cybi, and he is spoken of as ruling between the Tamar and Lynher, that is to say, in the old principality of Gelliwig, in Cornwall. Selyf ‘s wife was Gwen, or S. Wenn, the daughter of Cynyr of Caergaw.ch, and sister of S. Non.

Salomon was of holy life. he translated relics of S. Matthew from Cairo to Brittany. Salomon, the King, had then to wife the daughter of Flavius, a patrician; and he entered into alliance with Valentinian, the Emperor of the West.

When the vessel on which was the body of the Evangelist arrived off the port of Kaynnen, Salomon went to the spot and desired to have the relics removed; but the body proved too heavy to be transported. Then Riuvallus, Duke of Cornouaille, declared that obviously the saint was offended at the custom prevalent in Armorica of parents selling their children into slavery, and being required to do so, to pay the customary tax into the royal treasury. Riuvallus exhorted ‘Salomon to put an end to this barbarous custom. Then Salomon placed his hand on the relics of the Evangelist and swore to do so in this fashion, that the children who were to be sold, should instead pass into the service of the Church of S. Matthew. Then only did the body become light enough to be transported on shore, and laid where afterwards arose the stately Abbey of S. Mathieu.

Salomon reigned for a good many years, but finally an insurrection broke out, and he was killed by his revolted subjects whilst praying in a church. The patrician Flavius complained to the Emperor Valentinian, who sent an army to chastise the rebels. Such is the story, manifestly fabulous, and as certainly not written by Paulilianus in the tenth century.

SBG St Cado.

Cato or Cado is mentioned in the Life of S. Carannog where we are told, in an episode relating to the foundation of Carantock Church in Cornwall, that ” in those times, Cato and Arthur ruled in that country, living at Dindraithov,” that is, in Welsh, Dindraethwy, a place known to be in Cornwall ” the Dun Tredui, the three-fossed fort of Crimthan Mor (366-378) in Britain, when the Gadhels held sway there down to the Ictian Sea.”

371. Cronicum Scotorum.

Eochaidh Muighmedhoin died. Criomthand, son of Fiodhach, reigned five years in Hibernia.

Emperors Valens & Gratian & Valentinian II 375-378

365. 378. Ammianus Marcellinus.

Therefore Valens also deserved excuse for taking every precaution to protect his life, which treacherous foes were trying in haste to take from him. But it was inexcusable that, with despotic anger, he was swift to assail with malicious persecution guilty and innocent under one and the same law, making no distinction in their deserts; so that while there was still doubt about the crime, the emperor had made up his mind about the penalty, and some learned that they had been condemned to death before knowing that they were under suspicion……

(Many were accused and punished)

Lo! even Alypius also, former vice-governor of Britain,a man amiable and gentle, after living in leisure and retirement — since even as far as this had injustice stretched her hand — was made to wallow in utmost wretchedness; he was accused with his son Hierocles, a young man of good character, as guilty of magic, on the sole evidence of a certain Diogenes, a man of low origin, who was tortured with every degree of butchery, to lead him to give testimony agreeable to the emperor, or rather to the instigator of the charge. Diogenes, when not enough of his body was left for torture, was burned alive; Alypius himself also, after confiscation of his goods, was condemned to exile, but recovered his son, who was already being led to a wretched death, but by a lucky chance was reprieved.

374. Ammianus Marcellinus.

These, then, are undeniable indications of Valentinian’s character and his blood-thirsty tendency. But, on the other hand, no one, not even one of his persistent detractors, will reproach him with lack of ingenuity in behalf of the state, especially if one bears in mind that it was a more valuable service to check the barbarians by frontier defences than to defeat them in battle. And when he had given if any of the enemy made a move, he was seen from above from the watch-towers, and overcome.

But among many other cares, his first and principal aim was to capture alive by violence or by craft King Macrianus, just as, long before, Julian took Vadomarius; for Macrianus, amid the frequent changes in the policy followed towards him, had increased in power, and now was rising against our countrymen with full-grown strength. Accordingly, having first provided what the circumstances and the time demanded, and having learned from the reports of deserters where the said king, who expected no hostile move, could be seized, Valentinian threw a pontoon across the Rhine as quietly as his means allowed, lest anyone should interfere with the bridge while it was being put together. And first Severus, who commanded the infantry forces, took the lead by marching against Mattiacae Aquae; but alarmed when he considered the small number of his soldiers, he halted, fearing that he might be unable to resist the onrushing hordes of the enemy, and so might be overcome by them. There he chanced to find some of the traders loading slaves intended for sale, and because he suspected that they would quickly run off and report what they had seen, he took their wares from them and killed them all. Then the generals, encouraged by the arrival of additional troops, encamped, with a view to a very short stay, since no one had a pack-animal or a tent, except the emperor, for whom a rug and a rough blanket sufficed for such a shelter. Then, after delaying for a time on account of the darkness of night, as soon as the morning-star uprose, since the campaign called for haste, they advanced farther, led by guides who knew the roads; and a large force of cavalry was ordered to precede them under command of Theodosius, that nothing might be unobserved was lying at the time; but he was prevented by the continuous noise made by his men; for although he constantly commanded them to abstain from plundering and setting fires, he could not make them obey. For the crackling flames and the dissonant shouts awakened the king’s attendants, and suspecting what had happened, they placed him in a swift wagon and hid him in a narrow pass of the precipitous hills. Valentinian was robbed of this glory, not by his own fault or that of his generals, but by the indiscipline of the soldiers, which has often caused the Roman state heavy losses; so, after reducing the enemy’s territory to ashes for fifty miles, he returned sadly to Treves. There, as a lion, because he has lost a deer or a goat, gnashes his empty jaws, just when the forces of the enemy were broken and scattered by fear, in place of Macrianus he made Fraomarius king of the Bucinobantes, a tribe of the Alamanni dwelling opposite Mainz. And soon afterwards, since a recent invasion had utterly devastated that canton, he transferred him to Britain with the rank of tribune, and gave him command of a troop of the Alamanni which at that time was distinguished for its numbers and its strength. Bitheridus, indeed, and Hortarius (chiefs of the same nation) he appointed to commands in the army; but of these Hortarius was betrayed by a report of Florentius, commander in Germany, of having written certain things to the detriment of the state to Macrianus and the chiefs of the barbarians, and after the truth was wrung from him by torture he suffered the penalty of death by burning.

375. Zosimus.

Valentinian being dead, the tribunes Merobaudes and Equitius, reflecting on the distance at which Valens and Gratian resided, the former being in the east, and the latter left by his father in the western part of Gaul, were apprehensive lest the Barbarians beyond the Ister should make an effort while the country was without a ruler. They therefore sent for the younger son of Valentinian, who was born of his wife the widow of Magnentius, who was not far from thence with the child. Having clothed him in purple, they brought him into the court, though scarcely five years old. The empire was afterwards divided between Gratian and the younger Valentinian, at the discretion of their guardians, they not being of age to manage their own affairs. The Celtic nations, Spain, and Britain were given to Gratian; and Italy, Illyricum, and Africa to Valentinian. Meantime the emperor Valens was inundated with wars on every side. The first of these was with the Isaurians, who are by some called Pisidae, by others Solymi, and by others Cilices Montani, or Mountain Cilicians. They pillaged the towns of Lycia and Pamphylia, and though they could not obtain possession of the walls and houses, yet carried off all that was in the roads and fields. The emperor, who still remained at Antioch, sent a force sufficient to oppose them. The Isaurians then fled with their plunder to the clefts of |104the mountains, to which the soldiers were either prevented by indolence from pursuing them, or from some cause unable to redress the evils which the towns had suffered.

376. Cronicum Scotorum.

Criomthand, son of Fiodhach, died.

Patrick went to Germanus.

Bede.

CHAP. IX.

How, during the reign of Gratian, Maximus, being created Emperor in Britain, returned into Gaul with a mighty army. [377]

In the year of our Lord 377, Gratian, the fortieth from Augustus, held the empire for six years after the death of Valens; though he had long before reigned with his uncle Valens, and his brother Valentinian. Finding the condition of the commonwealth much impaired, and almost gone to ruin, and impelled by the necessity of restoring it, he invested the Spaniard, Theodosius, with the purple at Sirmium, and made him emperor of Thrace and the Eastern provinces. At that time, Maximus, a man of energy and probity, and worthy of the title of Augustus, if he had not broken his oath of allegiance, was made emperor by the army somewhat against his will, passed over into Gaul, and there by treachery slew the Emperor Gratian, who in consternation at his sudden invasion, was attempting to escape into Italy. His brother, the Emperor Valentinian, expelled from Italy, fled into the East, where he was entertained by Theodosius with fatherly affection, and soon restored to the empire, for Maximus the tyrant, being shut up in Aquileia, was there taken by them and put to death.

Theodosius I (The Great) Emperor 378-395 in association with Gratian & Valentinian II & Arcadius & Honorius.

378. Annals of the Four Masters.

After Crimhthann, son of Fidhach, had been thirteen years as king over Ireland, he died of a poisonous drink which his own sister gave him.

379. The first year of Niall of the Nine Hostages, son of Eochaidh Muighmheadhoin, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

379. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Gratian succeeded to the empire.

Jordanes.

Now in the place of Valens, his uncle, the Emperor Gratian established Theodosius the Spaniard in the Eastern Empire. Military discipline was soon restored

to a high level, and the Goth, perceiving that the cowardice and sloth of former princes was ended, became afraid. For the Emperor was famed alike for his acuteness and discretion. By stern commands and by generosity and kindness he encouraged a demoralized army to deeds of daring. But when the soldiers, who had obtained a better leader by the change, gained new confidence, they sought to attack the Goths and drive them from the borders of Thrace. But as the Emperor Theodosius fell so sick at this time that his life was almost despaired of, the Goths were again inspired with courage. Dividing the Gothic army, Fritigern set out to plunder Thessaly, Epirus and Achaia, while Alatheus and Safrac with the rest of the troops made for Pannonia. Now the Emperor Gratian had at this time retreated from Rome to Gaul because of the invasions of the Vandals. When he learned that the Goths were acting with greater boldness because Theodosius was in despair of his life, he quickly gathered an army and came against them. Yet he put no trust in arms, but sought to conquer them by kindness and gifts. So he entered on a truce with them and made peace, giving them provisions.

XXVIII When the Emperor Theodosius afterwards recovered and learned that the Emperor Gratian had made a compact between the Goths and the Romans, as he had himself desired, he took it very graciously and gave his assent. He gave gifts to King Athanaric, who had succeeded Fritigern, made an alliance with him and in the most gracious manner invited him to visit him in Constantinople. Athanaric very gladly consented and as he entered the royal city exclaimed in wonder “Lo, now I see what I have often heard of with unbelieving ears,” meaning the great and famous city. Turning his eyes hither and thither, he marvelled as he beheld the situation of the city, the coming and going of the ships, the splendid walls, and the people of divers nations gathered like a flood of waters streaming from different regions into one basin. So too, when he saw the army in array, he said “Truly the Emperor is a god on earth, and whoso raises a hand against him is guilty of his own blood.” In the midst of his admiration and the enjoyment of even greater honors at the hand of the emperor, he departed this life after the space of a few months. The emperor had such affection for him that he honored Athanaric even more when he was dead than during his

life-time, for he not only gave him a worthy burial, but himself walked before the bier at the funeral. Now when Athanaric was dead, his whole army continued in the

service of the Emperor Theodosius and submitted to the Roman rule, forming as it were one body with the imperial soldiery. The former service of the Allies under the Emperor Constantine was now renewed and they were again called Allies. And since the Emperor knew that they were faithful to him and his friends, he took from their number more than twenty thousand warriors to serve against the tyrant Eugenius who had slain Gratian and seized Gaul. After winning the victory over this usurper, he wreaked his vengeance upon him.

Ausonius was an estate owner living in France near Bordeaux. He wrote this epigram sometime before his death in 395AD. (Ed, I guess it makes sense to French philosophers)

EPIGRAMS ON VARIOUS MATTERS

That Silvius Good who attacks our verses has the more deserved a couplet, being a good Briton

This is Silvius Good ” Who is Silvius? He

is a Briton. Either this Silvius is no Briton, or he

is Silvius Bad.

Silvius is called Good and called a Briton: who

would believe a good citizen had sunk so low

No good man is a Briton. If he should begin to

be plain Silvius, let the plain man cease to be good.

This is Silvius Good, but the same Silvius is a Briton:

a plainer thing — believe me — is a bad Briton.

Thou Silvius art Good, a Briton: yet ’tis said thou

art no good man, nor can a Briton link himself with Good.

380. Sulpicius Severus.

Chronicle

At the Synod of Caesar-Augusta (Saragossa)….

Instantius who, as we have said above, was condemned by the bishops, was deported to the island of Sylinancis, which is situated beyond the Britanniae. Proceedings were then taken against the rest, with the following sentences; Asarivus and Ayrelius the deacon were condemned to death. Tiberianus was deprived of his property and sent to the island of Sylinancis

381. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Maximus the Caesar came to the empire. He was born in the land of Britain, whence he passed over into Gaul. He there slew the Emperor Gratian; and drove his brother, whose name was Valentinian, from his country (Italy). The same Valentinian afterwards collected an army, and slew Maximus; whereby he gained the empire. About this time arose the error of Pelagius over the world.

Liber Britannicus.

Ab incarnatione Domini ccccxciv. Arcatus was sovereign of the world son of Toetas Theodosius, the forty-third king after Augustus. Pilacius Pelagius a Briton, adopted heresy, and destroyed the Christians

383-4. Chronica Gallia a CCCCLII

Gratian, 3rd year: Maximus was made a tyrant by his troops in Britain.

Gratian, 4th year: Maximus the tyrant achieved an admirable victory over the invading Picts and Scots.

383 Liber Britannicus.

Maxim was the sixth emperor that took Britain. It was at that time that the consulship was begun among the Romans, and no king was called Caesar from thenceforth. It was in the time of Maxim that the noble venerable prelate St. Martin flourished; he was of Gaul of Ulexis.

Maximian took the kingdom of Britain, and he led the armies of Britain against the Romans, so that Gratian, the emperor, fell by him, and he himself took the empire of Europe; and he did not suffer the armies he had brought with him to go back to their wives and their children, nor to their lands, but gave them many lands, from the place where there is the lake on the top of Mount Jove, to Canacuic on the south, and westward to the Mound Ochiden, a place where there is a celebrated cross, and these are the Britons of Letha, and they remained in the south ever since, and it was for this reason that foreign tribes occupied the lands of the Britons, and that the Britons were slaughtered on the borders of their land.

SBG St Cynan (Conan) Meriadog.

Conan Meriadoc and the flower of the youths of Britain were granted the territory of Armorica by Maximus in reward for their services rendered to him. Conan maintained himself as duke of Armorica, made his submission to Valentinian II. In 409, Conan expelled the magistrates, and governed Armorica as sovereign till about 421,when he died.

He conquered Angers, Rennes and Nantes, and slew all the natives who were still pagans. As to the women, after having cut out their ‘tongues so as to incapacitate them for altering the British language, the comrades of Conan employed them in marriage and for such services as they might require of them.

“Then, in divers places they built churches in which to sing the praises of God; they divided the land into pious and trefs, and thence- forth by the grace of God the country was called Little Britain. And thus, the Armorican Britons and the insular Britons, having the same laws, living as brethren, were for long subject to the same authority, as if they inhabited the same region.”

” Cynan ab Eudaf, of the family of Bran Fendigaid, was bishop in London in the time of Maxen Wledig.” He is the Conanus who is given as the fifth ” Archbishop ” of London.

Nennius.

Maximianus was the sixth emperor that ruled in Britain. It was in his time that consuls began, and that the appellation of Caesar was discontinued: at this period also, St. Martin became celebrated for his virtues and miracles, and held a conversation with him. The seventh emperor was Maximus. He withdrew from Britain with all his military force, slew Gratian, the king of the Romans, and obtained the sovereignty of all Europe. Unwilling to send back his warlike companions to their wives, children, and possessions in Britain, he conferred upon them numerous districts from the lake on the summit of Mons Jovis, to the city called Cant Guic, and to the western Tumulus, that is, to Cruc Occident. These are the Armoric Britons, and they remain there to the present day. In consequence of their absence, Britain being overcome by foreign nations, the lawful heirs were cast out, till God interposed with his assistance. We are informed by the tradition of our ancestors that seven emperors went into Britain, though the Romans affirm there were nine. Thus, aggreeably to the account given by the Britons, the Romans governed them four hundred and nine years.

After this, the Britons despised the authority of the Romans, equally refusing to pay them tribute, or to receive their kings; nor durst the Romans any longer attempt the government of a country, the natives of which massacred their deputies. We must now return to the tyrant Maximus. Gratian, with his brother Valentinian, reigned seven years. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, was then eminent for his skill in the dogmata of the Catholics. Valentinianus and Theodosius reigned eight years. At that time, a synod was held at Constantinople, attended by three hundred and fifty of the fathers, and in which all heresies were condemned. Jerome, the presbyter of Bethlehem, was then universally celebrated. Whilst Gratian exercised supreme dominion over the world, Maximus, in a sedition of the soldiers, was saluted emperor in Britain, and soon after crossed the sea to Gaul. At Paris, by the treachery of Mellobaudes, his master of the horse, Gratian was defeated and fleeing to Lyons, was taken and put to death; Maximus afterwards associated his son victor in the government. Martin, distinguished for his great virtues, was at this period bishop of Tours. After a considerable space of time, Maximus was divested of royal power by the consuls Valentinianus and Theodosius, and sentenced to be beheaded at the third mile-stone from Aquileia: in the same year also his son Victor was killed in Gaul by Arbogastes, five thousand six hundred and ninety years from the creation of the world.

Thrice were the Roman deputies put to death by the Britons, and yet these, when harassed by the incursions of the barbarous nations, viz. Of the Scots and Picts, earnestly solicited the aid of the Romans. To give effect to their entreaties, ambassadors were sent, who made their entrance with impressions of deep sorrow, having their heads covered with dust, and carrying rich presents, to expiate the murder of the deputies. They were favourably received by the consuls, and swore submission to the Roman yoke, with whatever severity it might be imposed.

The Romans, therefore, came with a powerful army to the assistance of the Britons; and having appointed over them a ruler, and settled the government, returned to Rome: and this took place alternately during the space of three hundred and forty-eight years. The Britons, however, from the oppression of the empire, again massacred The Roman deputies, and again petitioned for succour. Once more the Romans undertook the government of the Britons, and assisted them in repelling their neighbours; and, after having exhausted the country of its gold, silver, brass, honey, and costly vestments, and having besides received rich gifts, they returned in great triumph to Rome.After the above-said war between the Britons and Romans, the assassination of their rulers, and the victory of Maximus, who slew Gratian, and the termination of the Roman power in Britain, they were in alarm forty years.

383. Sozomenus.

Extracts from the Eclesiastical History

As the Emperor Gratian was at this period occupied with a war against the Alamanni, Maximus quitted Britain, with the design of usurping the imperial power. Valentinian was then residing in Italy, but as he was a minor, the affairs of state were transacted by Probus, a praetorian prefect, who had formerly been consul.

Justina, the mother of the emperor, having espoused the Arian heresy, persecuted Ambrose, bishop of Milan…

While the mother of the emperor was planning the means of carrying this cruel law into execution, intelligence was brought of the murder of Gratian, through the treachery of Andragathius, the general of Maximus. Andragathius obtained possession of the imperial chariot, and sent word to the emperor that his consort was traveling towards his camp. Gratian, who was but recently married and youthful, as well as passionately attached to his wife, hastened incautiously across the river, and in his anxiety to meet her fell without forethought into the hands of Andragathius; he was seized, and, in a little while, put to death. He was in the twenty-fourth year of his age, and had reigned fifteen years. This calamity quieted Justina’s wrath against Ambrose.

Maximus, in the meantime, raised a large army of Britons, neighboring Gauls, Celts, and other nations, and marched into Italy. The pretext which he advanced for this measure was, that he desired to prevent the introduction of innovations in the ancient form of religion and of ecclesiastical order; but he was in reality actuated by the desire of dispelling any suspicion that might have been excited as to his aspirations after tyranny. He was watching and intriguing for the imperial rule in such a way that it might appear as if he had acquired the Roman government by law, and not by force. Valentinian was compelled by the exigencies of the times to recognize the symbols of his rule; but soon after, in fear of suffering, fled with his mother Justina, and Probus, the praetorian prefect in Italy, to Thessalonica.

383. King Alfred.

Book VI chapter XXXV

In those days Bryttannie chose Maximianus for their Caesar against his will, who was worthy of the whole Roman empire with his manifold virtues, except that he was at variance with his Lord by the seduction of other men. This emperor soon marched into Gaul where he slew Gratian, and drove Valentinians brother out of Italy, so that he fled for protection to Theodosius.

383. Zosimus.

While the affairs of Thrace were, thus situated, those of Gratian were in great perplexity. Having accepted the counsel of those courtiers who usually corrupt the manners of princes, he gave a reception to some fugitives called Alani, whom he not only introduced into his army, but honoured with valuable presents, and confided to them his most important secrets, esteeming his own soldiers of little value. This produced among his soldiers a violent hatred against him, which being gradually inflamed and augmented incited in them a disposition for innovation, and most particulary in that part of them which was in Britain, since they were the most resolute and vindictive. In this spirit they were encouraged by Maximus, a Spaniard, who had been the fellow-soldier of Theodosius in Britain. He was offended that Theodosius should be thought worthy of being made emperor, while he himself had no honourable employment. He therefore cherished the animosity of the soldiers towards the emperor. They were thus easily induced to revolt and to declare Maximus emperor. Having presented to him the purple robe and the diadem, they sailed to the mouth of the Rhine. As the German army, and all who were in that quarter approved of the election, Gratian prepared to contend against Maximus, with a considerable part of the army which still adhered to him. When the armies met, there were only slight skirmishes for five days; until Gratian, perceiving that the Mauritanian cavalry first deserted from him and declared Maximus Augustus, and afterwards that the remainder of his troops by degrees espoused the cause of his antagonist, relinquished all hope, and fled with three hundred horse to the Alps. Finding those regions without defence, he proceeded towards Rhaetia, Noricum, Pannonia, and the Upper Moesia. When Maximus was informed of his route, he was not negligent of the opportunity, but detached Andragathius, commander of the cavalry, who was his faithful adherent, in pursuit of Gratian. This officer followed him with so great speed, that he overtook him when he was passing the bridge at Sigidunus, and put him to death. By which exploit he confirmed the authority of Maximus. Mauritanian cavalry first deserted from him and declared Maximus Augustus, and afterwards that the remainder of his troops by degrees espoused the cause of his antagonist, relinquished all hope, and fled with three hundred horse to the Alps. Finding those regions without defence, he proceeded towards Rhaetia, Noricum, Pannonia, and the Upper Moesia. When Maximus was informed of his route, he was not negligent of the opportunity, but detached Andragathius, commander of the cavalry, who was his faithful adherent, in pursuit of Gratian. This officer followed him with so great speed, that he overtook him when he was passing the bridge at Sigidunus, and put him to death. By which exploit he confirmed the authority of Maximus.

Upon this occasion it may not be improper to relate a circumstance which has some reference to the present part of my narration. Among the Romans, the persons who had the superintendence of sacred things were the Pontifices, whom we may term Gephyraei, if we translate the Latin word Pontifices, which signifies bridge-makers, into the Greek. The origin of that appellation was this: At a period before mankind were acquainted with the mode of worshipping by statues, some images of the gods were first made in Thessaly. As there were not then any temples (for the use of them was likewise then unknown), they fixed up those figures of the gods on a bridge over the river Peneus, and called those who sacrificed to the gods, Gephyraei, Priests of the Bridge, from the place where the images were first erected. Hence the Romans, deriving it from the Greeks, called their own priests Pontifices, and enacted a law, that kings, for the sake of dignity, should be considered of the number. The first of their kings who enjoyed this dignity was Numa Pompilius. After him it was conferred not only upon the kings but upon Octavianus and his successors in the Roman empire. Upon the elevation of any one to the imperial dignity, the pontifices brought him the priestly habit, and he was immediately styled, Pontifex Maximus, or chief priest. All former emperors, indeed, appeared gratified with the distinction, and willingly adopted the title. Even Constantine himself, when he was emperor, accepted it, although he was seduced from the path of rectitude in regard to sacred affairs, and had embraced the Christian faith. In like manner did all who succeeded him to Valentinian and Valens. But when the Pontifices, in the accustomed manner, brought the sacred robe to Gratian, he, considering it a garment unlawful for a Christian to use, rejected their offer. When the robe was restored to the priests who brought it, their chief is said to have made this observation, If the emperor refuses to become Pontifex, we shall soon make one.

The reign of Gratian being thus terminated, Maximus, who now considered himself firmly fixed in the empire, sent an embassy to the emperor Theodosius, not to intreat pardon for his treatment of Gratian, but rather to increase his provocations. The person employed in this mission was the imperial chamberlain (for Maximus would not suffer a eunuch to preside in his court), a prudent person, with whom he had been familiarly acquainted from his infancy. The purport of his mission was to propose to Theodosius a treaty of amity, and of alliance, against all enemies who should make war on the Romans, and on refusal, to declare against him open hostility. Upon this, Theodosius admitted Maximus to a share in the empire, and in the honour of his statues and his imperial title. Nevertheless, he was at the same time privately preparing for war, and endeavouring to deceive Maximus by every species of flattery and observance. He gave instructions to Cynegius, the prefect of his court, whom he bad sent into Egypt in order to prohibit there all worship of the gods, and to shut up their temples, that he should shew the statue of Maximus to the Alexandrians, and erect it in some public place, declaring to the people, that he was associated to himself in the empire. In this Cynegius obeyed his commands, closing up the doors of the temples throughout the east, Egypt, and Alexandria, and prohibited all their ancient sacrifices and customary observances. As to the calamities which the Roman empire suffered from that period, a distinct account of the facts themselves will be the best demonstration.

About this time, a nation of Scythia made its appearance from beyond the Ister, who were never before known to the inhabitants of those countries. They are called, by the Barbarians in those parts, the Prothyugi. These being very numerous, furnished with arms of every description, and remarkably robust, easily overpowered the Barbarians of the interior, proceeded as far as the banks of the Ister, and demanded permission to cross that river. Promotus, the commander of the forces in that quarter, drew out his troops as far as he could extend them along the bank of the river, and hindered the passage of the Barbarians. While he was thus employed, he invented a stratagem to this effect. He called to him some of his own soldiers, who understood their language, and in whom he could confide in affairs of that nature, and sent them to agree with the Barbarians upon betraying their own party. These men proposed to the Barbarians to deliver the whole army into their hands in consideration of a large reward. The Barbarians replied, that they were not able to give so much. However, to induce them to believe their promises, they adhered to their original proposals, and would not abate in any part of the reward. At length they agreed to the sum, which was in part to be paid immediately, and the remainder at the accomplishment of the treason. Having arranged the method of giving the signal, and the time for the execution of the project, they communicated to the commander each circumstance; that the Barbarians would commence the enterprise in the night, and would cross the river to attack the Roman army.

The Barbarians, therefore, having placed all their best troops on board a great number of small vessels, commanded them to cross over first, and to fall on the soldiers while they were asleep. Next to these, they sent those of an inferior description to support the former when they had commenced the attack; and after them the useless multitude of every age, who are ready to boast of victories which others have gained. Promotus having been previously informed of all their arrangements, was fully prepared against their designs. He therefore ranged his ships in a triple line close together along the side of the river, the length of twenty stadia. By this plan he not only prevented the enemy from crossing over, but sunk many of them in their vessels. The night being dark and without a moon, the Barbarians were unacquainted with the preparations which the Romans had made, and therefore embarked with great silence, supposing the Romans to be ignorant of their design. When the signal was made, the Romans sailed up to them in large and strong ships with firm oars, and sunk all that they met, among which not one man was saved by swimming, their arms being very heavy. The vessels which escaped from the Roman ships, upon approaching those which lay along shore, were so assaulted with whatever was at hand, that they and all on board were lost at the same time, nor were any of them able to pass this wall of Roman vessels.

This produced among them an immense slaughter, greater than had ever occurred in any former naval action. Thus the river was filled with dead bodies and with arms. As many of them or were able to swim to the bank were destroyed by those who were ranged along it. The engagment being ended, the soldiers began to plunder. They carried away all the women and children, and acquired possession of all the provisions. Promotus then sent for Theodosius, who was not far from thence, to witness his brave exploit. When he beheld the number of prisoners, and the quantity of spoil, he gave the captives their liberty, and by bestowing gifts upon them, endeavoured to attach them to himself, supposing that they would be of service to him in a war against Maximus.

St Siricius Pope 384-399

384. Cronicum Scotorum.

Niall of the Nine Hostages reigned twenty-seven years.

384. Prosper of Aquitaine.

Maximus was made emperor in Britain in an uprising of the soldiery. He soon crossed to gaul. Gratian was defeated at Paris owing to the treason of Merobaudes the magister militium, and was captured in flight at Lyon and killed. Maximus made his son Victor his colleague in power.

386. St Jerome.

Letter XLVI to Marcella.

In speaking thus we do not mean to deny that the kingdom of God is within us, or to say that there are no holy men elsewhere; we merely assert in the strongest manner that those who stand first throughout the world are here gathered side by side. We ourselves are among the last, not the first; yet we have come hither to see the first of all nations. Of all the ornaments of the Church our company of monks and virgins is one of the finest; it is like a fair flower or a priceless gem. Every man of note in Gaul hastens hither. The Briton, “sundered from our world,” no sooner makes progress in religion than he leaves the setting sun in quest of a spot of which he knows only through Scripture and common report. Need we recall the Armenians, the Persians, the peoples of India and Arabia? Or those of our neighbor, Egypt, so rich in monks; of Pontus and Cappadocia; of Cæle-Syria and Mesopotamia and the teeming east? In fulfilment of the Saviour’s words, “Wherever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together,”

Sulpicius Severus.

How St Martin of Tours acted towards the Emperor Maximus.

AND here to insert some smaller matters among things so great (although such is the nature of our times in which all things have fallen into decay and corruption, it is almost a pre-eminent virtue for priestly firmness not to have yielded to royal flattery), when a number of bishops from various parts had assembled to the Emperor Maximus, a man of fierce character, and at that time elated with the victory he had won in the civil wars, and when the disgraceful flattery of all around the emperor was generally remarked, while the priestly dignity had, with degenerate submissiveness, taken a second place to the royal retinue, in Martin alone, apostolic authority continued to assert itself. For even if he had to make suit to the sovereign for some things, he commanded rather than entreated him; and although often invited, he kept away from his entertainments, saying that he could not take a place at the table of one who, out of two emperors, had deprived one of his kingdom, and the other of his life. At last, when Maximus maintained that he had not of his own accord assumed the sovereignty, but that he had simply defended by arms the necessary requirements of the empire, regard to which had been imposed upon him by the soldiers, according to the Divine appointment, and that the favor of God did not seem wanting to him who, by an event seemingly so incredible, had secured the victory, adding to that the statement that none of his adversaries had been slain except in the open field of battle, at length, Martin, overcome either by his reasoning or his entreaties, came to the royal banquet. The king was wonderfully pleased because he had gained this point. Moreover, there were guests present who had been invited as if to a festival; men of the highest and most illustrious rank, the prefect, who was also consul, named Evodius, one of the most righteous men that ever lived; two courtiers possessed of the greatest power, the brother and uncle of the king, while between these two, the presbyter of Martin had taken his place; but he himself occupied a seat which was set quite close to the king. About the middle of the banquet, according to custom, one of the servants presented a goblet to the king. He orders it rather to be given to the very holy bishop, expecting and hoping that he should then receive the cup from his right hand. But Martin, when he had drunk, handed the goblet to his own presbyter, as thinking no one worthier to drink next to himself, and holding that it would, not be right for him to prefer either the king himself, or those who were next the king, to the presbyter. And the emperor, as well as all those who were then present, admired this conduct so much, that this very thing, by which they had been undervalued, gave them pleasure. The report then ran through the whole palace that Martin had done, at the king’s dinner, what no bishop had dared to do at the banquets of the lowest judges. And Martin predicted to the same Maximus long before, that if he went into Italy to which he then desired to go, waging war, against the Emperor Valentinianus, it would come to pass that he should know he would indeed be victorious in the first attack, but would perish a short time afterwards. And we have seen that this did in fact take place. For, on his first arrival Valentinianus had to betake himself to flight but recovering his strength about a year afterwards, Maximus was taken and slain by him within the walls of Aquileia.

388. King Alfred.

Book VI Chapter XXXVI.

Maximus waited for (Theodosius) with his forces at Aquilegia, and ordered his Alderman, Andragatius not to quit the defiles. This alderman however thought he could keep possession of them with less force, and that he could himself go east about by sea and so steal behind Theodosius. Now when he had deserted the passes, in order to embark his army, Theodosius approached the defiles, which were guarded by very indifferent troops, who being soon dispersed, he broke into the defiles; after which he went over the mountains to Aquilegia where he killed Maximus. When the alderman was informed of this disaster, he killed himself. How easily did God thus end that mighty contention which Maximus and his alderman had raised in many nations, by the fall of both of them.

Gildas.

At length also, new races of tyrants sprang up, in terrific numbers, and the island, still bearing its Roman name, but casting off her institutes and laws, sent forth among the Gauls that bitter scion of her own planting Maximus, with a great number of followers, and the ensigns of royalty, which he bore without decency and without lawful right, but in a tyrannical manner, and amid the disturbances of the seditious soldiery. He, by cunning arts rather than by valour, attaching to his rule, by perjury and falsehood, all the neighbouring towns and provinces, against the Roman state, extended one of his wings to Spain, the other to Italy, fixed the seat of his unholy government at Treves, and so furiously pushed his rebellion against his lawful emperors that he drove one of them out of Rome, and caused the other to terminate his most holy life. Trusting to these successful attempts, he not long after lost his accursed head before the walls of Aquileia, whereas he had before cut off the crowned heads of almost all the world.

After this, Britain is left deprived of all her soldiery and armed bands, of her cruel governors, and of the flower of her youth, who went with Maximus, but never again returned; and utterly ignorant as she was of the art of war, groaned in amazement for many years under the cruelty of two foreign nations—the Scots from the north-west, and the Picts from the north.

SBG St Gwythyr.

A son of Maxen Wledig, The Emperor Maximus had a son named Victor, on whom he conferred the title of Augustus. Maximus was defeated and beheaded at Aquileia in 388, and Victor was put to death shortly after. Gwythur or Gwythyr is the form which Victor would assume in Welsh.

Saint Gurthiern.

This is the genealogy of Saint Gurthiern, of noble birth, renowned in duty, which a certain faithful Laicus, by name of Luthael son of Aidan, has pronounced, not for earthly but for heavenly reward:

Thus Gurthiern son of Bon son of Glou son of Abros son of Dos son of Jacob son of Genethauc son of Lugdual son of Beli son of Outham Senex son of Maximian son of Constantius son of Constantine son of Helen who is said to have possessed the cross of Christ.

This is the genealogy of St Gurthiern on his mother’s side: thus, Gurthiern son of Dinoi, daughter of Lidinin the king who ruled all of Great Britain.

Beli and Kenan were two brothers of Outham Senex. That Kenan was ruling when the Britons went to Rome (perrexerunt ad Romam). There they held Letavia (Brittany), and the rest … Beli was the son of Anne who is said to have been the cousin of Mary the mother of Christ.

Here begin indeed the deeds (conversatio) of St Gurthiern according to that same tradition.

Gurthiern, when he was a young man, went forth on a certain day with his father to fight against his enemies. Gurthiern and his father were victorious that day and Gurthiern killed the son of his sister. He did not know, however, that it was his amicus and after he realized that this was the son of his sister, he regretted that he had committed such a guilty act and lamented. And afterwards he went out into the wasteland and lived in a great valley between two mountains in the northern part of Britannia. There he did penance for one year, and none lived with him. And there he made himself a small cell, with fresh water next to it, and there was a great rock next to the shore of the creek. In that creek he immersed himself every day and night.

When he rose from the creek, he cast himself the rock and prayed. Thus he lived in that place for one year. But on a certain day, a certain hunter came to that place and seeing the youth sitting and praying without rest on top of the rock, questioned him and said: “Why do you live here, [young man]?” And the youth responded: “This is my penance.” And he swore to him that he should tell no one that he was in that place.

And afterwards the hunter left for the house of his father and reported all that he had seen, saying that the young man sitting and praying on the rock resembled the son of the King. To him the king said, “Let us go to that place, so that we might see that one labouring, as you said.” And then they went to that place where the young man lived and saw him labouring on the shore and he fled into his cell and lamented.

His father enquired of him, saying: “O my son, why did you do this? You must come with me to my house and take the kingdom of your father.” And he refused this vehemently. The father said, “I will [build] you a monastery and [install] many monks.” And [Gurthiern] stayed there for a year and prayed. And an angel of God came to him and said to him, “Go to another place which the will of God has foreseen for you” and he set upon the road with two servants. They heard the lamentations of a certain woman and they came to her and enquired of her, “What has happened to you, woman?” She replied, “O servant of God, I had but one son and he was killed in battle.” To her [the saint] said: “Why are you carrying his head?” And she replied, “Since I am not capable to carry his body to his monument” [The saint] said, “Go before us to his body”, and they went together and saw how the matter stood. And Gurthiern said, “Give me his head so that I might join it to his body.”

Having said a prayer, the man of God blessed [the dead man] and immediately he arose again. And he rebuked them: “Why did you lead me out of the good place in which I was?” And [the saint] said, “It is better for you to remain here with us and with your mother.” [The young man] said, “I do not wish it.” The holy man replied, “Nevertheless remain and tell us all those good things which you saw, and I will pray with [or perhaps for] you that you will find the way to that place in which you were previously.” And [the young man] accepted a blessing from him and remained with his mother. Thence they went to the shore of the river which is called the Tamar and there they stayed for a long time.

And the angel of God came to them saying: “Behold the sea each day, and a vessel will come into which you shall enter.” Having set sail, they steered to a certain island and stayed in it for a period of time. Afterwards the angel came to them and said, “Go to another place which has been promised to you which is called Anaurut”.

St. Gurthiern, then, coming to the place designated to him, stayed there until the end of his days, performing portents and miracles before and after [his death].

The angel of the Lord stipulated that in every region of Britannia Minor, each estate of St Gurthiern should answer to Anaurut, since that ciuitas was chosen by God. And the angel promised victory in war to all kings who should keep the compact with St Gurthiern. However, whichever kings or princes should not keep this compact will be cursed by God. Thus let all seek salvation from all clerics and laics, bishops and kings, priests and all orders keeping the compact of St Gurthiern, so that they might be in unity with the Holy Trinity in eternal life. Just as you receive from us salvation, so may you receive that which has been entrusted to you by the angel, so that we (and you) may find the mercy of God. Thus farewell.

Concerning the finding of the relics of St Gurthiern and other Saints, in the time of Benedict the Abbot and Guigon the son of Huelin of the castrum of Hennebont, [the relics] revealed on the island of Groix by Oederius the monk.

These are the relics of Gurthiern, who was king of the English (qui fuit rex Anglorum). He, although he held the rule of his native land, preferred the contemplative life over an active life; thus he left his patrimony and came in a small skiff came to the island called Groix. There he remained and performed many miracles, and here the nobles of Kemenet-Heboe honoured him. From there his reputation spread even as far as Gradlon Magnus, consul of Cornugallia who sent his legate to him to ask [the saint] to come to him, and that same consul gave to him Anaurot, where met [the rivers] Ellé and Isole and one thousand paces of land in a circuit of that city, and even the plebs of Baye.

In that time, when com[es] Guerech reigned, a pestilence and famine arose in Broerec, namely vermin ate the crops. Because of this, the aforesaid comes sent his messengers, namely Guedgal, Catuoth and Cadur, to St Gurthiern [to ask that] he might assist the realm. The man of God came quickly and blessed water, sent it through that realm, and caused a great multitude of vermin to flee. On this account, comes Guerech gave to him the plebs Veneaca upon the River Blavet, which afterwards was called the Kervignac, for his generosiy. That holy man stayed there until his death.

This little charter described above [cartula prescripta] of the genealogy of St Gurthiern, found with the revealed relics and showing great age, is kept in the enclosure (peribolo) of our renowned monastery.

These are the names: the relics of St Gurthiern, a part of the head of St Guénolé, relics of Paulenan and Symphorian and Tennennan and Guedian and Guenhael and Idunet and other relics.

388. Prosper of Aquitaine.

The tyrant Maximus, despoiled of his royal garments by the emperors Valentinian and Theodosius at the third milestone from Aquileia, was called forth to judgement and condemned to death. In the same year his son Victor was killed by Comes Arbogast in Gaul.

388. Zosimus.

While Theodosius was on his march, Maximus, having learnt that the mother of Valentinian and her children were to cross the Ionian sea, collected a number of swift-sailing ships, which he sent under the command of Andragathius to cruize for them. But Andragathius, though he sailed about in every direction, failed of his purpose; for they had already crossed the Ionian strait. Collecting, therefore, a competent navy, he sailed along all the adjacent coasts, in expectation that Theodosius would attack him with his navy.

While Andragathius was thus employed, Theodosius, having passed through Pannonia and the defiles of the Appennines, attacked unawares the forces of Maximus before they were prepared for him. A part of his army, having pursued them with the utmost speed, forced their way through the gates of Aquileia, the guards being too few to resist them. Maximus was torn from his imperial throne while in the act of distributing money to his soldiers, and being stripped of his imperial robes, was brought to Theodosius, who, having in reproach enumerated some of his crimes against the commonwealth, delivered him to the common executioner to receive due punishment.

Such was the end of Maximus and of his usurpation. Having fraudulently overcome Valentinian, he imagined that he should with ease subdue the whole Roman empire. Theodosius, having heard, that when Maximus came from beyond the Alps he left his son Victor, whom he had dignified with the title of Caesar, he immediately sent for his general, named Arbogastes, who deprived the youth both of his dignity and life. When this intelligence reached Andragathius, who was then cruising in the Ionian sea, it excited in him so great an apprehension of the innumerable dangers to which he was exposed, that he did not wait the arrival of his enemies, but became his own executioner. He threw himself into the sea, preferring rather to trust to the waves than to men who were his greatest enemies.

393. Zosimus.

The emperor Theodosius after these successes proceeded to Rome, where he declared his son Honorius emperor, and appointing Stilico to the command of his forces there, left him as guardian to his son.

Bede.

CHAP. X.

How, in the reign of Arcadius, Pelagius, a Briton, insolently impugned the Grace of God. [395 AD]

In the year of our Lord 394, Arcadius, the son of Theodosius, the forty-third from Augustus, succeeding to the empire, with his brother Honorius, held it thirteen years. In his time, Pelagius, a Briton, spread far and near the infection of his perfidious doctrine, denying the assistance of the Divine grace, being seconded therein by his associate Julianus of Campania, who was impelled by an uncontrolled desire to recover his bishopric, of which he had been deprived. St. Augustine, and the other orthodox fathers, quoted many thousand catholic authorities against them, but failed to amend their folly; nay, more, their madness being rebuked was rather increased by contradiction than suffered by them to be purified through adherence to the truth; which Prosper, the rhetorician, has beautifully expressed thus in heroic” verse :—

“They tell that one, erewhile consumed with gnawing spite, snake-like attacked Augustine in his writings. Who urged the wretched viper to raise from the ground his head, howsoever hidden in dens of darkness? Either the sea-girt Britons reared him with the fruit of their soil, or fed on Campanian pastures his heart swells with pride.”

395. Zosimus.

Before his departure, he (Theodosius) convened the senate, who firmly adhered to the ancient rites and customs of their country, and could not be induced to join with those who were inclined to contempt for the gods. In an oration he exhorted them to relinquish their former errors, as he termed them, and to embrace the Christian faith, which promises absolution from all sins and impieties. But not a single individual of them would be persuaded to this, nor recede from the ancient ceremonies, which had been handed down to them from the building of their city, and prefer to them an irrational assent; having, as they said, lived in the observance of them almost twelve hundred years, in the whole space of which their city had never been conquered, and, therefore, should they change them for others, they could not foresee what might ensue. Theodosius, therefore, told them, that the treasury was too much exhausted by the expense of sacred rites and sacrifices, and that he should, therefore, abolish them, since he neither thought them commendable, nor could the exigencies of the army spare so much money. The senate in reply observed, that the sacrifices were not duly performed, unless the charges were defrayed from the public funds. Yet thus the laws for the performance of sacred rites and sacrifices were repealed and abolished, besides other institutions and ceremonies, which had been received from their ancestors. By these means, the Roman empire, having been devastated by degrees, is become the habitation of Barbarians, or rather having lost all its inhabitants, is reduced to such a form, that no person can distinguish where its cities formerly stood. That affairs were thus brought into so melancholy a state will be evident from a particular narrative of them. The emperor Theodosius, having consigned Italy, Spain, Celtica, and Libya to his son Honorius, died of a disease on his journey towards Constantinople. His body was embalmed, and deposited in the imperial sepulchres of that city.

395. PARTITION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

Honorius Emperor of The West 395-423

395. Zosimus.

Thus were affairs situated in that part of the empire which was under the government of Arcadius, while Stilico, who was governor of the western empire, gave his daughter by Serena in marriage to the emperor Honorius. Serena was the daughter of Honorius, brother to Theodosius, the father of the two emperors. Stilico, by this alliance with the emperor, strengthened his authority, having likewise almost the whole Roman army under his command. For Theodosius having died in Italy after having cut off Eugenius, Stilico was commander of the whole army, out of which he selected the strongest and most courageous soldiers, whom he retained with himself, sending the most feeble part and the refuse of it into the east. After having done this, being much incensed against Rufinus, who desired to be invested in the east with power to balance his in the west, he resolved to go to Arcadius, wishing to obtain the disposal of all his affairs likewise at his own will and pleasure. He asserted, that when Theodosius was on his death-bed, he gave him a special charge to take care of the affairs of both emperors. When Rufinus understood this, he endeavoured by all the art in his power to prevent the expedition of Stilico into the east, and likewise to disperse and weaken the military force of Arcadius. Indeed, while he was projecting these schemes, he found men for his purpose more wicked than he desired, by whose aid he occasioned great calamities to the Romans. In what manner I am about to relate.

395 from St Jerome

Letter LVII to Paulinus

If heaven and earth must pass away, obviously all things that are earthly must pass away also. Therefore the spots which witnessed the crucifixion and the resurrection profit those only who bear their several crosses, who day by day rise again with Christ, and who thus shew themselves worthy of an abode so holy. Those who say “the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord,”should give ear to the words of the apostle: “ye are the temple of the Lord,”and the Holy Ghost “dwelleth in you.”
Access to the courts of heaven is as easy from Britain as it is from Jerusalem; for “the kingdom of God is within you.”Antony and the hosts of monks who are in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Pontus, Cappadocia, and Armenia, have never seen Jerusalem: and the door of Paradise is opened for them at a distance from it. The blessed Hilarion, though a native of and a dweller in Palestine, only set eyes on Jerusalem for a single day, not wishing on the one hand when he was so near to neglect the holy places, nor yet on the other to appear to confine God within local limits.

SBG St Germanus.

Victricius of Rouen, summoned to the island by his fellow- prelates in Britain, had gone thither, and had succeeded in establishing peace. What the circumstances were that occasioned this interference, we are not told.

396 St Jerome.

From letter LX to Heliodorus

Moreover before the resurrection of Christ God was known in Judah only and His name was great in Israel alone. And they who knew Him were despite their knowledge dragged down to hell. Where in those days were the inhabitants of the globe from India to Britain from the frozen zone of the north to the burning heat of the Atlantic ocean? Where were the countless peoples of the world? Where were the great multidudes? Unlike in tongue, unlike in dress and arms? They were crushed like fishes and locusts, like flies and gnats. For apart from knowledge of his creator every man is but a brute. But now the voices and writings of all nations proclaim the passion and the resurrection of Christ. I say nothing of the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans, peoples which the Lord has dedicated to His faith by the title written on His cross.

(Further extract)

The Roman world is falling: yet we hold up our heads instead of bowing them. What courage, think you, have the Corinthians now, or the Athenians or the Lacedæmonians or the Arcadians, or any of the Greeks over whom the barbarians bear sway? I have mentioned only a few cities, but these once the capitals of no mean states. The East, it is true, seemed to be safe from all such evils: and if men were panic-stricken here, it was only because of bad news from other parts. But lo! in the year just gone by the wolves (no longer of Arabia but of the whole North were let loose upon us from the remotest fastnesses of Caucasus and in a short time overran these great provinces. What a number of monasteries they captured! What many rivers they caused to run red with blood! They laid siege to Antioch and invested other cities on the Halys, the Cydnus, the Orontes, and the Euphrates. They carried off troops of captives. Arabia, Phenicia, Palestine and Egypt, in their terror fancied themselves already enslaved.

397AD St Jerome

From Letter LXIX to Oceanus.

Can it be possible that the stains of marriage are indelible, and that harlotry is judged more leniently than honourable wedlock? I do not, Carterius might say, hold you to blame for the hosts of mistresses and the troops of favouritesthat you have kept; I do not charge you with your bloodshedding and sow-like wallowings in the mire of uncleanness: yet you are ready to drag from her grave for my confusion my poor wife, who has been dead long years, and whom I married that I might be kept from those sins into which you have fallen. Tell this to the heathen who form the church’s harvest with which she stores her granaries; tell this to the catechumens who seek admission to the number of the faithful; tell them, I say, not to contract marriages before their baptism, not to enter upon honourable wedlock, but like the Scots and the Atacotti and the people of Plato’s republic to have community of wives and no discrimination of children, nay more, to beware of any semblance even of matrimony; lest, after they have come to believe in Christ, He shall tell them that those whom they have had have not been concubines or mistresses but wedded wives.

399 St Jerome

From Letter LXXVII to Oceanus

The seas carried voyagers to find a welcome here on landing. Travellers left Rome in haste to take advantage of the mild coast before setting sail. What Publius once did in the island of Malta for one apostle and—not to leave room for gainsaying—for a single ship’s crew, Fabiola and Pammachius have done over and over again for large numbers; and not only have they supplied the wants of the destitute, but so universal has been their munificence that they have provided additional means for those who have something already. The whole world knows that a home for strangers has been established at Portus; and Britain has learned in the summer what Egypt and Parthia knew in the spring.

399 Claudian (Claudius Claudianus)

When the rumour concerning this disgrace of the eastern empire was known to be true and had impressed belief on Roman ears, Rome’s goddess thus spake: “Is Eutropius worthy of mine ire? Is such an one fit cause for Roman grief?” So saying the mighty goddess winged her way through the heavens and with one stroke of her pinions passed beyond the Po and approached the camp of her emperor.

It happened that even then the august Honorius, assisted by his father-in-law Stilicho, was making answer to the Germans who had come of their own accord to sue for peace. From his lofty throne he was dictating laws to the Cauci and giving a Constitution to the flaxen-haired Suebi. Over these he sets a king, with those he signs a treaty now that hostages have been demanded; others he enters on the list as serviceable allies in war, so that in future the Sygambrians will cut off their flowing locks and serve beneath our banners. Joy and love so fill the goddess’ heart that she well nigh weeps, so great is her happy pride in her illustrious foster-child. So when a bullock fights in defence of the herd his mother lifts her own horns more proudly; so the African lioness gazes with admiration on her cub as he grows to be the terror of the farmsteads and the future king of beasts. Rome lays aside her veil of cloud and towers above the youthful warrior, then thus begins.

Examples near at hand testify to the extent of my power now thou art emperor. The Saxon is conquered and the seas safe; the Picts have been defeated and Britain is secure. I love to see at my feet the humbled Franks and broken Suebi, and I behold the Rhine mine own, Germanicus.Yet what am I to do? The discordant East envies our prosperity, and beneath that other sky, lo! wickedness flourishes to prevent our empire’s breathing in harmony with one body. I make no mention of Gildo’s treason, detected so gloriously in spite of the power of the East on which the rebel Moor relied. For what extremes of famine did we not then look? How dire a danger overhung our city, had not thy valour or the ever-provident diligence of thy father-in-law supplied corn from the north in place of that from the south! Up Tiber’s estuary there sailed ships from the Rhine, and the Saône’s fertile banks made good the lost harvests of Africa. For me the Germans ploughed and the Spaniards’ oxen sweated; my granaries marvel at Iberian corn, nor did my citizens, now satisfied with harvests from beyond the Alps, feel the defection of revolted Africa. Gildo, however, paid the penalty for his treason as Tabraca can witness. So perish all who take up arms against thee!

Prudentius (Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

Human nature, unless one is a four footed beast,

with face uplifted to the sky,

cannot deny that a supreme order rules,

Even Numa’s diviner felt this in his heart,

as does the half wild Scottus, worse than a war-hound.

St Anastasius 1 Pope 399-401

Macsen Wledig

The Dream of Macsen Wledig

Macsen Wledig was Emperor of Rome and was the handsomest and wisest of men, and the best fitted to be emperor of all that had gone before him. And one day he held an assembly of kings and he said to his friends, ‘To-morrow,’ said he, ‘I intend to go ahunting.’ On the morrow early he set out with his retinue and came to the valley of a river which runs down towards Rome. He hunted the valley until it was midday. Moreover, there was with him two-and-thirty crowned kings, his vassals at that time. Not for the joy of hunting did the emperor hunt with them so long, but because he had been made a man of such high dignity that he was lord over all those kings.

And the sun was high in the heavens above their heads, and the heat great. And sleep came upon him, and his chamberlains set their shields about him on their spear shafts, as a ward against the sun; they set a gold-chased shield under his head, and in this wise Macsen slept.

And then he saw a dream. The dream that he saw was how he was making along the river valley towards its upper reaches; and he came to the highest mountain in the world. He thought that the mountain was as high as heaven; and as he came over the mountain he could see how he was traversing the fairest and most level regions that mortal had ever seen, on the far side of the mountain. And he saw great wide rivers making from the mountains to the sea, and he jouneyed towards the sea-fords on the rivers: however long he was journeying so, he came to the mouth of the river, the greatest any one had seen. And he saw a great city at the mouth of the river, and in the city a great castle, and he saw many great towers of various colours on the castle. And he saw a fleet at the mouth of the river, and that was the biggest fleet that mortal had ever seen, And amidst the fleet he saw a ship; and bigger was that by far and fairer than all the others. And what he might see of the ship above water, one plank he saw of gold, and the next of silver. He saw a bridge of walrus-ivory from the ship to the land, and he thought how he came along the bridge on to the ship. A sail was hoisted on the ship, and away she went over sea and ocean, He saw how they came to an island, the fairest in the whole world, and after he had traversed the island from sea to answering sea, even to the uttermost bound of the island, he could see valleys and steeps and towering rocks, and harsh rugged terrain whose like he had never seen. And from there he saw in the sea, facing that rugged land, an island. And between him and that island he saw a country whose plain was the length of its sea, its mountains the length of its woodland. And from that mountain he saw a river flow through the land, making towards the sea. And at the river mouth he could see a great castle, the fairest that mortal had ever seen, and the gate of the castle he saw open, and he came to the castle. Inside the castle he saw a fair hall. The roof of the hall he thought to be all gold; the sides of the hall he thought to be of glittering stones, each as costly as its neighbour; the hall doors he thought to be all gold. Golden couches he saw in the hall and tables of silver. And on the couch facing him he could see two auburn-haired youths playing at gwyddbwyll. A silver board he saw for the gwyddbwyll, and golden pieces thereon. The garments of the youths were of pure black brocaded silk, and frontlets of red gold holding their hair in place, and sparkling jewels of great price therein, rubies and gems alternately therein, and imperial stones. Buskins of new cordwain were on their feet, and bars of red gold to fasten them.

And at the foot of the hall-pillar he saw a hoary-headed man seated in a chair of ivory, with the images of two eagles in red gold thereon. Armlets of gold were upon his arms, and many gold rings on his hands; and a golden torque about his neck, and a golden frontlet holding his hair in place; and his presence august. A board of gold and gwyddbwyll before him, and in his hand a rod of gold, and hard files. And he was carving men for gwyddbwyll.

And he saw a maiden sitting before him in a chair of red gold. No more than it would be easy to look upon the sun when it is brightest, no easier would it be than that to look on her by reason of her excelling beauty. Vests of white silk were upon the maiden, with clasps of red gold at the breast; and a surcoat of gold brocaded silk upon her, and a mantle to look to it, and a brooch of red gold holding it about her, and a frontlet of red gold on her head, with rubies and gems on the frontlet, and pearls alternatively, and imperial stones; and a girdle of red gold around her; and the fairest sight to see of mortal kind.

And the maiden arose to meet him from the chair of gold and he threw his arms around the maiden’s neck, and they both sat down in the chair of gold. And the chair was not straiter for them both than for the maiden alone.

And when when he had his arms around the maiden’s neck, and his cheek against her cheek, what with the dogs straining at their leashes, and the shoulders of the shields coming against each other, and the spear shafts striking together and the neighing and stamping of the horses, the emperor awoke. And when he awoke neither life nor existence nor being was left him, for the maiden he had seen in his sleep. Not one bone-joint of his was there, not the middle of a single nail, to say nothing of a part that might be greater than that, but was filled with love of the maiden. And then his retinue said to him ‘Lord’ said they, ‘it is past time for thee to take thy meat.’ And the emperor mounted his palfrey, the saddest man that mortal had ever seen, and made his way towards Rome.

And he was thus the whole week. Whenever the retinue went to drink wine and mead out of golden vessels, he went not with any of them. Whenever they went to listen to songs and entertainment he went not with them; and nothing could be got from him save sleep. As often as he slept he could see in his sleep the woman he loved best; but when he was not sleeping he cared for naught because of her, for he knew not in the world where she was.

And one day a chamberlain spoke to him and chamberlain though he was, he was king of the Romani. ‘Lord,’ said he, ‘thy men all speak ill of thee.’ ‘Why do they speak ill of me?’ said the emperor. ‘Because they get from thee neither message nor answer, such as men get from their lord. And that is the reason thou art ill-spoken of.’ ‘Why, man.’ said the emperor, ‘do thou bring around me the wise men of Rome, and I will tell thee why I am sad.’

And then the wise men of Rome were brought around the emperor, and he said, “Wise men of Rome,’ said he, ‘a dream have I seen. And in the dream I saw a maiden. Neither life nor existence nor being is there in me for that maiden.’ ‘Lord,’ said they, ‘since thou hast entrusted us to counsel thee, counsel thee we will. And this is our counsel to thee: to send messengers for three years to the three divisions of the earth, to seek thy dream. And since thou knowest not what day, what night, good tidings may come to thee, that much hope may sustain thee.’

Then the messangers journeyed till the end of the year, wandering the world, and seeking tidings concerning the dream. When they returned at the end of the year they knw not one word more than on the day they set out. And thereupon the emperor grieved to think that he should never get tidings of the lady he loved best.

And then said the king of the Romani to the emperor, ‘Lord,’ said he, ‘go forth to hunt the way thou sawest thyself go, whether to the east or to the west.’ And then the emperor went forth to hunt and came to the bank of the river. ‘It was here,’ said he, ‘ that I was when I saw the dream, and towards the river’s upper reaches westwards was I journeying.’

And thereupon thirteen men set forth as messengers of the emperor. And before them they saw a huge mountain which they thought touched heaven. Now this was the guise in which the messengers journeyed: one sleeve there was on the cape of each one of them to his front, in token that they were messengers, so that through, whatever warring land they might journey, no harm would be done them. And as they crossed that mountain, they could see wide level regions, and great wide rivers flowing through them. ‘Lo,’ said they, ‘the land our lord saw.’

They journeyed towards the sea-fiords on the rivers till they came to a great river which they saw making towards the sea, and a great city at the mouth of the river, and in that city a great castle, and great towers of various colours on the castle. They saw the biggest fleet in the world at the mouth of the river, and one ship which was bigger than any of the others. ‘Lo, once more,’ said they, ‘the dream which our lord saw.’ And in that big ship they voyaged over the sea and came to the Island of Britain. And they traversed that island untill they came to Eryri. ‘Lo, once more,’ said they, ‘ the rugged land our lord saw. They pressed forward till they could see Môn facing them, and till they could see Arfon likewise. ‘Lo,’ said they, ‘the land our lord saw in his sleep.’ And Aber Seint they saw, and the castle at the mouth of the river. The gate of the castle they saw open. They came into the castle. Inside the castle they saw a hall. ‘Lo,’ said they, ‘the hall our lord saw in his sleep.’ They came into the hall. They saw the two youths playing gwyddbwyll on the golden couch, and they saw the hoary-headed man at the foot of th pillar, in the ivory chair, carving the men for the gwyddbwyll. And they saw the maiden sitting in a chair of red gold.

Down on their knees went the messengers.’Empress of Rome, all hail!’ ‘Ah, good sirs,’ said ther maiden, ‘I see on you the mark of high born men, and the badge of messengers. What mockery do you make of me?’ ‘No mockery lady, do we make of thee. But the emperor of Rome hath seen thee in his sleep. Neither life nor existence has he because of thee. A choice thou shalt have of us, lady, whether to come with us, to be made empress in Rome, or the emperor to come hither and take thee to wife.’ ‘Ah, good sirs,’ said the maiden, ‘I doubt not what you tell me, nor on the other hand do I overmuch believe it. But if ’tis I whom the emperor loves, then let him come hither to fetch me.’

And by day and by night the messengers sped them back and as their horses failed they left them and purchased others anew. And when they reached Rome they greeted the emperor and asked for their reward, and that they received even as they named it. ‘We will be thy guide lord.’ said they, ‘by sea and by land, the the place where that lady is whom thou lovest best. And we know her name, her kindred and her lineage.’

And straight away the emperor set out with his host, and those men as their guide. Towards the Island of Britain they came, over the sea and ocean, and he conquered the island from Beli son of Manogan and his sons, and drove them into the sea. And he came straight on to Arfon; and the emperor recognized the land the moment he saw it. And the moment he saw the castle of Aber Seint, ‘See yonder,’ said he, ‘the castle wherein I saw the lady I love best.’ And he came straight to the castle and into the hall and there he saw Cynan son of Eudaf and Gadeon son of Eudaf playing at gwyddbwyll. And he saw Eudaf son of Caradawg sitting in a chair of ivory, carving pieces for the gwyddbwyll. The maiden he had seen in his sleep he saw sitting in the chair of red gold. ‘Empress of Rome,’ said he, ‘all hail!’ And the emperor threw his arms around her neck. And that night he slept with her.

And on the morrow early the maiden asked for her maiden fee, because she had been found a maid; and he asked her to name her maiden fee. And she named for her father the Island of Britain from the North Sea to the Irish Sea, and the three adjacent islands, to be held under the empress of Rome, and that three chief strongholds be made for her in the three places she might choose in the Island of Britain. And she chose that the most exalted stronghold be made for her in Arfon, and soil from Rome was brought there so that it might be healthier for the emperor to sleep and sit and move about. later the other two strongholds were made for her, none other than Caer Llion and Caer Fyrddin.

And one day the emperor went to Caer Fyrddin to hunt, and he went as far as the top of Y Frennin Fawr, and there the emperor pitched his tent. And that camping-ground is called Cadeir Facsen from that day to this. Caer Fyrddin, on the other hand, was so named because the stronghold was built by a myriad men.

Thereafter Elen thought to make high roads from one stronghold to another across the Island of Britain. And the roads were made. And for that reason, they are called the Roads of Elen of the Hosts, because she was sprung from the Island of Britain, and the men of the Island of Britain would not have made those hostings for any save for her.

Seven years was the emperor in this Island. Now it was the custom of the Romans at that time, that whatever emperor should stay in foreign parts a-conquering seven years, he must remain in that conquered territory, and not be permitted to return to Rome. And then they made them a new emperor. And then that emperor drew up a letter of threat to Macsen. It was no more of a letter than: IF THOU COME, AND IF EVER THOU COME TO ROME. And that letter and the tidings came all the way to Caer Llion to Macsen. And thence he in return sent a letter to the man who said he was emperor in Rome. In that letter too there was nothing save: AND IF I GO TO ROME, AND IF I GO.

And then Macsen set out with his host for Rome, and France he conquered, and Burgundy, and all the countries as far as Rome, and he laid siege to the city of Rome.

A year was the emperor before the city; his taking it was no nearer than on the first day. But behind him came brothers of Helen of the Hosts from the Island of Britain, and a small host with them, and better fighters were in that small host than twice their number of the men of Rome. The emperor was told how the host was seen dismounting near his own host and pitching its tents, and never had mortal seen a host handsomer or better furnished or with braver standards for its size than that was. And Elen came to look on the host, and she recognized her brothers’ standards. And then came Cynan son of Eudaf and Gadeon son of Eudaf to visit the emperor, and the emperor welcomed them and embraced them.

And then they watched the Romans assault the city. And Cynan said to his brother, ‘We shall seek to assault the city more cannily than this.’ And then they measured by night the height of the rampart, and they sent their carpanters to the forest, and a ladder was made for every four of their men. And when they had those ready, every day at mid-day the two emperors would take their meat, and on both sides they would cease fighting till all had finished eating. But the men of the Island of Britain took their meat in the morning, and drank till they were inspirited. And while the two emperors were at meat the Britons approached the rampart and planted their ladders against it. And forthwith they went in over the rampart. The new emperor had not time to take up arms before they fell on him and slew him, and many along with him. And three nights and three days were they subduing the men who were in the city and conquering the city, and another company of them guarding the city lest any of Macsen’s host should come inside until they had subdued all to their will.

And then Macsen said to Elen of the Hosts: ‘It is a great marvel to me, lady,’ said he, ‘ that it was not for me thy brothers should conquer this city.’ ‘Lord Emperor,’ she answered, ‘my brothers are the wisest youths in the world. Now go thyself to ask for the city. And if they are masters of itthou shalt have it gladly.’ And then the emperor and Elen came to ask for the city. And then they told the emperor that taking the city and bestowing it upon him was the concern of none save the men of the Island of Britain. And then the gates of the city of Rome were opened, and the emperor sat on his throne, and all the Romans did homage.

And then the emperor said to Cynan and Gadeon, ‘ Good sirs, ‘ said he, ‘I have gained possession of all my empire. And this host I will give you to conquer what region of the world you will.’ And then they set out and conquered lands and castles and cities, and they slew all their men, but the women they left alive. And this wise they continued until the youths who had come with them were hoary-headed men with the length of time they had been about that conquest.. And then Cynan said to Gadeon, his brother,’ Which wilt thou,’ said he,’ remain in this land or go to the land from whence thou art sprung?’ So he determined to go to his own land, and many along with him; but Cynan and another company stayed on to live there. And they determined to cut out the tongues of the women, lest their language be corrupted. And because the women were silenced of their speech, and the men spoke on, the men of Llydaw were called Brytanieid. And thence there often came, and still come from the Island of Britain, men of that tongue. And this tale is called the Dream of Macsen Wledig, emperor of Rome. And here is an end to it .

Triads Refering To Maxen Wledig.

From the 4 books.

Three Chief Officers of the Island of Britain: Gwydar son of Rhun song of Beli; and Cawrdaf son of Caradawg; and Owain son of Maxen Wledig.

Three supreme servants of the Island of Prydain. Caradawc son of Bran; and Caurdaf son of Caradawc; and Owen son of Maxen Guledic.

When a Host went to Llychlyn.

An army (of assistance) went with Yrp of the Hosts to Llychlyn. And that man came here in the time of Cadyal of the Blows(?) to ask for a levy from this Island. And nobody came with him but Mathuthavar his servant. This is what he asked from the ten-and-twenty Chief Fortresses that there are in this Island: that twice as many men as went with him to each of them should come away with him (from it). And to the first Fortress there came only himself and his servant. (And that proved grievous to the men of this Island.) And they granted it to him. And that was the most complete levy that ever departed from this Island. And with those men he conquered the way he went. Those men remained in the two islands close to the Greek sea: namely, Clas and Avena.

And the second (army) went with Elen of the Hosts and Maxen Wledig to Llychlyn: and they never returned to this Island.

And the third (army) went with Caswallawn son of Beli, and Gwennwynwyn and Gwanar, sons of Lliaw son of Nwyfre, and Arianrhod daughter of Beli their mother. And (it was) from Erch and Heledd that those men came. And they went with Caswallawn their uncle in pursuit of the men of Caesar from this Island. The place where those men are is in Gascony. The number that went with each of (those armies) was twenty-one thousand men. And those were the Three Silver Hosts of the Island of Britain.

Three Dishonoured Men who were in the Island of Britain:

One of them: Afarwy son of Lludd son of Beli. He first summoned Julius Caesar and the men of Rome to this Island, and he caused the payment of three thousand pounds in money as tribute from this Island every year, because of a quarrel with Caswallawn his uncle.

And the second is Gwrtheyrn [Vortigern] the Thin, who first gave land to the Saxons in this Island, and was the first to enter into an alliance with them. He caused the death of Custennin the Younger, son of Custennin the Blessed, by his treachery, and exiled the two brothers Emrys Wledig and Uthur Penndragon from this Island to Armorica, and deceitfully took the crown and the kingdom into his own possession. And in the end Uthur and Emrys burned Gwrtheyrn in Castell Gwerthrynyawn beside the Wye, in a single conflagration to avenge their brother.

The third and worst was Medrawd, when Arthur left with him the government of the Island of Britain, at the same time when he himself went across the sea to oppose Lles [Lucius], emperor of Rome, who had dispatched messengers to Arthur in Caerleon to demand (payment of) tribute to him and to the men of Rome, from this Island, in the measure that it had been paid (from the time of) Caswallawn son of Beli until the time of Custennin the Blessed, Arthur’s grandfather. This is the answer that Arthur gave to the emperor’s messengers: that the men of Rome had no greater claim to tribute from the men of this Island, than the men of the Island of Britain had from them. For Bran son of Dyfnwal and Custennin son of Elen had been emperors in Rome, and they were two men of this Island. And they Arthur mustered the most select warriors of his kingdom (and led them) across the sea against the emperor. And they met beyond the mountain of Mynneu [the Alps], and an untold number was slain on each side that day. And in the end Arthur encountered the emperor, and Arthur slew him. And Arthur’s best men were slain there. When Medrawd heard that Arthur’s host was dispersed, he turned against Arthur, and the Saxons and the Picts and the Scots united with him to hold this Island against Arthur. And when Arthur heard that, he turned back with all that had survived of his army, and succeeded by violence in landing on this Island in opposition to Medrawd. And then there took place the Battle of Camlan between Arthur and Medrawd, and was himself wounded to death. And from that (wound) he died, and was buried in a hall on the Island of Afallach.

Saint Declan

LIFE OF ST. DECLAN. “BETHA DECCLAIN.”

(Edited from MS. in Bibliotheque Royale, Brussels),

1.The most blessed Bishop Declan of the most noble race of the kings of Ireland, i.e., the holy bishop who is called Declan was of the most noble royal family of Ireland–a family which held the sceptre and exacted tribute from all Ireland at Tara for ages. Declan was by birth of noble blood as will appear from his origin and genealogy, for it was from Eochaidh Feidhleach, the powerful Ardrigh of Ireland for twelve years, that he sprang. Eochaidh aforesaid, had three sons, Breas, Nar, and Lothola, who are called the three Finneavna; there reigned one hundred and seven kings of their race and kindred before and after them, i.e. of the race of Eremon, king of Ireland, before the introduction of Christianity and since. These three youths lay one day with their own sister Clothra, daughter of the same father, and she conceived of them.

The son she brought forth as a consequence of that intercourse was marked by three red wavy lines which indicated his descent from the three youths aforesaid. He was named Lugaidh Sriabhdearg from the three lines [sriabaib] in question, and he was beautiful to behold and of greater bodily strength in infancy than is usual with children of his age. He commenced his reign as king of Ireland the year in which Caius Caesar [Caligula] died and he reigned for twenty-six years.

His son was named Criomthan Nianair who reigned but sixteen years. Criomthan’s son was named Fearadach Finnfechtnach whose son was Fiacha Finnolaidh whose son again was Tuathal Teachtmhar. This Tuathal had a son Felimidh Reachtmhar who had in turn three sons, Conn Ceadcathach, Eochaidh Finn, and Fiacha Suighde. Conn was king of Ireland for twenty years and the productiveness of crops and soil and of dairies in the time of Conn are worthy of commemoration and of fame to the end of time. Conn was killed in Magh Cobha by the Ulstermen, by Tiopruid Tireach and it is principally his seed which has held the kingship of Ireland ever since. Eochaidh Finn was second son to Felimidh Reachtmhar and he migrated to the latter’s province of Leinster, and it is in that province his race and progeny have remained since then. They are called Leinstermen, and there are many chieftains and powerful persons of them in Leinster. Fiacha Suighde moreover, although he died before he succeeded to the chief sovereignty, possessed land around Tara. He left three sons—Ross, Oengus, and Eoghan who were renowned for martial deeds–valiant and heroic in battle and in conflict. Of the three, Oengus excelled in all gallant deeds so that he came to be styled Oengus of the poisonous javelin. Cormac Mac Art Mac Conn it was who reigned in Ireland at this time. Cormac had a son named Ceallach who took by force the daughter of Eoghan Mac Fiacha Suighde to dwell with him, i.e. Credhe the daughter of Eoghan. When Oengus Gaebuaibhtheach (“of the poisonous javelin”) heard this, viz., that the daughter of his brother had been abducted by Ceallach he was roused to fury and he followed Ceallach to Tara taking with him his foster child, Corc Duibhne, the son of Cairbre, son of Conaire, son of Mogha Lamha whom Cormac held as a hostage from the Munstermen, and whom he had given for safe custody to Oengus. When Oengus reached Tara, he beheld Ceallach sitting behind Cormac. He thrust his spear at Ceallach and pierced him through from front to back. However, as he was withdrawing the spear the handle struck Cormac’s eye and knocked it out and then, striking the steward, killed him. He himself (Oengus) with his foster child escaped safely. After a time, Cormac, grieving for the loss of his son, his eye and his steward at the hands of Oengus of the poisonous javelin and of his kinsmen, ordered their expulsion from their tribal territory, i.e. from the Decies of Tara, and not alone from these, but from whole northern half of Ireland. However, seven battles were fought in which tremendous loss was inflicted on Cormac and his followers before Oengus and his people, i.e. the three sons of Fiacha Suighde, namely, Ross and Oengus and Eoghan, as we have already said, were eventually defeated, and obliged to fly the country and to suffer exile. Consequent on their banishment as above by the king of Ireland they sought hospitality from the king of Munster, Oilill Olum, because Sadhbh, daughter of Conn Ceadcathach was his wife. They got land from him, scil.: the Decies of Munster, and it is to that race, i.e. the race of Eoghan Mac Fiacha Suighde that the kings and country of the Decies belong ever since.

2. Of this same race of Eoghan was the holy bishop Declan of whom I shall speak later scil.: Declan son of Eirc, son of Trein, son of Lughaidh, son of Miaich, son of Brian, son of Eoghan, son of Art Corp, son of Moscorb, son of Mesgeadra, son of Measfore, son of Cuana Cainbhreathaigh, son of Conaire Cathbuadhaigh, son of Cairbre, son of Eoghan, son of Fiacha Suighde, son of Felimidh Reachtmhar, son of Tuathal Teachtmhar. The father of Declan was therefore Erc Mac Trein. He and his wife Deithin went on a visit to the house of his kinsman Dobhran about the time that Declan’s birth was due. The child she bore was Declan, whom she brought forth without sickness, pain or difficulty but in being lifted up afterwards he struck his head against a great stone. Let it be mentioned that Declan showed proofs of sanctification and power of miracle-working in his mother’s womb, as the prophet writes: “De vulva sanctificavi te et prophetam in gentibus dedi te” [Jeremias 1:5] (Before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee and made thee a prophet unto the nations). Thus, it is that Declan was sanctified in his mother’s womb and was given by God as a prophet to the pagans for the conversion of multitudes of them from heathenism and the misery of unbelief to the worship of Christ and to the Catholic faith, as we shall see later on. The very soft apex of his head struck against a hard stone, as we have said, and where the head came in contact with the stone it made therein a hollow and cavity of its own form and shape, without injury of any kind to him. Great wonder thereupon seized all who witnessed this, for Ireland was at this time without the true faith and it was rarely that any one (therein) had shown heavenly Christian signs. “Declan’s Rock” is the name of the stone with which the Saint’s head came into contact. The water or rain which falls into the before-mentioned cavity (the place of Declan’s head) dispels sickness and infirmity, by the grace of God, as proof of Declan’s sanctity.

3. On the night of Declan’s birth a wondrous sign was revealed to all, that is to the people who were in the neighbourhood of the birthplace; this was a ball of fire which was seen blazing on summit of the house in which the child lay, until it reached up to heaven and down again, and it was surrounded by a multitude of angels. It assumed the shape of a ladder such as the Patriarch, Jacob saw [Genesis 28:12]. The persons who saw and heard these things wondered at them. They did not know (for the true faith had not yet been preached to them or in this region) that it was God who (thus) manifested His wondrous power (works) in the infant, His chosen child. Upon the foregoing manifestation a certain true Christian, Colman, at that time a priest and afterwards a holy bishop, came, rejoicing greatly and filled with the spirit of prophecy, to the place where Declan was; he preached the faith of Christ to the parents and made known to them that the child was full of the grace of God. He moreover revealed to them the height of glory and honour to which the infant should attain before God and men, and it was revealed to him that he (Declan) should spend his life in sanctity and devotion. Through the grace of God, these, i.e. Erc and Deithin, believed in God and Colman, and they delivered the child for baptism to Colman who baptised him thereupon, giving him the name of Declan. When, in the presence of all, he had administered Baptism, Colman spoke this prophecy concerning the infant “Truly, beloved child and lord you will be in heaven and on earth most high and holy, and your good deeds, fame, and sanctity will fill all (the four quarters of) Ireland and you will convert your own nation and the Decies from paganism to Christianity. On that account, I bind myself to you by the tie of brotherhood and I commend myself to your sanctity.”

4. Colman thereupon returned to his own abode; he commanded that Declan should be brought up with due care, that he should be well trained, and be set to study at the age of seven years if there could be found in his neighbourhood a competent Christian scholar to undertake his tuition. Even at the period of his baptism grace and surpassing charity manifested themselves in the countenance of Declan so that it was understood of all that great should be the goodness and the spiritual charm of his mature age. When Dobhran had heard and seen these things concerning his kinsman Erc he requested the latter and Deithin to give him the child to foster, and with this request Erc complied. The name of the locality was “Dobhran’s Place” at that time, but since then it has been “Declan’s Place.” Dobhran presented the homestead to Declan and removed his own dwelling thence to another place. In after years, when Declan had become a bishop, he erected there a celebrated cell in honour of God, and this is the situation of the cell in question: In the southern part of the Decies, on the east side of Magh Sgiath and not far from the city of Mochuda i.e. Lismore. For the space of seven years Declan was fostered with great care by Dobhran (his father’s brother) and was much loved by him. God wrought many striking miracles through Declan’s instrumentality during those years. By aid of the Holy Spirit dwelling in him he (Declan)–discreet Christian man that he was–avoided every fault and every unlawful desire during that time.

5. On the completion of seven years Declan was taken from his parents and friends and fosterers to be sent to study as Colman had ordained. It was to Dioma they sent him, a certain devout man perfect in the faith, who had come at that time by God’s design into Ireland having spent a long period abroad in acquiring learning. He (Dioma) built in that place a small cell wherein he might instruct Declan and dwell himself. There was given him also, to instruct, together with Declan, another child, scil., Cairbre Mac Colmain, who became afterwards a holy learned bishop. Both these were for a considerable period pursuing their studies together.

6. There were seven men dwelling in Magh Sgiath, who frequently saw the fiery globe which it has been already told they first beheld at the time of Declan’s birth. It happened by the Grace of God that they were the first persons to reveal and describe that lightning. These seven came to the place where Declan abode and took him for their director and master. They made known publicly in the presence of all that, later on, he should be a bishop and they spoke prophetically: “The day, O beloved child and servant of God, will come when we shall commit ourselves and our lands to thee.” And it fell out thus (as they foretold), for, upon believing, they were baptised and became wise, devout (and) attentive and erected seven churches in honour of God around Magh Sgiath.

7. Declan remained a long time with Dioma, the holy man we have named, and acquired science and sanctity and diversity of learning and doctrine, and he was prudent, mild, and capable so that many who knew his nobility of blood came when they had heard of the fullness of his sanctity and grace. Moreover, they submitted themselves to him and accepted his religious rule. Declan judged it proper that he should visit Rome to study discipline and ecclesiastical system, to secure for himself esteem and approbation thence, and obtain authority to preach to the (Irish) people and to bring back with him the rules of Rome as these obtained in Rome itself. He set out with his followers and he tarried not till he arrived in Rome where they remained some time.

8. At the same period there was a holy bishop, i.e. Ailbe, who had been in Rome for a number of years before this and was in the household of Pope Hilary by whom he had been made a bishop. When Declan with his disciples arrived in Rome Ailbe received him with great affection and gladness and he bore testimony before the Roman people to his (Declan’s) sanctity of life and nobility of blood. He (Declan) therefore received marks of honour and sincere affection from the people and clergy of Rome when they came to understand how worthy he was, for he was comely, of good appearance, humble in act, sweet in speech, prudent in counsel, frank in conversation, virtuous in mien, generous in gifts, holy in life and resplendent in miracles.

9. When Declan had spent a considerable time in Rome he was ordained a bishop by the Pope, who gave him church-books and rules and orders and sent him to Ireland that he might preach there. Having bidden farewell to the Pope and received the latter’s blessing Declan commenced his journey to Ireland. Many Romans followed him to Ireland to perform their pilgrimage and to spend their lives there under the yoke and rule of Bishop Declan, and amongst those who accompanied him wa s Runan, son of the king of Rome; he was dear to Declan.

10. On the road through Italy Bishop Declan and Patrick met. Patrick was not a bishop at that time, though he was (made a bishop) subsequently by Pope Celestinus, who sent him to preach to the Irish. Patrick was truly chief bishop of the Irish island. They bade farewell to one another and they made a league and bond of mutual fraternity and kissed in token of peace. They departed thereupon each on his own journey, Declan to Ireland and Patrick to Rome.

11. Declan was beginning mass one day in a church which lay in his road, when there was sent him from heaven a little black bell, (which came) in through the window of the church and remained on the altar before Declan. Declan greatly rejoiced thereat and gave thanks and glory to Christ on account of it, and it filled him with much courage to combat the error and false teaching of heathendom. He gave the bell for safe keeping and carriage, to Runan aforesaid, i.e. son of the king of Rome, and this is its name in Ireland–“The Duibhin Declain,” and it is from its colour it derives its name, for its colour is black [dub]. There were manifested, by grace of God and Declan’s merits, many miracles through its agency and it is still preserved in Declan’s church.

12. When Declan and his holy companions arrived at the Sea of Icht [English Channel] he failed, owing to lack of money, to find a ship, for he did not have the amount demanded, and every ship was refused him on that account. He therefore struck his bell and prayed to God for help in this extremity. In a short time after this they saw coming towards them on the crest of the waves an empty, sailless ship and no man therein. Thereupon Declan said: “Let us enter the ship in the name of Christ, and He who has sent it to us will direct it skilfully to what harbour soever He wishes we should go.” At the word of Declan they entered in, and the ship floated tranquilly and safely until it reached harbour in England. Upon its abandonment by Declan and his disciples the ship turned back and went again to the place from which it had come and the people who saw the miracles and heard of them magnified the name of the Lord and Declan, and the words of the prophet David were verified: “Mirabilis Deus in Sanctis Suis” [Psalm 67(68):36] (God is wonderful in His Saints).

13. After this Declan came to Ireland. Declan was wise like a serpent and gentle like a dove and industrious like the bee, for as the bee gathers honey and avoids the poisonous herbs so did Declan, for he gathered the sweet sap of grace and Holy Scripture till he was filled therewith. There were in Ireland before Patrick came thither four holy bishops with their followers who evangelized and sowed the word of God there; these are the four: Ailbe, Bishop Ibar, Declan, and Ciaran. They drew multitudes from error to the faith of Christ, although it was Patrick who sowed the faith throughout Ireland and it is he who turned chiefs and kings of Ireland to the way of baptism, faith and sacrifice and everlasting judgment.

14. These three, Declan, Ailbe and Bishop Ibar made a bond of friendship and a league amongst themselves and their spiritual posterity in heaven and on earth for ever and they loved one another. SS. Ailbe and Declan, especially, loved one another as if they were brothers so that, on account of their mutual affection they did not like to be separated from one another–except when their followers threatened to separate them by force if they did not go apart for a very short time. After this Declan returned to his own country–to the Decies of Munster–where he preached, and baptized, in the name of Christ, many whom he turned to the Catholic faith from the power of the devil. He built numerous churches in which he placed many of his own followers to serve and worship God and to draw people to God from the wiles of Satan.

15. Once on a time Declan came on a visit to the place of his birth, where he remained forty days there and established a religious house in which devout men have dwelt ever since. Then came the seven men we have already mentioned as having made their abode around Magh Sgiath and as having prophesied concerning Declan. They now dedicated themselves and their establishment to him as they had promised and these are their names: Mocellac and Riadan, Colman, Lactain, Finnlaoc, Kevin, &c. [Mobi]. These therefore were under the rule and spiritual sway of bishop Declan thenceforward, and they spent their lives devoutly there and wrought many wonders afterwards.

16. After some time Declan set out to visit Aongus MacNatfrich, king of Cashel, to preach to him and to convert him to the faith of Christ. Declan however had two uterine brothers, sons of Aongus, scil.: Colman and Eoghan. The grace of the Holy Ghost inspiring him Colman went to Ailbe of Emly and received baptism and the religious habit at the latter’s hands, and he remained for a space sedulously studying science until he became a saintly and perfect man. Eochaid however remained as he was (at home) expecting the kingdom of Munster on his father’s death, and he besought his father to show due honour to his brother Declan. The king did so and put no obstacle in the way of Declan’s preaching but was pleased with Declan’s religion and doctrine, although he neither believed nor accepted baptism himself. It is said that refusal (of baptism) was based on this ground: Declan was of the Decies and of Conn’s Half, while Aongus himself was of the Eoghanacht of Cashel of Munster–always hostile to the Desii. It was not therefore through ill will to the faith that he believed not, as is proved from this that, when the king heard of the coming to him of Patrick, the archbishop of Ireland, a man who was of British race against which the Irish cherished no hate, not only did he believe but he went from his own city of Cashel to meet him, professed Christianity and was immediately baptised.

17. After this Declan, having sown the word of God and preached to the king (although the latter did not assent to his doctrines), proceeded to his own country and they (the Desii) believed and received baptism except the king alone and the people of his household who were every day promising to believe and be baptised. It however came about through the Devil’s agency that they hesitated continually and procrastinated.

18. Other authorities declare that Declan went many times to Rome, but we have no written testimony from the ancient biographers that he went there more than three times. On one of these occasions Declan paid a visit to the holy bishop of the Britons whose name was David at the church which is called Killmuine [Menevia] where the bishop dwelt beside the shore of the sea which divides Ireland from Britain. The bishop received Declan with honour and he remained there forty days, in affection and joy, and they sang Mass each day and they entered into a bond of charity which continued between themselves and their successors for ever afterwards. On the expiration of the forty days Declan took leave of David giving him a kiss in token of peace and set out himself and his followers to the shore of the sea to take ship for Ireland.

19. Now the bell which we have alluded to as sent from heaven to Declan, was, at that time, in the custody of Runan to carry as we have said, for Declan did not wish, on any account, to part with it. On this particular day as they were proceeding towards the ship Runan entrusted it to another member of the company. On reaching the shore however the latter laid the bell on a rock by the shore and forgot it till they were half way across the sea. Then they remembered it and on remembrance they were much distressed. Declan was very sorrowful that the gift sent him by the Lord from heaven should have been forgotten in a place where he never expected to find it again. Thereupon raising his eyes heavenward, he prayed to God within his heart and he said to his followers: “Lay aside your sorrow for it is possible with God who sent that bell in the beginning to send it now again by some marvellous ship.” Very fully and wonderfully and beautifully the creature without reason or understanding obeyed its creator, for the very heavy unwieldy rock floated buoyantly and without deviation, so that in a short time they beheld it in their rear with the bell upon it. And when his people saw this wondrous thing it filled them with love for God and reverence for their master. Declan thereupon addressed them prophetically: “Permit the bell to precede you and follow it exactly and whatsoever haven it will enter into it is there my city and my bishopric will be whence I shall go to paradise and there my resurrection will be.” Meantime the bell preceded the ship, and it eased down its great speed remaining slightly in advance of the ship, so that it could be seen from and not overtaken by the latter. The bell directed its course to Ireland until it reached a harbour on the south coast, in the Decies of Munster, at an island called, at that time, High Sheep Island [Aird na gCcaorac] and the ship made the same port, as Declan declared. The holy man went ashore and gave thanks and praise to God that he had reached the place of his resurrection. Now, in that island depastured the sheep belonging to the wife of the chieftain of Decies and it is thence that it derives its Irish name—Ard-na- Ccaorac, scil.:–there was in it a high hill and it was a promontory beautiful to behold. One of the party, ascending the summit of the hill, said to Declan: “How can this little height support your people?” Declan replied: “Do not call it little hill, beloved son, but ‘great height’ [ard mor],” and that name has adhered to the city ever since, Ardmore-Declain. After this Declan went to the king of the Desii and asked of him the aforesaid island. Whereupon the king gave it to him.

20. Declan next returned to Ait-mBreasail where, in a haven at the north side, were the shipping and boats of the island, plying thither and backwards. The people of the island hid all their boats not willing that Declan should settle there; they dreaded greatly that if Declan came to dwell there they themselves should be expelled. Whereupon his disciples addressed Declan:–“Father,” said they, “Many things are required (scil.: from the mainland) and we must often go by boat to this island and there will be (crossing) more frequently when you have gone to heaven and we pray thee to abandon the place or else to obtain from God that the sea recede from the land so that it can be entered dry shod, for Christ has said:–‘Whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name He will give it to you’ [John 15:16]; the place cannot be easily inhabited unless the sea recede from it and on that account you cannot establish your city in it.” Declan answered them and said: “How can I abandon the place ordained by God and in which He has promised that my burial and resurrection shall be? As to the alleged inconvenience of dwelling therein, do you wish me to pray to God (for things) contrary to His will–to deprive the sea of its natural domain? Nevertheless, in compliance with your request I shall pray to God and whatever thing be God’s will, let it be done.” Declan’s community thereupon rose up and said: “Father, take your crosier as Moses took the rod [Exodus 14:16] and strike the sea therewith and God will thus show His will to you.” His disciples prayed therefore to him because they were tried and holy men. They put Declan’s crosier in his hand and he struck the water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and made the sign of the cross over the water and immediately, by command and permission of God, the sea commenced to move out from its accustomed place–so swiftly too that the monsters of the sea were swimming and running and that it was with difficulty they escaped with the sea. However, many fishes were left behind on the dry strand owing to the suddenness of the ebb. Declan, his crosier in his hand, pursued the receding tide and his disciples followed after him. Moreover, the sea and the departing monsters made much din and commotion and when Declan arrived at the place where is now the margin of the sea a stripling whose name was Mainchin, frightened at the thunder of the waves and the cry of the unknown monsters with gaping mouths following the

(receding) water, exclaimed: “Father, you have driven out the sea far enough; for I am afraid of those horrid monsters.” When Declan heard this and (saw) the sea standing still at the word of the youth it displeased him, and turning around, he struck him a slight blow on the nose. Three drops of blood flowed from the wound on to the ground in three separate places at the feet of Declan. Thereupon Declan blessed the nose and the blood ceased immediately (to flow). Then Declan declared: “It was not I who drove out the sea but God in His own great power who expelled it and He would have done still more had you not spoken the words you have said.” Three little wells of clear sweet water burst forth in the place where fell the three drops of blood at the feet of Declan, and these wells are there still and the colour of blood is seen in them occasionally as a memorial of this miracle. The shore, rescued from the sea, is a mile in width and is of great length around (the island) and it is good and fertile land for tillage and pasture—lying beneath the monastery of Declan. As to the crosier which was in Declan’s hand while he wrought this miracle, this is its name–the Feartach Declain, from the miracles and marvels [fertaib] wrought through it. I shall in another, subsequent, place relate some of these miracles (narrated).

21. After the expulsion of the sea by this famous Saint, Declan, whose name and renown spread throughout Erin because of his great and diverse miracles, he commenced to build a great monastery by the south side of the stream which flows through the island into the sea. This monastery is illustrious and beautiful and its name is Ardmor Declain, as we have said. After this came many persons to Declan, drawn from the uttermost parts of Ireland, by the fame of his holy living; they devoted themselves, soul and body to God and Declan, binding themselves beneath his yoke and his rule. Moreover, he built himself in every place throughout the territory of the Decies, churches and monasteries and not alone in his own territory (did he build) but in other regions of Ireland under tribute to him. Great too were the multitudes (thousands) of men and women who were under his spiritual sway and rule, in the places we have referred to, throughout Ireland, where happily they passed their lives. He ordained some of his disciples as bishops and appointed them in these places to sow the seed of faith and religion therein. Gentleness and charity manifested themselves in Declan to such an extent that his disciples preferred to live under his immediate control and under his direction as subjects than to be in authority in another monastery.

22. After this the holy renowned bishop, head of justice and faith in the Gaelic island came into Ireland, i.e. Patrick sent by Celestinus, the Pope. Aongus Mac Nathfrich went to meet him soon as he heard the account of his coming. He conducted him (Patrick) with reverence and great honour to his own royal city–to Cashel. Then Patrick baptised him and blessed himself and his people and his city. Patrick heard that the prince of the Decies had not been baptised and did not believe, that there was a disagreement between the prince and Declan and that the former refused to receive instruction from the latter. Patrick thereupon set out to preach to the prince aforesaid. Next, as to the four bishops we have named who had been in Rome: Except Declan alone they were not in perfect agreement with Patrick. It is true that subsequently to this they did enter into a league of peace and harmonious actions with Patrick and paid him fealty. Ciaran, however, paid him all respect and reverence and was of one mind with him present or absent. Ailbe then, when he saw the kings and rulers of Ireland paying homage to Patrick and going out to meet him, came himself to Cashel, to wait on him and he also paid homage to him (Patrick) and submitted to his jurisdiction, in presence of the king and all others. Bear in mind it was Ailbe whom the other holy bishops had elected their superior. He therefore came first to Patrick, lest the others, on his account, should offer opposition to Patrick, and also that by his example the others might be more easily drawn to his jurisdiction and rule. Bishop Ibar however would on no account consent to be subject to Patrick, for it was displeasing to him that a foreigner should be patron of Ireland. It happened that Patrick in his origin was of the Britons and he was nurtured in Ireland having been sold to bondage in his boyhood. There arose misunderstanding and dissension between Patrick and Bishop Ibar at first, although (eventually), by intervention of the angel of peace, they formed a mutual fellowship and brotherly compact and they remained in agreement for ever after. But Declan did not wish to disagree at all with Patrick for they had formed a mutual bond of friendship on the Italian highway and it is thus the angel commanded him to go to Patrick and obey him.

23. The angel of God came to Declan and said to him “Go quickly to Patrick and prevent him cursing your kindred and country, for to-night, in the plain which is called Inneoin, he is fasting against the king, and if he curses your people they shall be accursed for ever.” Thereupon Declan set out in haste by direction of the angel to Inneoin, i.e. the place which is in the centre of the plain of Femhin in the northern part of the Decies. He crossed Slieve Gua [Knockmaeldown] and over the Suir and arrived on the following morning at the place where Patrick was. When Patrick and his disciples heard that Declan was there they welcomed him warmly for they had been told he would not come. Moreover, Patrick and his people received him with great honour. But Declan made obeisance to Patrick and besought him earnestly that he should not execrate his people and that he should not curse them nor the land in which they dwelt, and he promised to allow Patrick do as he pleased. And Patrick replied: “On account of your prayer not only shall I not curse them but I shall give them a blessing.” Declan went thereupon to the place where was the king of Decies who was a neighbour of his. But he contemned Patrick and he would not believe him even at the request of Declan.

Moreover, Declan promised rewards to him if he would go to Patrick to receive baptism at his hands and assent to the faith. But he would not assent on any account. When Declan saw this, scil.:–that the king of the Decies, who was named Ledban, was obstinate in his infidelity and in his devilry–through fear lest Patrick should curse his race and country–he (Declan) turned to the assembly and addressed them:–“Separate yourselves from this accursed man lest you become yourselves accursed on his account, for I have myself baptised and blessed you, but come you,” said he, “with us, to Patrick, whom God has sent to bless you, for he has been chosen Archbishop and chief Patron of all Erin; moreover, I have a right to my own patrimony and to be king over you as that man (Ledban) has been.” At this speech, they all arose and followed Declan who brought them into the presence of Patrick and said to the latter: “See how the whole people of the Deisi have come with me as their Lord to thee and they have left the accursed prince whose subjects they have been, and behold they are ready to reverence you and to obey you for it is from me they have received baptism.” At this Patrick rose up with his followers and he blessed the people of the Deisi and not them alone, but their woods and water and land. Whereupon the chiefs and nobles of the Deisi said: “Who will be King or Lord over us now?” And Declan replied: “I am your lord and whomsoever I shall appoint offer you as lord, Patrick and all of us will bless, and he shall be king over you all.” And he whom Declan appointed was Feargal MacCormac a certain young man of the nation of the Deisi who was a kinsman of Declan himself. He (Declan) set him in the midst of the assembly in the king’s place and he was pleasing to all. Whereupon Patrick and Declan blessed him and each of them apart proclaimed him chieftain. Patrick moreover promised the young man that he should be brave and strong in battle, that the land should be fruitful during his reign. Thus, have the kings of the Deisi always been.

24. After these things Declan and Feargal Mac Cormac (king of the Deisi) and his people gave a large area of land to Patrick in the neighbourhood of Magh Feimhin and this belongs to his successors ever since and great lordship there. And the place which was given over to him is not far from the Suir. There is a great very clear fountain there which is called “Patrick’s Well” and this was dear to Patrick. After this, with blessing, they took leave of one another and Patrick returned to Cashel to Aongus Mac Natfrich and Declan went with him.

25. A miracle was wrought at that time on Declan through the intercession and prayers of Patrick for as Declan was walking carelessly along he trod upon a piece of sharp iron which cut his foot so that blood flowed freely and Declan began to limp. Ailbe of Emly was present at this miracle and Sechnall a bishop of Patrick’s and a holy and wise man, and he is said to be the first bishop buried in Ireland. The wound which Declan had received grieved them very much. Patrick was informed of the accident and was grieved thereat. He said: “Heal, O Master (i.e. God), the foot of your own servant who bears much toil and hardship on your account.” Patrick laid his hand on the wounded foot and made over it the sign of the cross when immediately the flow of blood ceased, the lips of the wound united, a cicatrix formed upon it and a cure was effected. Then Declan rose up with his foot healed and joined in praising God. The soldiers and fighting men who were present cried out loudly, blessing God and the saints.

26. As Patrick and the saints were in Cashel, i.e. Ailbe and Declan with their disciples, in the territory of Aongus Mac Nathfrich, they made much progress against paganism and errors in faith and they converted them (the pagans) to Christianity. It was ordained by Patrick and Aongus Mac Natfrich in presence of the assembly, that the Archbishopric of Munster should belong to Ailbe, and to Declan, in like manner, was ordained (committed) his own race, i.e. the Deisi, whom he had converted to be his parish and his episcopate. As the Irish should serve Patrick, so should the Deisi serve Declan as their patron, and Patrick made the “rann”.

“Humble Ailbe the Patrick of Munster, greater than any saying, Declan, Patrick of the Deisi–the Decies to Declan for ever.”

This is equivalent to saying that Ailbe was a second Patrick and that Declan was a second Patrick of the Decies. After that, when the king had bidden them farewell and they had all taken leave of one another, the saints returned to their respective territories to sow therein the seed of faith.

27. Declan and Ferghal Mac Cormac, king of the Deisi, with his army and followers, met one another at Indeoin and they made still more strong on the people the bond of Christian obligation. The king we have already mentioned, Ledban, the recusant to the Christian name, was rejected of all and he came to nothing, leaving no knowledge (memory) of his history, as is written of the enemies of the faith: “Their memory perisheth like a sound” [Psalm 9:7]. Moreover, Declan and Fergal and the chief men of the Deisi decreed this as the place where the king of the Deisi should be inaugurated for ever thenceforward, because it was there Patrick and Declan blessed the king, Fergal; moreover, tradition states that it was there the kings were crowned and ruled over the Deisi in pagan times.

28. At that time there broke out a dreadful plague in Munster and it was more deadly in Cashel than elsewhere. Thus, it affected those whom it attacked: it first changed their colour to yellow and then killed them. Now Aongus had, in a stone fort called “Rath na nIrlann,” on the western side of Cashel, seven noble hostages. It happened that in one and the same night they all died of the plague. The king was much affected thereat and he gave orders to have the fact concealed lest it should bring disgrace or even war upon him, for the hostages were scions of the strongest and most powerful families in Munster. On the morrow however Declan came to Cashel and talked with Aonghus. The king welcomed him heartily and addressing him said to him in presence of persons of his court, “I pray you, Declan, servant of God, that in the name of Christ you would raise to life for me the seven hostages whom I held in bondage from the chieftains of Munster. They have died from the plague of which you hear, and I fear their fathers will raise war and rebellion against me, for they are men of strength and power, and indeed we are ashamed of their death, for they will say that it is we ourselves who killed them.” Declan answered the king, saying to him: “Such a matter as this—to raise one to life from death–belongs to Omnipotence alone–but I shall do whatever is in my power. I go where the bodies lie and pray to God for them and let Him do in their regard what seems best to Him.” Next, Declan, with a multitude and his disciples together with the king’s councillors, went to the place where the corpses of the young men lay. The king followed after them until he came in sight of the bodies. Declan, full of divine faith, entered the house wherein they lay and he sprinkled holy water over them and prayed for them in the presence of all, saying: “O Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the living God, for thine own name’s sake wake the dead that they may be strengthened in the Catholic faith through our instrumentality.” Thereupon, at Declan’s prayer, the group (of corpses) revived and they moved their eyelids and Declan said to them “In the name of Christ, our Saviour, stand up and bless and glorify God.” And at his words they rose up immediately and spoke to all. Declan then announced to the king that they were alive and well. When people saw this remarkable miracle they all gave glory and praise to God. The fame of Declan thereupon spread throughout Erin and the king rejoiced for restoration of his hostages.

29. After this the people of Cashel besought Bishop Declan to bless their city and banish the plague from them and to intercede with God for those stricken with sickness who could not escape from its toils. Declan seeing the people’s faith prayed to God and signed with the sign of Redemption the four points of the compass. As he concluded, there was verified the saying of Christ to His disciples when leaving them and going to heaven: “Super aegros imponent manus et bene habebunt” [Mark 16:18] (I shall place my hands on the sick and they shall be healed). Soon as Declan had made the sign of the cross each one who was ill became well and not alone were these restored to health but (all the sick) of the whole region round about in whatsoever place there were persons ailing. Moreover, the plague was banished from every place and all rejoiced greatly thereat as well as on account of the resurrection of the dead men we have narrated. The king thereupon ordered tribute and honour to Declan and his successors from himself and from every king who should hold Cashel ever after. Upon this the glorious bishop Declan blessed Aongus together with his city and people and returned back to his own place.

30. One night Declan was a guest at the house of a wealthy man who dwelt in the southern part of Magh Femhin; this is the kind of person his host was, a pagan who rejected the true faith, and his name was Dercan. He resolved to amuse himself at the Christians’ expense; accordingly, he ordered his servants to kill a dog secretly, to cut off its head and feet and to bury them in the earth and then to cook the flesh properly and to set it before Declan and his company as their meal. Moreover, he directed that the dog should be so fat that his flesh might pass as mutton. When, in due course, it was cooked, the flesh, together with bread and other food, was laid before Declan and his following. At that moment, Declan had fallen asleep but he was aroused by his disciples that he might bless their meal. He observed to them: “Indeed I see, connected with this meat, the ministry of the devil.” Whereupon he questioned the waiters as to the meat–what kind it was and whence procured. They replied: “Our master ordered us to kill a fat ram for you and we have done as he commanded.” Declan said, “Our Master is Jesus Christ and may He show us what it is that connects the ministry of Satan with this meat and preserve thy servants from eating forbidden food.” As he spoke thus Declan saw in the meat the claw of a dog, for, without intending it, they had boiled one quarter of the dog with its paw adhering; they thought they had buried it (the incriminating limb) with the other paws. Declan exclaimed, “This is not a sheep’s but a dog’s foot.” When the attendants heard this, they went at once to their master and related the matter to him. Then Dercan came to Declan, accepted his faith and received Baptism at his hands, giving himself and his posterity to Declan for ever. Moreover, he gave his homestead to Declan and his people were baptised. After this Dercan requested that Declan should bless something in his homestead which might remain as a memorial of him (Dercan) for ever. Then Declan blessed a bell which he perceived there and its name is Clog-Dhercain (“Dercan’s Bell”); moreover, he declared: “I endow it with this virtue (power) that if the king of Decies march around it when going to battle, against his enemies, or to punish violation of his rights, he shall return safely and with victory.” This promise has been frequently fulfilled, but proud (men) undertaking battle or conflict unjustly even if they march around it do not obtain victory but success remains with the enemy. The name of that homestead was Teach-Dhercain (“Dercain’s House”) and its name now is Coningean, from the claw [con] of the hound or dog aforesaid. To this place came the saintly concourse, Coman and Ultan, MacErc and Mocoba and Maclaisren, who dedicated themselves to (the service of) God and placed themselves under the spiritual rule and sway of Declan.

31. Thereupon Declan established a monastery in that place, in Coningin–and he placed there this holy community with a further band of disciples. Ultan however he took away with him to the place whither he went.

32. On another (subsequent) occasion Declan visited Bregia, i.e. the original territory which belonged to his race previous to the expulsion of his ancestors. There he was treated with particular honour by the king of Tara and by the chieftains of Meath by whom he was beloved, since it was from themselves (their tribe and territory) that his forbears had gone out, for that region was the patrimony of his race and within it lies Tara. Declan instituted therein a monastery of Canons, on land which he received from the king, and it is from him the place is named. Moreover, he left therein a relic or illuminated book and a famous gospel which he was accustomed to carry always with him. The gospel is still preserved with much honour in the place and miracles are wrought through it. After this again he turned towards Munster.

33. Declan was once travelling through Ossory when he wished to remain for the night in a certain village. But the villagers not only did not receive him but actually drove him forth by force of arms. The saint however prayed to God that it might happen to them what the Sacred Scripture says, “Vengeance is mine I will repay” [Deuteronomy 32:35]. The dwellers in the village, who numbered sixty, died that same night with the exception of two men and ten women to whom the conduct of the others towards the saint had been displeasing. On the morrow, these men and women came humbly to the place where Declan was and they told him–what he himself foreknew–how miserably the others had died. They themselves did penance and they bestowed on Declan a suitable site whereon he built a monastery and he got another piece of land and had the dead buried where he built the monastery. The name of that monastery is Cill-Colm-Dearg. This Colm-Dearg was a kind, holy man and a disciple of Declan. He was of East Leinster, i.e. of the Dal Meiscorb, and it is from him that the monastery is named. When he (Declan) had completed that place, he came to his own territory again, i.e. to the Decies.

34. On a certain day Declan came to a place called Ait-Breasail and the dwellers therein would not allow him to enter their village; moreover, they hid all their boats so that he could not go into his own island, for they hated him very much. In consideration however of the sanctity of his servant, who prayed in patience, God the All-Powerful turned the sea into dry land as you have already heard. Declan passed the night in an empty stable out in the plain and the people of the village did not give him even a fire. Whereupon, appropriately the anger of God fell on them, who had not compassion enough to supply the disciple of God with a fire. There came fire from heaven on them to consume them all [together with their] homestead and village, so that the place has been ever since a wilderness accursed, as the prophet writes: “civitates eorum destruxisti” [Psalm 9:7] (the dwellings of the unmerciful are laid waste).

35. On yet another occasion Declan was in his own region—travelling over Slieve Gua in the Decies, when his horse from some cause got lame so that he could proceed no further. Declan however, seeing a herd of deer roaming the mountain close to him, said to one of his people: “Go, and bring me for my chariot one of these deer to replace my horse and take with you this halter for him.” Without any misgiving, the disciple went on till he reached the deer which waited quietly for him. He chose the animal which was largest and therefore strongest, and, bringing him back, yoked him to the chariot. The deer thereupon obediently and without effort carried Bishop Declan till he came to Magh Femhin, where, when he reached a house of entertainment, the saint unloosed the stag and bade him to go free as was his nature. Accordingly, at the command of the saintly man and in the presence of all, the stag returned on the same road back (to the mountain). Dormanach is the name of the man aforesaid who brought the stag to Declan and him Declan blessed and gave him a piece of land on the north of Decies close by the Eoghanacht and his posterity live till now in that place.

36. On another occasion, Declan, accompanied, as usual, by a large following, was travelling, when one member of the party fell on the road and broke his shin bone in twain. Declan saw the accident and, pitying the injured man, he directed an individual of the company to bandage the broken limb so that the sufferer might not die through excess of pain and loss of blood. All replied that they could not endure to dress the wound owing to their horror thereof. But there was one of the company, Daluadh by name, who faced the wound boldly and confidently and said: “In the name of Christ and of Declan our patron I shall be surgeon to this foot”; and he said that jestingly. Nevertheless, he bandaged the foot carefully and blessed it aright in the name of God and Declan, and in a little while the wound healed and they all gave praise to God. Then Declan said to Daluadh: “You promised to be surgeon to that foot in Christ’s name and in mine and God has vouchsafed to heal it at these words: on this account you will be a true physician for ever and your children and your seed after you for ever shall also possess the healing art, and whomsoever they shall practise healing upon in God’s name and mine, provided there be no hatred [in their hearts] nor too great covetousness of a physician’s fee to him, God and myself shall send relief.” This promise of Declan has been fulfilled in the case of that family.

37. On another occasion, as Declan was travelling in the northern part of Magh Femhin beside the Suir, he met there a man who was carrying a little infant to get it baptised. Declan said to the people [his “muinntear,” or following]: “Wait here till I baptise yonder child,” for it was revealed by the Holy Ghost to him that he [the babe] should serve God. The attendant replied to him that they had neither a vessel nor salt for the baptism. Declan said: “We have a wide vessel, the Suir, and God will send us salt, for this child is destined to become holy and wonderful [in his works].” Thereupon Declan took up a fistful of earth and, making prayer in his heart to God, he signed the clay with the sign of the cross of redemption. It (the handful of earth) became white, dry salt, and all, on seeing it, gave thanks and honour to God and Declan. The infant was baptised there and the name of Ciaran given him. Declan said: “Bring up my spiritual son carefully and send him, at a fitting age, for education to a holy man who is well instructed in the faith for he will become a shining bright pillar in the Church.” And it was this child, Ciaran Mac Eochaidh, who founded in after years a famous monastery (from which he migrated to heaven) and another place (monastery) besides. He worked many miracles and holy signs and this is the name of his monastery Tiprut [Tubrid] and this is where it is: in the western part of the Decies in Ui Faithe between Slieve Grot [Galtee] and Sieve Cua and it is within the bishopric of Declan.

38. On another day there came a woman to Declan’s monastery not far from the city where she dwelt. She committed a theft that day in Declan’s monastery as she had often done previously, and this is the thing she stole–a “habellum” [possibly an item of tribute]; she departed homewards taking it with her and there met her a group of people on the highway, and the earth, in their presence, swallowed her up, and she cast out the tabellum from her bosom and it was quickly turned into a stone which the wayfarers took and brought with them to Declan. Declan himself had in supernatural vision seen all that happened to the woman in punishment of her theft, and the name of Declan was magnified owing to those marvels so that fear took possession of all-those present and those absent. The stone in question remains still in Declan’s graveyard in his own town of Ardmore-Declain, where it stands on an elevated place in memory of this miracle.

39. A rich man named Fintan was childless, for his wife was barren for many years. He himself, with his wife, visited Declan and promised large alms and performance of good works provided he (Declan) would pray that they might have children: they held it as certain that if Declan but prayed for them God would grant them children. Declan therefore, praying to God and blessing the pair, said: “Proceed to your home and through God’s bounty you shall have offspring.” The couple returned home, with great joy for the blessing and for the promise of the offspring. The following night, Fintan lay with his wife and she conceived and brought forth twin sons, scil.: Fiacha and Aodh, who, together with their children and descendants were under tribute and service to God and Declan.

40. When it was made known to a certain holy man, Ailbe of Emly Iubar, chief bishop of Munster, that his last days had come, he said to his disciples: “Beloved brethren, I wish, before I die, to visit my very dear fellow worker, Declan.” After this Ailbe set out on the journey and an angel of God came to Declan notifying him that Ailbe was on his way to visit him. On the angel’s notification Declan ordered his disciples to prepare the house for Ailbe’s coming. He himself went to meet Ailbe as far as the place which is called Druim Luctraidh [Luchluachra]. Thence they came home together and Ailbe, treated with great honour by Declan and his people, stayed fourteen pleasant days. After that the aged saint returned home again to his own city. Declan came and many of his people, escorting Ailbe, to Druim Luchtradh, and Ailbe bade him return to his own city. The two knew they should not see one another in this world ever again. In taking leave of one another, therefore, they shed plentiful tears of sorrow and they instituted an everlasting compact and league between their successors in that place. Ailbe moreover blessed the city of Declan, his clergy and people and Declan did the same for Ailbe and they kissed one another in token of love and peace and each returned to his own city.

41. On a certain day the Castle of Cinaedh, King of the Deisi, took fire and it burned violently. It happened however that Declan was proceeding towards the castle on some business and he was grieved to see it burning; he flung towards it the staff to which we have referred in connection with the drying up of the sea, and it (the staff) flew hovering in the air with heavenly wings till it reached the midst of the flame and the fire was immediately extinguished of its own accord through the grace of God and virtue of the staff and of Declan to whom it belonged. The place from which Declan cast the staff was a long mile distant from the castle and when the king, i.e. Cinaedh, and all the others witnessed this miracle they were filled with amazement and gave thanks to God and to Declan when they came to know that it was he who wrought it. Now the place where the castle stands is not far from the Suir, i.e. on the south side of it and the place from which Declan cast the staff is beside a ford which is in the Suir or a stream which flows beside the monastery called Mag Laca [Molough] which the holy virgins, daughters of the king of Decies, have built in honour of God. There is a pile of stones and a cross in the place to commemorate this miracle.

42. On another occasion there approached a foreign fleet towards Declan’s city and this was their design–to destroy and to plunder it of persons and of cattle, because they (the foreigners) were people hostile to the faith. Many members of the community ran with great haste to tell Declan of the fleet which threatened the town and to request him to beg the assistance of God against the invaders. Declan knew the man amongst his own disciples who was holiest and most abounding in grace, scil., Ultan, already mentioned, and him he ordered to pray to God against the fleet. Ultan had pity on the Christian people and he went instantly, at the command of Declan, in front of the fleet and he held his left hand against it, and, on the spot, the sea swallowed them like sacks full of lead, and the drowned sailors were changed into large rocks which stand not far from the mouth of the haven where they are visible (standing) high out of the sea from that time till now. All Christians who witnessed this rejoiced and were glad and they gave great praise and glory to God and to Declan their own patron who caused the working of this miracle and of many other miracles besides. Next there arose a contention between Ultan and Declan concerning this miracle, for Ultan attributed it to Declan and Declan credited it to Ultan; and it has become a proverb since in Ireland when people hear of danger or jeopardy: “The left hand of Ultan against you (the danger).” Ultan became, after the death of Declan, a miracle-working abbot of many other holy monks.

43. The holy and glorious archbishop, i.e. Patrick, sent one of his own followers to Declan with power and authority (delegation) from the archbishop. And proceeding through the southern part of Decies he was drowned in a river [the Lickey] there, two miles from the city of Declan. When Declan heard this, he was grieved and he said: “Indeed it grieves me that a servant of God and of Patrick who sent him to visit me, having travelled all over Ireland, should be drowned in a river of my own territory. Get my chariot for me that I may go in haste to see his corpse, so that Patrick may come to hear of the worry and the grief I have undergone because of his disciple’s death.” The body had been recovered before the arrival of Declan by others who were close at hand and it had been placed on a bier to be carried to Ciaran for interment. Declan however met them on the way, when he ordered the body to be laid down on the ground. They supposed he was about to recite the Office for the Dead. He (Declan) advanced to the place where the bier was and lifted the sheet covering the face. It (the face) looked dark and deformed as is usual in the case of the drowned. He prayed to God and shed tears, but no one heard aught of what he said. After this he commanded:

In the name of the Trinity, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost whose religious yoke I bear myself, arise to us for God has given your life to me.”

He (the dead man) rose up immediately at the command and he greeted Declan and all the others. Whereupon Declan and his disciples received him with honour. At first, he was not completely cured but (was) like one convalescent until (complete) health returned to him by degrees again. He however accompanied Declan and remained some time with him and there was much rejoicing in Declan’s city on account of the miracle and his (Declan’s) name and fame extended over the country generally. This disciple of Patrick was named Ballin; he returned with great joy and he told him (Patrick) that Declan had raised him from the dead. To many others likewise he related what had happened to him. Patrick, in presence of many persons, hearing of the miracle gave glory and thanks to God and the name of Declan was magnified.

44. With this extraordinary miracle wrought by Declan we wish to conclude our discourse. The number of miracles he wrought, but which are not written here, you are to judge and gather from what we have written. And we wish moreover that you would understand that he healed the infirm, that he gave sight to the eyes of the blind, cleansed lepers, and gave “their walk” to cripples; that he obtained hearing for the deaf, and that he healed many and various diseases in many different places throughout Ireland–(things) which are not written here because of their length and because they are so numerous to record, for fear it should tire readers to hear so much said of one particular person. On that account, we shall pass them by.

45. When Declan realised that his last days were at hand and that the time remaining to him was very short he summoned to him his own spiritual son, scil., MacLiag (residing) in the monastery which is on the eastern side of the Decies close to the Leinstermen in order that, at the hour of death, he might receive the Body and Blood of Christ and the Sacraments of the Church from his hands. Thereupon he foretold to his disciples the day of his death and he commanded them to bring him to his own city, for it was not there he dwelt at the time but in a small venerable cell which he had ordered to be built for him between the hill called Ardmore Declain and the ocean–in a narrow place at the brink of the sea by which there flows down from the hill above a small shining stream about which are trees and bushes all around, and it is called Disert Declain. Thence to the city it is a short mile and the reason why Declan used go there was to avoid turmoil and noise so that he might be able to read and pray and fast there. Indeed, it was not easy for him to stay even there because of the multitude of disciples and paupers and pilgrims and beggars who followed him thither. Declan was however generous and very sympathetic and on that account, it is recorded by tradition that a great following (of poor, &c.), generally accompanied him and that moreover the little cell was very dear to him for the reason we have given, and many devout people have made it their practice to dwell therein.

46. When Declan fell ill and became weak in body, but still strong in hope and faith and love of God, he returned to his own city–his people and disciples and clergy surrounding him. He discoursed to them on the commands of God and he enjoined on them to live holily after his death, to be submissive to authority and to follow as closely as possible the way he had marked out and to preserve his city in a state of piety and under religious rule. And when they had all heard the discourse it grieved them greatly to perceive, from what he had said, he realised that in a short time he would go away to heaven from them. But they were consoled by his gentle words and then there came to him the holy man, to wit, MacLiag, at his own request, already referred to. He [Declan] received the Body and Blood of Christ and the Sacraments of the Church from his [MacLiag’s] hand–surrounded by holy men and his disciples, and he blessed his people and his dependents and his poor, and he kissed them in token of love and peace. Thus, having banished images and the sacrifices to idols, having converted multitudes to the true faith, having established monasteries and ecclesiastical orders in various places, having spent his whole life profitably and holily, this glorious bishop went with the angels to heaven on the ninth day of the Kalends of August [July 24] and his body was blessed and honoured with Masses and chanting by holy men and by the people of the Decies and by his own monks and disciples collected from every quarter at the time of his death. He was buried with honour in his own city–in Declan’s High-Place–in the tomb which by direction of an angel he had himself indicated—which moreover has wrought wonders and holy signs from that time to now. He departed to the Unity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost in Saecula Saeculorum; Amen.

FINIS.

The poor brother, Michael O’Clery originally copied this life of Declan in Cashel, from the book of Eochy O’Heffernan. The date, A.D., at which that ancient book of Eochy was written is 1582. And the same life has now been re-written in the Convent of the Friars at Druiske, the date, A.D., 27th February, 1629.

Notitia Dignitatum.

Around 400AD NOTITIA DIGNITATUM (Register of Dignitaries)

REGISTER OF THE DIGNITARIES BOTH CIVIL AND MILITARY, IN THE DISTRICTS OF THE EAST.

V. The Master of The Soldiery In The Presence.

Under the control of the illustrious master of the soldiery in the, presence:
Eighteen palatine auxilia
The senior Batavians,
The junior Brachiati,
The Salians,
The Constantians,
The senior Mattiaci,
The senior Gallican archers,
The junior Gallican archers,
The third Valens’ archers,
The Defenders,
The Ractobarii,
The Anglevarii,
The Hiberi,
The Visi,
The fortunate junior Honorians,
The Victors,
The first Theodosians,
The third Theodosians,
The fortunate Isaurian Theodosians.

I
REGISTER OF THE DIGNITARIES, BOTH CIVIL AND MILITARY,
IN THE DISTRICTS OF THE WEST.

Six vicars: of the city of Rome; of Italy; of Africa; of the Spains; of the Seven Provinces; of the Britains.

Six military counts: of Italy; of Africa; of Tingitania; of the tractus Argentoratensis; of the Britains; of the Saxon shore of Britain.

Thirteen dukes: of the frontier of Mauritania Caesariensis; of the Tripolitan frontier; of Pannonia prima and ripuarian Noricum; of Pannonia secunda; of ripuarian Valeria; of Raetia prima and secunda; of Sequanica; of the Armorican and Nervican tract; of Belgica secunda; of Germania prima; of Britannia; of Mogontiacensis.

Twenty-two consulars:

In the Britains two: of Maxima Caesariensis, of Valentia.
Thirty-one presidents: in the Britains three: of Britannia prima; of Ezitannia secunda; of Flavia Caesariensis.

III. The Pretorian Prefect of The Gauls

Under the control of the illustrious pretorian prefect of the Gauls are the dioceses mentioned below: the Britains.

Of the Britains five: Maxima Caesariensis; Valentia; Britanniaprima; Britannia secunda; Flauia Caesariensis.

V. The Master of Foot in The Presence

Under the control of the illustrious master of foot in the presence:
The counts of the frontiers mentioned below: Italy; Africa; Tingitania; Tractus Argentoratensis; the Britains; the Saxon shore toward the Britains.

The ten dukes of the frontiers mentioned below: Mauretania Caesariensis; Tripolitanus; Pannonia secunda; ripuarian Valeria; Pannonia prima and ripuarian Noricum; Raetia prima and secunda; Belgica, secunda; Germania prima; the Britains; Mogontiacensis.

In the Britains with the worshipful count of the Britains:
[One palatine auxilium *enumeration omitted. One legion of the line. One unclassified body.] Also, squadrons of cavalry:

In Britain with the worshipful count of the Britains.

[Three of the line. *enumeration omitted. Two unclassified.]

XI. The Count of The Sacred Bounties.

Under the control of the illustrious count of the sacred bounties.
The accountant of the general tax of the Britains.
In the Britains: The provost of the storehouses at London.
The procurator of the weaving-house at Winchester Britain.

XXIII. The Vicar of The Britains

Under the control of the worshipful vicar of the Britains:
Consulars: of Maxima Caesariensis, of Valentia.
Presidents: of Britannia prima, of Britannia secunda, of Flavia Caesariensis.

The staff of the same worshipful vicar is as follows:
A chief of staff from the school of confidential agents the first class. A chief deputy.
Two receivers of taxes. A chief clerk. A custodian. A chief assistant. A keeper of the records. Assistants. Secretaries. Notaries, and the rest of the staff. Curator of correspondence.

XXVIII. Comes litoris Saxonici per Britanniam.

Sub dispositione viri spectabilis comitis litoris Saxonici per Britanniam:
Praepositus numeri Fortensium, Othonae.(Bradwell)
Praepositus militum Tungrecanorum, Dubris. (Dover)
Praepositus numeri Turnacensium, Lemannis. (Lymne)
Praepositus equitum Dalmatarum Branodunensium, Branoduno. (Brancaster)
Praepositus equitum stablesianorum Gariannonensium, Gariannonor. (Burgh Castle)
Tribunus cohortis primae Baetasiorum, Regulbio. (Reculver)
Praefectus legionis secundae Augustae, Rutupis. (Richborough)
Praepositus numeri Abulcorum, Anderidos. (Pevensey)
Praepositus numeri exploratorum, Portum Adurni.(Portchester)
Officium autem habet idem uir spectabilis comes hoc modo:
Principem ex officiis magistrorum militum praesentalium parte peditum.
Numerarios duos ut supra ex officio supradicto.
Cornicularium.
Adiutorem.
Subadiuuam.
Regrendarium.
Exceptores.
Singulares et reliquos officiales

XXIX. Comes Britanniae.

Sub dispositione viri spectabilis comitis Britanniarum:
Provincia Britannia.
Officium autem habet idem uir spectabilis comes hoc modo:
Principem ex officiis magistrorum militum praesentalium alternis annis.
Commentariensem ut supra.
Numerarios duos, singulos ex utrisque officiis suprascriptis.
Adiutorem.
Subadiuuam.
Regrendarium.
Exceptores.
Singulares et reliquos officiales

XL. Dux Britanniarum.

Sub dispositione viri spectabilis ducis Britanniarum:
Praefectus legionis sextae. (York)
Praefectus equitum Dalmatarum, Praesidio.
Praefectus equitum Crispianorum, Dano. (Doncaster or Jarrow)
Praefectus equitum catafractariorum, Morbio.
Praefectus numeri barcariorum Tigrisiensium, Arbeia. (South Shields)
Praefectus numeri Neruiorum Dictensium, Dicti. (Wearmouth?)
Praefectus numeri vigilum, Concangios. (Chester-le-Street)
Praefectus numeri exploratorum, Lauatres. (Bowes)
Praefectus numeri directorum, Verteris. (Uerteris) (Brough)
Praefectus numeri defensorum, Barboniaco. (Kirkby Thore)
Praefectus numeri Solensium, Maglone. (Old Carlisle?)
Praefectus numeri Pacensium, Magis. (Burrow Walls?)
Praefectus numeri Longovicanorum, Longovicio. (Lanchester)
Praefectus numeri supervenientium Petueriensium, Deruentione. (Malton)
Item per lineam Valli:
Tribunus cohortis quartae Lingonum, Segeduno. (Wallsend)
Tribunus cohortis primae Cornoviorum, Ponte Aeli. (Newcastle)
Praefectus alae primae Asturum, Conderco. (Benwell)
Tribunus cohortis primae Frixagorum, Vindobala. (Rudchester)
Praefectus alae Sabinianae, Hunno. (Onnum) (Halton Chesters)
Praefectus alae secundae Asturum, Cilurno. (Chesters)
Tribunus cohortis primae Batavorum, Procolitia. (Carrawburgh)
Tribunus cohortis primae Tungrorum, Borcovicio. (Vercovium: Housesteads)
Tribunus cohortis quartae Gallorum, Vindolana. (Chesterholm)
Tribunus cohortis primae Asturum, Aesica. (Great Chesters)
Tribunus cohortis secundae Dalmatarum, Magnis. (Carvoran)
Tribunus cohortis primae Aeliae Dacorum, Amboglanna. (Camboglana)(Castlesteads)
Praefectus alae Petrianae, Petrianis. (Stanwix)
……………………., Luguvallii. (Mistake?)
Praefectus numeri Maurorum Aurelianorum, Aballaba. (Burgh-by-Sands)
Tribunus cohortis secundae Lingonum, Congavata. (Drumburgh)
Tribunus cohortis primae Hispanorum, Axeloduno. (Mais or Maio) (Bowness??)
Tribunus cohortis secundae Thracum, Gabrosenti. (Moresby)
Tribunus cohortis primae Aeliae classicae, Tunnocelo.
Tribunus cohortis primae Morinorum, Glannibanta. (Ravenglass)
Tribunus cohortis tertiae Neruiorum, Alione. (Maryport)
Cuneus Sarmatarum, Bremetenraco. (Ribchester)
Praefectus alae primae Herculeae, Olenaco. (Elslack)
Tribunus cohortis sextae Neruiorum, Virosido. (Brough by Bainbridge)
Officium autem habet idem uir spectabilis dux hoc modo:
Principem ex officiis magistrorum militum praesentalium alternis annis.
Commentariensem ut supra.
Numerarios ex utrisque officiis omni anno.
Adiutorem.
Subadiuuam.
Regrendarium.
Exceptores.
Singulares et reliquos officiales

400 – 410 Stilicho, Germanus, Niall, Honorius.

400 – 410

Honorius Emperor of The West 395-423

St Anastasius 1 Pope 399-401

St Inocent 1 pope 401-417

Liber Britannicus.

It is thus the elders of the Britons have recorded their history, viz., that there were seven Roman emperors who had dominion over Britain. But the Romans say that there were nine of them over the Britons: that is to say, that the eighth was Severus the second, who died as he was going to Rome from the island of Britain. The ninth was Constantine, who was sixteen years in the kingdom of the island of Britain when he died.

Four hundred and nine years were the Britons under Roman tribute. But afterwards the Britons drove out the Roman power, and did not pay them tax or tribute, and they killed all the Roman chiefs that were in the island of Britain.

Immediately, however, the power of the Cruithnians and of the Gaels advanced in the heart of Britain, and they drove them to the river whose name is Tin Tyne. There went afterwards ambassadors from the Britons to the Romans with mourning and great grief, with sods on their heads, and with many costly presents along with them, to pray them not to take vengeance on them for the chiefs of the Romans who were put to death by them. Afterwards Roman chiefs and consuls came back with them, and they promised that they would not the less willingly receive the Roman yoke, however heavy it might be.

Afterwards the Roman knights came, and were appointed princes and kings over the island of Britain, and the army then returned home. Anger and grief seized the Britons from the weight of the Roman yoke and oppression upon them, so that they put to death the chieftains that were with them in the island of Britain, the second time. Hence the power of the Cruithnians and Gaels increased again over the Britons, so that it became heavier than the Roman tribute, because their total expulsion out of their lands was the object aimed at by the northern Cruithnians and Gaels.

After this the Britons went in sorrow and in tears to the Roman senate, and thus we are told they went with their backs foremost for shame; and a great multitude returned with them, i. e. an innumerable army of Romans, and sovereignty and chieftainry was assumed over

them afterwards. But again, the Roman tribute became oppressive to the Britons, so that they slew their kings and chieftains the third time.

Afterwards there came Roman chieftains across the sea, and gained a very great victory over the Britons, so that they vindicated the honour of their people upon them, and they plundered the island of Britain of its gold, and of its silver, and took from it its satin, and its silk, and its vessels of gold and silver, so that they returned home with victory and triumph.

c400 Marcian of Heraclea. (Marcianus Heracleensis).

Periplus Maris Exteri

Of the largest islands and peninsulas, of the first order, the first is the island of Trapobane (Ceylon), forlerly called Palaesimundu but now Salike; the second is Albion of the Brettanic Islands, the third is the Golden Chersonese, the fourth Ivernia of the Brettanic Islands, the fifth the Pelopennese.

Concerning the Pretannic Islands

The Prettanic Islands are two, the one called Albion, the other Ivernia. Albion is much the greater: it lies opposite Gaul, besides Lugdunensis and Belgica, stretching as far as Great Germany. For it is not compact, as other islands are, but as it were disjointed and distended and stretches through the greatest part of the northern ocean, having two very long isthmuses like a sort of feet. Of these the larger stretches to the Cimbric Chersonese, the smaller to Aquitania. the other island Ivernia lies above it, further to the west; it is smaller in size and has the same situation as the aforesaid. Of this then, we shall first describe the peripluc and then go on to the larger island.

Periplus of the Prettanic Island Ivernia.

The Prettanic island of Ivernia is bounded on the north by the Ocean which is called Hyperboreus; on the east by that called Ivernicus; on the west by the Western; and on the south by the Ocean called Veguius. And the whole arrangement of the island is like this..(Lacuna).. The greatest length of the Prettanic island Ivernia, beginning from Notium Promontory and ending at Rhobondium Cape, to give the length of the island, is 170 stades. Its breadth begins at the Sacred Cape and stretches to Rhobogdium Cape, so that the breadth of the island is 1,834 stades. Its capes are distant from the boundaries as follows; its northern cape is distant from the Arctic circle 14,250 stades, its western cape..(lacuna).. from the equator 38,317 stades, its eastern 40,250 stades, its western cape… (lacuna)… from the equator 38,317 stades, its eastern 40,317 from the east. It has 16 peoples, 11 notable cities, 15 notable rivers, 5 notable promontories. The total length of the whole circuit of Ivernia is not more than 9,085 stades, not less than 6,845.

Periplus of the Prettanic Island Albion.

Following on from this we shall now describe the periplus of the island of Albion. The Prettanic island of Albion is bounded on the north by the Ocean called Duecolidonius; (Duecaledonius) on the east by the Oceanus Germanicus; on the west by the Oceanus Ivernicus, beyond which is the island Ivernia, but also the Oceanus Vergivius; and on the south by the Oceanus Prettanicus and the aforementioned regions and peoples of Gaul. And the description of the whole island is like this… (lacuna)… The length of the Prettanic island Albion, beginning from the western boundary at Damnium cape which is also called Okrium and finishing at Taroaedunum headland, which is also called Orkas, the greatest length is 5,225 stades. Its breadth begins at Damnium cape, which is also called Okrium and stretches to the peninsula of the Nevantes and the promontory of the same name, so that its breadth along the longest line is 3,083 stades. It has 33 peoples, 59 notable cities, 40 notable rivers, 14 notable promontories, one notable peninsula, 5 notable gulfs, 3 notable harbours. the total length of the whole cicuit of Albion is not more than 28,604 stades, not less than 20,526.

5th century? Julius Honorius.

Cosmographia

The Western Ocean contains these seas. the sea of the strait of Gades, the sea which they call Orcades, theMare … mades, the Mare Thyle, the sea which they call the Column of Herculse, the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Mare Britannicum, the Adriatic Sea.

What islands there are in the western ocean and how many.

Hibero island. Mevania island. Britannia island. Ebusos island. Balcaris Major island. Balcaris Minor island. Corsica island. Orcades islands. They are nine.

Mountains of which the western ocean contains.

The Pyrenean mountain, the mountain of the Alps, Montes II, the vallum of Britannia. Haemus mountain, rhodope mountain.

Provinces which the western ocean contains …

Britannia

Claudian.

Against Rufinus

There is a place where Gaul stretches her furthermost shore spread out before the waves of Ocean: ’tis there that Ulysses is said to have called up the silent ghosts with a libation of blood. There is heard the mournful weeping of the spirits of the dead as they flit by with faint sound of wings, and the inhabitants see the pale ghosts pass and the shades of the dead. ‘Twas from here the goddess leapt forth, dimmed the sun’s fair beams and clave the sky with horrid howlings. Britain felt the deadly sound, the noise shook the country of the Senones, Tethys stayed her tide, and Rhine let fall his urn and shrank his stream. Thereupon, in the guise of an old man, her serpent locks changed at her desire to snowy hair, her dread cheeks furrowed with many a wrinkle and feigning weariness in her gait she enters the walls of Elusa, in search of the house she had long known so well. Long she stood and gazed with jealous eyes, marvelling at a man worse than herself; then spake she thus: Does ease content thee, Rufinus? Wastest thou in vain the flower of thy youth inglorious thus in thy father’s fields? Thou knowest not what fate and the stars owe thee, what fortune makes ready. So, thou wilt obey me thou shalt be lord of the whole world. Despise not an old man’s feeble limbs: I have the gift of magic and the fire of prophecy is within me. I have learned the incantations wherewith Thessalian witches pull down the bright moon, I know the meaning of the wise Egyptians’ runes, the art whereby the Chaldeans impose their will upon the subject gods, the various saps that flow within trees and the power of deadly herbs; all those that grow on Caucasus rich in poisonous plants, or, to man’s bane, clothe the crags of Scythia; herbs such as cruel Medea gathered and curious Circe. Often in nocturnal rites have I sought to propitiate the dread ghosts and Hecate, and recalled the shades of buried men to live again by my magic: many, too, has my wizardry brought to destruction though the Fates had yet somewhat of their life’s thread to spin. I have caused oaks to walk and the thunderbolt to stay his course, aye, and made rivers reverse their course and flow backwards to their fount. Lest thou perchance think these be but idle boasts behold the change of thine own house.” At these words the white pillars, to his amazement, began to turn into gold and the beams of a sudden to shine with metal.

Claudian.

Against Rufinus Second Poem

At these words an unanimous roar went up from all the companies. With less din are the cliffs of Ceraunia buffeted by the Italian sea or the thunders evoked from the western winds’ wet storm-clouds. They will not separate, and demand the battle of which they have been defrauded. East and west claim the leadership of that illustrious chief. It is a contest of affection; insubordination that none can blame threatens to sap the loyalty of both armies who thus utter their common complaint: “Who is it robs us of our drawn swords? Who strikes the lance from our hand and bids us unstring the bent bow? Who dares dictate to an army under arms? Valour once roused knows no abatement. Spears thirsting for barbarian blood cast themselves from out our hands; our headlong blades force our vengeful arms to follow them; our very scabbards refuse to sheath an unblooded sword. I will not bear it. Shall the Getae ever profit by our dissension? Behold once more the shadow of civil war. Why dost thou seek to separate armies whose blood is one, standards of immemorial alliance? We are a body one and indivisible. Thee will we follow whithersoever thou goest; thee will we accompany even as far as Thule lying icebound beneath the pole-star, or to the burning sands of Libya. Should thy path be by the waters of Ind, or the bays of the Red Sea, I would go drink Hydaspes’ golden stream. Shouldst thou bid me fare south and search out the hidden sources of the stripling Nile, I would leave behind me the world I know. Wheresoever Stilicho plants his tent there is my fatherland.”

Claudian.

On Stilicho’s Consulship (A.D. 400)

Then warlike Gaul, her hair combed back, a rich necklace about her neck, and javelins twain in her hands, thus spake with kindling heart: “Why is his title not yet read in the annals of Rome, who by his own might o’ercame for me the Germans and the Franks? Why is the page of history still ignorant of a name that by now should have been inscribed therein so often? Is, then, bringing peace to the Rhine so light a title to fame?”

Next spake Britain clothed in the skin of some Caledonian beast, her cheeks tattooed, and an azure cloak, rivalling the swell of ocean, sweeping to her feet: “Stilicho gave aid to me also when at the mercy of neighbouring tribes, what time the Scots roused all Hibernia against me and the sea foamed to the beat of hostile oars. Thanks to his care I had no need to fear the Scottish arms or tremble at the Pict, or keep watch along all my coasts for the Saxon who would come whatever wind might blow.”

Then up spake Africa, her hair gay with wheat ears and an ivory comb and her face all sun-burned: “I hoped that after Gildo’s death no obstacle could prevent Stilicho’s acceptance of the consulship. Does he even yet refuse and hesitate to honour with the fasces so great a triumph — he who has enabled me utterly to forget the tearful name of Moor?”

After these came Italy, pliant vine and ivy interlacing on her head, pressing the wine from plentiful ripe grapes. Said she: “If you are thus eager that Stilicho should augment the dignity of the curule chair, you to whom the mere report can bring delight, how much more rightly does a longing p23inspire me to enjoy his presence, to attend him as he mounts his seat and to salute his opening of the new year’s course?”

Mauretania has given ere now her animals to other consuls as a gift, to this consul alone she owes them as a conquered land owes tribute. While we track out the dread progeny of Libya do you hunt the glades and rocks of Europe. Let joy banish fear from the shepherd’s breast and his pipe hymn Stilicho in the dreadless forests. As his laws have given peace to the cities so let his shows give peace to the mountains.”

She spake and straightway is borne from the leafy Alps across the sea. Hinds bow their necks to her chariot’s yoke, hinds whom the dewy moon conceived in her fertile caverns beneath the threshold of the morning sky to be the glory of the goddess. White their skins as driven snow; gold marks their foreheads whence spring branching golden horns lofty as the tallest beech-trees. Opis holds the reins. Lycaste carries the fine-wrought nets and golden snares, and deathless Molossian hounds run barking about the chariot amid the clouds. Five others thus equipped (such were Diana’s orders) hasten this way and that, each at the head of her own company; there follow them dogs of various shape, breed and character; some whose heavy jowls fit them for big game, some swift of foot, some keen of scent; shaggy Cretans bay, splendid Spartans, and Britons that can break the backs of mighty bulls. Britomartis scours the woods of Dalmatia and the precipitous ridges of Pindus, her hair flying in the wind. Thou, Leontodame, surroundest the glades of Gaul and huntest the marshes of Germany, tracking out any huge boar, his tusks flexed with age, that may have taken shelter among the sedges that flank the Rhine. Swift Hecaërge tires the cloud-capped Alps, the valleys of the Apennines, and the snows of Garganus. Thero with her dogs explores the caves of Spain and from their recesses ousts the horrid bears of whose bloody jaws full oft Tagus’ flood has failed to quench the thirst, and whose bodies, numbed with cold, the holm-oak of the Pyrenees o’ershadows with its leaves. The manlike maiden Nebrophone hunts the mountains of Corsica and Sicily and captures deer and other harmless beasts, beasts that are the joy of the rich amphitheatre and the glory of the woods.

Whatsoever inspires fear with its teeth, wonder with its mane, awe with its horns and bristling coat — all the beauty, all the terror of the forest is taken. Guile protects them not; neither strength nor weight avails them; their speed saves not the fleet of foot. Some roar enmeshed in snares; some are thrust into wooden cages and carried off. There are not carpenters enough to fashion the wood; leafy prisons are constructed of unhewn beech and ash. Boats laden with some of the animals traverse seas and rivers; bloodless from terror the rower’s hand is stayed, for the sailor fears the merchandise he carries. Others are transported over land in wagons that block the roads with the long procession, bearing the spoils of the mountains. The wild beast is borne a captive by those troubled cattle on whom in times past he sated his hunger, and each time that the oxen turned and looked at their burden they pull away in terror from the pole.

At last, however, the Alps avenged on the Getae the disgrace of all mountains else and victorious Eridanus that of all other rivers. The event has proved that deep hidden are the ways of destiny. Who would have believed that, once a passage had been forced over the Alps, so much as the shadow of Italy’s name would survive? Did not the awful report of Rome’s fall cross the sea and spread beyond Gaul and over the Pyrenees? Did not Rumour, her sable wing sped on with panic, sweeping all before her in her flight, affright Ocean from Britain’s coast to Gades’ city and far away from our world make distant Thule tremble with the unaccustomed echoes of war?

Claudian.

On Stilicho’s Consulship 401-402

(Part removed)

With this warning Stilicho alike checked the threatened war and won new allies for war, enrolling them at their entreaty and setting such number to their forces as should best suit — neither a burden to Italy nor a terror to its lord.

Then, indeed, at the news of his return, the legions, such love they bore their general, hastened together from every side, and at the sight of Stilicho their courage revived and they broke out into

sobbings and tears of joy. So when a herd of cattle has been scattered throughout some vast forest by the storm’s violence the beasts eagerly make for the sound of the ox-herd’s well-known song or whistle and the pasture of their native vale, guiding their steps in away to his voice and glad faithfully to reply with lowing, while, wherever his tones fall upon their ear, horns show themselves here and there through the dark foliage. First hasten up the neighbouring troops, their loyalty attested by their defence of Raetia and their mass of spoil from Vindelicia; next the legion that had been left to guard Britain, the legion that kept the fierce Scots in check, whose men had scanned the strange devices tattooed on the faces of the dying Picts. Even the legions that faced the flaxen-haired Sygambri, and those who held the Chatti and wild Cherusci in subjection hither turned their threatening arms, leaving the Rhine, whose garrison they had formed, defended by but one thing — the fear of Rome. Will any posterity credit the tale? Germany, once the home of peoples so proud and fierce that former emperors could scarce keep them in check with the whole weight of their armies, now offers herself so willing a follower of Stilicho’s guiding hand that she neither attempts an invasion of the territory exposed to her attack by the removal of its frontier troops nor crosses the stream, too timid to approach an undefended bank.

Greater art thou, Stilicho, than all; thine only rival is Camillus, was arms broke the rash power of Brennus as thine have broken that of Alaric. At a time of dire peril ye both gave the aid of gods; but he too late avenged a captured Rome, thou one still safe. What a reversal of fortune did thy return bring about! A new vigour returned to every part of our empire alike, and the glow of health came back to our suffering cities. A woman, so the story goes, who died to save the life of a loved husband, was recalled to the upper world by the might of Hercules. Diana with the help of Circe’s magic herbs restored to life Hippolytus whom the scorned passion of a stepmother had caused to be torn in pieces. Crete, if the fable be true, saw Glaucus, son of Minos, issue living from the tomb; his body was discovered by the cries of birds to Polyidus, the aged seer, who restored him to life by means of simples; strange indeed was the ruling of fate which apportioned sweet honey as the cause of his death and a hideous serpent as the restorer of his life. But thy return, Stilicho, recalled not one body from the shades but countless peoples sunk in a common death, and snatched whole towns from the jaws of Hell.

That very day Rome rang with the report (though none ever knew its author) that the hero had arrived, and the citizens, assured of Stilicho’s protection, applauded this augury of certain victory. Who could tell of the Emperor’s joy, who of the courtiers’ eager greetings?

Prophecy serves to augment his vain pride. Ah! for the grudging oracles ever dumb with mystic utterance; ’tis the event alone that (too late) discloses the true meaning which the seers themselves could not read. Alaric reached the farthest confines of Liguria where flows a river with the strange name of the City. There he suffered defeat and even then, scarcely realized (though that defeat made it clear) that fate had tricked him with an ambiguous word.

Stilicho, too, fails not: at full speed, he advanced his army clamorous for battle and spurs their march with these words: “Friends of Rome, the time has now come for you to exact vengeance for outraged Italy. Wipe out the disgrace which the investment of your emperor by his foes has brought upon you, and let your swords end the shame which the defeat on the Timavus and the enemy’s passage of the Alps has caused to Rome. This is the foe whom ye so often put to flight on the plains of Greece, whom not their own valour but a world torn by civil strife has kept safe thus far, as they treacherously mock at treaties and traffic in perjury now with the West, now the East. Reflect that all the fierce peoples of Britain and the tribes who dwell on Danube’s and Rhine’s banks are watching and stand ready. Win a victory now and so be conquerors in many an unfought war. Restore Rome to her former glory; the frame of empire is tottering; let your shoulders support it. A single battle and all will be well; but one victory and the world’s peace will be assured. We fight not on the slopes of Thracian Haemus nor await our foe where Maenalus throws his shadow across the banks of Alphaeus. We defend not Tegea nor Argos. No: as ye see, the scene of war is the very centre and heart of Italy. Protect Father Tiber with your shields.” Thus spake Stilicho to foot and horse.

c 415. Orosius

And since the ocean contains the islands which they call Britannia and Hibernia and which are situated on the far side of the Gauls looking towards Spain, they shall be briefly described. Britannia, an island of the ocean, extends in length towards the north; on the south, it has the Gauls. Acess for people crossing to its nearest shore is provided by a city called Rutupi Portus; from here it faces the Manapi and the Batavi, not far from the Morini. The length of this island is 800 miles, its breadth 200 miles. At its back where it faces an unbounded ocean, it has the Orcades islands, of which 20 are uninhabited, 13 inhabited. Then there is the island of Thyle, which is separated from the rest by an infinite distance, lying in the middle of the ocean towards the west-north-west; it is held to be scarcely known to few people. The island of Hibernia stretches beetwen Brittannia and Spain, with its greatest lenghth from south-west to north. Its nearest parts, stretching in the Cantabric ocean, look towards the city of Brigantia (Coruna) in Galaecia which faces them at some considerable distance, especially from the promontory where the river Scena (Shannon) has its mouth and where the Velabri and the Luceni dwell. This island is nearer to Britannia, smaller than it in extent but better favoured in the temperence of its soil and climate: it is inhabited by the peoples of the Scotti. Also, very near this is the island of Mevania, itself not small in extent and with favourable soil. This too is inhabited by the people of the Scotti.

SBG St Germanus.

About the time when the Roman legions were withdrawn from Britain, one Pelagius began to teach his heresy in Rome, Pelagius is usually designated Britto or Britanicus, but his bitter enemy and opponent, Jerome, in two places speaks of him as Irish. He began teaching his doctrine on Original Sin in 400, or thereabouts. He probably sent his books to Britain and to Ireland by his disciple Agricola. Indeed, his commentary on S. Paul seems to have been highly valued in the latter island to a late period, and Pelagius himself to have been regarded, not as a heretic, but as an authority on doctrine.

405. Annals of the Four Masters

After Niall of the Nine Hostages, son of Eochaidh Muighmheadhoin, had been twenty-seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he was slain by Eochaidh, son of Enna Ceinnseallach, at Muir nIcht, i.e. the sea between France and England.

Dindshenchas Ochan

Behold the grave of martial Niall
over the hill-side keen, …, strong
here, by the side of the track of the hosts
he found a cold couch in the soil.

Niall, son of Eochu, whose is the grave,
went seven times swiftly across the main;
he extended the heritage of Conn
till he was slain above the surf of the Ictian sea.

When the grim folk said from the rampart,
“We desire to look on the king that owns us,”
uprose thereupon the prince erect,
the being that was proudest under heaven.

Eochu, that was the name of the man
of the numerous Leinstermen, a hand of venom;
in the side of Niall, the white-shouldered,
he lodged his spear, in presence of the hosts.

Though the Leinsterman achieved yonder,
in concert with the violent grasping Saxons,
the slaying of the king after his great voyage,
strange the wonder that was wrought there.

Whenas trouble or danger came upon them
he would be raised aloft (potent the treasure):
it was a true king’s act after doom of death,
the breaking of seven battles before his face.

A just word spake Niall,
when he was slain on the sea by stealth,
in the spot where Niall’s tomb was built,
that their hostages should be dismissed homeward.

Thereafter they were sent free
over the green stormy sea (wild its warfare)
hostages of the Saxons (they were a great and comely company)
hostages of the Franks, hostages of the Romans from the south.

Westward from Tara came
the warrior band of his warlike powerful retinue:
thence was called, after grief and beating of breasts,
great Ochan of the following of Niall.

There parted in high Ochan
one from another the noblest in rank,
Leinstermen, Munstermen, (he caused them grief)
men of Connaught, men of Ulster, the Fir Lí and Fir Luirg.

A hero united them, who was king;
not weak was his frame in this world:
it was a short space from Niall assembly of waves
till came the blessed Faith of God.

His sons thereafter divided
the island of Art, who was a wonder of a man,
it is to them their hostages shall be brought
so long as clouds shall be round the white sun.

The two Conalls, Eogan in the north,
Fiachu, Cairpre, Mane the gentle,
Enna, who was the rallying-point of the host,
it got Loegaire for king.

The King that brought them under the silence of earth,
woe to him that worships him not in his lifetime!
he divided the Red Sea in two parts,
it was through fear of the Lord’s folk.

The children of the son of Cairenn, who stride through the battlefield,
to whom men were obedient altogether,
against the multitude of young men and horses
none could succour them save the Son of God.

After them came to the East a weapon-loving champion,
Dathi who was headstrong in his day;
not weak was his muster at the meeting-place;
he divided the world in two.

The descendant that is best above the bright-hued soil
of all that sprang from Niall (splendid assembly),
is Colum Cille, who possessed Iona,
the noblest living man that is in the house of God.

The Death of Niall of the Nine Hostages

Once Eochaid the son of Enna Cennselach went from the house of Niall of the Nine Hostages, son of Eochaid Mugmedon, southward to his own land, that is, Leinster. Then it befell that in order to ask for food he went to the house of Niall’s poet. That was Laidcenn, son of Bairchid, the chief-poet of Niall. The young man was refused hospitality by the poet.
The same Eochaid came again from the south, destroyed the stronghold of the poet, and killed his only son, Leat son of Laid cenn. Thereupon for a whole year the poet kept satirizing and lampooning the men of Leinster and cursing them, so that neither grass nor corn grew with them, nor a leaf, to the end of a year.

Then Niall went to Leinster on a raid, and he said that he would not go from them so long as he was alive, or until Eochaid were given him as a pledge and hostage. And this had to be done. So Eochaid was taken to Ath Fadat in Gothart Fea on the bank of the Slaney, and was left there before Niall, with a chain around his neck, and the end of the chain through the hole of a stone pillar. Nine champions advanced towards him to slay him. “Woe”’ said Eochaid, “this is bad indeed!” With that he gave himself a twist, so that the chain broke in two. He seized the iron bolt that was through the chain, and advanced to meet them. He plied the bolt on them so that the nine fell. The other men turned before him down the hill. Those of Leinster pursued them and slaughtered them, so that they fell.
Thereupon Niall came southward once more and reached Inis Fail. “A guarantee shall be given from the men of Leinster,” said Laidcenn, “and let Eochaid come that he may be seen by us at this river for so long as a cow is being milked.”

“Let it be done!” said Bocbaid.

Then his arms were taken away from him. The poet began to revile the men of Leinster and Eochaid, so that they melted away before him. As he was reviling them, Eochaid let fly at him a champion’s stone which he had in his belt, so that it hit the crown of his forehead and lodged in his skull. Thus, it was that Laidcenn was killed. Whence the quatrain was sung:

A champion’s handstone-’tis well known–
was hurled…
Eochaid son of Enna threw it
at Laidcenn the son of Bairchid.

After having raided Leinster, Niall went home, and Eochaid was exiled from Ireland so long as Niall reigned. He wandered until he came to the house of Erc the son of Eochaid Munremur, king of Scotland.

Niall, however, went to obtain kingship as far as Gaul and Italy, and be was called “of the Nine Hostages” because he had five hostages from Ireland, and one hostage each from Scotland and from the Saxons, the Britons and the Franks, whence it is said:

Eochaid’s son of high dignity, noble Niall fiercest shout,
Seized the sway of kingship of Erin and of Alba.
He had a hostage from each province throughout the land of Erin,
He brought to his will without severance four hostages out of Mba.
Hence he was called among the hosts of battlesome warriors,
In the row of bountiful kings, combative Niall of the Nine Hostages.

Now, when they came to the Alps, there was a great river before them, to wit, the Loire of the Alps. They were unable to cross it, and sat down on its banks. As they were there, they saw a single warrior coming towards them. A crimson five-folded cloak was about him. In his hands, he held two five-pronged spears. A bent- rimmed shield with a boss of gold was on him. On his belt hung an ivory-hilted sword. His hair was in plaits over his back. “Welcome to the hero whom we do not know!” said Niall.

“It is for this we have come,” said he.

“What is it for which thou hast come?” said Niall.

“I have come from the Romans to have speech with thee,” said he, “and this day fortnight their hostages will come to thee. Until they come, here am I as a preliminary hostage for thee.”

Others say that their hostages were trysted to the house of Erc son of Eochaid Munremur, the king of Scotland, and that it is there Niall was killed among the bards of the Picts as he was exhibiting his shape to them. Or that it may have been the maidens of the Franks who desired him to exhibit his shape.

Then Erc went towards the assembly. “I shall go with thee,” said Eochaid, “to see my brother in his royal seat before the men of the world.” When they had arrived, Erc said: “That is he yonder!” There was a glen between them. Without the knowledge of Erc, Eochaid shot an arrow from the bow, so that the king fell, dead from that single shot. Thereupon the Franks attacked the Gaels, and the men of Scotland stood by the latter for the sake of their kinship. So, they came to Ireland, carrying the body of their king with them. And seven battles were fought in the presence of the dead king.

It was Torna the poet, of Carrac Luacbra, who had fostered Niall.’ Now, when he heard the report that his foster-son had been slain, his foster-brother Tuirn son of Torna said:
When we used to go to the gathering with the son of Eochaid Mugmedon, As yellow as the primrose was the hair upon the head of Cairenn’s son.

Cairenn the curly-black, daughter of Sachell Balb, king of the Saxons, was the mother of Niall.

Said his foster-mother:

His white teeth, his red lips, …under anger,
His shape like a fiery blaze surmounting warlike Erin.
The hue of his cheeks at all times, even and symmetrical as they were,
Like the foxglove, like a calf’s blood–a feast without a flaw! like the top-branches of a forest in May.

Like the moon, like the sun, like a firebrand was the splendor of Niall,
Like a dragon-ship from the wave without a fault was Niall the son of Eochaid Mugmedon.
This is a yearnful music, the wail of every mouth in Kerry:
It brings grief upon us in our house for the death of Niall grandson of Muircertach.
That great delight, ‘twas great ease to be in the company of my dear foster-son,
When with the son of Eochaid–’twas no small thing! we used to go to the gathering.
They say, however, that grief for Niall carried off Torna.

By a man of Leinster, then, Niall was killed. Whence is said:

Niall, Eochaid’s son, great in fight–
Erin and Scotland are in affliction:
He through whom a swift Saxon arrow
was put by Eochaid, son of glorious Enna.

That is the Death of Niall son of Eochaid, and of Laidcenn son of Bairchid, by the hand of Eochaid son of Enna Cennselach.

Bede.

CHAP. XI.

How during the reign of Honorius, Gratian and Constantine were created tyrants in Britain; and soon after the former was slain in Britain, and the latter in Gaul. [407 A.D.]

IN the year of our Lord 407, Honorius, the younger son of Theodosius, and the forty-fourth from Augustus, being emperor, two years before the invasion of Rome by Alaric, king of the Goths, when the nations of the Alani, Suevi, Vandals, and many others with them, having defeated the Franks and passed the Rhine, ravaged all Gaul, Gratianus, a citizen of the country, was set up as tyrant in Britain and killed. In his place, Constantine, one of the meanest soldiers, only for the hope afforded by his name, and without any worth to recommend him, was chosen emperor. As soon as he had taken upon him the command, he crossed over into Gaul, where being often imposed upon by the barbarians with untrustworthy treaties, he did more harm than good to the Commonwealth. Whereupon Count Constantius, by the command of Honorius, marching into Gaul with an army, besieged him in the city of Arles, took him prisoner, and put him to death. His son Constans, a monk, whom he had created Caesar, was also put to death by his own follower Count Gerontius, at Vienne.

Rome was taken by the Goths, in the year from its foundation, 1164. Then the Romans ceased to rule in Britain, almost 470 years after Caius Julius Caesar came to the island. They dwelt within the rampart, which, as we have mentioned, Severus made across the island, on the south side of it, as the cities, watch-towers, bridges, and paved roads there made testify to this day; but they had a right of dominion over the farther parts of Britain, as also over the islands that are beyond Britain.

407 Sozomenus.

Extracts from the Eclesiastical History.

During this period, many tyrants rebelled against Honorius in the Western government. Some fell upon one another, while others were apprehended in a marvelous way, and so evidenced that the Divine love toward Honorius was not common. The soldiers in Britain were the first to rise up in sedition, and they proclaimed Mark as tyrant. Afterwards, however, they slew Mark, and proclaimed Gratian. Within four months subsequently they killed Gratian, and elected Constantine in his place, imagining that, on account of his name, he would be able to reduce the empire firmly under his authority; and for no other reason than this, several other persons of the same name were elected to the tyranny. Constantine passed over from Britain to Bononia, a maritime city of Gaul; and after inducing all the troops in Gaul and Aquitania to espouse his cause, he reduced to obedience the inhabitants of the regions extending to the mountains which divide Italy from Gaul, and which the Romans have named the Cottian Alps. He then sent his oldest son, Constans, whom he had already nominated Caesar, and whom he afterwards proclaimed emperor, into Spain.

Stilico, perceiving that the ministers of Arcadius were averse to him, intended, by means of the assistance of Alaric, to add to the empire of Honorius all the Illyrian provinces. Having formed a compact with Alaric to this purpose, he expected shortly to put his design in execution. While Alaric waited for his commands, Rhodogaisus, having collected four hundred thousand of the Celts, and the German tribes that dwell beyond the Danube and the Rhine, made the preparations for passing over into Italy. This intelligence, when first communicated, occasioned a general consternation. While the several towns sunk into despondency, and even Rome itself was filled with apprehension of its danger, Stilico took with him all the forces that were stationed at Tick Hum in Liguria, which amounted to about thirty cohorts, and all the auxiliaries that he could procure from the Alani and Huns, and without waiting for the approach of the enemy, crossed the Danube with all his forces. Thus, attacking the Barbarians before they were aware, he completely destroyed their whole forces, none of them escaping, except a few which he added to the Roman auxiliaries; Stilico, as may be supposed, was highly elated by this victory, and led back his army, receiving garlands from the people of every place, for having in so unusual a manner delivered Italy from the dangers which she so much dreaded and expected. He arrived at Ravenna, an ancient city, which is the metropolis of the province of Flaminia, and a Thessalian colony. It is called Rhene, because it is surrounded by water (as the word Rhene imports), and not so named, as Olympiodorus of Thebes relates, from Remus, the brother of Romulus, who founded it; for he must yield in this to Quadratus, who has mentioned this very circumstance in his history of the emperor Marcus. At Ravenna, Stilico being intent on his preparations for attacking the Illyrian towns, and by the aid of Alaric expecting to separate them from Arcadius, and to unite them to the empire of Honorius, two impediments at the same time happened to fall in his way. These were a report that Alaric was dead, and letters from the emperor Honorius at Rome, informing him that Constantine had revolted, and had advanced from the island of Britain into the Transalpine provinces, where he conducted himself in the cities as emperor. The rumour concerning the death of Alaric appeared doubtful, before some persons arrived and assured him of the reality of it. But the report that Constantine had set up for the empire was universally believed. Stilico, being thus prevented from executing his intended expedition against the Illyrians, proceeded to Rome to consult with other persons concerning the present state of affairs.

Thus happened this revolt, or defection of Britain and the Celtic nations, when Constantine usurped the empire, by whose negligent government the barbarians were emboldened to commit such devastations. In the meantime, Alaric, finding that he could not procure a peace on the conditions which he proposed, nor had received any hostages, once more attacked Rome, and threatened to storm it if the citizens refused to join with him against the emperor Honorius. They deferred their answer to this proposal so long, that he besieged the city, and marching to the port, after a resistance of some days, made himself master of it. Finding that all the stores of the city were there, he threatened to distribute them among his men, unless the Romans should accede to his terms. The whole senate having therefore assembled, and having deliberated on what course to follow, complied with all that Alaric required of them. For it would have been impossible to avoid death, since no provisions could be brought from the port to the relief of the city. Accordingly, they received the embassy of Alaric, invited him to their city, and, as he commanded, placed Attalus, the prefect of the city, on an imperial throne, with a purple robe and a crown; who presently declared Lampadius prefect of the court, and Marcianus of the city, and gave the command to Alaric and Valens, who formerly commanded the Dalmatian legions, distributing the other offices in proper order. He then proceeded towards the palace, attended by an imperial guard; although many ill omens occurred in his way. The following day, entering the senate, he made a speech full of arrogance, in which he told them with great ostentation that he would subdue the whole world to the Romans, and even perform greater things than that. For this the gods, perhaps were angry and designed soon afterwards to remove him.

The Romans were therefore filled with joy, having not only acquired other magistrates, well acquainted with the management of affairs, but likewise Tertullus, with whose promotion to the consulship they were exceedingly gratified. None were displeased with these occurrences, which were thought conducive to public advantage, except, only the family of the Anicii; because they alone having got into their hands almost all the money in the city, were grieved at the prosperous state, of affairs. Alaric prudently advised Attalus to send a competent force into Africa and to Carthage, in order to depose Heraclianus from his dignity, lest he, who was attached to Honorius, should obstruct their designs. But Attalus would not listen to his admonitions, being filled with expectations given him by the soothsayers, that he should subdue Carthage and all Africa without fighting, and would not send out Drumas, who, with the barbarians under his command, might easily have turned Heraclianus out of his office. Disregarding the counsels of Alaric, he gave the command of all the troops in Africa to Constantine, yet sent along with him no good soldiers. In the mean time, while the affairs of Africa continued uncertain, he undertook an expedition against the emperor, who was at Ravenna. Upon this, the emperor was so terrified and perplexed, that he sent out ambassadors to propose that the empire should be divided between them. Jovius, whom Attalus had made prefect of the court, replied that Attalus would not leave Honorius so much as the bare title of emperor, nor even an entire body; for that he intended to send him to reside in an island, and to maim him in some of his limbs. Those arrogant expressions excited a general alarm, and Honorius was prepared to fly. When he had for that purpose collected a considerable number of ships into the port at Ravenna, six regiments of auxiliary soldiers arrived there, which were expected when Stilico was living, but did not come from the east until that period; amounting in number to six thousand. At their arrival, Honorius, as if awaked from a deep sleep, confided the defence of the walls to those who were come from the east, and resolved to remain at Ravenna, until he should receive better intelligence of the affairs of Africa. He intended, indeed, if Heraclianus obtained the ascendancy, when all was settled and secure in that quarter, to make war with all his forces against Alaric and Attalus. On the contrary, if his adherents in Africa should be defeated, he meant to sail into the east to Theodosius, with the, ships which he had in readiness, and to relinquish the empire of the west.

While such were the intentions of Honorius, Jovius, who as I before mentioned was sent ambassador to Honorius, began to entertain treasonable designs, being corrupted by Honorius through means of other persons. He therefore declared to the senate, that he would no longer act as an ambassador, and used reproachful expressions before them, telling them that since those whom they had sent info Africa had failed of success, they ought to send over Barbarians against Heraclianus. For Constantine being slain, their hopes from that part of the world were become very precarious. Attalus being enraged, and having employed other persons to superintend the execution of his orders, others were sent into Africa with money, to assist in the present exigencies there. When Alaric understood this, he was displeased at it, and began to despair of the affairs of Attalus, who formed his projects with the most foolish temerity, without either reason or prospect of advantage. Having therefore made these considerations, he resolved to relinquish the siege of Ravenna, although he had before determined to prosecute it until he took the place. To this he had been persuaded by Jovius, who, when he heard that the commander sent in to Africa by Attalus had totally failed in his purpose, applied himself wholly to the affairs of Honorius, and was continually speaking to Alaric to the prejudice of Attalus, with the design of inducing him to believe, that as soon as Attalus should have secured the empire into his own hands, he would concert the death of Alaric, and all his relations. While Alaric continued faithful to the oath which he had given to Attalus, Valens, the commander of the cavalry, was arrested on suspicion of treason. Alaric in the mean time proceeded with his army to all the cities of Aemilia, which had refused to accept Attalus as their sovereign. Some of these he speedily reduced; but having besieged Bononia, which resisted him many days, without being able to take it, he advanced towards Liguria, to compel that country likewise to acknowledge Attalus as its emperor.

407 Procopius.

Now when Alaric was about to depart from Rome, he declared Attalus, one of their nobles, emperor of the Romans, investing him with the diadem and the purple and whatever else pertains to the imperial dignity. And he did this with the intention of removing Honorius from his throne and of giving over the whole power in the West to Attalus. With such a purpose, then, both Attalus and Alaric were going with a great army against Ravenna. But this Attalus was neither able to think wisely himself, nor to be persuaded by one who had wisdom to offer. So while Alaric did not by any means approve the plan, Attalus sent commanders to Libya without an army. Thus, then, were these things going on.

And the island of Britain revolted from the Romans, and the soldiers there chose as their king Constantinus, a man of no mean station. And he straightway gathered a fleet of ships and a formidable army and invaded both Spain and Gaul with a great force, thinking to enslave these countries. But Honorius was holding ships in readiness and waiting to see what would happen in Libya, in order that, if those sent by Attalus were repulsed, he might himself sail for Libya and keep some portion of his own kingdom, while if matters there should go against him, he might reach Theodosius and remain with him. For Arcadius had already died long before, and his son Theodosius, still a very young child, held the power of the East. [408-450 A.D.] But while Honorius was thus anxiously awaiting the outcome of these events and tossed amid the billows of uncertain fortune, it so chanced that some wonderful pieces of good fortune befell him. For God is accustomed to succour those who are neither clever nor able to devise anything of themselves, and to lend them assistance, if they be not wicked, when they are in the last extremity of despair; such a thing, indeed, befell this emperor. For it was suddenly reported from Libya that the commanders of Attalus had been destroyed, and that a host of ships was at hand from Byzantium with a very great number of soldiers who had come to assist him, though he had not expected them, and that Alaric, having quarrelled with Attalus, had stripped him of the emperor’s garb and was now keeping him under guard in the position of a private citizen. [411 A.D.] And afterwards Alaric died of disease, and the army of the Visigoths under the leadership of Adaulphus proceeded into Gaul, and Constantinus, defeated in battle, died with his sons. However, the Romans never succeeded in recovering Britain, but it remained from that time on under tyrants. And the Goths, after making the crossing of the Ister, at first occupied Pannonia, but afterwards, since the emperor gave them the right, they inhabited the country of Thrace. And after spending no great time there they conquered the West. But this will be told in the narrative concerning the Goths.

408? Death of Stilicho.

409 Constantine co emperor.

409 Sozomenus.

Extracts from the Eclesiastical History

In the meantime, Constantine, who still thought that matters would go according to his purpose, caused his son (Constans) to be proclaimed emperor instead of Caesar, and determined to possess himself of Italy. With this view, he crossed the Cottian Alps, and entered Liverona, a city of Liguria. He was on the point of crossing the Po, when he was compelled to retrace his steps, upon being informed of the death of Alavicus. This Alavicus was the commander of the troops of Honorius, and being suspected of conspiring to place the entire Western government under the domination of Constantine, he was slain when returning from a procession, in which, according to custom, it was his office to march in advance of the emperor. Immediately after this occurrence, the emperor descended from horseback, and publicly returned thanks to God for having delivered him from one who had openly conspired against him. Constantine fled and seized Aries, and Constans, his son, hastened from Spain, and sought refuge in the same city.

On the decline of the power of Constantine, the Vandals, Suevi, and Alani eagerly took the Pyrenees when they heard that it was a prosperous and most abundant region. And since those who had been entrusted by Constans with the guard of the passage had neglected their duty, the invaders passed by into Spain.

Zosimus.

The senate, therefore, imagining that Stilico spoke nothing but what was reasonable, decreed that Alaric should receive three thousand pounds of silver in consideration of maintaining peace, although most of them gave their voices more in dread of Stilico than of their own judgment or inclination. For this reason, Lampadius, a person of exalted birth and rank, having uttered this Latin sentence, Non est ista pax, sed pactio servitutis, This is not a peace, but a bond of servitude, he was compelled, as soon as the senate was dismissed, to fly into a neighbouring church, belonging to the Christians, from the fear of being punished for the freedom with which he had expressed himself.

Stilico being therefore filled with anxiety concerning these circumstances, the Barbarians who were with him were very desirous of putting in force their former resolutions, and therefore endeavoured to dissuade him from the measures which he afterwards thought proper to be adopted. But being unable to prevail with him, they all determined to remain in some place until they should be better apprized of the emperor’s sentiments towards Stilico, with the exception of Sarus, who excelled all the other confederates in power and rank, and who, accompanied by the Barbarians under his command, having killed all the Huns who formed the guard of Stilico while they were asleep, and having seized all the carriages that followed him, entered his tent, in which he remained to observe the event. Upon this Stilico, observing that his Barbarians were quarrelling among each other, hastened to Ravenna, and engaged the cities, in which were any women or children belonging to the Barbarians, not to afford reception to any of the Barbarians if they should come to them. In the meantime Olympius, who was now become master of the emperor’s inclination, sent, the imperial mandate to the soldiers at Ravenna, ordering them immediately to apprehend Stilico, and to detain him in prison without fetters. When Stilico heard this, he took refuge in a Christian church that was near, while it was night. His Barbarians and his other familiars, who, with his servants, were all armed, upon seeing this expected what would ensue. When day appeared, the soldiers, entering the church, swore before the bishop, that they were commanded by the emperor not to kill Stilico, but to keep him in custody. Being brought out of the church, and in the custody of the soldiers, other letters were delivered by the person who brought the first, in which the punishment of death was denounced against Stilico, for his crimes against the commonwealth. Thus, while Eucherius, his son, fled towards Rome, Stilico was led to execution. The Barbarians who attended him, with his servants and other friends and relations, of whom there was a vast number, preparing and resolving to rescue him from the stroke, Stilico deterred them from the attempt by all imaginable menaces, and calmly submitted his neck to the sword. He was the most moderate and just of all the men who possessed great authority in his time. For although he was married to the niece of the first Theodosius, was entrusted with the empires of both his sons, and had been a commander twenty-three years, yet he never conferred military rank for money, or convreted the stipend of the soldiers to his own use. Being the father of one only son, he offered to him the office of tribune of the Notarii, and limited him neither to desire nor attempt obtaining any other office or authority. In order that no studious person, or astrologers, maybe ignorant of the time of his death, I shall relate, that it happened in the consulship of Bassus and Philippus, during which the emperor Arcadius submitted to fate, on the twenty-second day of August.

The soldiers who were in the city, on hearing of the death of Stilico, fell upon all the women and children in the city, who belonged to the Barbarians. Having, as by a preconcerted signal, destroyed every individual of them, they plundered them of all they possessed. When this was known to the relations of those who were murdered, they assembled together from all quarters. Being highly incensed against the Romans for so impious a breach of the promises they had made in the presence of the gods, they all resolved to join with Alaric, and to assist him in a war against Rome. Having therefore collected to the number of thirty thousand men, they fixed themselves in whatever place they pleased.

Alaric having thus received insult in return for his reasonable demands, hastened towards Rome with all his forces, designing closely to besiege that city. At the same time Jovius, a man of great learning and virtue, came to Honorius as ambassador from Constantine, who had usurped the government of Gallia Celtica, desiring a confirmation of the peace which had formerly been agreed on, and requesting pardon for the death of Verenianus and Didymius, who were relations of the emperor Honorius. He pleaded in excuse, that they were not killed with the concurrence of Constantine. Finding Honorius in great perplexity, he told him that it was convenient to him to make some concessions, since he was so much embarrassed with the affairs of Italy, and that if be would suffer him to go back to Constantine to inform him of the circumstances in which Italy then stood, he would shortly return with all the forces in Celtica, Spain, and Britain, to the relief of Italy and Rome. On these conditions Jovius was permitted to depart.

Since I have not given a relation of the occurrences in Celtica, it would here be proper to notice what had previously taken place there. When Arcadius was reigning, Honorius being consul the seventh time and Theodosius the second, the troops in Britain revolted and promoted Marcus to the imperial throne, rendering obedience to him as the sovereign in those countries. Some time subsequently, having put him to death for not complying with their inclinations, they set up Gratian, whom they presented with a diadem and a purple robe, and attended him as an emperor. Being disgusted with him likewise, they four months afterwards deposed and murdered him, delivering the empire to Constantine. He, having entrusted to Justinian and Nevigastes the command of the Celtic legions, crossed over from Britain. Having arrived at Bononia, which is the nearest to the sea-side, situated in the lower Germany, and continuing there some days, he conciliated the attachment of all the troops between that place and the Alps, which separate Gaul from Italy, thus appearing now secure in the empire. At the same time Stilico sent Sarus at the head of an army against Constantine. Having encountered with the division commanded by Justinian, he slew that general with the greaterpart of his soldiers. Having acquired great spoils he advanced to besiege Valentia, where he understood that Constantine had placed himself, it being a strong city, well fortified and a secure residence. Nevigastes, the surviving commander, having made overtures of peace to Sarus, was received by him as a friend. But Sarus, although he had both given and received an oath to the contrary, immediately put him to death, without regard to what he had sworn.

Constantine then conferred the command, vacant by the death of Justinian and Nevigastes, on Edobinchus, a Frank by extraction, but a native of Britain, and on Gerontius, a Briton. Sarus, being in dread of the courage and the military experience of these two, raised the siege of Valentia after he had continued in it seven days. The officers of Constantine attacked him so briskly, that he had much difficulty to escape with life, and was under the necessity of giving up all his spoils to the Bacaudae, a tribe of freebooters, to allow him to pass into Italy. When Sarus was thus safely returned to Italy, Constantine, having mustered all his forces, resolved to place a sufficient guard on the Alps in the three passes, which form the passage from Italy into Celtica, commonly termed the Cottian, the Pennine, and the maritime Alps. This was the reason for his taking these precautions. Some years before, Arcadius being in his sixth consulate, and Probus was his colleague, the Vandals, uniting with the Alani and the Suevi, crossed in these places, and plundered the countries beyond the Alps.

Having there occasioned great slaughter, they likewise became so formidable even to the armies in Britain, that they were compelled, through fear of their proceeding as far as that country, to choose several usurpers, as Marcus, Gratian, and after them Constantine. A furious engagement ensued between then), in which the Romans gained the victory, and killed most of the barbarians. Yet by not pursuing those who tied, by which means they might have put to death every man, they gave them opportunity to rally, and by collecting an additional number of barbarians, to assume once more a fighting posture. For this cause, Constantine placed guards in these places, that those tribes should not have so free access into Gaul. He likewise secured the Rhine, which had been neglected since the time of the emperor Julian.

Having thus arranged affairs throughout all Gaul, he decorated his eldest son, Constans, with the habit of a Caesar, and sent him into Spain. For he wished to obtain the absolute sovereignty of that country, not only through the desire of enlarging his own dominions, but of diminishing the power of the relations of Honorius. He was apprehensive, lest when they had collected together an army of the soldiers who were in that quarter, they might on some occasion cross the Pyrenaean mountains and attack him, while Honorius might send an army from Italy, and by surrounding him on every side, depose him from his throne. Constans therefore went into Spain, having with him Terentius as his general, and Apollinarius as prefect of his court. Having appointed all the officers, both civil and military, he sent his army under their conduct against the relations of the emperor Honorius, who had thrown all Spain into a state of disturbance. These having commenced the first assault against Constans with their Lusitanian soldiers, and finding themselves overpowered, collected an immense number of slaves and peasants, by whose assistance they had nearly reduced him to the most precarious clanger. But even in this emergency their expectations were frustrated, but they with their wives fell into the hands of Constans. This disaster being made known to their brothers, Theodosius and Lagodius, one of them fled into Italy, and the other safely escaped to to the east. After these achievements in Spain, Constans returned to his father, carrying with him Verenianus and Didymius, and leaving there his general Gerontius with the Gallic troops to guard the pass from Celtica into Spain; although the Spanish soldiers desired that charge to be confided to them, as had formerly been the case, and that the safety of their country might not be committed to the care of strangers. Verenianus and Didymius, being brought to Constantine, were immediately put to death.

Constans was afterwards a second time sent into Spain, and took with him Justus as his general. Gerontius being dissatisfied at this, and having conciliated the favour of the soldiers in that quarter, incited the barbarians who were in Gallia Celtica to revolt against Constantine. Constantine being unable to withstand these, the greater part of his army being in Spain, the barbarians beyond the Rhine made such unbounded incursions over every province, as to reduce not only the Britons, but some of the Celtic nations also to the necessity of revolting from the empire, and living no longer under the Roman laws but as they themselves pleased. The Britons therefore took up arms, and incurred many dangerous enterprises for their own protection, until they had freed their cities from the barbarians who besieged them. In a similiar manner, the whole of Armorica, with other provinces of Gaul, delivered themselves by the same means; expelling the Roman magistrates or officers, and erecting a government, such as they pleased, of their own.

409. St Jerome.

Letter CXXIII to Ageruchia

I shall now say a few words of our present miseries. A few of us have hitherto survived them, but this is due not to anything we have done ourselves but to the mercy of the Lord. Savage tribes in countless numbers have over run all parts of Gaul. The whole country between the Alps and the Pyrenees, between the Rhine and the Ocean, has been laid waste by hordes of Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids, Herules, Saxons, Burgundians, Allemanni and—alas! for the commonweal!—even Pannonians. For “Assur also is joined with them.” The once noble city of Moguntiacum Now Maintz. has been captured and destroyed. In its church many thousands have been massacred. The people of Vangium Now Worms, after standing a long siege have been extirpated. The powerful city of Rheims, the Ambiani, the Atrebatæ, Tribes whose memories linger in the names Amiens and Arras. the Belgians on the skirts of the world, Tournay, Spires, and Strasburg have fallen to Germany: while the provinces of Aquitaine and of the Nine Nations, of Lyons and of Narbonne are with the exception of a few cities one universal scene of desolation. And those which the sword spares without, famine ravages within. I cannot speak without tears of Toulouse which has been kept from falling hitherto by the merits of its reverend bishop Exuperius. Even the Spains are on the brink of ruin and tremble daily as they recall the invasion of the Cymry; and, while others suffer misfortunes once in actual fact, they suffer them continually in anticipation. I say nothing of other places that I may not seem to despair of God’s mercy. All that is ours now from the Pontic Sea to the Julian Alps in days gone by once ceased to be ours. For thirty years the barbarians burst the barrier of the Danube and fought in the heart of the Roman Empire. Long use dried our tears. For all but a few old people had been born either in captivity or during a blockade, and consequently they did not miss a liberty which they had never known. Yet who will hereafter credit the fact or what histories will seriously discuss it, that Rome has to fight within her own borders not for glory but for bare life; and that she does not even fight but buys the right to exist by giving gold and sacrificing all her substance? This humiliation has been brought upon her not by the fault of her Emperors Arcadius and Honorius. who are both most religious men, but by the crime of a half-barbarian traitor Stilicho who induced the senate to grant a subsidy to the Gothic King Alaric. who with our money has armed our foes against us. This, one of Jerome’s few criticisms on the public policy of his day, shows him to have taken a narrow and inadequate view of the issues involved.
Of old the Roman Empire was branded with eternal shame because after ravaging the country and routing the Romans at the Allia, Brennus with his Gauls entered Rome itself. (In the year 390 b.c). Nor could this ancient stain be wiped out until Gaul, the birth-place of the Gauls, and Gaulish Greece, i.e. Galatia. wherein they had settled after triumphing over East and West, were subjugated to her sway. Even Hannibal, the great Carthaginian general in the second Punic war. who swept like a devastating storm from Spain into Italy, although he came within sight of the city, did not dare to lay siege to it. Even Pyrrhus, King of Epirus who invaded Italy in the years 280, 279, 276, 275 b.c. was so completely bound by the spell of the Roman name that destroying everything that came in his way, he yet withdrew from its vicinity and, victor though he was, did not presume to gaze upon what he had learned to be a city of kings. Yet in return for such insults—not to say such haughty pride—as theirs which ended thus happily for Rome, one Hannibal banished from all the world found death at last by poison in Bithynia; while the other Pyrrhus returning to his native land was slain in his own dominions. The countries of both became tributary to the Roman people. But now, even if complete success attends our arms, we can wrest nothing from our vanquished foes but what we have already lost to them. The poet Lucan describing the power of the city in a glowing passage says:

If Rome be weak, where shall we look for strength?

we may vary his words and say:

If Rome be lost, where shall we look for help?

or quote the language of Virgil:

Had I a hundred tongues and throat of bronze

The woes of captives I could not relate

Or ev’n recount the names of all the slain

Jordanes.

But as I was saying, when the army of the Visigoths had come into the neighborhood of this city, they sent an embassy to the Emperor Honorius, who dwelt within. They said that if he would permit the Goths to settle peaceably in Italy, they would so live with the Roman people that men might believe them both to be of one race; but if not, whoever prevailed in war should drive out the other, and the victor should henceforth rule unmolested. But the Emperor Honorius feared to make either promise. So, he took counsel with his Senate and considered how he might drive them from the Italian borders. He finally decided that Alaric and his race, if they were able to do so, should be allowed to seize for their own home the provinces farthest away, namely, Gaul and Spain. For at this time he had almost lost them, and moreover they had been devastated by the invasion of Gaiseric, king of the Vandals. The grant was confirmed by an imperial rescript, and the Goths, consenting to the arrangement, set out for the country given them.

409 King Alfred.

Book VI Chap XXX

In those days Constantine (the most benevolent of men) went into Brytannie, and dying there, gave his son Constantine (whom he had by his wife Elena) that kingdom.

409 or 410 Chronica Gallia a CCCCLII,

Honorius, 16th year: the Britains were devastated by an incursion of the Saxons.

Bede

CHAP. XII.

How the Britons, being ravaged by the Scots and Picts, sought succour from the Romans, who coming a second time, built a wall across the island; but when this was broken down at once by the aforesaid enemies, they were reduced to greater distress than before. [410-420 AD]

FROM that time, the British part of Britain, destitute of armed soldiers, of all military stores, and of the whole flower of its active youth, who had been led away by the rashness of the tyrants never to return, was wholly exposed to rapine, the people being altogether ignorant of the use of weapons. Whereupon they suffered many years from the sudden invasions of two very savage nations from beyond the sea, the Scots from the west, and the Picts from the north. We call these nations from beyond the sea, not on account of their being seated out of Britain, but because they were separated from that part of it which was possessed by the Britons, two broad and long inlets of the sea lying between them, one of which runs into the interior of Britain, from the Eastern Sea, and the other from the Western, though they do not reach so far as to touch one another. The eastern has in the midst of it the city Giudi. On the Western Sea, that is, on its right shore, stands the city of Alcluith, which in their language signifies the Rock Cluith, for it is close by the river of that name.

On account of the attacks of these nations, the Britons sent messengers to Rome with letters piteously praying for succour, and promising perpetual subjection, provided that the impending enemy should be driven away. An armed legion was immediately sent them, which, arriving in the island, and engaging the enemy, slew a great multitude of them, drove the rest out of the territories of their allies, and having in the meanwhile delivered them from their worst distress, advised them to build a wall between the two seas across the island, that it might secure them by keeping off the enemy. So, they returned home with great triumph. But the islanders building the wall which they had been told to raise, not of stone, since they had no workmen capable of such a work, but of sods, made it of no use. Nevertheless, they carried it for many miles between the two bays or inlets of the sea of which we have spoken; to the end that where the protection of the water was wanting, they might use the rampart to defend their borders from the irruptions of the enemies. Of the work there erected, that is, of a rampart of great breadth and height, there are evident remains to be seen at this day. It begins at about two miles distance from the monastery of Aebbercurnig, west of it, at a place called in the Pictish language Peanfahel, but in the English tongue, Penneltun, and running westward, ends near the city of Aicluith.

But the former enemies, when they perceived that the Roman soldiers were gone, immediately coming by sea, broke into the borders, trampled and overran all places, and like men mowing ripe corn, bore down all before them. Hereupon messengers were again sent to Rome miserably imploring aid, lest their wretched country should be utterly blotted out, and the name of a Roman province, so long renowned among them, overthrown by the cruelties of foreign races, might become utterly contemptible. A legion was accordingly sent again, and, arriving unexpectedly in autumn, made great slaughter of the enemy, obliging all those that could escape, to flee beyond the sea; whereas before, they were wont yearly to carry off their booty without any opposition. Then the Romans declared to the Britons, that they could not for the future undertake such troublesome expeditions for their sake, and advised them rather to take up arms and make an effort to engage their enemies, who could not prove too powerful for them, unless they themselves were enervated by cowardice. Moreover, thinking that it might be some help to the allies, whom they were forced to abandon, they constructed a strong stone wall from sea to sea, in a straight line between the towns that had been there built for fear of the enemy, where Severus also had formerly built a rampart. This famous wall, which is still to be seen, was raised at public and private expense, the Britons also lending their assistance. It is eight feet in breadth, and twelve in height, in a straight line from east to west, as is still evident to beholders. This being presently finished, they gave the dispirited people good advice, and showed them how to furnish themselves with arms. Besides, they built towers to command a view of the sea, at intervals, on the southern coast, where their ships lay, because there also the invasions of the barbarians were apprehended, and so took leave of their allies, never to return again.

After their departure to their own country, the Scots and Picts, understanding that they had refused to return, at once came back, and growing more confident than they had been before, occupied all the northern and farthest part of the island, driving out the natives, as far as the wall. Hereupon a timorous guard was placed upon the fortification, where, dazed with fear, they became ever more dispirited day by day. On the other side, the enemy constantly attacked them with barbed weapons, by which the cowardly defenders were dragged in piteous fashion from the wall, and dashed against the ground. At last, the Britons, forsaking their cities and wall, took to flight and were scattered. The enemy pursued, and forthwith followed a massacre more grievous than ever before; for the wretched natives were torn in pieces by their enemies, as lambs are torn by wild beasts. Thus, being expelled from their dwellings and lands, they saved themselves from the immediate danger of starvation by robbing and plundering one another, adding to the calamities inflicted by the enemy their own domestic broils, till the whole country was left destitute of food except such as could be procured in the chase.

410. St Augustine.

City of God. Book XV chapter 23.

For it is written, Who makes His angels spirits, that is, He makes those who are by nature spirits His angels by appointing them to the duty of bearing His messages. For the Greek word ἄγγελος, which in Latin appears as angelus, means a messenger. But whether the Psalmist speaks of their bodies when he adds, and His ministers a flaming fire, or means that God’s ministers ought to blaze with love as with a spiritual fire, is doubtful. However, the same trustworthy Scripture testifies that angels have appeared to men in such bodies as could not only be seen, but also touched. There is, too, a very general rumor, which many have verified by their own experience, or which trustworthy persons who have heard the experience of others corroborate, that sylvans and fauns, who are commonly called incubi, had often made wicked assaults upon women, and satisfied their lust upon them; and that certain devils, called Duses by the Gauls, are constantly attempting and effecting this impurity is so generally affirmed, that it was impudent to deny it. From these assertions, indeed, I dare not determine whether there be some spirits embodied in an aerial substance (for this element, even when agitated by a fan, is sensibly felt by the body), and who are capable of lust and of mingling sensibly with women; but certainly I could by no means beleive that God’s holy angels could at that time have so fallen, nor can I think that it is of them the Apostle Peter said, For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment. I think he rather speaks of these who first apostatized from God, along with their chief the devil, who enviously deceived the first man under the form of a serpent. But the same holy Scripture affords the most ample testimony that even godly men have been called angels; for of John it is written: Behold, I send my messenger (angel) before Your face, who shall prepare Your way. And the prophet Malachi, by a peculiar grace specially communicated to him, was called an angel.

But some are moved by the fact that we have read that the fruit of the connection between those who are called angels of God and the women they loved were not men like our own breed, but giants; just as if there were not born even in our own time (as I have mentioned above) men of much greater size than the ordinary stature. Was there not at Rome a few years ago, when the destruction of the city now accomplished by the Goths was drawing near, a women, with her father and mother, who by her gigantic size over-topped all others? Surprising crowds from all quarters came to see her, and that which struck them most was the circumstance that neither of her parents were quite up to the tallest ordinary stature. Giants therefore might well be born, even before the sons of God, who are also called angels of God, formed a connection with the daughters of men, or of those living according to men, that is to say, before the sons of Seth formed a connection with the daughters of Cain. For thus speaks even the canonical Scripture itself in the book in which we read of this; its words are: And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair [good]; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became the giants, men of renown. These words of the divine book sufficiently indicate that already there were giants in the earth in those days, in which the sons of God took wives of the children of men, when they loved them because they were good, that is, fair. For it is the custom of this Scripture to call those who are beautiful in appearance good. But after this connection had been formed, then too were giants born. For the words are: There were giants in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men. Therefore, there were giants both before, in those days, and also after that. And the words, they bare children to them, show plainly enough that before the sons of God fell in this fashion they begat children to God, not to themselves—that is to say, not moved by the lust of sexual intercourse, but discharging the duty of propagation, intending to produce not a family to gratify their own pride, but citizens to people the city of God; and to these they as God’s angels would bear the message, that they should place their hope in God, like him who was born of Seth, the son of resurrection, and who hoped to call on the name of the Lord God, in which hope they and their offspring would be co-heirs of eternal blessings, and brethren in the family of which God is the Father.

Liber Britannicus.

Now Rome was destroyed afterwards in the thousandth one hundredth and lxiv.th year from its foundation. That was the end of the Roman dominion over the island of Britain, after cccclxx. years from the time when Juil took the island of Britain. The Romans extinguished it as to its military power, and there were left in it no warriors nor men of learning, and the Romans carried them off, and would not suffer them to return.

It was then that the Gaedhels and the Cruithnians, two border tribes, took captives and spoil.

There went ambassadors from the Britons with presents along with them, to the Romans, to seek relief; and there came to them a valiant army across the island, who attacked the Cruithnians and

Gaedhels; and they returned to their home then. Immediately the enemy came, and mowed down the Britons like a ripe corn field.

The ambassadors were sent again, and a legion came to the assistance of the Britons, and fought against the enemies of the Britons, and the ditch which the second Severus made was repaired by them; it was of stones this time, i. e. seven feet broad and twelve high from sea to sea; of sods they found it, and they fortified it so that they might not be required to come again to assist them; and they departed.

When the Gaedhels and the Cruithnians heard this, they came upon them (i.e. upon the Britons) as wolves upon sheep.

Gildas.

The Roman legion had no sooner returned home in joy and triumph, than their former foes, like hungry and ravening wolves, rushing with greedy jaws upon the fold which is left without a shepherd, and wafted both by the strength of oarsmen and the blowing wind, break through the boundaries, and spread slaughter on every side, and like mowers cutting down the ripe corn, they cut up, tread under foot, and overrun the whole country.

And now again they send suppliant ambassadors, with their garments rent and their heads covered with ashes, imploring assistance from the Romans, and like timorous chickens, crowding under the protecting wings of their parents, that their wretched country might not altogether be destroyed, and that the Roman name, which now was but an empty sound to fill the ear, might not become a reproach even to distant nations. Upon this, the Romans, moved with compassion, as far as human nature can be, at the relations of such horrors, send forward, like eagles in their flight, their unexpected bands of cavalry by land and mariners by sea, and planting their terrible swords upon the shoulders of their enemies, they mow them down like leaves which fall at the destined period; and as a mountain-torrent swelled with numerous streams, and bursting its banks with roaring noise, with foaming crest and yeasty wave rising to the stars, by whose eddying currents our eyes are as it were dazzled, does with one of its billows overwhelm every obstacle in its way, so did our illustrious defenders vigorously drive our enemies’ band beyond the sea, if any could so escape them; for it was beyond those same seas that they transported, year after year, the plunder which they had gained, no one daring to resist them.

The Romans, therefore, left the country, giving notice that they could no longer be harassed by such laborious expeditions, nor suffer the Roman standards, with so large and brave an army, to be worn out by sea and land by fighting against these unwarlike, plundering vagabonds; but that the islanders, inuring themselves to warlike weapons, and bravely fighting, should valiantly protect their country, their property, wives and children, and, what is dearer than these, their liberty and lives; that they should not suffer their hands to be tied behind their backs by a nation which, unless they were enervated by idleness and sloth, was not more powerful than themselves, but that they should arm those hands with buckler, sword, and spear, ready for the field of battle; and, because they thought this also of advantage to the people they were about to leave, they, with the help of the miserable natives, built a wall different from the former, by public and private contributions, and of the same structure as walls generally, extending in a straight line from sea to sea, between some cities, which, from fear of their enemies, had there by chance been built. They then give energetic counsel to the timorous natives, and leave them patterns by which to manufacture arms. Moreover, on the south coast where their vessels lay, as there was some apprehension lest the barbarians might land, they erected towers at stated intervals, commanding a prospect of the sea; and then left the island never to return.

410. Zosimus.

Honorius, having sent letters to the cities of Britain, counselling them to be watchful of their own security, and having rewarded his soldiers with the money sent by Heraclianus, lived with all imaginable ease, since he had acquired the attachment of the soldiers in all places. Heraclianus having guarded all the ports of Africa in the strictest manner, that neither corn nor oil, nor any other provision, should be conveyed to the port of Rome, the city sustained a famine more grievious than the former. The venders of provisions likewise concealed all their goods, in hope of gaining considerable profit, by fixing on their commodities what price they pleased. By these means the city was reduced to such extremities, that some persons, as if they wished that human flesh might be eaten, cried out in the Hippodrome, “Fix a certain price on human flesh.”

On this occasion Attalus went to Rome, and convened the senate. After some debate, most of them were of opinion that the Barbarians and the Roman soldiers ought to be sent into Africa, and that Drumas should be their commander, he being a person who had already given proofs of his fidelity and good will. Only Attalus and a few more dissented from the majority of the senate, he being unwilling to send out a Barbarian as commander of a Roman army. This was the first time that Alaric formed a design against Attalus to depose him or deprive him of life; although Jovius had previously instigated him to it by incessant calumnies, and false accusations. In order therefore to put his design in execution, he led Attalus out before the city of Ariminum, where he then resided, and stripping him of his diadem and purple robe, sent them to the emperor Honorius. But although he reduced Attalus to the condition of a private individual before all the people, he kept him and his son Ampelius at his own house, until he had made peace with Honorius, when he procured their pardon. Placida, the emperor’s sister, was also with Alaric, in the quality of a hostage, but received all the honour and attendance due to a princess.

Such was the state of Italy, while Constantine gave a diadem to his son Constans, and from a Caesar raised him to an emperor; after having deprived Apollinarius of his office, and appointed another person prefect of the court in his room. In the meantime, Alaric proceeded to Ravenna to confirm the peace with Honorius; but fortune invented another obstacle beyond all expectation, and as it were pointed out what should befal the commonwealth. For while Sarus was stationed with a few Barbarians in Picenum, and joined neither with the emperor nor with Alaric, Ataulphus, who had an animosity against him on the ground of some former difference, came with his whole army to the place where Sarus happened to be. As soon as Sarus perceived him approaching, finding himself not able to centend with him, as he had only three hundred men, he resolved to fly to Honorius, and assist him in the war against Alaric.

410. Baptista Egnatius.

Alaric had besieged Rome for two years successively, and Honorius, who then lay idly at Ravenna, had neither resolution nor power to relieve it. For being in nothing more unconcerned than in the safety of the city after the death of Stilico, he had appointed no person to command the army, and manage the war against the Goths. This determined the Goths on besieging the city, perceiving that the Roman soldiers were either fled or very negligent of their duty, the Barbarians having long endeavoured in vain, and being unable to take it by assault, were obliged to have recourse to stratagem. They pretended to return into their own country, and selected three hundred young men of great strength and courage, whom they bestowed on the Roman nobility as a present, having previously instructed them to oblige their masters by all possible observance, and on a certain day appointed, about noon, when the nobility were either asleep or otherwise unmindful of business, to meet suddenly at the gate called Porta Avinaria, where having surprised and killed the guards, they should open the gate for those who would be there in waiting. Meanwhile the Goths delayed their return home, under pretence of still wanting something, until the three hundred youths, making a good use of their opportunity, opened the gate to their countrymen. The Goths, on being admitted, immediately began to plunder the city, although they committed more dishonour than mischief to the citizens. It is the opinion of some, that the gate was opened by the contrivance of Proba, a lady of great rank and wealth, who compassionated the people of Rome, who were dying of famine and of several distempers, like sheep. There are two circumstances relative to this occasion worthy of being noticed. The one is, that an edict was made by Alaric, that whoever took refuge in the churches of saints, especially in those of Peter and Paul, should receive no injury; which was accordingly observed with great care. The other was, that when Honorius received intelligence at Ravenna that Rome (Roma) was destroyed, he understood by it a certain strong Gaul, whose name was Roma, and thought it very remarkable that he should so soon be cut off, with whom a little before he had so diverted himself.

Pelagius Letter to Demetrias

Circa 415 PELAGIUS, EPISTLE TO DEMETRIAS (Epistola ad Demetriadem, )

From The Letters of Pelagius, edited by Robert Van de Wever.

Published by Little Giddings Books.

Even if I were able to write with elegance and fluency, I would still feel that the present task was beyond my capacities. I must write to Demetrias, a woman who has kept herself a virgin for the sake of Christ. She is noble and rich, and yet she spurns nobility and riches. I can easily praise such a person, but I have no right to instruct her, since her moral qualities are manifestly superior to my own. She was born in the very highest station; she grew up surrounded by wealth and luxury; the pleasures of this life seemed to bind her like the strongest of chains. Yet suddenly she broke free, exchanging her material goods for spiritual goodness. With the sword of faith, she cut herself off from all earthly privilege. With the nails which pinned Christ on the cross she crucified her own flesh for his sake. Not only did she choose to live without wealth, but she renounced the right to inherit wealth when her parents died; she left herself no possibility of escape.

Demetrias is so eager to learn the way of perfection that no words of mine could meet her needs: almost as soon as I offer some new instruction, she has surpassed it. She is well aware of the wealth and honour she has spurned, the pleasures she has rejected, the privileges she has renounced; so, she wants spiritual wealth and honour of even greater proportions. Compared with her desire, my life is very mediocre; compared with the divine riches to which she aspires, my teaching is cheap and shabby. She wants her love for God to be as ardent as her former love for luxury. She wants her conduct to be as noble in its moral qualities as her former life was noble in the eyes of the world. What wisdom uttered by a mere human such as myself can satisfy such hunger for truth? What power of speech can match the spiritual power she already possesses? Yet I write at her request. She is so humble that she seeks instruction from someone as poor in wisdom as I am. She asks me to water the seed which God has planted in her soul; so, I have no choice but to pour as much water upon that seed as my spiritual strength permits.

Whenever I give moral instruction, I first try to demonstrate the inherent power and quality of human nature. I try to show the wonderful virtues which all human beings can acquire. Most people look at the virtues in others, and imagine that such virtues are far beyond their reach. Yet God has implanted in every person the capacity to attain the very highest level of virtue. But people cannot grow in virtue on their own. We each need companions to guide and direct us on the way of righteousness; without such companions, we are liable to stray from the firm path, and then sink into the mud of despair. At first a companion who has achieved a high level of virtue can seem utterly different from oneself. But as friendship grows, one begins to see in the companion a mirror of oneself. The reason is that, in moral capacities, God has created us all the same: we are each capable of achieving the same degree of moral goodness. Once people perceive this truth, they are filled with hope, knowing that in the fullness of time they can share the moral virtue of Christ himself

We measure the goodness of human nature in relation to its creator, whom we call God. When he created the world, God declared that everything he had made was good. So, if every tree and animal, insect and plant is good, how much better is man himself! God made man in his own image; and so he intends each of us to be like him. God has made many animals stronger and faster than human beings. He has given many animals teeth and jaws that are more powerful and sharper than the finest sword. But he has given man intelligence and freedom. We alone are able to recognize God as our maker, and thence to understand the goodness of his creation. Thus, we have the capacity to distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong. This capacity means that we do not act out of compulsion; nor need we be swayed by our immediate wants and desires, as animals are. Instead we make choices. Day by day, hour by hour, we have to reach decisions; and in each decision, we can choose good or evil. The freedom to choose makes us like God: if we choose evil, that freedom becomes a curse; if we choose good, it becomes our greatest blessing.

Many people out of ignorance claim that man is not truly good because he is capable of doing evil. In saying this they are denying the perfect goodness of God’s creation. In fact, man is truly good for the very reason that these people say he is not: that he has freedom to choose good or evil. Within the heart of man there is no overwhelming compulsion to act in one way or the other; whereas animals are compelled to act according to their instinct, human beings have free will, enabling them to control their actions. And within the mind of man there is the capacity of reason: human beings are able to consider rationally the consequences of different courses of action. It is the combination of free will and rationality which makes human beings superior to all other creatures. There would be no virtue in doing good by instinct, without exercising free will and reason. But when people, after due consideration, decide to do good, then they truly share in the goodness of God.

By granting us the wonderful gift of freedom, God gave us the capacity to do evil as well as do good. Indeed, we would not be free unless God had given us this ability:

there is no freedom for the person who does good by instinct and not by choice. In this sense, the capacity to do evil is itself good; evil actions are themselves signs of the goodness of God. A person might say that the world would be a better place if everyone within it were always good and never evil. But such a world would be flawed because it would lack one essential attribute of goodness, namely freedom. When God created the world, he was acting freely; no other force compelled God to create the world. Thus, by creating human beings in his image, he had to give them freedom. A person who could only do good and never do evil would be in chains; a person who can choose good or evil shares the freedom of God.

All of us, out of ignorance and lack of faith, sometimes wish that God had made us differently. We are like a pot saying to the potter: ‘Why have you molded me in this shape?’ We wish that only good and loving emotions stirred our hearts, and that evil desires were banished. We wish that we always had the right words on our lips, and never uttered any words of malice or rudeness. We wish that we always behaved with gentleness and generosity, and were never harsh or mean. But if our emotions were always good, our words always right, our actions always kind, then we could never learn the difference between good and evil. Only by discovering within ourselves evil desires, only by speaking words of evil, only by our evil actions, do we learn the misery which evil brings. Then we have the knowledge to choose good. So, let us thank God that he has given us the capacity for evil, and thence given us the freedom to choose good.

Those who follow Christ often believe that only Christians are capable of doing good. They assert that Christianity has a monopoly of virtue. But this assertion is quite contrary to what we can observe. All of us have met pagans who are tolerant, temperate, chaste, generous and kind; and we have met pagans who reject the pleasures and honours of this world, choosing instead the way of simplicity and humility. In short, we have met pagans who reflect the virtues of Christ himself If only Christians were good, then God would not be good, because he would have denied the rest of humanity the freedom to choose goodness. The goodness we see in pagans is proof of the goodness of God. He has granted every person, regardless of race or religion, the freedom to choose good or evil. The advantage of being a Christian is that through the teaching of Jesus Christ we learn more fully the nature of goodness; and through his example, we are inspired to choose good.

Come now to the secret places of the soul. Let us each inspect ourselves with care, looking at the emotions which stir our hearts and the thoughts which run through our minds. Let us learn the essential goodness of the heart from the heart itself; let us learn the goodness of the mind from the mind itself Why do we blush with guilt or tremble with fear whenever we commit a sin? Because our hearts and minds are good, and so recoil from evil. Why do we shine with joy and dance with delight whenever we do good? Because our hearts and minds are good, and so rejoice at every good action. A murderer may try to conceal his identity, but the torments of his conscience are worse than any punishment which the state authorities could inflict. An innocent man who is wrongly accused of some crime may be imprisoned and tortured; but even when his body cries out with pain, there will be peace and serenity within his soul, because his conscience is clear.

Within our minds there is a kind of natural sanctity, which we call conscience. This conscience presides over the mind as a judge presides over a court. It favours honourable and righteous actions, and it condemns hurtful and wrong actions. Just as a judge is guided by a book of law, so the conscience is guided by an inner law which has been written on the soul by God. But in one important respect the way in which conscience works is different from the way a court works. In a court lawyers on opposing sides try to win their case by brilliant argument; they are not trying to reveal the truth, but merely to win the judge to their side. Conscience, by contrast, rejects brilliant argument, and instead wants only the truth of each and every situation; and only when it has discerned the truth will conscience make its judgement. When we read scriptures and remark that Moses or Abraham were good people, we are simply saying that in them conscience was a firm and strong judge.

When Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge they were exercising their freedom of choice; and as a consequence of the choice they made, they were no longer able to live in the Garden of Eden. When we hear that story, we are struck by their disobedience to God; and so we conclude that they were no longer fit to enjoy the perfect happiness of Eden. And we should also be struck by the nature of that tree and its fruit. Before eating the fruit, they did not know the difference between good and evil; thus they did not possess the knowledge which enables human beings to exercise freedom of choice. By eating the fruit, they acquired this knowledge, and from that moment onwards they were free. Thus, the story of their banishment from Eden is in truth the story of how the human race gained its freedom: by eating fruit from the tree of knowledge, Adam and Eve became mature human beings, responsible to God for their actions.

How is it possible, then, for an act of disobedience to God to bring such a blessing? When Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden they were like small children: they simply obeyed God’s instructions without considering the moral reasons for those instructions. To become mature, they needed to learn the distinction for themselves between right and wrong, good and evil. And God gave them the opportunity to become mature by putting within the garden the tree of knowledge, by which they could learn this distinction. But if God had simply instructed Adam and Eve to eat from the tree, and they had obeyed, they would have been acting like children. So, he forbade them from eating the fruit; this meant that they themselves had to make a decision, whether to eat or not to eat. Just as a young person needs to defy his parents in order to grow to maturity, so Adam and Eve needed to defy God in order to share his knowledge of good and evil. By defying God, Adam and Eve grew to maturity in his image.

We sometimes point to particular people, and say that those people are incapable of doing good; they seem so corrupt that they are compelled to be malicious and evil. We point to other people, and say that they are incapable of doing evil; they seem so kind, gentle and generous in spirit that they are compelled to do good. In truth, no one is totally evil nor totally good; every person at every moment is capable of choosing good or choosing evil. Yet habit is very important. If a person gets into the habit of choosing evil, then at each moment of choice his inclination will be to choose evil again. Equally if a person gets into the habit of choosing good, then at each moment of choice his inclination will be to choose good again. So as parents we should encourage our children to get into good habits. And we ourselves should retain good habits. If we habitually choose good, then it is much easier to make right choices in the future.

When we read the stories of the Old Testament, we see what a bumpy path the Hebrew people had to travel. Although they had numerous written laws, they were often confused about the inner spiritual law of good and evil. Thus, they frequently committed acts of terrible cruelty and injustice. Yet they were not ignorant or stupid. God puts the inner spiritual law on every person’s heart; and many of the great leaders and prophets were extremely proficient at discerning the spiritual law. For this reason, we can admire their wonderful holiness. We by contrast have a much smoother road to travel. In the person of Jesus Christ, the inner spiritual law is made fully manifest for us. His words explain the spiritual law, and his life and death exemplify it. Through him we are reborn as new men and women, because we can see clearly how we should live. We no longer need outer written laws, because in Christ we understand fully the inner spiritual law.

When a wife wants to please her husband, she finds out what her husband wants, and acts accordingly. A husband wanting to please his wife acts in the same way. As human beings, our first desire should be to please God. He created us in his own image; and for this reason, true joy consists in loving him, as a husband loves his wife and a wife loves her husband. And in order to love and please God, we must find out what he wants; we must discern his will. In the teachings and the example of Jesus Christ we learn the general principles of behaviour which pleases God. Then, at each moment of choice, we must apply those principles in practice. To do this God has given us two vital tools. The first is reason: we can use reason to work out how God’s spiritual law applies in each and every situation. The second is prayer: we can talk to God, asking him to guide our thoughts. We can be sure that, if we consider every choice carefully, and if we seek divine guidance, our decisions will please God.

A person may pray at length before each decision, and may think deeply, weighing up all the possible consequences; and yet later it seems that he made the wrong decision. God possesses perfect reason, so he can see all the consequences of every possible decision. Since human reason is partial and imperfect, we invariably fail to anticipate all the consequences of our decisions; so, without any evil or malicious intentions, a decision may hurt or damage others. Does this mean that God has not answered our prayers? Does it mean that he has not guided our thoughts? The world is exceedingly complex; so the decisions made by one person cannot be judged in isolation, but must be seen in the context of the hundreds and thousands of decisions being made by others at the same time. Even if one person reaches a decision with good intentions, those intentions may be undermined by the bad intentions of others. It is for this reason that good decisions may seem sometimes to have bad consequences. What matters is that each person thinks, decides and acts with a pure conscience.

A person may make a decision without prayer or serious thought; and yet that decision seems to have good consequences. A person may even make a decision with evil intentions, and good consequences may flow from it. Does this mean that the world which God has created is irrational? Does it mean that God himself cannot distinguish between good and evil? Again, we must remember how complex the world is. Human society is like a spider’s web; and if you pull only one tiny thread of the web, the shape of the entire web changes. Our small minds cannot begin to grasp this complexity. Yet we can observe how evil intentions do indeed sometimes have good consequences: a person may intend to hurt and damage other people, and yet does them a service. This is surely the greatest miracle of God’s creation. He has so designed and ordered things that there is a natural tendency towards good and away from evil. Thus, even our evil intentions can be thwarted by the benign genius of God.

It is important to distinguish that which is good from that which is perfect. For example, a good person may eat meat and drink wine; but perfection requires a person to abstain from meat and wine. A good person may enjoy a degree of wealth and luxury; but perfection requires a person to live with as few material possessions as is compatible with survival. A good person may marry, enjoying the comfort and the pleasure which marriage brings; but perfection requires a person to be celibate. God has created all things for our enjoyment; and therefore, physical pleasure is good. Yet the person who seeks perfection acquires more and more pleasure from less and less. The perfect person derives the greatest pleasure from the simplest food. The perfect person rejoices in a tiny hut with a few sticks of furniture. The perfect person sees beauty in every human being, so has no need to possess the beauty of a spouse. Contrary to what some religious leaders teach, perfection is not the denial of pleasure, but the enhancement of it.

Do not be deceived by those who seem to seek perfection, yet do not keep the basic commandments of God. There are people who eat little, who live simply and who are celibate; yet they show no love and compassion towards their neighbours. Before seeking perfection, a person must first learn to love others and to be generous towards them. This world would be a most wonderful place if everyone was loving and generous, yet no one sought perfection; perfection is, as it were, a spiritual luxury, not a necessity. So even if you do aspire towards perfection, do not neglect the basic duties of love. If you see someone who is hungry, share your food. If you see someone who is thirsty, share your drink. If you see someone weeping, offer comfort. If you see someone in despair, offer hope. If you see someone utterly confused and bewildered, try to understand the confusion and then seek clarity. Unless you are loving and generous in these ways, seeking perfection is like trying to build a magnificent palace without first putting in strong foundations.

If you were besotted with the things of this world, you would want to surpass all others in the luxury of your house, in the magnificence of your garments and jewelry, in the abundance of food on your table, in the splendour of the carriage which took you from one place to another. You would never be satisfied with what you already possessed, but would always want more. And you would constantly be comparing yourself with others, looking with envy at those even richer than you. Your wealth would be like a spiritual prison; and your limitless desires would be the chains that bound you. Thus, in giving up all these things, you have smashed the chains and broken free. You have little; yet you are satisfied with what you have. You are poorer than most; yet you feel no envy towards the riches of others. To you a simple tunic is like a royal robe; a tiny hut is like a palace; a bowl of porridge is like a feast; a pair of sandals is like a golden carriage.

As one looks around at friends and neighbours, one sees great enthusiasm and ambition. There are people who love to write, and each is ambitious to become the finest writer in the world. There are people who love political power, and each wants to attain the very highest ambition. There are people who relish military glory, and each wants to lead an army to a famous victory. There are people who enjoy buying and selling, and each wants to become the richest person in their city. There are people who keep animals, and each wants the finest herd of cattle or sheep in their region. We must admit that civilisation depends on men of ambition, whose enthusiasm and energy create prosperity and security for everyone. Yet how very few people are enthusiastic about holiness, and are ambitious to become saints. If the world is to become truly civilized we need far more people with holiness as their aim. They radiate joy and love which all can share.

People love feasts. They love to prepare huge amounts of rich food, and to choose the finest wine; the excitement of preparing a feast is an important part of its pleasure. Then on the appointed day they love to gather in a great crowd, to sing and dance, and then to eat the food and drink the wine. When a child is born people hold feasts; when a young man and woman get married their families hold a feast; when a person dies, his or her children have a feast. There are feasts to celebrate military victories. And there are feasts to mark all the great religious anniversaries. It is good and natural that people should enjoy feasts, because they are a sign of the greatest feast of all, to which God invites us: the feast in his heavenly kingdom around his throne. There the singing and dancing, the eating and drinking, will last for all eternity. But we do not need to prepare food and choose wine for this heavenly feast; we need to prepare ourselves by learning always to choose righteousness.

During the first five years of a child’s life the parents should devote every effort to instilling good and holy habits. Just as a sapling is supple and flexible, and so can be directed in one way or another by means of tying it to a strong stick, so the soul of a child is supple and flexible, and can be directed towards good or evil by strong discipline. But if a person has been brought up by weak or bad parents, and so has not acquired good habits, all is not lost. Even a mature tree can be induced to grow in a new direction by means of careful pruning. All actions which arise from bad habits or intentions must cease. At first the soul will cry with pain, just as a tree, if it had feelings, would cry with pain when branches are pruned. But if bad actions cease, then eventually the heart and the soul will change. The person will no longer have evil thoughts and emotions, and instead will begin to feel love and compassion towards others.

Your family has produced many great men. It has provided generals whose military prowess thrilled the entire world. It has provided consuls whose wisdom and firmness in the exercise of power has been widely admired and imitated. It has provided lawyers whose passion for truth and justice has struck fear in the hearts of criminals and gratitude in the hearts of the innocent. When you were born, your mother and grandmother looked forward to your marrying a general, a consul or a lawyer of similar repute. So, when you told them of your intention to remain a virgin, and to devote yourself to prayer and good works, they were at first bitterly disappointed. But it is to their great credit that they now support you in your way of life. They can see that the seeds of goodness which they sowed within you as a child are now bearing a rich harvest. Your mother would have liked a harvest of grandchildren; but she is now taking even greater pleasure in a harvest of virtue.

Inevitably when we read the scriptures, some of the sayings of Christ strike us as especially important, while we ignore other sayings. Our minds select those sayings which suit our particular needs and desires. To some degree this process of selection is right. At each period in our lives we need to concentrate on some particular aspects of Christ’s teaching. We cannot acquire all the virtues at once, so we focus our attention on one or two virtues at a time. But we must beware of selecting only those passages of scripture which we find congenial, while remaining blind to those which are difficult. As we walk in the footsteps of Christ, the road becomes increasingly rough and bumpy. At the beginning, we acquire virtues which come easily to us; but later we must acquire virtues which are much harder. We will be tempted to stop and even turn back; but that would mean turning our faces away from Christ. Once we have started along his road, we must continue until we reach the end – which is heaven.

When you decided to follow the path of holiness, you accepted – indeed you embraced – Jesus Christ as your guide. You did not know where the path would lead; you had no maps, nor had you ever travelled on that path before. So, you had to rely on Jesus completely, obeying his commands without question. Every person who decides to travel on this path must make the same act of obedience. Yet obedience brings a new temptation: to grumble. A person who has control over his life may be selfish and greedy, but does not grumble, because he cannot blame anyone else for his own discomforts and misfortunes. But a person who has submitted himself to the will of another – as you have submitted to Christ – is tempted to complain and to grumble at even the most minor discomfort. Do not be surprised if you feel tempted to grumble at Jesus, complaining of the humps and the bumps on the road to holiness. But resist that temptation: he would not cause you any discomfort unless it was necessary for the good of your soul.

The person who makes evil choices is stupid and foolish. The person who makes good choices is intelligent and wise. Evil people often pride themselves on their cunning plans and their crafty schemes; they congratulate themselves on being able to outwit others. Yet even when their plans and schemes succeed, they derive no real pleasure and joy. So, in fact they are stupid, acting against their own true interests. Good people by contrast are straight and honest, and they recoil from any plan which is crooked and devious, preferring only to do things which may benefit their neighbours. Yet even when their efforts seem to fail, they can still enjoy a peaceful conscience; and when their efforts succeed, they rejoice in the happiness which others derive; So, good people are intelligent, acting in their own true interests. And when we confront a bad person, there is little point in showing outrage or even disapproval. Instead we should try to open their eyes, so that they can see that the most effective way to be selfish is to be unselfish; that in doing good to others you earn the greatest rewards.

The most cunning strategy which the devil uses against those who aspire to holiness is depression. Those who devote themselves to outward, worldly ambitions are lifted from depression by the stimulus of physical pleasure. Those who devote themselves to spiritual ambitions reject this stimulus, in order to find a deeper source of joy. But there is a long gap between rejecting the pleasures of the world and receiving the fullness of joy which comes from God. During this long gap people can easily begin to despair; and their souls can sink into lethargy and melancholy. Depression of the spirit can become like a thick black cloud which even the light of Christ cannot penetrate. Sometimes the cloud lifts of its own accord. But more often the person must make an initial effort to blow it away. There is only one means of doing this: prayer. Through constantly talking to God, and trying to hear him, we eventually receive a taste of his heavenly joy; and even the smallest taste can restore our spiritual energy and ambition. So, when you feel depressed, pray even harder and more constantly than when you feel happy.

A second strategy which the devil uses to induce people to do evil is speed. A feeling can enter a person’s heart, a thought can enter the mind, and this feeling and thought can lead to an action being done all within a matter of seconds. So, although a person always has the freedom and the power to choose between good and evil, speed can prevent that freedom and power being properly exercised. Indeed, most evil actions are done impetuously, without serious thought. Thus, if you are to be sure always to do good, you must learn to be slow, giving yourself time to reflect on your emotions, and to consider carefully the consequences of different courses of action. Only act when you know that your emotions are pure, and that you have assessed as fully as possible the consequences of your action. In this way, you will be certain of defeating the devil.

Two kinds of thought go through our minds. The first are thoughts which are clear and deliberate, which involve the faculty of reason. Such thoughts may stay within the mind for many minutes, hours and days; indeed, this kind of thought may constantly recur over a whole lifetime. The second are thoughts which are mere impressions, flitting through the mind like insubstantial shadows. These thoughts may only remain within the mind for a few seconds. A person who wishes to do good has nothing to fear from the first kind of thought. There is ample time to hone and to shape such thoughts, to ensure that they conform to God’s law. The second kind of thought, however, is potentially more dangerous. In the case of a person in the habit of doing good, impressions will tend to be benign; but even within a good person the devil can easily distort impressions to give them a malicious twist. In the case of a person with evil habits, impressions will generally be malign. A person who acts on impressions becomes the slave of them, failing to exercise freedom of choice. A person who truly wants to be free must never act on impressions; then he will become their master.

A third strategy which the devil uses is complacency. As we grow in goodness, we are tempted to congratulate ourselves on our progress. We compare our present level of moral achievement with our past level, and we feel satisfied with the success of our efforts. Worse still we compare ourselves with other people, thinking that we are morally far superior to most of those whom we know. It may indeed be true that we have made giant strides on the way of Christ; it may also be true that we are far ahead of most other people. Yet we must not allow such thoughts to fill our minds. The further a person travels along the way of holiness, the further he realizes the road ahead stretches. When a person first sets out on the road, he imagines that after a short distance he will be almost perfect. But with each pace a person takes, he sees two more paces ahead. Thus, as we make progress, we should become less, not more, complacent. We should become more, not less, aware of our faults and failures.

A fourth strategy which the devil uses is myopia: making the immediate future seem more important than the distant future. The nature of human desire is that immediate joys and pleasures seem very attractive; and we feel impelled to follow our desires. Often this is quite right: if a person is hungry, he should eat; if a person is cold, he should go and sit near a fire. But sometimes it is wrong. A person may be on fire with sexual desire; yet to satisfy that desire could mean committing adultery or breaking a vow of perpetual virginity. A person may be on fire with desire for gold; yet to satisfy that desire could involve dishonesty and fraud. In both cases the long-term consequence would be terrible, leading eventually to punishment at the hands of God himself. The devil, however, puts into the mind all sorts of reasons for submitting to evil desire; the devil may even convince the mind that God himself sanctions illicit sexual behaviour or greed for gold. In this way all thought for the longer-term consequences is pushed from the mind. The way to defeat this strategy is, at every moment of choice, to look at both the immediate and the distant consequences of each course of action, and to give distant consequences as much weight as immediate ones.

Of all the emotions and desires within the human breast, the one that is most often misunderstood and misused is ambition. This emotion distinguishes us from all the other creatures which inhabit the world. An animal, bird, fish or insect has no ambition; it simply looks for food in order to sustain itself for another day. But the human being can look ahead, anticipating the consequences far into the future of present actions. And our ambitions determine the course of our present actions. Ambition in itself is neither good nor bad; what matters is how it is directed. Ambition may be directed towards the accumulation of power and wealth, towards material superiority over others. Such ambition is evil, because power and wealth can only be gained at the expense of others. Or ambition may be directed towards holiness and moral perfection, towards becoming like Christ himself. The emotion which lusts after power and wealth is the same as the emotion which yearns for holiness and perfection; the difference lies in the way in which the emotion is directed.

To a small child every week seems like a year. To a young man or woman every year seems like a decade. To an old person every decade seems like a year. As we grow older, the days, weeks, months and years seem to pass more quickly. This is a sign that as we grow older, we also grow wiser. Our life on earth is very short compared with eternity: it is no more than the blink of an eye. We should constantly remind ourselves of the shortness of earthly life, and thence the proximity of death. The pleasures and joys of this world are trivial and fleeting, and so are the pains and the sorrows. But the joy of heaven, which is the reward for making good and wise choices on earth, lasts for all eternity. And the agony of hell, which is the punishment for making bad choices on earth, also lasts for all eternity. The day of judgement, when God will decide where to send us, is imminent; even if a person is young, and destined to live for a hundred years, the day is still imminent. By remembering this truth day by day, you will always make good choices.

I am writing to you at great length, and I hope that much of what I say is of value to you. Yet I know that most of the words which are spoken or written in this world are useless or even harmful; and I must admit that the same may be true of my words. We should each be discreet and sparing in our words. We should only speak and write when we are sure that our motives are pure, and that our words will do good to those who hear or read them. Let our speech always be modest and calm; let sweetness mix with dignity; let wisdom mingle with modesty. Let us be firm in what we say, and yet also fair, seeing both sides of every argument. Let us use words and phrases which most aptly convey our meaning to those who are listening to us. Let us never be pompous or self-important in our speech, and never resort to harsh words. If I have been guilty of pomposity or harshness in what I have written to you, please forgive me.

411 – 429 Vortigern.

411 – 429

Honorius Emperor of The West 395-423

St Inocent 1 pope 401-417

411. Honorius executes Constantine. Roman rule never again in Britain.

Cronicum Scotorum.

Niall of the Nine Hostages died, after being wounded by Eochaidh, son of Enna Cennsealach, at the Ictian Sea.

Liber Britannicus.

Ab incarnatione D. (ccccv.)

Forty-four years [gap: text unintelligible] two years before Eolair Alaric, King of the Gaeth Goths, Gradian the champion is made king of the Britons; and then Constantine, afterwards [gap: text unintelligible] until Constantinus Comes killed him at the command of Honorius. Constans, his son, came from being a monk, and took the kingdom.

411. Sozomenus.

Extracts from the Ecclesiastical History

Meanwhile Gerontius, from being the most efficient of the generals of Constantine, became his enemy; and believing that Maximus, his intimate friend, was well qualified for the tyranny, he invested him with the imperial robe, and permitted him to reside in Tarracona. Gerontius then marched against Constantine, and took care to put Constans, the son of Constantine, to death at Vienna.

As soon as Constantine heard of the usurpation of Maximus, he sent one of his generals, named Edovicus, beyond the Rhine, to levy an army of Franks and Alemanni; and he sent his son Constans to guard Vienna and the neighbouring towns. Gerontius then advanced upon Aries and laid siege to it; but directly, when the army of Honorius had come to hand against the tyrant, under the command of Constantius, the father of that Valentinian who subsequently became emperor of Rome, Gerontius retreated precipitately with a few soldiers; for the greater number of his troops deserted to the army of Constantius. The Spanish soldiery conceived an utter contempt for Gerontius, on account of his retreat, and took counsel how to slay him. They, gathered in close ranks and attacked his house at night; but he, with one Alanus, his friend, and a few servants, ascended to the top of the house, and did such execution with their arrows that no less than three hundred of the soldiers fell. When the stock of arrows was exhausted, the servants made their escape by letting themselves down secretly from the building; and Gerontius, although he might have been saved in a similar fashion, did not choose to do so, because he was restrained by his affection for Nonnichia, his wife. At daybreak of the next day, the soldiers cast fire into the house; when he saw that there was no hope of safety left, he cut off the head of his companion, Alanus, in compliance with his wish. After this, his own wife was lamenting, and with tears was pressing herself with the sword, pleading to die by the hand of her husband before she should be subjected to others, and was supplicating for this last gift from him. And this woman by her courage showed herself worthy of her religion, for she was a Christian, and she died thus mercifully; she handed down to time a record of herself, too strong for oblivion. Gerontius then struck himself thrice with his sword; but perceiving that he had not received a mortal wound, he drew forth his poniard, which he wore at his side, and plunged it into his heart…

Although the city of Aries was closely besieged by the army of Honorius, Constantine still resisted the siege, because Edovicus was announced as at hand with many allies…When Constantine heard of the death of Edovicus he cast aside his purple robe and imperial ornaments, and repaired to the church, where he caused himself to be ordained as presbyter. Those within the walls, having first received oaths, opened the gates, and their lives were spared. From that period, the whole province returned to its allegiance to Honorius, and has since been obedient to the rulers of his appointment. Constantine, with his son Julian, was sent into Italy, but he was waylaid and killed. Not long afterwards Jovianus and Maximus, the tyrants above mentioned, Saros, and many others who had conspired against Honorius, were unexpectedly slain.

412. Cronicum Scotorum

Nathi, son of Fiachra, reigned twenty-three years.

412. Socrates Scholasticus.

Chapter XII

After the death of Sisinnius, Chrysanthus was constrained to take upon him the episcopal office. (Bishop about 412-419AD) He was the son of Marcian the predecessor of Sisinnius, and having had a military appointment in the palace at an early age, he was subsequently under Theodosius the Great made governor of Italy, and after that lord-lieutenant of the British Isles, in both which capacities he elicited for himself the highest admiration. Returning to Constantinople at an advanced age, earnestly desiring to be constituted prefect of that city, he was made bishop of the Novatians against his will. For as Sisinnius, when at the point of death, had referred to him as a most suitable person to occupy the see, the people regarding this declaration as law, sought to have him ordained forthwith.

c412. Olympiodorus of Thebes

Having advanced a distance of seven days farther, we halted at a village; for as the rest of the route was the same for us and Attila, it behoved us to wait, so that he might go in front. Here we met with some of the “western Romans,” who had also come on an embassy to Attila–the count Romulus, Promotus governor of Noricum, and Romanus a military captain. With them was Constantius whom Aetius had sent to Attila to be his secretary, and Tatulus, the father of Orestes; these two were not connected with the embassy, but were friends of the ambassadors. Constantius had known them of old in the Italies, and Orestes had married the daughter of Romulus.

The object of the embassy, was to soften the soul of Attila, who demanded the surrender of one Silvanus, a dealer in silver plate in Rome, because he had received golden vessels from a certain Constantius. This Constantius, a native of Gaul, had preceded his namesake in the office of secretary to Attila. When Sirmium in Pannonia was besieged by the Scythians, the bishop of the place consigned the vessels to his (Constantius’) care, that if the city were taken and he survived they might be used to ransom him; and in case he was slain, to ransom the citizens who were led into captivity. But when the city was enslaved, Constantius violated his engagement, and, as he happened to be at Rome on business, pawned the vessels to Silvanus for a sum of money, on condition that if he gave back the money within a prescribed period the dishes should be returned, but otherwise should become the property of Silvanus. Constantius, suspected of treachery, was crucified by Attila and Bleda; and afterwards, when the affair of the vessels became known to Attila, he demanded the surrender of Silvanus on the ground that he had stolen his property. Accordingly, Aetius and the Emperor of the Western Romans sent to explain that Silvanus was the creditor of Constantius, the vessels having been pawned and not stolen, and that he had sold them to priests and others for sacred purposes. If, however, Attila refused to desist from his demand, he, the Emperor, would send him the value of the vessels, but would not surrender the innocent Silvanus.

Jordanes.

When Athavulf became king, he returned again to Rome, and whatever had escaped the first sack his Goths stripped bare like locusts, not merely despoiling Italy of its private wealth, but even of its public resources. The Emperor Honorius was powerless to resist even when his sister Placidia, the daughter of the Emperor Theodosius by his second wife, was led away captive from the city. But Athavulf was attracted by her nobility, beauty and chaste purity, and so he took her to wife in lawful marriage at Forum Julii, a city of Aemilia. When the barbarians learned of this alliance, they were the more effectually terrified, since the Empire and the Goths now seemed to be made one. Then Athavulf set out for Gaul, leaving Honorius Augustus stripped of his wealth, to be sure, yet pleased at heart because he was now a sort of kinsman of his. Upon his arrival, the neighboring tribes who had long made cruel raids into Gaul, Franks and Burgundians alike, were terrified and began to keep within their own borders. Now the Vandals and the Alani, as we have said before, had been dwelling in both Pannonias by permission of the Roman Emperors. Yet fearing they would not be safe even here if the Goths should return, they crossed over into Gaul.But no long time after they had taken possession of Gaul they fled thence and shut themselves up in Spain, for they still remembered from the tales of their forefathers what ruin Geberich, king of the Goths, had long ago brought on their race, and how by his valor he had driven them from their native land. And thus it happened that Gaul lay open to Athavulf when he came. Now when the Goth had established his kingdom in Gaul, he began to grieve for the plight of the Spaniards and planned to save them from the attacks of the Vandals. So Athavulf left at Barcelona his treasures and the men who were unfit for war, and entered the interior of Spain with a few faithful followers. Here he fought frequently with the Vandals and, in the third year after he had subdued Gaul and Spain, fell pierced through the groin by the sword of Euervulf, a man whose short stature he had been wont to mock. After his death Segeric was appointed king, but he too was slain by the treachery of his own men and lost both his kingdom and his life even more quickly than Athavulf.

[Sidenote: King Valia, 415-419]

Then Valia, the fourth from Alaric, was made king, and he was an exceeding stern and prudent man. The Emperor Honorius sent an army against him under Constantius, who was famed for his achievements in war and distinguished in many battles, for he feared that Valia would break the treaty long ago made with Athavulf and that, after driving out the neighboring tribes, he would again plot evil against the Empire. Moreover, Honorius was eager to free his sister Placidia from the disgrace of servitude, and made an agreement with Constantius that if by peace or war or any means soever he could bring her back to the kingdom, he should have her in marriage. Pleased with this promise, Constantius set out for Spain with an armed force and in almost royal splendor. Valia, king of the Goths, met him at a pass in the Pyrenees with as great a force. Here-upon embassies were sent by both sides and it was decided to make peace on the following terms, namely that Valia should give up Placidia, the Emperor’s sister, and should not refuse to aid the Roman Empire when occasion demanded.

[Sidenote: Constantine III 407-411: Constans 407-411: Jovinus 411-413: Sebastian 412]

Now at that time a certain Constantine usurped imperial power in Gaul and appointed as Caesar his son Constans, who was formerly a monk. But when he had held for a short time the Empire he had seized, he was himself slain at Arelate and his son at Vienne. Jovinus and Sebastian succeeded them with equal presumption and thought they might seize the imperial power; but they perished by a like fate.

409 King Alfred.

Book VI Chap XXX

In those days Constantine (the most benevolent of men) went into Brytannie, and dying there, gave his son Constantine (whom he had by his wife Elena) that kingdom.

416. Rutilius Namatianus.

From Book One

How oft the fount of blessings springs from ills! The hateful weather produced an enjoyable delay; for Victorinus, more than half my soul, by meeting me fulfilled our mutual hopes. The capture of Tolosa had forced him, a wanderer in the lands of Etruria, to settle there and dwell in a foreign home. It was not only amid distress that his wisdom shone: with heart unaltered he could face prosperity. Well did the Ocean know his merits, well did the Far North know them, and all the lands the untamed Briton ploughs, where his self-restrained authority as a Prefect’s deputy has earned him the lasting interest paid by strong regard. That region is parted from us far as earth’s most distant bound, but he was its ruler as it might have been in the heart of Rome. A greater prize it is to have aimed at popularity with those among whom it is less discredit to be unpopular. Though attached of late to our revered Court as Right Honourable Count, yet in his passion for country-life he disdained the highest grades of advancement. Embracing him I mocked the contrary winds, while I enjoyed already, methought, a part of my own native land.

Rutilius Namatianus

From Book Two

Wherefore more bitter is the crime of cursed Stilicho in that he was betrayer of the Empire’s secret. As he strove to live longer than the Roman race, his cruel frenzy turned the world upside down, and, while fearing that wherein he had made himself formidable, he let loose the arms of the barbarians to the death of Latium: he plunged an armed foe in the naked vitals of the land, his craft being freer from risk than that of openly inflicted disaster. Even Rome lay exposed to his skin-clad menials— captive ere she could be captured. Nor was it only through Gothic arms that the traitor made his attack: ere this he burned the fateful books which brought the Sibyl’s aid. We hate Althaea for the death which came of the brand she gave to the flames; birds, so the fancy runs, weep for Nisus’ lock. But it was Stilicho’s will to hurl to ruin the eternal empire’s fate-fraught pledges and distaffs still charged with destinies. Let every torment of Nero in Tartarus now halt; let an even more miserable ghost consume the Stygian torches. Stilicho’s victim was immortal, Nero’s was mortal; the one destroyed the world’s mother, the other his own.

St Zosimus Pope 417-418

St Boniface 1 Pope 418-422 opposed by Eulalius antipope 418-419

SBG St Cunedda.

He was the son of Edern ab Padarn Beisrudd, and his pedigree is traced up to Beli Mawr. His mother was Gwawl, the daughter of Coel Hen, the ancestor of another powerful race. His pedigree would lead one to suppose that he had Roman blood in his veins. Welsh tradition says that Cunedda and his sons came to Wales from the North, where he defended the Roman Wall with a cavalry of 900 horse. He is spoken of as a man from Coelin, probably Kyle, in Ayrshire. Nennius also describes him and his sons as coming from the North from Manaw Gododin, a district near the Firth of Forth. This Cuneddan occupation of Wales took place in the early fifth century, and was of the nature of a tribal migration.

The later form of the tradition says that Cunedda ” sent sons to Gwynedd against the Goidels which came with Serigi the Goidel to Anglesey, and other places, and had taken the greater portion of that country from the inhabitants, where there were no princes over them.” They succeeded, we are told, in expelling the Goidels, and ” then the men of Gwynedd gave those princes possession of the lands which they had won.”

Cunedda’s power was great. He was the Gwledig (Over-king), or Dux Britannise, and had his court at Caer Liwelydd, or Carlisle. His house in the sixth century was so powerful that Maelgwn Gwynedd (Insularis Draco, as Gildas styles him) held sway over the whole of Wales, and also Cumbria to some extent. After Maelgwn’s death, ” Greater Wales ” gradually shrank, but the Cuneddan dynasty only ended with Llywelyn ab Gruffydd.

Taliesin.

THE DEATH SONG OF CUNEDDA.

I AM Taliesin the ardent;
I will enrich the praise of baptism.
At the baptism of the ruler, the worshipper wondered,
The conflict of the rocks and rocks and plain.
There is trembling from fear of Cunedda the burner,
In Caer Weir and Caer Lliwelydd.
There is trembling from the mutual encounter.
A complete billow of fire over the seas,
A wave in which the brave fell among his companions.
A hundred received his attack on the earth,
Like the roaring of the wind against the ashen spears.
His dogs raised their backs at his presence,
They protected, and believed in his kindness.
The bards are arranged according to accurate canons.
The death of Cunedda, which I deplore, is deplored.
Deplored be the strong protector, the fearless defender,
He will assimilate, he will agree with the deep and shallow,
A deep cutting he will agree to.
(His) discourse raised up the bard stricken in poverty.
Harder against an enemy than a bone.
Pre-eminent is Cunedda before the furrow (i. e. the grave)
And the sod. His face was kept
A hundred times before there was dissolution. A door hurdle
The men of Bryniich carried in the battle.
They became pale from fear of him and his terror chill moving.
Before the earth was the portion of his end.
Like a swarm of swift dogs about a thicket.
Sheathing (swords is) a worse cowardice than adversity.
The destiny of an annihilating sleep I deplore,
For the palace, for the shirt of Cunedda;
For the salt streams, for the freely-dropping sea.
For the prey, and the quantity I lose.
The sarcasm of bards that disparage I will harrow,
And others that thicken I will count.
He was to be admired in the tumult with nine hundred horse.
Before the communion of Cunedda,
There would be to me much cows in summer,
There would be to me a steed in winter,
There would be to me bright wine and oil.
There would be to me a troop of slaves against any advance.
He was diligent of heat from an equally brave visitor.
A chief of lion aspect, ashes become his fellow-countrymen,
Against the son of Edern, before the supremacy of terrors,
He was fierce, dauntless, irresistible,
For the streams of death he is distressed.
He carried the shield in the pre-eminent place,
Truly valiant were his princes.
Sleepiness, and condolence, and pale front,
A good step, will destroy sleep from a believer.

418. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year the Romans collected all the hoards of gold that were in Britain; and some they hid in the earth, so that no man afterwards might find them, and some they carried away with them into Gaul.

Synodus Bracarensis secunda.

On www.benedictus.mgh.de/quellen/chga/chga_058t.htm

Martin of Braga called the Second Council of Braga to increase the number of bishops and clergy in Galaecia. Records refer to a diocese called Britonensis ecclesia, the British Church and the sedes Britonarum, British See at the monastery of Santa Maria de Bretona. This may be connected to the Britones who settled in Brittany at the end of the Roman Empire.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

In the ninth year also after the sacking of Rome by the Goths, those of Roman race who were left in Britain, not bearing the manifold insults of the people, bury their treasures in pits thinking that hereafter they might have better fortune, which never was the case; and taking a portion, assemble on the coast, spread their canvas to the winds, and seek an exile on the shores of Gaul.

420. Gennadius of Massilia.

Chapter LVII. List of Bishops

Fastidius, Bishop in Britain, wrote to one Fatalis, a book On the Christian life, and another On preserving the estate of virginity, a work full of sound doctrine, and doing honour to God.

421. Sozomenus.

Extracts from the Eclesiastical History

This is not the proper place to enter into the details concerning the deaths of the tyrants; but I considered it necessary to allude to the circumstance in order to show that to insure the stability of imperial power, it is sufficient for an emperor to serve God with reverence, which was the course pursued by Honorius. Galla Placidia, his sister, born of the same father as himself, dwelt with him, and likewise distinguished herself by real zeal in the maintenance of religion and of the churches. After Constantius, who was a brave and able general, had destroyed the tyrant Constantine, the emperor rewarded him by giving him his sister in marriage; he also bestowed upon him the ermine and purple, and admitted him to a share in the government. Constantius did not long survive the promotion; he died soon after, and left two children, Valentinian, who succeeded Honorius, and Honoria.

St Celestine 1 Pope 422-432

423. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Theodosius the younger succeeded to the empire.

Valentinian III Emperor of The West 425-455

The Annals of Clonmacnoise.

Pope Leo was ordayned the 46 or 47 to succeed, by whom St Patrick was approved in the Catholique Religion and by the rest of the Popes of Roome that succeeded in his time, & then after florished in the heat of Christian Religion in this land. Nahie Fiaghra of Ulster died in anno 427. The battle of Fevin in which McCarhinn McCorlvoy McNeale was slaine. Some say this man was a Pict. Secundinus in the 75 yeare of his age dyed. Hee was a son of Colmana, sister of St Patrick.

428. Cronicum Scotorum.

Nathí, son of Fiachra, perished by lightning at Sliabh Ealpa, after possessing the sovereignty of Erinn, and of the world, so far.

429. From the beginning of the world, according to the Hebrews, 4481 years.

Laeghaire, son of Niall, held the kingdom of Hibernia thirty years.

429. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Bishop Palladius was sent from Pope Celestinus to the Scots, that he might establish their faith.

429. Prosper of Aquitaine.

Agricola, a Pelagian, the son of the Pelagian bishop Severianus, corrupted the British churches by the insinuation of his doctrine. But at the insinuation of the deacon Palladius, Pope Celestine sent Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, as his representative, and having rejected the heretics, directed the British to the catholic faith.

SBG St Belarus.

The religious foundation of the Emperor Tewdws (Theodosius) and Custennin of Llydaw was Bangor llltyd, where Belenis, a man from Rome, was superintendent, and Padrig, the son of Maewon, principal, before he was carried away captive by the Irish.” The college mentioned is that of Caerworgom, which was also called Cor Tewdws.

SBG St Germanus.

The orthodox clergy in Britain, uneasy at the spread of the Pelagian heresy, sent to the Church of Gaul for help. Constantius relates that accordingly ” a great synod was gathered, and by the judgment of all, two glorious lights of religion were beset by the peti- tions of the whole body; that is to say, Germanus and Lupus, apostolic priests, who had shown on earth with their bodies, indeed, but in heaven by their merits. And the more urgent appeared the necessity, the more promptly did the devoted heroes undertake the work, hastening on the business with the goads of faith.” Germanus and Lupus went all over, discussing the great question with the people whom they found. They preached in the churches, they addressed the people on the high-roads, they sought for them in the fields, and followed them up by-paths. It is clear that the visitors Germanus and Lupus accompanied

Liber Britannicus.

OF THE MIRACLES OF GERMAN HERE. (Germanus)

After the arrival of German in the island of Britain, he went to the fortress of the warrior whose name was Benli to preach to him. German stopped with his clerics at the door of the fortress. The porter went to the king with the message of the clergyman; the king said, with an oath, that if the clergy were to remain until the end of a year at the door of the fort, they should not come in. The porter came with this answer to German. German came away from the door in the evening, and did not know what road he should go. But one of the servants of the king came out of the fortress, and bowed down before German, and brought him with him to his cabin kindly and cheerfully. And he had no cattle but one cow with her calf, and he killed the calf, and boiled it, and gave it to the clergymen. And German ordered that its bones should not be broken; and on the morrow the calf was alive in the presence of its dam.

On the next day German repaired to the door of the fortress to pray an interview with the king. And then there came a man running and full of sweat from head to foot; and he knelt to German, and German said, ‘Dost thou believe in the Holy Trinity?’ and he replied, ‘I believe.’ And German baptized him and gave him a kiss: and he said unto him, ‘Arise, now thou shalt die, and the angels of God are awaiting thee.’ And he went cheerfully into the fortress, and was put to death by the king, for the king was accustomed to put to death every one of his people that did not come before sun-rise to do the work of the palace.

German passed the whole of that day till night at the door of the fortress, until the same i. e. the first mentioned servant came; and German said to him, ‘Take care, take care that none of thy people be in this fortress this night.’ He immediately brought out with him the nine sons he had in the fortress, and he brought the clergyman with him to his house again; and they all kept watch. And the fire of God immediately came from heaven upon the fortress, so that it burned the people of the fortress, both men and women, one thousand persons, through the anger of God and of German; and it remains a ruin to the present day.

On the following day this servant, with his sons and the people of the district, in like manner were baptized; and German blessed him and his children. His name was Caiteal, and through

the word i. e. blessing of German, he became a king, and his sons became kings, and their seed have ever since been in the land called Pogus; ut dicitur in the psalms, suscitans a terra inopem, et de stercore erigens pauperem.

Now, the Saxons remained in the Isle of Teineth Thanet, and Gortigern was feeding and clothing the Saxons, that they might fight for him against Pictland. But when the Saxons had multiplied, the Britons not only refused to feed or clothe them, but the Britons warned them all to go away.

But Hengist, who was an experienced, wise, cunning, and subtle man, made answer to them (for he saw that the Britons were feeble without soldiers, without arms), and he said to the King Gortigern in private: ‘Let us make good counsel; let us send into Germany for soldiers, that we may be numerous against our enemies.’ Gortigern answered, ‘Let ambassadors go for soldiers;’ and they went; and there came eighteen ships with chosen soldiers out of Germany. In this fleet came his daughter to Hengist: she was the fairest of the women of all Lochland.

After this Hengist prepared a great banquet for Gortigern and his army in the royal house, which is called Centic Elinit; and none of the Britons knew the Saxon language except one man only. The daughter of Hengist proceeded to distribute the feast, viz., wines and ales, in vessels of gold and silver, until the soldiers were inebriated and cheerful; and a demon entered Gortigern, from love of the daughter of Hengist, and he sent the linguist to Hengist to ask her for the king; and he said, that ‘whatever he would ask for her dowry should be given to him.’ Hengist, by the advice of the Saxons, said, ‘Let there be given to us the land which is named Congarlona in the Saxon language, and Ceint in the British language.’

Gortigern cheerfully gave them the dominions of Gurangona, and he lay with the daughter and loved her much.

And Hengist said to Gortigern: ‘I will be thy father and thy counsellor, and if thou takest my advice the other tribes will not be able in any way to molest thee; and I will send to Lochland for my son, and for the son of his mother’s sister, and they will fight against the enemy who have reached as far as the wall Gual.’ Gortigern said, ‘Let them be invited;’ and they were invited; and there arrived Ochta, son of Engist, and Ebisa, with forty ships; and they plundered the Orkney islands on coming from the north, and they took many lands as far as the Friseg sea, that is the sea which is to the north of the Gaedhal. And ambassadors were further sent by Hengist for more ships, and a new force used to arrive every year, so that they increased, and filled the land from the island of Teneth to Cantarborgh.

The devil deeming it but little the evil that Gortigern had done, induced him to cohabit with his own daughter, so that she bore him a son. When German heard of this, he went, accompanied by a clergyman of his nation, i. e. British, to criminate and check Gortigern; and he assembled all the laity and clergy of Britain for this purpose, and also for the purpose of consulting about about the Saxons. But Gortigern told his daughter, ‘When they are all assembled together, give thou thy child into the breast of German, and say that he is his father.’ And the daughter did so. German received the child, and said unto him, ‘I will be thy father,’ said he; and German asked for a razor, scissors, and a comb, and gave them into the hands of the infant; and this was done; and German said: ‘My son, give these into the hand of thy carnal father’; and the infant advanced, and gave the comb, the scissors, and the razor, into the hand of Gortigern, and said, ‘O my master,’ said he, ‘do thou tonsure me, for thou art my carnal father. German is my father in the faith.’ Gortigern blushed at this, and became much enraged, and fled from the assembly; and he was cursed by all the British people, and excommunicated by German also.

NENNIUS

At that time St. Germanus, distinguished for his numerous virtues, came to preach in Britain: by his ministry many were saved; but many likewise died unconverted. Of the various miracles which God enabled him to perform, I shall here mention only a few: I shall first advert to that concerning an iniquitous and tyrannical king, named Benlli. The holy man, informed of his wicked conduct, hastened to visit him, for the purpose of remonstrating him. When the man of God, with his attendants, arrived at the gate of the city, they were respectfully received by the keeper of it, who came out and saluted them. Him they commissioned to communicate their intention to the king, who returned a harsh answer, declaring, with an oath, that although they remained there a year, they should not enter the city. While waiting for an answer, the evening came on, and they knew not where to go. At length, came one of the king’s servants, who bowing himself before the man of God, announced the words of the tyrant, inviting them, at the same time, to his own house, to which they went, and were kindly received. It happened, however, that he had no cattle, except one cow and a calf, the latter of which, urged by generous hospitality to his guests, he killed, dressed and set before them. But holy St. Germanus ordered his companions not to break a bone of the calf; and, the next morning, it was found alive uninjured, and standing by its mother.

Early the same day, they again went to the gate of the city, to solicit audience of the wicked king; and, whilst engaged in fervent prayer they were waiting for admission, a man, covered with sweat, came out, and prostrated himself before them. Then St. Germanus, addressing him, said “Dost thou believe in the Holy Trinity?” To which the man having replied, “I do believe,” he baptized, and kissed him, saying, “Go in peace; within this hour thou shalt die: the angels of God are waiting for thee in the air; with them thou shalt ascent to that God in whom thou has believed.” He, overjoyed, entered the city, and being met by the prefect, was seized, bound, and conducted before the tyrant, who having passed sentence upon him, he was immediately put to death; for it was a law of this wicked king, that whoever was not at his labour before sun-rising should be beheaded in the citadel. In the meantime, St. Germanus, with his attendants, waited the whole day before the gate, without obtaining admission to the tyrant.

The man above-mentioned, however, remained with them. “Take care,” said St. Germanus to him, “that none of your friends remain this night within these walls.” Upon this he hastily entered the city, brought out his nine sons, and with them retired to the house where he had exercised such generous hospitality. Here St. Germanus ordered them to continue, fasting; and when the gates were shut, “Watch,” said he, “and whatever shall happen in the citadel, turn not thither your eyes; but pray without ceasing, and invoke the protection of the true God.” And, behold, early in the night, fire fell from heaven, and burned the city, together with all those who were with the tyrant, so that not one escaped; and that citadel has never been rebuilt even to this day.

The following day, the hospitable man who had been converted by the preaching of St. Germanus, was baptized, with his sons, and all the inhabitants of that part of the country; and St. Germanus blessed him, saying, “a king shall not be wanting of thy seed for ever.” The name of this person is Catel Drunlue: “from henceforward thou shalt be a king all the days of thy life.” Thus was fulfilled the prophecy of the Psalmist: “He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the needy out of the dunghill.” And agreeably to the prediction of St. Germanus, from a servant he became a king: all his sons were kings, and from their offspring the whole country of Powys has been governed to this day.

After the Saxons had continued some time in the island of Thanet, Vortigern promised to supply them with clothing and provision, on condition they would engage to fight against the enemies of his country. But the barbarians having greatly increased in number, the Britons became incapable of fulfilling their engagement; and when the Saxons, according to the promise they had received, claimed a supply of provisions and clothing, the Britons replied, “Your number is increased; your assistance is now unneccessary; you may, therefore, return home, for we can no longer support you;” and hereupon they began to devise means of breaking the peace between them.

But Hengist, in whom united craft and penetration, perceiving he had to act with an ignorant king, and a fluctuating people, incapable of opposing much resistance, replied to Vortigern, “We are, indeed, few in number; but, if you will give us leave, we will send to our country for an additional number of forces, with whom we will fight for you and your subjects.” Vortigern assenting to this proposal, messengers were despatched to Scythia, where selecting a number of warlike troops, they returned with sixteen vessels, bringing with them the beautiful daughter of Hengist. And now the Saxon chief prepared an entertainment, to which he invited the king, his officers, and Ceretic, his interpreter, having previously enjoined his daughter to serve them so profusely with wine and ale, that they might soon become intoxicated. This plan succeeded; and Vortigern, at the instigation of the devil, and enamoured with the beauty of the damsel, demanded her, through the medium of his interpreter, of the father, promising to give for her whatever he should ask. Then Hengist, who had already consulted with the elders who attended him of the Oghgul race, demanded for his daughter the province, called in English, Centland, in British, Ceint, (Kent.) This cession was made without the knowledge of the king, Guoyrancgonus who then reigned in Kent, and who experienced no inconsiderable share of grief, from seeing his kingdom thus clandestinely, fraudulently, and imprudently resigned to foreigners. Thus, the maid was delivered up to the king, who slept with her, and loved her exceedingly. Hengist, after this, said to Vortigern, “I will be to you both a father and an adviser; despise not my counsels, and you shall have no reason to fear being conquered by any man or any nation whatever; for the people of my country are strong, warlike, and robust: if you approve, I will send for my son and his brother, both valiant men, who at my invitation will fight against the Scots, and you can give them the countries in the north, near the wall called Gual.” The incautious sovereign having assented to this, Octa and Ebusa arrived with forty ships. In these they sailed round the country of the Picts, laid waste the Orkneys, and took possession of many regions, even to the Pictish confines. But Hengist continued, by degrees, sending for ships from his own country, so that some islands whence they came were left without inhabitants; and whilst his people were increasing in power and number, they came to the above-named province of Kent.

In the meantime, Vortigern, as if desirous of adding to the evils he had already occasioned, married his own daughter, by whom he had a son. When this was made known to St. Germanus, he came, with all the British clergy, to reprove him: and whilst a numerous assembly of the ecclesiastics and laity were in consultation, the weak king ordered his daughter to appear before them, and in the presence of all to present her son to St. Germanus, and declare that he was the father of the child. The immodest woman obeyed; and St. Germanus, taking the child, said, “I will be a father to you, my son; nor will I dismiss you till a razor, scissors, and comb, are given to me, and it is allowed you to give them to your carnal father.” The child obeyed St. Germanus, and going to his father Vortigern, said to him, “Thou art my father; shave and cut the hair of my head.” The king blushed, and was silent; and, without replying to the child, arose in great anger, and fled from the presence of St. Germanus, execrated and condemned by the whole synod. But soon after, calling together his twelve wise men, to consult what was to be done, they said to him, “Retire to the remote boundaries of your kingdom; there build and fortify a city to defend yourself, for the people you have received are treacherous; they are seeking to subdue you by stratagem, and, even during your life, to seize upon all the countries subject to your power, how much more will they attempt, after your death!” The king, pleased with this advice, departed with his wise men, and travelled through many parts of his territories, in search of a place convenient for the purpose of building a citadel. Having, to no purpose, travelled far and wide, they came at length to a province called Guenet; and having surveyed the mountains of Heremus, they discovered, on the summit of one of them, a situation, adapted to the construction of a citadel. Upon this, the wise men said to the king, “Build here a city: for, in this place, it will ever be secure against the barbarians.” Then the king sent for artificers, carpenters, stone-masons, and collected all the materials requisite to building; but the whole of these disappeared in one night, so that nothing remained of what had been provided for the constructing of the citadel. Materials were, therefore, from all parts, procured a second and third time, and again vanished as before, leaving and rendering every effort ineffectual. Vortigern inquired of his wise men the cause of this opposition to his undertaking, and of so much useless expense of labour? They replied, “You must find a child born without a father, put him to death, and sprinkle with his blood the ground on which the citadel is to be built, or you will never accomplish your purpose.”

In consequence of this reply, the king sent messengers throughout Britain, in search of a child born without a father. After having inquired in all the provinces, they came to the field of Aelecti, in the district of Glevesing, where a party of boys were playing at ball. And two of them quarrelling, one said to the other, “O boy without a father, no good will ever happen to you.” Upon this, the messengers diligently inquired of the mother and the other boys, whether he had had a father? Which his mother denied, saying, “In what manner he was conceived I know not, for I have never had intercourse with any man;” and then she solemnly affirmed that he had no mortal father.

The boy was, therefore, led away, and conducted before Vortigern the king. A meeting took place the next day for the purpose of putting him to death. Then the boy said to the king, “Why have your servants brought me hither?” “That you may be put to death,” replied the king, “and that the ground on which my citadel is to stand, may be sprinkled with your blood, without which I shall be unable to build it.”

“Who,” said the boy, “instructed you to do this?” “My wise men,” answered the king. “Order them hither,” returned the boy; this being complied with, he thus questioned them: “By what means was it revealed to you that this citadel could not be built, unless the spot were previously sprinkled with my blood? Speak without disguise, and declare who discovered me to you;” then turning to the king, “I will soon,” said he, “unfold to you every thing; but I desire to question your wise men, and wish them to disclose to you what is hidden under this pavement:” they acknowledging their ignorance, “there is,” said he, “a pool; come and dig:” they did so, and found the pool. “Now,” continued he, “tell me what is in it;” but they were ashamed, and made no reply. “I,” said the boy, “can discover it to you: there are two vases in the pool;” they examined and found it so: continuing his questions, “What is in the vases?” they were silent: “there is a tent in them,” said the boy; “separate them, and you shall find it so;” this being done by the king’s command, there was found in them a folded tent. The boy, going on with his questions, asked the wise men what was in it? But they not knowing what to reply,

“There are,” said he, “two serpents, one white and the other red; unfold the tent;” they obeyed, and two sleeping serpents were discovered; “consider attentively,” said the boy, “what they are doing.” The serpents began to struggle with each other; and the white one, raising himself up, threw down the other into the middle of the tent, and sometimes drove him to the edge of it; and this was repeated thrice. At length the red one, apparently the weaker of the two, recovering his strength, expelled the white one from the tent; and the latter being pursued through the pool by the red one, disappeared.

Then the boy, asking the wise men what was signified by this wonderful omen, and they, expressing their ignorance, he said to the king, “I will now unfold to you the meaning of this mystery. The pool is the emblem of this world, and the tent that of your kingdom: the two serpents are two dragons; the red serpent is your dragon, but the white serpent is the dragon of the people who occupy several provinces and districts of Britain, even almost from sea to sea: at length, however, our people shall rise and drive away the Saxon race from beyond the sea, whence they originally came; but do you depart from this place, where you are not permitted to erect a citadel; I, to whom fate has allotted this mansion, shall remain here; whilst to you it is incumbent to seek other provinces, where you may build a fortress.”

“What is your name?” asked the king;

“I am called Ambrose (in British Embresguletic),” returned the boy; and in answer to the king’s question, “What is your origin?” he replied, “A Roman consul was my father.”

Then the king assigned him that city, with all the western Provinces of Britain; and departing with his wise men to the sinistral district, he arrived in the region named Gueneri, where he built a city which, according to his name, was called Cair Guorthegirn. At length Vortimer, the son of Vortigern, valiantly fought against Hengist, Horsa, and his people; drove them to the isle of Thanet, and thrice enclosed them within it, and beset them on the Western side.

The Saxons now despatched deputies to Germany to solicit large reinforcements, and an additional number of ships: having obtained these, they fought against the kings and princes of Britain, and sometimes extended their boundaries by victory, and sometimes were conquered and driven back.

Four times did Vortimer valorously encounter the enemy; the first has been mentioned, the second was upon the river Darent, the third at the Ford, in their language called Epsford, though in ours Set thirgabail, there Horsa fell, and Catigern, the son of Vortigern; the fourth battle he fought was near the stone on the shore of the Gallic sea, where the Saxons being defeated, fled to their ships.

After a short interval Vortimer died; before his decease, anxious for the future prosperity of his country, he charged his friends to inter his body at the entrance of the Saxon port, viz. upon the rock where the Saxons first landed; “for though,” said he, “they may inhabit other parts of Britain, yet if you follow my commands, they will never remain in this island.”

They imprudently disobeyed this last injunction, and neglected to bury him where he had appointed. After this the barbarians became firmly incorporated, and were assisted by foreign pagans; for Vortigern was their friend, on account of the daughter of Hengist, whom he so much loved, that no one durst fight against him. In the meantime, they soothed the imprudent king, and whilst practising every appearance of fondness, were plotting with his enemies. And let him that reads understand, that the Saxons were victorious, and ruled Britain, not from their superior prowess, but on account of the great sins of the Britons: God so permitting it.

For what wise man will resist the wholesome counsel of God? The Almighty is the King of kings, and the Lord of lords, ruling and judging everyone, according to his own pleasure.

After the death of Vortimer, Hengist being strengthened by new accessions, collected his ships, and calling his leaders together, consulted by what stratagem they might overcome Vortigern and his army; with insidious intention they sent messengers to the king, with offers of peace and perpetual friendship; unsuspicious of treachery, the monarch, after advising with his elders, accepted the proposals. Hengist, under pretence of ratifying the treaty, prepared an entertainment, to which he invited the king, the nobles, and military officers, in number about three hundred; speciously concealing his wicked intention, he ordered three hundred Saxons to conceal each a knife under his feet, and to mix with the Britons; “and when,” said he, “they are sufficiently inebriated, &c. cry out, ‘Nimed eure Saxes,’ then let each draw his knife, and kill his man; but spare the king, on account of his marriage with my daughter, for it is better that he should be ransomed than killed.” The king with his company, appeared at the feast; and mixing with the Saxons, who, whilst they spoke peace with their tongues, cherished treachery in their hearts, each man was placed next to his enemy.

After they had eaten and drunk, and were much intoxicated, Hengist suddenly vociferated, “Nimed eure Saxes!” and instantly his adherents drew their knives, and rushing upon the Britons, each slew him that sat next to him, and there was slain three hundred of the nobles of Vortigern. The king being a captive, purchased his redemption, by delivering up the three provinces of East, South, and Middle Sex, besides other districts at the option of his betrayers.

St. Germanus admonished Vortigern to turn to the true God, and abstain from all unlawful intercourse with his daughter; but the unhappy wretch fled for refuge to the province Guorthegirnaim, so called from his own name, where he concealed himself with his wives: but St. Germanus followed him with all the British clergy, and upon a rock prayed for his sins during forty days and forty nights. The Blessed man was unanimously chosen commander against the Saxons. And then, not by the clang of trumpets, but by praying, singing hallelujah, and by the cries of the army to God, the enemies were routed, and driven even to the sea.

Again Vortigern ignominiously flew from St. Germanus to the kingdom of the Dimetae, where, on the river Towy, he built a castle, which he named Cair Guothergirn. The saint, as usual, followed him there, and with his clergy fasted and prayed to the Lord three days, and as many nights. On the third night, at the third hour, fire fell suddenly from heaven, and totally burned the castle. Vortigern, the daughter of Hengist, his other wives, and all the inhabitants, both men and women, miserably perished: such was the end of this unhappy king, as we find written in the life of St. Germanus.

Others assure us, that being hated by all the people of Britain, for having received the Saxons, and being publicly charged by St. Germanus and the clergy in the sight of God, he betook himself to flight; and, that deserted and a wanderer, he sought a place of refuge, till broken hearted, he made an ignominious end.

Some accounts state, that the earth opened and swallowed him up, on the night his castle was burned; as no remains were discovered the following morning, either of him, or of those who were burned with him.

He had three sons: the eldest was Vortimer, who, as we have seen, fought four times against the Saxons, and put them to flight; the second Categirn, who was slain in the same battle with Horsa; the third was Pascent, who reigned in the two provinces Builth and Guorthegirnaim, after the death of his father. These were granted him by Ambrosius, who was the great king among the kings of Britain. The fourth was Faustus, born of an incestuous marriage with his daughter, who was brought up and educated by St. Germanus. He built a large monastery on the banks of the river Renis, called after his name, and which remains to the present period.

This is the genealogy of Vortigern, which goes back to Fernvail, who reigned in the kingdom of Guorthegirnaim, and was the son of Teudor; Teudor was the son of Pascent; Pascent of Guoidcant; Guoidcant of Moriud; Moriud of Eltat; Eltat of Eldoc; Eldoc of Paul; Paul of Meuprit; Meuprit of Braciat; Braciat of Pascent; Pascent of Guorthegirn, Guorthegirn of Guortheneu; Guortheneu of Guitaul; Guitaul of Guitolion; Guitolion of Gloui. Bonus, Paul, Mauron, Guotelin, were four brothers, who built Gloiuda, a great city upon the banks of the river Severn, and in Birtish is called Cair Gloui, in Saxon, Gloucester. Enough has been said of Vortigern.

Nennius

St. Germanus, after his death, returned into his own country. At that time, the Saxons greatly increased in Britain, both in strength and numbers. And Octa, after the death of his father Hengist, came from the sinistral part of the island to the kingdom of Kent, and from him have proceeded all the kings of that province, to the present period. Then it was, that the magnanimous Arthur, with all the kings and military force of Britain, fought against the Saxons. And though there were many more noble than himself, yet he was twelve times chosen their commander, and was as often conqueror.

The first battle in which he was engaged, was at the mouth of the river Gleni. The second, third, fourth, and fifth, were on another river, by the Britons called Duglas, in the region Linuis. The sixth, on the river Bassas. The seventh in the wood Celidon, which the Britons call Cat Coit Celidon. The eighth was near Gurnion castle, where Arthur bore the image of the Holy Virgin, mother of God, upon his shoulders, and through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the holy Mary, put the Saxons to flight, and pursued them the whole day with great slaughter. The ninth was at the City of Legion, which is called Cair Lion. The tenth was on the banks of the river Trat Treuroit. The eleventh was on the mountain Breguoin, which we call Cat Bregion. The twelfth was a most severe contest, when Arthur penetrated to the hill of Badon. In this engagement, nine hundred and forty fell by his hand alone, no one but the Lord affording him assistance. In all these engagements the Britons were successful. For no strength can avail against the will of theAlmighty.

The more the Saxons were vanquished, the more they sought for new supplies of Saxons from Germany; so that kings, commanders, and military bands were invited over from almost every province. And this practice they continued till the reign of Ida, who was the son of Eoppa, he, of the Saxon race, was the first king in Bernicia, and in Cair Ebrauc (York).

When Gratian Aequantius was consul at rome, because then the whole world was governed by the Roman consuls, the Saxons were received by Vortigern in the year of our Lord four hundred and forty-seven, and to the year in which we now write, five hundred and forty-seven. And whosoever shall read herein may receive instruction, the Lord Jesus Christ affording assistance, who, co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Ghost, lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

In those days Saint Patrick was captive among the Scots. His master’s name was Milcho, to whom he was a swineherd for seven years. When he had attained the age of seventeen he gave him his liberty. By the divine impulse, he applied himself to reading of the Scriptures, and afterwards went to Rome; where, replenished with the Holy Spirit, he continued a great while, studying the sacred mysteries of those writings. During his continuance there, Palladius, the first bishop, was sent by pope Celestine to convert the Scots (the Irish). But tempests and signs from God prevented his landing, for no one can arrive in any country, except it be allowed from above; altering therefore his course from Ireland, he came to Britain and died in the land of the Picts.

The death of Palladius being known, the Roman patricians, Theodosius and Valentinian, then reigning, pope Celestine sent Patrick to convert the Scots to the faith of the Holy Trinity; Victor, the angel of God, accompanying, admonishing, and assisting him, and also the bishop Germanus.

Germanus then sent the ancient Segerus with him as a venerable and praiseworthy bishop, to king Amatheus, who lived near, and who had prescience of what was to happen; he was consecrated bishop in the reign of that king by the holy pontiff, assuming the name of Patrick, having hitherto been known by that of Maun; Auxilius, Isserninus, and other brothers were ordained with him to inferior degrees.

Having distributed benedictions, and perfected all in the name of the Holy Trinity, he embarked on the sea which is between the Gauls and the Britons; and after a quick passage arrived in Britain, where he preached for some time. Every necessary preparation being made, and the angel giving him warning, he came to the Irish Sea. And having filled the ship with foreign gifts and spiritual treasures, by the permissionof God he arrived in Ireland, where he baptized and preached.

From the beginning of the world, to the fifth year of king Logiore, when the Irish were baptized, and faith in the unity of the individual Trinity was published to them, are five thousand three hundred and thirty years.

Saint Patrick taught the gospel in foreign nations for the space of forty years. Endued with apostolical powers, he gave sight to the blind, cleansed the lepers, gave hearing to the deaf, cast out devils, raised nine from the dead, redeemed many captives of both sexes at his own charge, and set them free in the name of the Holy Trinity. He taught the servants of God, and he wrote three hundred and sixty-five canonical and other books relating to the catholic faith. He founded as many churches, and consecrated the same number of bishops, strengthening them with the Holy Ghost. He ordained three thousand presbyters; and converted and baptized twelve thousand persons in the province of Connaught. And, in one day baptized seven kings, who were the seven sons of Amalgaid. He continued fasting forty days and nights, on the summit of the mountain Eli, that is Cruachan-Aichle; and preferred three petitions to God for the Irish, that had embraced the faith. The Scots say, the first was, that he would receive every repenting sinner, even at the latest extremity of life; the second, that they should never be exterminated by barbarians; and the third, that as Ireland will be overflowed with water, seven years before the coming of our Lord to judge the quick and the dead, the crimes of the people might be washed away through his intercession, and their souls purified at the last day. He gave the people his benediction from the upper part of the mountain, and going up higher, that he might pray for them; and that if it pleased God, he might see the effects of his labours, there appeared to him an innumerable flock of birds of many coulours, signifying the number of holy persons of both sexes of the Irish nation, who should come to him as their apostle at the day of judgment, to be presented before the tribunal of Christ. After a life spent in the active exertion of good to mankind, St. Patrick, in a healthy old age, passed from this world to the Lord, and changing this life for a better, with the saints and elect of God he rejoices for evermore.

William, Chaplain to Bishop Eudo of Leon.

In the course of time, the usurping king Vortigern, to buttress the defence of the kingdom of Great Britain which he unrighteously held, summoned warlike men from the land of Saxony and made them his allies in the kingdom. Since they were pagans and of devilish character, lusting by their nature to shed human blood, they drew many evils upon the Britons.

Presently their pride was checked for a while through the great Arthur, king of the Britons. They were largely cleared from the island and reduced to subjection. But when this same Arthur, after many victories which he won gloriously in Britain and in Gaul, was summoned at last from human activity, the way was open for the Saxons to go again into the island, and there was great oppression of the Britons, destruction of churches and persecution of saints. This persecution went on through the times of many kings, Saxons and Britons striving back and forth…

In those days, many holy men gave themselves up to martyrdom; others, in conformity to the Gospel, left the greater Britain which is now the Saxon’s homeland, and sailed across to the lesser Britain (Brittany).

Bede.

CHAP. XVII.

How Germanus the Bishop, sailing into Britain with Lupus, first quelled the tempest of the sea, and afterwards that of the Pelagians, by Divine power. [429 A.D.]

Some few years before their arrival, the Pelagian heresy, brought over by Agricola, the son of Severianus, a Pelagian bishop, had corrupted with its foul taint the faith of the Britons. But whereas they absolutely refused to embrace that perverse doctrine, and blaspheme the grace of Christ, yet were not able of themselves to confute the subtilty of the unholy belief by force of argument, they bethought them of wholesome counsels and determined to crave aid of the Gallican prelates in that spiritual warfare. Hereupon, these, having assembled a great synod, consulted together to determine what persons should be sent thither to sustain the faith, and by unanimous consent, choice was made of the apostolic prelates, Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, and Lupus of Troyes, to go into Britain to confirm the people’s faith in the grace of God. With ready zeal they complied with the request and commands of the Holy Church, and put to sea. The ship sped safely with favouring winds till they were halfway between the coast of Gaul and Britain. There on a sudden they were obstructed by the malevolence of demons, who were jealous that men of such eminence and piety should be sent to bring back the people to salvation. They raised storms, and darkened the sky with clouds. The sails could not support the fury of the winds, the sailors’ skill was forced to give way, the ship was sustained by prayer, not by strength, and as it happened, their spiritual leader and bishop, being spent with weariness, had fallen asleep. Then, as if because resistance flagged, the tempest gathered strength, and the ship, overwhelmed by the waves, was ready to sink. Then the blessed Lupus and all the rest, greatly troubled, awakened their elder, that he might oppose the raging elements. He, showing himself the more resolute in proportion to the greatness of the danger, called upon Christ, and having, in the name of the Holy Trinity, taken and sprinkled a little water, quelled the raging waves, admonished his companion, encouraged all, and all with one consent uplifted their voices in prayer. Divine help was granted, the enemies were put to flight, a cloudless calm ensued, the winds veering about set themselves again to forward their voyage, the sea was soon traversed, and they reached the quiet of the wished-for shore. A multitude flocking thither from all parts, received the bishops, whose coming had been foretold by the predictions even of their adversaries. For the evil spirits declared their fear, and when the bishops expelled them from the bodies of the possessed, they made known the nature of the tempest, and the dangers they had occasioned, and confessed that they had been overcome by the merits and authority of these men.

In the meantime, the bishops speedily filled the island of Britain with the fame of their preaching and miracles; and the Word of God was by them daily preached, not only in the churches, but even in the streets and fields, so that the faithful and Catholic were everywhere confirmed, and those who had been perverted accepted the way of amendment. Like the Apostles, they acquired honour and authority through a good conscience, learning through the study of letters, and the power of working miracles through their merits. Thus, the whole country readily came over to their way of thinking; the authors of the erroneous belief kept themselves in hiding, and, like evil spirits, grieved for the loss of the people that were rescued from them. At length, after long deliberation, they had the boldness to enter the lists. They came forward in all the splendour of their wealth, with gorgeous apparel, and supported by a numerous following; choosing rather to hazard the contest, than to undergo among the people whom they had led astray, the reproach of having been silenced, lest they should seem by saying nothing to condemn themselves. An immense multitude had been attracted thither with their wives and children. The people were present as spectators and judges; the two parties stood there in very different case; on the one side was Divine faith, on the other human presumption; on the one side piety, on the other pride; on the one side Pelagius, the founder of their faith, on the other Christ. The blessed bishops permitted their adversaries to speak first, and their empty speech long took up the time and filled the ears with meaningless words. Then the venerable prelates poured forth the torrent of their eloquence and showered upon them the words of Apostles and Evangelists, mingling the Scriptures with their own discourse and supporting their strongest assertions by the testimony of the written Word. Vainglory was vanquished and unbelief refuted; and the heretics, at every argument put before them, not being able to reply, confessed their errors. The people, giving judgement, could scarce refrain from violence, and signified their verdict by their acclamations.

Bede

CHAP. XVIII.

How the same holy man gave sight to the blind daughter of a tribune, and then coming to St. Alban, there received of his relics, and left other relics of the blessed Apostles and other martyrs. [429 A.D.]

After this, a certain man, who held the office of tribune, came forward with his wife, and brought his blind daughter, a child of ten years of age, to be healed of the bishops. They ordered her to be brought to their adversaries, who, being rebuked by their own conscience, joined their entreaties to those of the child’s parents, and besought the bishops that she might be healed. They, therefore, perceiving their adversaries to yield, poured forth a short prayer, and then Germanus, full of the Holy Ghost, invoking the Trinity, at once drew from his side a casket which hung about his neck, containing relics of the saints, and, taking it in his hands, applied it in the sight of all to the girl’s eyes, which were immediately delivered from darkness and filled with the light of truth. The parents rejoiced, and the people were filled with awe at the miracle; and after that day, the heretical beliefs were so fully obliterated from the minds of all, that they thirsted for and sought after the doctrine of the bishops.

This damnable heresy being thus suppressed, and the authors thereof confuted, and all the people settled in the purity of the faith, the bishops went to the tomb of the martyr, the blessed Alban, to give thanks to God through him. There Germanus, having with him relics of all the Apostles, and of divers martyrs, after offering up his prayers, commanded the tomb to be opened, that he might lay therein the precious gifts; judging it fitting, that the limbs of saints brought together from divers countries, as their equal merits had procured them admission into heaven, should find shelter in one tomb. These being honourably bestowed, and laid together, he took up a handful of dust from the place where the blessed martyr’s blood had been shed, to carry away with him. In this dust the blood had been preserved, showing that the slaughter of the martyrs was red, though the persecutor was pale in death.’ In consequence of these things, an innumerable multitude of people was that day converted to the Lord.

Bede

CHAP. XIX.

How the same holy man, being detained there by sickness, by his prayers quenched a fire that had broken out among the houses, and was himself cured of his infirmity by a vision. [429 A.D.]

AS they were returning thence, the treacherous enemy, having, as it chanced, prepared a snare, caused Germanus to bruise his foot by a fall, not knowing that, as it was with the blessed Job, his merits would be but increased by bodily affliction. Whilst he was thus detained some time in the same place by his infirmity, a fire broke out in a cottage neighbouring to that in which he was; and having burned down the other houses which were thatched with reed, fanned by the wind, was carried on to the dwelling in which he lay. The people all flocked to the prelate, entreating that they might lift him in their arms, and save him from the impending danger. But he rebuked them, and in the assurance of his faith, would not suffer himself to be removed. The whole multitude, in terror and despair, ran to oppose the conflagration; but, for the greater manifestation of the Divine power, whatsoever the crowd endeavoured to save, was destroyed; and what the sick and helpless man defended, the flame avoided and passed by, though the house that sheltered the holy man lay open to it, and while the fire raged on every side, the place in which he lay appeared untouched, amid the general conflagration. The multitude rejoiced at the miracle, and was gladly vanquished by the power of God. A great crowd of people watched day and night before the humble cottage; some to have their souls healed, and some their bodies. All that Christ wrought in the person of his servant, all the wonders the sick man performed cannot be told. Moreover, he would suffer no medicines to be applied to his infirmity; but one night he saw one clad in garments as white as snow, standing by him, who reaching out his hand, seemed to raise him up, and ordered him to stand firm upon his feet; from which time his pain ceased, and he was so perfectly restored, that when the day came, with good courage he set forth upon his journey.

Bede

CHAP. XX.

How the same Bishops brought help from Heaven to the Britons in a battle, and then returned home. [430 A.D.]

IN the meantime, the Saxons and Picts, with their united forces, made war upon the Britons, who in these straits were compelled to take up arms. In their terror thinking themselves unequal to their enemies, they implored the assistance of the holy bishops; who, hastening to them as they had promised, inspired so much confidence into these fearful people, that one would have thought they had been joined by a mighty army. Thus, by these apostolic leaders, Christ Himself commanded in their camp. The holy days of Lent were also at hand, and were rendered more sacred by the presence of the bishops, insomuch that the people being instructed by daily sermons, came together eagerly to receive the grace of baptism. For a great multitude of the army desired admission to the saving waters, and a wattled church was constructed for the Feast of the Resurrection of our Lord, and so fitted up for the army in the field as if it were in a city. Still wet with the baptismal water the troops set forth; the faith of the people was fired; and where arms had been deemed of no avail, they looked to the help of God. News reached the enemy of the manner and method of their purification, who, assured of success, as if they had to deal with an unarmed host, hastened forward with renewed eagerness. But their approach was made known by scouts. When, after the celebration of Easter, the greater part of the army, fresh from the font, began to take up arms and prepare for war, Germanus offered to be their leader. He picked out the most active, explored the country round about, and observed, in the way by which the enemy was expected, a valley encompassed by hills of moderate height. In that place he drew up his untried troops, himself acting as their general. And now a formidable host of foes drew near, visible, as they approached, to his men lying in ambush. Then, on a sudden, Germanus, bearing the standard, exhorted his men, and bade them all in a loud voice repeat his words. As the enemy advanced in all security, thinking to take them by surprise, the bishops three times cried, “Hallelujah.” A universal shout of the same word followed, and the echoes from the surrounding hills gave back the cry on all sides, the enemy was panic-stricken, fearing, not only the neighbouring rocks, but even the very frame of heaven above them; and such was their terror, that their feet were not swift enough to save them. They fled in disorder, casting away their arms, and well satisfied if, even with unprotected bodies, they could escape the danger; many of them, flying headlong in their fear, were engulfed by the river which they had crossed. The Britons, without a blow, inactive spectators of the victory they had gained, beheld their vengeance complete. The scattered spoils were gathered up, and the devout soldiers rejoiced in the success which Heaven had granted them. The prelates thus triumphed over the enemy without bloodshed, and gained a victory by faith, without the aid of human force. Thus, having settled the affairs of the island, and restored tranquillity by the defeat of the invisible foes, as well as of enemies in the flesh, they prepared to return home. Their own merits, and the intercession of the blessed martyr Alban, obtained for them a calm passage, and the happy vessel restored them in peace to the desires of their people.

Saint Patrick

On the Life of St. Patrick (Leabhar Breac)

Translated by Whitley Stokes

Populus qui sedebat in tenebris vidit lucem magnam. The people that sat in darkness beheld a great light. Et sedentibus in regione et in umbra mortis lux orta eis. They that were in the land and in the shadow of death found a light whence came their illumination.

The Holy Spirit, the spirit which is nobler than every spirit, the spirit which inspired both churches of the Old Law and of the New Testament with the grace of wisdom and prophecy, it was that spirit which spake those words through the mouth of the chief prophet Isiah son of Amoz; de cujus laude dicitur quod non tam dicendus esset propheta quam evangelista. To praise him, St. Jerome said that it were meeter to call him an evangelist than a prophet, because of the clearness and the fitness for the New Testament wherewith he told the tidings of Christ. Ita enim universa Christi ecclesiaeque mysteria ad lucidum prosecutus est ut non eum putes de futuro vaticinari sed de praeterito historiam texere. For such was the clearness wherewith he told all the mysteries of Christ and the Holy Church that one would not think that it was a prophecy of things to come he was making, but a declaration of things already foregone after they had been done completely.

Now one of his manifest prophecies is what is here set forth through a narrative of what is past.

Populus qui sedebat in tenebris vidit lucem magnam. The people that sat in darkness beheld a great light. Now the prophet has a parallel passage as far as the place where previously in the same story he said primo tempore allevata terra Zabulon et terra Neptalim, there came with … of time, great glory and renown to the tribe of Zabulon and to the tribe of Naphtali. Inde dicitur, after these words he said, Populus qui sedebat in tenebris. The people who sat in darkness if [we go] according to history, this was the people of Israel who were biding in the gloom of slavery by the Assyrians. They beheld the light of their redemption from that captivity, to wit, Hesdras and Nehemias, Jeshua and Zerubbabel. But if [we go] according to the spiritual sense, the people mentioned here are the people of the gentiles who were in the darkness of ignorance, adoring idols and images until the true Light arose, to wit, Jesus Christ with his apostles. Nox enim erat in mundo usque dum Christus, qui sol justitiae est, radios suos aspersit in mundum. For there was great darkness and dimness over the hearts of the heathen until the Sun of righteousness, Jesus Christ, scattered his splendors throughout the four quarters of the world to enlighten it.

Now one of the splendours which the Sun of righteousness shed upon the world was the splendour, and the flame, the precious stone and shining lamp which enligthened the west of the world, Sanctus Patricius Episcopus, to wit, holy Patrick, high bishop of the west of the world, father of the baptism and belief of the men of Ireland.

Now the day whereon there is told and set forth, in the churches of the Christians, somewhat of his miracles and marvels, and of the parents of whom he was born, and of the earthly stock of the holy Patrick, is the sixteenth of the Kalends of April as to the day of the solar month.

Now Patrick’s race was of the Britons of Dumbarton. Calpurn was his father’s name, a high priest was he. Otid (Potitus) was the name of his grandfather: he was a deacon. But Conchess was his mother’s name: daughter was she of Ochbas: of France was her race, that is, she was a sister of Martin’s.

Patrick, then, (was) son of Calpurn, son of Otid, son of Odisse, son of Gorniuth, son of Lubeniuth, son of Mercut, son of Otta, son of Muric, son of Oricc, son of Leo, son of Maximus, son of Ecretus, son of Eresus, son of Felestus, son of Ferinus, son of Brittus, from whom are the Britons.

He had five sisters, namely, Lupait and Tigris and Darerca and Liamain and Richell.

At Nemthur, now, was he born, and (as to) the flagstone on which he was born, when any one commits perjury thereunder, it sheds water as if it were bewailing the false declaration. If his oath is true the stone abides in its proper nature.

Now when the holy Patrick was born, he was brought to be baptized to the blind flat-faced youth named Gornias. But Gornias had not water wherewith he could perform the baptism, so with the infant’s hand he made the sign of the cross over the earth, and a wellspring of water brake therefrom. Gornias put the water on his own face, and it healed him at once, and he understood the letters (of the alphabet), though he had never seen them before. Now here at one time God wrought a threefold miracle for Patrick, the wellspring of water from the earth, and his eyesight to the blind youth, and skill in reading aloud the order of baptism without knowing the letters beforehand. Thereafter Patrick was baptized.

The holy Patrick was reared at Nemthur until he was a lad; and overmany to recount and declare are the miracles and marvels that the Lord wrought for him in his childhood and in his boyhood, for the grace of God accompanied him at every age and in every thing that he did. But we will relate a few of the many of them.

Once upon a time came a flood of water into the house wherein was Patrick, and quenched all the fire, and the vessels were afloat. Patrick then went to a dry place which was in the house and dipt his five fingers into the water, and the five drops which trickled from them became sparks of fire, and that fire was kindled in the house, and the water at once ceased to rise, and God’s name and Saint Patrick’s were magnified through that miracle.

At another time Patrick brought a lapful of pieces of ice and left them on the floor in the presence of his fostermother. ‘We rather need a faggot of withered sticks for fire,’ said his fostermother. Then Patrick put the ice upon the fire, and breathed under it, and it blazed like withered sticks. So God’s name and Patrick’s were magnified thereby.

At another time a wolf went and carried off a sheep of the flock from Patrick when he was shepherding; and his fostermother rebuked him much for the loss of the sheep. But as Patrick was at the same place the next day, the wolf came and shewed the sheep safe before him, [which thing was a marvel] for up to that time restitution from him was not usual. God’s name and Patrick’s were magnified therein.

At another time Patrick went along with his fosterfather to a meeting of the Britons. When they came to the meeting the fosterfather died of a sudden death. But when Patrick perceived his fosterer’s death, he said to him, ‘Arise and let us go to our home.’ Straightway at Patrick’s word the fosterfather arose from death.

On a time his fostermother was unthankful to him because he brought no honey from the combs as the little boys of the hamlet were wont to bring to their mothers. Patrick fills a vessel out of the stream that was nearest to him, and he blessed the water, and it was turned to honey, and he gave it to his fostermother, so that she had it for relics, and it used to cure every disease and every illness.

Once upon a time there died the son of a certain woman, who used to help his (Patrick’s) fostermother in milking her kine. So the fosteress said to her ‘Bring with thee thy (dead) son into the cowshed this day, as thou wert used to bring him every day,’ and thus it was done. Now as the women were milking, and the dead child on the floor of the byre, his fosteress gave new milk to Patrick, and said to him ‘Call to thee thy comrade that he as well as thou may drink it.’ Patrick said ‘Come, my comrade, that we may drink it together,’ and at Patrick’s call the boy arose at once from death, and then they both drank it equally together.

At another time as Patrick and his sister Lupait were herding sheep, the lambs came, as was their wont, suddenly to their mothers. When Patrick and his sister saw that, they ran swiftly to separate the lambs, and the girl fell down, and her head struck against a stone, so that death was near her. Patrick came to her without delay, and made the sign of the cross over the wound so that it healed without any disease therefrom.

Once upon a time Patrick’s fostermother went to milk a cow, and he went to drink a draught of new milk. The cow goes mad in the byre. A devil entered into her so that she killed five other kine. Great sadness was upon his fostermother for the destruction of the kine, and she told him to bring them to life. Thereafter he brought the (dead) kine to life and the mad cow he cures.

At another time the king’s steward ordered Patrick’s fostermother to cleanse the hearth of the palace at Dumbarton. So Patrick came with his fostermother on the way to cleanse the hearth. Then the angel came to Patrick and said to him ‘make prayer, and this work will not be needed of thee.’ So Patrick prayed, and the angel cleansed the hearth that night. Patrick said on the morrow that if all the firewood of Britain were burnt on the hearth, it need not be cleansed till Doom. So it is still fulfilled.

At another time the king’s steward went to demand curds and butter of Patrick’s fostermother, and naught had she could give for the tribute. Then of the snow Patrick made the curds and the butter, and they were taken from him to the king. Now when those things were shewn to the king, they changed into their own nature. After that, the king always forgave the tribute to Patrick, so God’s name and Patrick’s were magnified through that miracle.

But the number of miracles and of wonders which Patrick in his childhood wrought in those lands, it is not possible for any one to enumerate or relate them.

Now this was the cause of Patrick’s coming to Ireland. Seven sons of Sechtmad, to wit, seven sons of the King of Britain, were in exile. They wrought rapine in the land of Britain, and Ulstermen were along with them, and so they brought Patrick in captivity to Ireland, and his two sisters Tigris and Lupait, and they sold Patrick to Míliucc maccu Buain, that is, to the King of Dalaraide, and to his three brothers, and they sold his two sisters in Conaille Muirthemne, and nothing was well known of them, (that is) and no one of them knew into what land another was sold.

Now Patrick served the king and his three brothers, wherefore there was given unto him the name of Cothraige, that is, the slave of four persons. Now four names had he, to wit, Succet, his name from his parents: Cothraige, when he served the four persons: Magonius (i.e.magis agens, his name with Germanus: Patricius (that is, “father of citizens”) his name with Peter’s successor, Celestinus.

Now when Míliucc saw that Patrick was a faithful slave, he bought him from the other three that he might serve him alone. And he served him to the end of seven years after the custom of the Hebrews, and what was committed unto him was the herding of swine in the wilderness of Sliab Mis.

Howbeit, Victor an angel, used to come to speak unto him, and to teach him as to performing devotion, that is, one hundred genuflexions every day and a hundred every night he used to make. Now when Patrick had been serving seven years, after the custom of the Hebrews, the angel said to him in a vision ‘Bene oras et bene jejunas, cito iturus eris ad patriam tuam,’ that is, ‘well thou prayest, well thou fastest, quickly shalt thou go to thine own fatherland.’

Now the time of Patrick’s release from bondage drew nigh, for the heathen were wont to free their slaves in the seventh year. As Míliucc could not think how (else) he could detain Patrick, he bought a bondmaid and wedded her to Patrick. On the bridalnight, when they were put into a house apart, then Patrick preached to the bondmaid, and they spent the whole night in prayer. On the next morning Patrick beheld the white scar on the bondmaid’s face, and he asked of her the cause of the scar. Said the bondmaid, ‘when I was in Nemtur in Britain, I fell, and my head struck against a stone, so that death was near me. When my brother Succet beheld the wound, he made the sign of Christ’s cross over it, so that I was well at once.’ Patrick said this ‘I myself am thy brother, and I am he that healed thee.’ They then gave thanks to God, and go into the wilderness.

Now when Patrick was in the wilderness, he heard the voice of the angel, saying to him, ‘Ready is the ship wherein thou mayest fare to Italy to learn the scriptures.’ Said Patrick, ‘I have not the price (of my ransom) in gold for my lord, and without that he will not allow me (to leave him).’ The angel said to him, ‘Mind thou the herd to-day, and thou wilt see a boar uprooting the earth, and he will bring a mass of gold thereout, and give thou that gold to thy lord for thy head, and fare forth from this land to learn wisdom and piety.’ He watched the boar and found the mass of gold, and gave it for his head to his lord, who consented to let him go, for he was glad at the gold.

Patrick then went on (his) way, and found a ship with her crew of heathen. And he had welcome of them, and they took him with them oversea. His master Míliucc was sorry for letting him leave. He went after him; and overtook him not, and Míliucc loved not the gold thereafter.

Then Patrick on his road was captured in a foray, and he was with them (the reavers) the time of two months. Patrick made prayer, and God delivered him, so that he came safe to his parents. His parents besought him to abide thenceforward always with them. Sed tamen, the angel came to him in his sleep, having many letters in Gaelic, and when he was reading them out he heard a great cry from infants in their mothers’ wombs in the regions of Connaught. Those children were of Caille Fochlad, and this is what they were saying, ‘Veni Sancte Patrici salvos nos facere.’

Then went Patrick to learn wisdom and piety in the south-east of Italy, unto bishop German, and he tarried with him for thirty years, learning the holy scripture, and fulfilling it in humble and lowly wise. And another thirty years was his age when he went to German. Thirty years was he learning, sixty preaching in Ireland.

He bade farewell to German, and German gave him his blessing, and a chief priest went with him to testify of him to Peter’s successor as to every grade, to wit, Segetius the priest was his name.

Thereafter Patrick went upon the Tyrrhene sea: it was there he met with the island. He saw the new house and a young married couple therein, and in the door of the house he beheld a withered old hag. ‘Who may the hag be?’ said Patrick, ‘She is a daughter’s daughter of mine,’ replied the young man, ‘and her mother is dead of decay.’ ‘What caused that?’ said Patrick. ‘Christ came to us when he was among men,’ said the youth, ‘and we made a feast for him. He blessed our dwelling and ourselves. Now the blessing did not visit our children, and unto us he foretold that thou wouldst come to us, and he left his staff with us to be given to thee.’ ‘I will not take it,’ said Patrick, ‘until he himself gives it to me.’

Therafter he went to a certain chief bishop who conferred episcopal rank upon him. He afterwards fared to Rome, and found honour and reverence from the Romans and from the Abbot whose name was Celestinus.

He it was who had sent a man of his family to Ireland to sow belief and faith among the men of Ireland—Palladius was his name,—with twelve men, to preach to the Gael, for unto Peter’s successor belong the bettering of the whole of Europe, and the headship thereof. When Palladius arrived in the province of Leinster, Nathí, son of Garrchu, son of Fothad, son of Echaid Redhand, son of Mesincorb, withstood him and expelled him from thence. However he baptized a few there, and founded three churches there, namely, Cellfine, where he left his books, with relics of Paul and Peter, [and ‘the House of the Romans’ and Domnach Arte] and going eastward, he died in the island of Britain: wherefore then they ordered Patrick as an apostle from them to Ireland, and angels told him to go to Ireland promptly. He said that he would not go, until the Lord should speak unto himself. Thereafter the angel brought him into Armoric Letha, to the city named Capua in Mount Hermon, on the shore of the Tyrrhene sea, and the Lord spake to him at that place, as He had spoken to Moses on Mount Sinai, and told him to come to preach to the Gael, and He gave him the staff of Jesus: wherefore it was according to the will of the synod of Rome and of the angel and of the Lord that Patrick came to Ireland.

He then fared forth on his road, four and twenty men were his number, and he found a ship in readiness before him on the strand of the sea of Britain. When Patrick came into the boat, a leper was asking him for a place, and there was no empty place therein. So he put out before him (to swim in the sea) the stone altar whereon he used to make offering every day. Sed tamen, God wrought a great miracle here, to wit, the stone went not to the bottom, nor did it stay behind them. But it swam round about the boat until it arrived in Ireland.

Then Patrick saw a dense ring of demons around Ireland, to wit, a six days’ journey from it on every side.

When Patrick came to Inver Dea in the territory of Leinster, and to a certain hamlet hard by, he found no welcome in them, and Patrick cursed that rivermouth, wherefore it is barren (of fish) from that to this, and the sea hath come over that land. Nathí, son of Garrchu, was he who denied Patrick.

Patrick afterwards passed over sea to Ulster to seek Míliuc, King of Dalaraide, to preach the name of God, as it was with him he was in servitude at first, that it might be to him he should first preach, and the service to Míliuc’s body and to his soul might thus be complete. Howbeit Míliuc came against him with great hosts of heathens, and would not let him land, since Loegaire had ordered the men of Ireland that they should not let Patrick on land: for his soothsayers had foretold to Loegaire, five years before, that Patrick would arrive in Ireland, to wit, Lochra and Lothrach and Luchatmael and Renell were their names, and this is what they used to say—

An Adzehead shall come across stormy (?) sea:
His mantle hole-headed, his staff crook-headed:
His dish in the east of his house:
All his people shall answer himAmen, Amen;

And every princedom and every worship and every might that will not be humble to him shall ebb away, and out of his own princedom he shall perfect [his followers] for ever.

Patrick went afterwards in his boat to Inverslany, and there came against him Díchu son of Trechem, and he set against him a fierce hound which he had. Sed tamen Patrick made the sign of the cross of the Lord against it, and he chanted the prophetic verse, ‘ne tradas, Domine, bestiis animas confitentium tibi’, and the hound stopt in that place and was unable to stir. Then Díchu bared his brand, and went to kill Patrick. Patrick made the sign of Christ’s cross against him, so that he could not stir either foot or hand. Thereafter Díchu repented and knelt before Patrick and gave him his full will, and Díchu believed in one God, and he and great hosts along with him were baptized, and he gave that land (whereon he was converted) to God and to Patrick. In that place Patrick built a church which is called Saball Patraic to-day, and he foretold to Díchu that it would be there he should go to heaven. And he gave a great blessing to Díchu and to his children, ut dixit Patricius then—

God’s blessing on Díchu who granted me the Barn.
He shall have therefor the holy, all pure … habitation.
God’s blessing on Díchu, who forgives (?) blood:
No children or race of his shall be a lasting law in hell.

Patrick afterwards went to teach Míliuc as he had (before) proceeded. When Míliuc heard that Patrick was on his way to him, he closed his house upon himself and upon all his wealth, and he set fire to himself in it so that he was burnt with all his goods, in order that he might not believe in Patrick. Patrick, seeing the fire, stopt and he said—

The man who had resolved (?) upon this
That he might not believe in me and in the Lord

Nor kingdom or chieftainship shall be from him till Doom,
And his soul shall be in hell for ever.

And when Patrick had uttered these words he returned right-handwise by the same road again into the land of Ulster until he reached Mag Inis (and came) to Díchu, son of Trichem, and there he staid for a long time.

Patrick went afterwards to Saball southward, and preached to Ross, son of Trichem. It was he that dwelt at Derlus to the south of Dún Lethglasse. A small town is there to-day whose name is Brechtain, the place wherein is Bishop Loairn.

As Patrick was (going) along his way he saw the tender youth herding swine, Mochoa was his name. Patrick preached to him, and baptized and tonsured him and gave him a gospel and a reliquary, and at another time he gave him a crozier which had been sent to them from God, its head falling in Patrick’s bosom and its foot in Mochoa’s bosom. This is the Eittech of Mochoa of Noendruim; and he ordered a shaven pig (to be given) every year to Patrick, and it is still given.

Patrick bade farewell to Díchu, and proceeds to Tara to speak unto Loegaire. [He sailed] along the sea to Mag Breg, [and stopped in Inver Colptha,] and he found great welcome in that place from a certain gentleman who both believed in him with all his people and was baptized, wherefore with him he (Patrick) left his boat.

A little boy was in the house gave love to Patrick, and took hold of his leg as he was going into the chariot, and his family bestow him on Patrick, and Patrick takes him with him, and this is Benén, Patrick’s gillie.

It was then a certain impious wizard named Mantais reviled Patrick. Patrick is enraged with him, and he makes a thrust of Jesus’ crozier at him, and he fell before the hosts, and the earth swallowed him, whence is [the saying] noconuil amáin Mántais.

Patrick went thereafter to Ferta Fer Feicc. Fire is kindled by him at that place on the eve of Easter. Loegaire is enraged when he sees the fire. For that was a prohibition of Tara which the Gael had, and no one would dare kindle a fire in Ireland on that day until it had been kindled first at Tara at the solemnity. And the wizards said: ‘unless that fire be quenched before this night, he whose fire it is shall have the kingdom of Ireland for ever.’

Tunc dixit rex: ‘it shall not be so, but we will go to him and kill him.’ The king arises with his host to see Patrick and kill him; but they did not arrive before the end of night. When the king drew nigh his wizards said to him ‘go not thou to him,’ said they, ‘that it may not be a token of honour to him. But let him come to thee and let none rise up before him.’ Thus was it done. When Patrick saw the horses and the chariots, he then sang this verse: ‘Hi in curribus et hi in equis, nos autem in nomine domini Dei nostri magni.’ But, when Patrick came in to the assembly, only the son of Deg rose up before him, that is Bishop Erc, who is (venerated) at Slane.

Then came one of the wizards, to wit, Lochru, fiercely and angrily against Patrick, and reviled the Christian faith. Tunc sanctus Patricius dixit: ‘O my Lord, it is Thou that canst do all things: in Thy power they are: it is Thou that sentest us hither. Let this impious one, who is blaspheming Thy name, now destroyed in the presence of all.’

Swifter than speech, at Patrick’s word, demons raised the wizard into the air, and they let him go (down) against the earth, and his head struck against a stone, and dust and ashes were made of him in the presence of all, and trembling and intolerable dread seized the hosts that were there.

Loegaire was enraged with Patrick, and went to kill him. When Patrick perceived the attack of the heathen upon him, he then said, with a mighty voice, ‘Exsurgat Deus et dissipentur inimici ejus.’ Came a great earthquake and thunder there, and a wind, and scattered the chariots and the horse afar on every side, so that they came even to Bríg Graide and Sliab Moenuirnn, and they were all slaughtering each other through Patrick’s curse, and there were left along with the king but four persons only in that place, to wit, himself and his wife and two of his priests.

When terror seized the queen, she went to Patrick and said to him, ‘O righteous one and O mighty one, kill not the king, for he shall submit to thee, and give thee thine own will.’ The king came and gave his will to Patrick by word of mouth, but gave it not from his heart; and he told Patrick to go after him to Tara that he might give him his will before the men of Ireland. That, however, was not what he had in mind, but to kill Patrick, for he left ambushes before him on every road from that to Tara.

Thereafter went Patrick (and his train of) eight, together with a gillie Benén, past all the ambushes, in the shape of eight deer and behind them one fawn with a white bird on its shoulder, that is, Benén with Patrick’s book-satchel on his back; and thereafter he went into Tara, the doors being shut, to the middle of the palace. The king was then feasting with the kings of Ireland around him at this festival, for that was the Feast of Tara.

No one rose up before Patrick at Tara except the king’s poet, Dubthach Macculugair, and he believed and was baptized, and Patrick gave him a blessing.

Patrick is then called to the king’s couch that he might eat food, and Patrick refused not that. The wizard Lucatmael put a drop of poison into Patrick’s cruse, and gave it into Patrick’s hand: but Patrick blessed the cruse and inverted the vessel, and the poison fell thereout, and not even a little of the ale fell. And Patrick afterwards drank the ale.

Then said the king to his gillie Crunnmael, ‘Go out on the causeway of Tara, and lay thee down thereon and let them rub dough mixed with blood about thy head, and let them say that thou fellest upon the stones and that thou diedst, and I will tell the cleric to come to bring thee life, and though he tells thee to rise, arise not.’ Thus, was it done. When Patrick saw the body, God made manifest to him that guile was practised on him, wherefore he said—

O my Crunnmael, O my bald youth, O my hero,
Though thou attainedst one thing, though thou hast not attained, thou hast not arisen,
Though thou hast fallen, though thou hast not fallen upon the stones—a final deed
Thou thou attainedst one thing, though thou hast not attained, thou art not healed.

It is certain that Crunnmael was not healed by Patrick’s word, and from that time forth he arose not.

Thereafter the hosts fared forth out of Tara. Then said the wizard, ‘Let us work miracles together that we may know which of us is the stronger.’ ‘So be it done,’ said Patrick. Then the wizard brought snow over the plain till it reached men’s shoulders. Dixit Patricius to him, ‘Put it away now if thou canst.’ Dixit magus: ‘I cannot till the same time to-morrow.’ ‘By my debroth’ (that is, ‘by my God of judgement,’), saith Patrick, ‘it is in evil thy power lieth, and nowise in good.’ Patrick blessed the plain, and the snow melted at once.

The wizard invoked demons, and over the plain he brought darkness that could be felt, and trembling and terror seized everyone. Dixit Patricius: ‘Take away the darkness si potes.’ The wizard replied, ‘I cannot till the same time to-morrow.’ Patrick blessed the plain and the darkness at once depart, and the sun shone forth … All who were there gave thanks to God and to Patrick.

Tunc dixit rex, ‘Put your books into water, and him of you whose books escape we will adore.’ ‘I am ready for that,’ saith Patrick. Said the wizard, ‘a god of water this man adores, and I will not submit to the ordeal of water.’ That was the grace of Baptism which he had perceived with Patrick.

Said the king, ‘Put your books into the fire.’ ‘I am ready for that,’ saith Patrick. ‘I will not do thus,’, saith the wizard, ‘for this man adores a god of fire every two years,’ that is, it was the grace of the Holy Ghost he perceived with Patrick. Then another counsel was taken, that is, to build a house in that hour—the half thereof fresh and the other withered, and to put the wizard into the fresh half with Patrick’s raiment about him, (and) to place Patrick’s gillie, Benén, into the withered half, with the wizard’s tunic about him.

Then came to Patrick three striplings, who were kept in hostageship with Loegaire. They weep unto Patrick. Patrick asked, ‘What is that, my sons?’ ‘In the chief city of the Gael a prince’s truth,’ say they, ‘hath to-day been broken.’ ‘Where is this?’ saith Patrick. ‘The house which is abuilding for the wizard and thy gillie, in this wise is it abuilding: half thereof fresh and half withered; the fresh half for the wizard and the withered for thy gillie.’

Patrick put his finger on the right cheek of each of those boys, and on his left palm he put a tear (which had trickled) over the right cheek of each boy; and he breathed on the tears, and made thereof three gems. ‘Swallow,’ saith Patrick, ‘the gems.’ ‘We will swallow (them),’, say they. ‘Good, now,’, saith Patrick: ‘three noble venerable gems shall be born of you, that is Colomb Cille, and Comgall of Bennchor, and Finden of Magbile.’

It was done as the striplings had said; and fire was put into the house, and the fresh half is burnt with the wizard therein, and Patrick’s raiment which was about him was not burnt, nor the gillie, but the wizard’s tunic which was about him was burnt.

The king grows terrible (?) at the killing of the wizard, and he proceeds to kill Patrick. But God’s anger came against the impious folk, so that a multitude of them (twelve thousand) perished.

Terror then seized Loegaire, and he knelt to Patrick, and believed in God with (his) lips only, and not with a pure heart. All the rest, moreover, believe and were baptized.

Patrick said to Loegaire, ‘Since thou hast believed in God, length of life shall be given to thee in the kingdom, but in guerdon of thy disobedience aforetime, and because thou hast not received the baptism with desire, though thou believedst with thy lips, Hell shalt thou have, and from thy race till Doom there shall be neither sovranty nor chieftainship.’

But the queen besought Patrick not to curse the child that was in her womb, namely Lugaid, son of Loegaire. Patrick said: ‘I will not curse him till he opposes me.’ Now Lugaid took the realm of Ireland; and thereafter he came to Achad farcha and there he said, ‘is not that the church of the cleric who said there would never be a king nor crownprince of our seed?’ Swifter than speech a bolt of fire was hurled against him and killed him. Wherefore thence is called Achad farcha in Ui Cremthainne.

Patrick then goes to the Assembly of Telltown, to the sons of Niall. Maine believed in him, and he was afterwards baptized. But Coirpre, son of Niall, opposed him, and the name which Patrick gave him was Inimicus Dei, and Patrick said that his children would serve his brother’s children for ever; and that neither kings nor bishops nor wise men should spring from him, and that his land would be small, and the issue was so.

But Conall (i.e. Cremthann), son of Niall, believed, and was baptized, and gave the place where he was to Patrick, and a church was built there which is named Domnach Patraic, and Patrick gave him a blessing, and measured out a rampart in front of the door of the church, and foretold that many kings over Ireland would spring from him, and many noble laymen and clerics. And of his seed are the Clann-Colmain, and the seed of Aed Slaine. And Patrick blessed the Assembly of Telltown, so that no one should ever be killed thereat, and that only one should be killed at Rath Airthir, and he left his altar at Domnach Patraic. And Patrick went from thence into the territory of Ui Meith in Mendait Tire, and he tarried not in Armagh at that season, and he left holy elders of his people at Tech-talain.

Then three of Ui Meith Mendait Tire stole (and ate) one of the two goats that used to carry water for Patrick, and came to swear a lie. It bleated from the bellies of the three. ‘My debroth’ said Patrick, ‘the goat himself hides not the stead wherein he is.’

He afterwards went to the men of Bregia and mightily preached the word of God unto them, and baptized and blessed them.

He visited the Ford of Hurdles (Dublin) and found great welcome there, and Patrick said that there would be rank and primacy in that place, even as shall be still fulfilled.

Patrick went a round of the Leinstermen, and preacheth the word of God to them, and baptized and blessed them; and the sons of Dunlaing with mighty hosts believed in the Lord and in Patrick, and they gave him his will, wherefore they have the kingship thence for ever.

Drichú was king of Ui Garrchon before Patrick, and a daughter of Loeguire, son of Niall, he had to wife. He rejecteth Patrick at Rath Inbir for Loeguire’s sake, but Cillíne welcomed him and killed his only cow for Patrick and gave him a cup which had been bestowed upon him in the king’s house. Then Patrick said to the cooking woman—

O woman, cherish thy child!
A great boar cometh of a pigling
From a spark groweth a flame.
Thy child shall be alive, shall be safe.

The corn
That is best of earth’s plants
Is Marcan, son of Cillíne:
he will be the best of the Ui Garrchon.

Patrick afterwards went into Ossory and founded churches and church-buildings there, and said there would be noble laymen and clerics of the men of Ossory, and that no province would prevail against them as long as they should obey Patrick.

Patrick afterwards bade farewell to the men of Ossory at Belach Gabrain, and he left with them Martin, an elder, and a party of his people where Martharthech is at this day in Mag Raigne.

Patrick passed afterwards by Belach Gabrain into the province of Munster, and preached to the territories and to the churches, so that they believed and were baptized, and he blessed them. And with them he left priests instructing (them) and practising piety.

When he reached Mag Femin, he was received by Oengus, son of Natfraech, King of Munster. Oengus made him great welcome and brought him to his house to Cashel. Patrick preached to him. The hinder end of the crozier went through his foot, and wounded it greatly. Patrick said, ‘Why didst thou not protect thyself?’ ‘Methought,’ saith Oengus, ‘that it was a rite of religion.’ Said Patrick, ‘Blood shall not be shed in this place from to-day till Doom, and of all those that shall succeed thee but one king shall be slain.’

Oengus is baptized with great hosts along with him. Patrick blessed Oengus upon Lia Cathraige (Cathraige’s stone), whereon the kings were appointed to office at Cashel.

Patrick blessed the Eoganacht and went to Ormond. Patrick preached to them and baptized them, and left with them blessing and prosperity. He goes the rounds of all the Munstermen, and preached to them and baptized them and blessed them, and leaves churches and clerics with them. Patrick bade them farewell and gave them a fervent blessing, ut dixit –

God’s blessing on Munster, men, children, women.
Blessing on the land which gives them fruit,
Blessing on each wealth which is brought forth on their marches
Without any need (?) of help. God’s blessing on Munster.

Blessing on their peaks, on their bare flagstones,
Blessing on their glens, blessing on their ridges,

Sand of sea under ships be their hearths’ number,
On slopes, on plains, on mountains, on peaks!

Thereafter Patrick came to Armagh at the angel’s word, and he arrived at Rath Daire, the fort of Daire, a wealthy, venerable man, who was in Oriors, to wit, Daire, son of Findchad, son of Eogan, son of Niallan. He gave a site for a high church to Patrick in the stead where the Ferta is to-day.

When the building of the close was finished, and its grass grew greatly, Daire’s gillie brought his good horse into the close to the grassplot (?) This vexed Patrick greatly, and the gillie came on the morrow in the morning, and found his horse dead in the close. The gillie went away sorrowfully, and told Daire that his horse was killed by the cleric. Daire ordered the cleric himself to be killed for it, Daire died anon at that word. Said Daire’s wife, ‘The cause of this death is the wrong which he wrought against the cleric. Go quickly and give him his will.’ The messengers went to Patrick, and they told him what had happened therein. Patrick sained water and puts it over the horse and over the man, and both arise from death.

Said Daire to twain of his people, ‘Take my caldron of copper to the cleric.’ Patrick said when the caldron had come to him, ‘Gratzacham,’ that is, Deo gratias ago. Daire asked of his servants what the cleric had said. ‘Gratzacham,’ say the servants. ‘That is a good price for a copper caldron!’ saith Daire, ‘go ye and bring it back from him.’ The caldron is brought back from Patrick. ‘Gratzacham,’ saith Patrick. Daire asked of the servants what Patrick said at the taking away of the caldron from him. ‘The same gratzacham,’ say they. ‘The word is a good one with him,’ saith Daire, ‘the gratzacham on taking it from him and the gratzacham in giving it to him.’

Daire himself went with his caldron, and gave Patrick his will, bestowing on him the stead wherein Armagh is at this day (now Ard Sailech had been its name till then), and Daire afterwards went round the land.

On the night thereafter Patrick beheld in a vision Victor, an angel, coming to him with Ireland’s elders along with him, and they marked out the city in his presence, and the place of the temple and of the kitchen and of the guest-house, and he went right-hand-wise round the rampart, and Patrick behind him with his bachaill Ísu—Jesu’s crozier—in his hand, and Ireland’s elders chanting around him.

Patrick afterwards built the city in the same wise as it had appeared to him. And the angel said to him: ‘Abundant will God’s grace be in this place and upon everyone who will do good therein.’ The angel said to Patrick, ‘God will heal for thee here twelve persons every Saturday and seven every Thursday, so long as their perfect faith of the people abideth.’

Overmany to recount and declare are all the wonders and miracles which Patrick wrought around Armagh.

Thereafter Patrick went to Rome for the third time, and he brought relics of Paul and Peter and Stephen and Lawrence and many martyrs besides, and reliquaries and books and a sheet with Christ’s blood thereon, and they were laid up here by Patrick in Paul and Peter’s shrine.

Thereafter Patrick gat him into the wilderness, that is, to Cruachan Oigle, after the manner of Moses and Elias and Christ, and for forty days and forty nights he fasted in that place, having four stones about him and a stone under him, even as Moses fasted on Mount Sinai when the Law was delivered unto him. For they, Moses and Patrick, were alike in many ways. One hundred and twenty years was the age of them both. Each was a leader of people: forty nights on mountains they fasted, and the burial-places of both are uncertain.

Now when [the solemn festival of] Easter was at hand; the mountain was filled against him with devils in the shapes of black birds. Patrick sings psalms of cursing against them, and he weeps and strikes his bell, until a gap broke in it, ut dixit Patricius –

I fear go to the round (?) Rick:
bands without piety (are) against me,
Fear has seized me for a time,
ten hundred heads (are) contending with me.

The devils flee at once upon the sea, as far as eye can reach, and drown themselves in that place, and no devil visited the land of Ireland from that time to the end of seven days and seven months and seven years.

Then there came a great host of angels in the shapes of white birds, and they sang noble music to the Lord to comfort Patrick. Some say that it is an equal number he will take with him to heaven.

Then the angel Victor said to him, ‘Go to thy people for the solemn festival of Easter.’ Patrick said, ‘Since I was tormented, I will not go till I am satisfied, and until seven things are given to me by the Lord, namely, that at Doomsday hell be not shut upon whichsoever of the men of Ireland repenteth before death, were it even for the space of a single hour; that outlanders may not inhabit this island; that the sea may come over it seven years before Doomsday; that seven persons every Thursday and twelve every Saturday I may free from the pains of hell; that whoever shall sing my hymn on the day of his death may be a dweller in heaven, as I promised unto Sechnall; and that on Doomsday I may bring from the pains of hell for every hair of my chasuble, seven of those that shall visit it; and that I myself may be judge over the men of Ireland on Doomsday.’ ‘All this shall be granted to thee.’ said the angel ‘for all the family of heaven have besought Him for thee’ ‘A blessing upon the King [of heaven],’ said Patrick, ‘and upon the family [of heaven].’

Patrick struck his bell, so that all the men of Ireland, both living and dead, heard it. Thereafter he blessed the men of Ireland from the Rick, and he orders seven of his household (who are still) alive to guard the men of Ireland, to wit, a man at Cruachan Aigle, and a man at Benn Gulbain, and a man in Sliab Bethad, and a man in Sliab Cua, and the married pair at Cluain Iraird and Domangort of Sliab Slangai.

He went from the Rick thereafter, and celebrated Easter at Achad Fobair.

Patrick and Brigit along with him went to Essruaid, and he was minded to erect a church and a holy dwelling there at a place wherein to-day is Disert Patraic. Cairbre, son of Niall, rejected him, and he sent two of his people to cast him forth, Carbaic and Cuangus (were) their names. ‘What thou hast done is not good,’ said Patrick; ‘hadst thou permitted me to settle here, my city, with its [river of] Essruaid through the middle thereof, would have been a second Rome of Latium with its Tiber flowing through it and thy descendants would have been (my) successors therein.’ But Coirpre refused that. Now Patrick blessed Conall, son of Niall, on Síth Aeda. Then Patrick’s hands were falling on the head of Fergus, and Conall had wonder thereat, ut dixit Patricius –

A man-child shall be born of his family:
He will be a sage, a prophet, a poet.
Dear the luminary, pure, bright,
Who will never utter falsehood.

Saith Brigit –

Man-child of Ethne, the white-sided,
He is bright, he is a blossoming (?)
Colomb Cille, fair without blemish,
It was not oversoon to perceive him.

Now after that Patrick blessed Conall, son of Niall, and he foretold that sovranty over Ireland (would descend) from him, and also noble laics and clerics, and he left a blessing on his people and on his rivermouths, and he afterwards came into Tyrone, and there Patrick and Sechnall promised a reward to Muiredach, son of Eogan, if he would prevail on his father to believe in God. ‘What reward?’ saith Muiredach. ‘Kingship shall be from thee for ever,’ saith Sechnall. ‘Thus will I do,’ saith Muiredach; and thus it was done, and Eogan believed in God and in Patrick.

Patrick fared thence to Ailech of the Kings, and he blessed it, and left his flagstone there, and foretold that the kingship and supremacy of Ireland would be out of Ailech, and he left blessing of valour upon Eogan and his sons, saying to them—

A blessing on the territories
I give from Belach Ratha:
There shall be of Eogan’s race
pilgrims till Doomsday;

So long as plain shall be under crops,
victory of battle shall be with their men:
The head of the host of men of Fál (be) to their place:
power (?) to them over every hearth:

The race of Eogan, son of Niall,
sain, O fair Brigit!
Provided they do good
a king [will be] of them for ever.

Brigit said—

The blessing of us both
upon Eogan, son of Niall,
Upon everyone who shall be born of him
provided they be wholly at our will.

Thereafter Patrick fared into the province of Ulster to Maginis, and there Patrick met a ruthless man who was spoiling and killing the congregation—MacCuill was his name, ut dixit to his people ‘This is Adzehead, let us go and make an attack upon him, to see if perchance his god will help him.’ They afterwards brought one of their people upon a bier, as though he were dead, to be raised from death by Patrick. Garván was the name of that man. ‘Heal for us,’ they say, ‘this man of our family.’ Ut dixit Patricius—

Garván’s mantle
Shall be upon a dead man’s body,
But this, besides, I will make known to you
It is Garván that shall be under it.

Then his people put the mantle off Garván’s face and thus they found him, dead. So the heathen believed and were baptized, and Garván was raised to life from death by Patrick’s word.

What God wrought of wonders and miracles for the holy Patrick are over-many to recount or declare; for there were sixty books and seven written of them, and still they are not all (set forth).

Now Patrick hath been likened to the patriarchs—for first, (he was) a true pilgrim, like Abraham; meek, forgiving, like Moses; a psalmist of God’s praise was he like David son of Jesse; studious of wisdom, like Solomon,; a chosen vessel to proclaim the truth, like apostle Paul; a man full of the grace and loving-kindness of the Holy Ghost, like John son of Zebedee; a lion in strength and courage to bring the impious and wicked of the world to faith and belief; a serpent in cunning and prudence for observing every attack; a dove, mild and gentle in heart’s desire and perfect word and righteous deed; a laborious servant to the Creator as to piety and humility, and instruction in every goodness, as many relate.

Now, this was the rule of his piety, to wit, he used to sing all the psalms with their hymms and canticles and apocalypse, and other prayers every day. He used to baptize, to preach, and to celebrate the hours according to their due order: he used to offer Christ’s Body and his Blood. He used to make the sign of the cross over his face a hundred times from one (canonical) hour to another. In the first watch of the night he used to sing a hundred psalms and make two hundred genuflexions. In second watch (he used to be) in bare water: the third watch in contemplation: the fourth watch on the cold clay, with a stone under his head and a wet quilt about him. He used to ordain, anoint, and consecrate. He used to bless and cure lepers, the blind, the lame, the deaf, the dumb, and folk of every disease besides. He used to cast out devils; he used to raise the dead to life.

Now when Patrick came to the ending days, while he was at Saball in Mag-inis in the province of Ulster, he sets out on the road to Armagh that he might die therein. He sees the brake blazing before him, and the fire was not burning the brake, and Victor an angel (was) speaking to him thereout, ut dixit to him—

Thou shalt not go to Armagh,
for thou promisedst
To Trechem’s sons
that with them thy resurrection would be.

Then Patrick said—

If here be my resurrection,
Armagh will be my church:
My freedom is not in my own power,
it is the common bondage.

Dixit Patricius:

Armagh I used to love:
a dear thorpe, a dear hill,
A fort which my soul haunteth.
Emain of the heroes shall be waste.

Dixit angelus:

Since thy resurrection is here,
thou shalt have what is better-
All Ireland from top to bottom,
Armagh thy church.

that is, ‘Thy grace, and thy dignity, and thy primacy (will be) in Armagh’ said the angel, ‘though thy resurrection will be here.’

Thereafter Patrick sent (forth) his spirit, and he received communion and sacrifice from Bishop Tassach’s hand, after gaining victory and triumph over the world and the Devil and vices. And he sent his spirit to the Lord, for whom he had done service and warfare on earth.

A great host of heaven’s angels came with a great light to attend him, wherefore it was they that waked the body on that night. And Ireland’s elders heard the quiring of the angels on that night. Ireland’s elders came for twelve nights with psalms and hymns, and the light and the angelic odour failed them not, but abode in the whole land to a year’s end.

There grew up a great strife between the men of Oriel and the men of Ulster about the body, and an arm of sea arose between them, so that they might not kill each other. They saw before them in the east two stags, with a wain between them and the body therein. They went forward to Armagh and they were thankful to God.

Patrick was buried, with honour and veneration, with daily wonders and miracles, in Dunlethglasse.

And though great is his honour still among men, his honour will be still greater at the meeting of Doom, where he will be like every chief apostle, passing judgement on the men of Ireland unto whom he preached. It is there he will shine forth like the sun in the union of saints and holy virgins of the world; in union of patriarchs and prophets; in the union of apostles and disciples of Jesus Christ, Son of living God; in the union of the Manhood of Jesus Christ son of God; in the union which is nobler than every (other) union; in the union of the holy, noble, venerable Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

I implore God’s mercy through Patrick’s intercession! May we all attain to that union, may we deserve it, may we dwell there in saecula saeculorum! Amen!

430 – 450. Hengist, Horsa.

430 to 450

430. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Patricius (St Patrick) was sent from Pope Celestinus to preach baptism to the Scots.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

Twelve years after, (the sack of Rome) bishop Palladius is sent by the holy pope Celestinus to preach the gospel of Christ to the Scots.

430. Annals of the Four Masters.

The second year of Laeghaire. In this year Pope Celestinus the First sent Palladius to Ireland, to propagate the faith among the Irish, and he landed in the country of Leinster with a company of twelve men. Nathi, son of Garchu, refused to admit him; but, however, he baptized a few persons in Ireland, and three wooden churches were erected by him, namely, Cell Fhine, Teach Na Romhan, and Domhnach Arta. At Cell Fhine he left his books, and a shrine with the relics of Paul and Peter, and many martyrs besides. He left these four in these churches: Augustinus, Benedictus, Silvester, and Solinus. Palladius, on his returning back to Rome (as he did not receive respect in Ireland), contracted a disease in the country of the Cruithnigh, and died thereof.

The Annals of Ulster.

In the 15th or 14th year of Laegaire son of Niall. From the beginning of the world according to the Seventy Interpreters 5885 years, according to the Hebrews 4636; from the Incarnation according to the Hebrews 685 years, according to Dionysius 432 years, but to Bede 431 years.

431. Annals of the Four Masters

The third year of Laeghaire. Saint Patrick was ordained bishop by the holy Pope, Celestine the First, who ordered him to go to Ireland, to preach and teach faith and piety to the Gaeidhil, and also to baptize them.

The Annals of Ulster.

Kalends of January. The year 431 from the Incarnation of the Lord. Palladius, having been consecrated by Celestine, bishop of the city of Rome, is sent to Ireland in the consulship of Aetius and Valerius as first bishop to the Irish so that they might believe in Christ—in the eighth year of Theodosius.

431. Prosper of Aquitaine.

Palladius was sent by Pope Celestine to the Scots (Irish?) who believed in Christ, and was ordained as their first bishop.

St SixtusIII Pope 432-440

432. Cronicum Scotorum.

From the death of the hero, Cucullainn, to this year, there are 431 years; from the death of Conchobhar Mac Nessa, 412 years.

Patrick, i.e. the Archbishop, comes to Hibernia, and begins to baptize the Scoti, in the ninth year of Theodosius the younger, the first year of the episcopate of Sixtus, 45th Bishop of the Roman Church, and the fourth year of the reign of Laeghaire, son of Niall.

432. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fourth year of Laeghaire. Patrick came to Ireland this year, and proceeded to baptize and bless the Irish, men, women, sons, and daughters, except a few who did not consent to receive faith or baptism from him, as his Life relates.

Ath Truim was founded by Patrick, it having been granted by Fedhlim, son of Laeghaire, son of Niall, to God and to him, Loman, and Fortchern. Flann Mainistrech cecinit:

1. Patrick, Abbot of all Ireland,

son of Calphrann, son of Fotaide,

Son of Deisse,—not fit to be dispraised,

son of Cormac Mor, son of Lebriuth,

2. Son of Ota, son of Orric the Good,

son of Moric, son of Leo of full success,

Son of Maximus, ’tis not unfit to name him,

son of Encretti, the tall and comely,

3. Son of Philisti, the best of men,

son of Fereni without a tempest,

Son of Britan, otter of the sea,

from whom the vigorous Britons came;

4. Cochnias was his modest mother;

Nemthor his native town;

Of Munster not small his share,

which Patrick redeemed from sorrow.

The Annals of Ulster.

Kalends of January sixth feria, fifth of the moon, [AM]4636. AD 432 according to Dyonisius. Patrick arrived in Ireland in the ninth year of the reign of Theodosius the Less and in the first year of the episcopate of Xistus, 42nd bishop of the Roman Church. So Bede, Maxcellinus and Isidore compute in their chronicles.

433. Annals of Inisfallen.

The first feria [Sunday]. Conversion of the Scotti to the Christian Faith.

SBG Saint Ailbey.

Patrick landed at the mouth of the Boyne, and proceeded up the country, leaving his nephew Lomman to take care of the boat. After awaiting the return of his uncle eighty days, Lomman ascended the river to Ath-Trim and was taken into the house of Fedlimid, son of Laogaire, King of Ireland, who received him hospitably, because his wife was a British woman, as had been also his mother.’

But the Irish have a strange and improbable account of his origin. His father was named Olchu or Olchais, who was in the service of Cronan, a chieftain of Eliach, now Eliogarty, in Tipperary. His mother was a maidservant in the household, who loved Olchu, not wisely but too well.’ Olchu, on finding that she was about to become a mother, and fearing the wrath of the chief, ran away. On the birth of the child, Cronan ordered the little bastard to be exposed, and it was cast behind a rock, where a she-wolf took pity on it and suckled it. Many years after, when Ailbe was a bishop, he was present one day at a wolf hunt, when one old grey beast fled for refuge under his gabardine. ‘ Ah, my friend! ‘ exclaimed Ailbe. When I was feeble and friendless thou didst protect me, and now I will do the same for thee.”

He was found by a man named Lochan, who gave him the name Ailbe from the rock (ail) under which he lay; the she-wolf, however, whined and was sore troubled to lose her nursling; but, “Go in peace,” said Lochan to the beast, “I shall keep the boy.”

A few years later Lochan gave the child to be fostered by some British who had settled in Eligoarty, perhaps at Ballybrit, which was a part of the territory of Eile O ‘Carroll in Munster. Lochan was son of Laidhir, one of the Aradha, a Leinster tribe settled near Lough Derg, and his mother was a kinswoman of Olchu, the child’s father.

Whilst Ailbe was with the Britons, his opening mind received ideas, and he became thoughtful; he loved to look on the spangled heavens and to question the origin of the starry host. ” Who can have formed these lights? ” he inquired. ” Who can have set them in their places, and ordered the sun and moon to run their courses? O! that I might know Him!” A Christian priest overheard him thus speaking, and took and baptised him, after having given him suitable instruction.

It is Ailbe or Elfyw was a son of Dirdan, a nobleman of Italy’ probably of Letavia, Armorica, often confounded with Latium. His mother was Banhadlen, or Danadlwen, daughter of Cynyr of Cacr- gawch, and sister of S. Non.

SBG Saints Mel, Melchu and Muinis.

These were Britons who assisted S. Patrick in his work in Ireland. That they were Britons who laboured with him need not be questioned. Mel and Melchu are spoken of as Bishops from Britain in the Life of S. Brigid. Mel settled or was placed at Ardagh, where he formed a monastery, and ruled as abbot and bishop. He confirmed S. Brigid and bestowed the veil upon her. He occasioned some trouble to S. Patrick, for he was accused to him of undue intimacy with Lupait, Patrick’s sister, and his own aunt, if it be true that he was son of Darerca. They lived in the same house, and there was much unpleasant talk about it, and the priests appealed to Patrick to put a stop to the scandal. Patrick came to Ardagh. Mel, alarmed at his coming, pretended to be out of his wits, and went fishing between the furrows of a ploughed field, that had been drenched by heavy rain.

” Fishing for salmon in ploughed land! ” exclaimed Patrick;

” God helps not an idiot.”

He made arrangements that thenceforth men and women should live apart in the monasteries. We know little if anything more of S. Mel.

Lupait is said to have cleared herself of the charge brought against her by carrying hot coals in her lap. But on another occasion, apparently, it was otherwise. Patrick was enraged with his sister, namely Lupait, for the sin of lust she had committed, so that she became pregnant. When Patrick came to the church from the east, Lupait went to meet him, and cast herself down on her knees before the chariot. “Drive over her” said Patrick. The chariot went over her thrice, for she still would come in front of it. Wherefore she there went to heaven at the Ferta, and she was afterwards buried by Patrick, and her requiem was sung.”

Of Bishop Muinis or Munis still less is known or told. He left his crozler behind, hanging on a branch, one day, and when he lamented this to Patrick, lo! it was found before them, hanging to another branch. Then Patrick exchanged croziers with him. He was sent by Patrick to Rome to fetch relics, and, being of a forgetful memory, left them behind him one night in a hollow elm, and never recovered them. He was appointed bishop in Forgney in the county of Longford. The Annals of Ulster give as the date of his death 488.

434 Annals of Inisfallen.

The first prey by the Saxon from Ireland.

434. Cronicum Scotorum.

First Saxon depredation in Erinn.

434. Annals of the Four Masters.

The sixth year of Laeghaire. Loarn, son of Eochaidh Muinreamhar, was born.

434. The Annals of Ulster.

The first prey by the Saxons from Ireland or in Ireland.

Death of Bresal, king of Laigin.

Orosius, Prosper and Cyril flourished in the doctrine of Christ, according to some.

435. Annals of the Four Masters.

The seventh year of Laeghaire. Breasal Bealach, son of Fiacha Aiceadh, son of Cathaeir Mor (King of Leinster), died.

435. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year the Goths sacked the city of Rome; and never since have the Romans reigned in Britain. This was about eleven hundred and ten winters after it was built. They reigned altogether in Britain four hundred and seventy winters since Gaius Julius first sought that land.

435. Annals of Inisfallen.

The third feria [Tuesday]. Orosius and Cyril flourished in the doctrine. A Great snow.

436. Annals of Inisfallen. Death of king Bresal Brec.

436. The Annals of Ulster.

Or here, the death of Bresal. Orosius, Prosper and Cyril flourished in Christ or in the doctrine of Christ, according to others. Or this year, Bresal died, according to others.

436. Cronicum Scotorum.

Bresal, King of Laighen, died.

436. Annals of the Four Masters.

The eighth year of the reign of Laeghaire.

437. Annals of the Four Masters.

The ninth year of Laeghaire. Finnbharr Mac Ua Bairdene, died.

437 The Annals of Ulster. Finnbarr moccu Bardéni. Kalends of January first feria, twentieth of the moon.

437.Annals of Inisfallen.

The ninth of the moon. Beginning of the Great Circle.

438.Annals of Inisfallen.

The twentieth of the moon.

438. Cronicum Scotorum.

Secundinus, and Auxilius, and Esserninus are sent to the Irish; but they obtained not pre-eminence or authority in the time of Patrick alone. The Senchus Mór was written in this year.

438. The Annals of Ulster.

The Senchas Már was written. Or that here should be inserted Secundinus with his companions, according to another book.

438. Annals of the Four Masters

The tenth year of Laeghaire. The Seanchus and Feinechus of Ireland were purified and written, the writings and old books of Ireland having been collected and brought to one place, at the request of Saint Patrick. These were the nine supporting props by whom this was done: Laeghaire, i.e. King of Ireland, Corc, and Daire, the three kings; Patrick, Benen, and Cairneach, the three saints; Ross, Dubhthach, and Fearghus, the three antiquaries, as this quatrain testifies:

1. Laeghaire, Corc, Daire the stern,

Patrick, Benen, Cairneach the just,

Ross, Dubhthach, Fearghus with goodness,

the nine props these of the Seanchus Mor.

439. Cronicum Scotorum.

Birth of St. Brigid, on a Wednesday, the 8th of the February moon; on a Wednesday, the 18th, she received the veil, with eight virgins; on a Wednesday, the 28th, she rested.

439. The Annals of Ulster

Secundinus, Auxilius and Isserninus, themselves also bishops, are sent to Ireland to assist Patrick. Or that on this Kalend, the birth of Brigit should be.

439. Annals of Inisfallen.

The first feria [Sunday]. Secundinus, Auxilius, and Isserninus are sent to help Patrick; nevertheless, not they, but Patrick alone held the apostleship. [AU 439].

440. Annals of Inisfallen.

The second feria [Monday], twelfth of the moon.

440. The Annals of Ulster.

Decease of Xistus, bishop of the Roman Church, who lived 8 years and 27 days as bishop of the Church, as Bede narrates in his chronicle. Some books state that Maine son of Niall perished this year. St Augustine was taken from this life in the 6th year of his age and in the 40th of his episcopate. St Augustine flourished about AD 400.

440. Cronicum Scotorum.

Maine, son of Niall, died. Sixtus, Bishop of Rome, quievit. Amhalgadh, son of Fiachra, King of Connacht, died, i.e. the first King of Connacht after the faith.

St Leo 1 The Great, Pope 440-461

440. Annals of the Four Masters

The twelfth year of Laeghaire. Maine, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, died.

440 Evagrius,

In these times [about 440 A.D.] flourished and became illustrious, Simeon, of holy and famous memory, who originated the contrivance of stationing himself on the top of a column, thereby occupying a space of scarce two cubits in circumference. This man, endeavoring to realize in the flesh the existence of the heavenly hosts, lifts himself above the concerns of earth, and overpowering the downward tendency of man’s nature, is intent on things above. He was adored by all the countryside, wrought many miracles, and the Emperor Theodosius II listened to his advice and sought his benediction.

Simeon prolonged his endurance of this mode of life through fifty-six years; nine of which he spent in the first monastery where he was instructed in divine knowledge, and forty-seven in the “Mandra” as it was called; namely, ten in a certain nook; on shorter columns, seven; and thirty upon one of forty cubits. After his departure [from this life] his holy body was conveyed to Antioch, escorted by the garrison, and a great concourse guarding the venerable body, lest the inhabitants of the neighboring cities should gather and carry it off. In this manner it was conveyed to Antioch, and attended, during its progress, with extraordinary prodigies.

The body has been preserved nearly entire until my time [about 580 A.D.]; and in company with many priests, I enjoyed a sight of his sacred head, in the episcopate of the famous Gregory, when Philippicus had requested that precious relic of the saints might be sent him for the protection of the Eastern armies. The head was well preserved save for the teeth some of which had been violently removed by the hands of the pious [for relics].

According to another writer, Theodoret, in Simeon’s lifetime, he was visited by pilgrims from near and far; Persia, Ethiopia, Spain, and even Britain. To these at times he delivered sermons. He wore on his body a heavy iron chain. In praying, “he bent his body so that his forehead almost touched his feet.” A spectator once counted 1244 repetitions of this movement, and then gave up reckoning. Simeon took only one scanty meal per week, and fasted through the season of Lent. It is alleged that the devil having afflicted him with an ulcer in his thigh as reward for a little self-righteousness, Simeon, as penance, never touched the afflicted leg upon the pillar again, and stood for the remaining year of his life upon one leg.

440.Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Augustine, a learned man. Death of Maine, son of Niall [Naígiallach], and …

440. Chronica Gallia a DXI.

Theodosius II and Valentinian III, 16th year: The Britains, lost to the Romans, yield to the power of the Saxons

441. Annals of Inisfallen.

The approval of Saint Patrick in the Catholic Faith.

441. The Annals of Ulster

Leo was consecrated 42nd bishop of the Roman Church. Bishop Patrick was approved in the Catholic faith.

44.1 Chronica Gallia a CCCCLII,

Theodosius II, 18th and 19th year: The Britains, which to this time had suffered from various disasters and misfortunes, are reduced to the power of the Saxons.

442. Annals of Inisfallen.

The fourth of the moon. A comet appeared.

443. The Annals of Ulster.

Bishop Patrick flourishing in the fervour of the Faith and in the doctrine of Christ in our province.

443. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year sent the Britons over sea to Rome, and begged assistance against the Picts; but they had none, for the Romans were at war with Atila, king of the Huns. Then sent they to the Angles, and requested the same from the nobles of that nation.

443. Annals of Inisfallen.

Patrick flourished in the doctrine of Christ.

444. Annals of Inisfallen.

An eclipse of the sun in the ninth hour.

444 Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year died St. Martin.

444. Annals of the Four Masters

The sixteenth year of Laeghaire, son of Niall, in the sovereignty.

444. Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

Rome was destroyed by the Goths in the eleven hundred and forty-sixth year after it was built. From that time, the Roman authority ceased in the island of Britain, and in many other countries which they had held under the yoke of slavery. For it was now four hundred and eighty-five years, beginning with Caius Julius Caesar, that they had held the island above mentioned, wherein they had built cities and castles, bridges and streets of admirable construction, which are seen among us even to the present day. But whilst the people of Britain were living carelessly within the wall, which had been built by Severus to protect them, there arose two nations, the Picts in the north and the Scots in the west, and leading an army against them, devastated their country, and inflicted many sufferings upon them for many years. The Britons being unable to bear their misery, by a wise device send to Rome a mournful letter the army returned victorious to Rome. But the Scots and Picts, hearing that the hostile army was gone, rejoiced with no little joy. .Again they take up arms, and like wolves attack the sheepfoid which is left without a protector : they devastate the northern districts as far as the ditch of Severus : the Britons man the wall and fortify it with their arms ; but fortune denied them success in the war. The cunning Scots, knowing what to do against the high wall and the deep trench, contrive iron goads with mechanical art, and dragging down those who were standing on the wall, slay them without mercy : they remain victors both within and without ; they at once plunder and take possession ; and a slaughter is made worse than all that had been before. Thus ended the four hundred and forty-fourth year since the in- carnation of our Lord

444. The Annals of Ulster.

Ard Macha was founded. From the building of the city of Rome to the foundation of this city 1194 years.

445.

Nath Í son of Fiachra of Mag Táil, son of Eochu Mugmedón was killed at the Alps mountain, or died after having been struck by a thunderbolt when he invaded its confines; and he reigned in Ireland for 23 years.

445. Annals of Inisfallen.

The third [feria]. Theodosius, who reigned twenty-six years. Nath Í, son of Fiachra, [died].

The Annals of Clonmacnoise.

The Councell of Calcedo consisting of 630 Bushopps was about this time in anno 445.

445. Cronicum Scotorum.

Battle of Feimin, in which fell the son of Cairthind, son of Colboth, son of Niall. Some say that he was of the Picts.

446

Death of Secundinus, son of Restitutus, in the seventy-fifth year of his age, whose mother, Culmana, was Patrick’s sister.

Bede.

CHAP. XIII.

How in the reign of Theodosius the younger, in whose time Palladius was sent to the Scots that believed in Christ, the Britons begging assistance of Aetius, the consul, could not obtain it. [446 A.D.]

In the year of our Lord 423, Theodosius, the younger, the forty-fifth from Augustus, succeeded Honorius and governed the Roman empire twenty-six years. In the eighth year of his reign, Palladius was sent by Celestinus, the Roman pontiff, to the Scots that believed in Christ, to be their first bishop. In the twenty-third year of his reign, Aetius, a man of note and a patrician, discharged his third consulship with Symmachus for his colleague. To him the wretched remnant of the Britons sent a letter, which began thus :—”To Aetius, thrice Consul, the groans of the Britons.” And in the sequel of the letter they thus unfolded their woes:—” The barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea drives us back to the barbarians: between them we are exposed to two sorts of death; we are either slaughtered or drowned.” Yet, for all this, they could not obtain any help from him, as he was then engaged in most serious wars with Bledla and Attila, kings of the Huns. And though the year before this Bledla had been murdered by the treachery of his own brother Attila, yet Attila himself remained so intolerable an enemy to the Republic, that he ravaged almost all Europe, attacking and destroying cities and castles. At the same time there was a famine at Constantinople, and soon after a plague followed; moreover, a great part of the wall of that city, with fifty-seven towers, fell to the ground. Many cities also went to ruin, and the famine and pestilential state of the air destroyed thousands of men and cattle.

Bede

CHAP. XIV.

How the Britons, compelled by the great famine, drove the barbarians out of their territories, and soon after there ensued, along with abundance of corn, decay of morals, pestilence, and the downfall of the nation.

IN the meantime, the aforesaid famine distressing the Britons more and more, and leaving to posterity a lasting memory of its mischievous effects, obliged many of them to submit themselves to the depredators; though others still held out, putting their trust in God, when human help failed. These continually made raids from the mountains, caves, and woods, and, at length, began to inflict severe losses on their enemies, who had been for so many years plundering the country. The bold Irish robbers thereupon returned home, intending’ to come again before long. The Picts then settled down in the farthest part of the island and afterwards remained there; but they did not fail to plunder and harass the Britons from time to time.

Now, when the ravages of the enemy at length abated, the island began to abound with such plenty of grain as had never been known in any age before; along with plenty, evil living increased, and this was immediately attended by the taint of all manner of crime; in particular, cruelty, hatred of truth, and love of falsehood; insomuch, that if any one among them happened to be milder than the rest, and more inclined to truth, all the rest abhorred and persecuted him unrestrainedly, as if he had been the enemy of Britain. Nor were the laity only guilty of these things, but even our Lord’s own flock, with its shepherds, casting off the easy yoke of Christ, gave themselves up to drunkenness, enmity, quarrels, strife, envy, and other such sins. In the meantime, on a sudden, a grievous plague fell upon that corrupt generation, which soon destroyed such numbers of them, that the living scarcely availed to bury the dead: yet, those that survived, could not be recalled from the spiritual death, which they had incurred’ through their sins, either by the death of their friends, or the fear of death. Whereupon, not long after, a more severe vengeance for their fearful crimes fell upon the sinful nation. They held a council to determine what was to be done, and where they should seek help to prevent or repel the cruel and frequent incursions of the northern nations; and in concert with their King Vortigern, it was unanimously decided to call the Saxons to their aid from beyond the sea, which, as the event plainly showed, was brought about by the Lord’s will, that evil might fall upon them for their wicked deeds.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

The Britons, seeing themselves on every side vanquished, and that they could have no more hopes from Rome, devise, in their agony and lamentations, a plan to adopt. For in those days they heard, that the race of the Saxons were active, in piratical enterprises, throughout the whole coast, from the river Rhine to the Danish city, which is now commonly called Denmark, and strong in all matters connected with war. They therefore send to them messengers, bearing gifts, and ask assistance, promising them their alliance when they should be at peace. But the mind of that degraded race was debased by ignorance, and they saw not that they were preparing for themselves perpetual slavery, which is the stepmother of all misfortune. The person who especially gave this counsel was Vurthern, who at that time was king over all, and to him all the nobility assented. They preferred to procure assistance to them from Germany. Already two young men, Hengist and Horsa, were pre-eminent. They were the grandsons of Woden, king of the barbarians, whom the pagans have since raised to an abominable dignity, and honouring him as a god, offer sacrifice to him for the sake of victory or valour, and the people, deceived, believe what they see, as is their wont. The aforesaid youths therefore arrive, according to the petition of the king and his senate, with three vessels, loaded with arms, and prepared with every kind of warlike stores: the anchor is cast into the sea, and the ships come to land. Not long afterwards they are sent against the Scots to try their mettle, and without delay they sheathe their breasts in arms, and engage in a novel mode of battle. Man clashes with man, now falls a German and now a Scot: on both sides is a most wretched scene of slaughter: at length the Saxons remain masters of the field. For this the king aforesaid honours them with a triumph; and they privately send home messengers, to tell their countrymen of the fertility of the country and the indolence of its cowardly people. Their countrymen, without delay, listen to their representations, and send to them a large fleet and army. Forthwith they were magnificently received by the king of the Britons, and contracted a league of hospitality with the natives. The Britons promise peace, worthy gifts of alliance and honours, provided that they might remain in ease under their protection from the attacks of their enemies, and pay them immense stipends.

446. The Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Feimen in which Mac Cairthinn son of Caelub fell. Some say he was of the Cruithin.

447.

Repose of saint Secundinus in the 75th year of his age.

447. Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Mag Feimin between the Munstermen and the Laigin, in which fell Mac Cáirthinn son of Caelub, who …(?)

447. Annales Cambriae.

Days as dark as night.

447. Annals of the Four Masters.

The nineteenth year of Laeghaire. Secundinus, i.e. Seachnall Mac Ua Baird, the son of Patrick’s sister, Darerca, Bishop of Ard Macha Armagh, yielded his spirit on the twenty seventh of November, in the seventy fifth year of his age.

SBG St Germanus.

On reaching Britain, Germanus was well received by one Elapius, ” the most considerable person in the land,” and he restored the use of his leg to the crippled son of Elapius. An assembly was summoned, and Germanus induced the Britons to drive into exile the teachers of Pelagianism, as he failed to convince them of their error. After they had been banished, Britain remained stedfast in the Catholic faith.

Bede.

CHAP. XXI.

How, when the Pelagian heresy began to spring up afresh, Germanus, returning to Britain with Severus, first restored bodily strength to a lame youth, then spiritual health to the people of God, having condemned or converted the Heretics [447 A.D.]

NOT long after, news was brought from the same island, that certain persons were again attempting to teach and spread abroad the Pelagian heresy, and again the holy Germanus was entreated by all the priests, that he would defend the cause of God, which he had before maintained. He speedily complied with their request; and taking with him Severus, a man of singular sanctity, who was disciple to the blessed father, Lupus, bishop of Troyes, and at that time, having been ordained bishop of the Treveri, was preaching the Word of God to the tribes of Upper Germany, put to sea, and with favouring winds and calm waters sailed to Britain.

In the meantime, the evil spirits, speeding through the whole island, were constrained against their will to foretell that Germanus was coming, insomuch, that one Elafius, a chief of that region, without tidings from any visible messenger, hastened to meet the holy men, carrying with him his son, who in the very flower of his youth laboured under a grievous infirmity; for the sinews of the knee were wasted and shrunk, so that the withered limb was denied the power to walk. All the country followed this Elafius. The bishops arrived, and were met by the ignorant multitude, whom they blessed, and preached the Word of God to them. They found the people constant in the faith as they had left them; and learning that but few had gone astray, they sought out the authors of the evil and condemned them. Then suddenly Elafius cast himself at the feet of the bishops, presenting his son, whose distress was visible and needed no words to express it. All were grieved, but especially the bishops, who, filled with pity, invoked the mercy of God; and straightway the blessed Germanus, causing the youth to sit down, touched the bent and feeble knee and passed his healing hand over all the diseased part. At once health was restored by the power of his touch, the withered limb regained its vigour, the sinews resumed their task, and the youth was, in the presence of all the people, delivered whole to his father. The multitude was amazed at the miracle, and the Catholic faith was firmly established in the hearts of all; after which, they were, in a sermon, exhorted to amend their error. By the judgement of all, the exponents of the heresy, who had been banished from the island, were brought before the bishops, to be conveyed into the continent, that the country might be rid of them, and they corrected of their errors. So it came to pass that the faith in those parts continued long after pure and untainted. Thus, when they had settled all things, the blessed prelates returned home as prosperously as they had come.

But Germanus, after this, went to Ravenna to intercede for the tranquillity of the Armoricans, where, after being very honourably received by Valentinian and his mother, Placidia, he departed hence to Christ; his body was conveyed to his own city with a splendid retinue, and mighty works attended his passage to the grave. Not long after, Valentinian was murdered by the followers of Aetius, the patrician, whom he had put to death, in the sixth year of the reign of Marcian, and with him ended the empire of the West.

Bede.

CHAP. XXII.

How the Britons, being for a time at rest from foreign invasions, wore themselves out by civil wars, and at the same time gave themselves up to more heinous crimes.

IN the meantime, in Britain, there was some respite from foreign, but not from civil war. The cities destroyed by the enemy and abandoned remained in ruins; and the natives, who had escaped the enemy, now fought against each other. Nevertheless, the kings, priests, private men, and the nobility, still remembering the late calamities and slaughters, in some measure kept within bounds; but when these died, and another generation succeeded, which knew nothing of those times, and was only acquainted with the existing peaceable state of things, all the bonds of truth and justice were so entirely broken, that there was not only no trace of them ‘remaining, but only very few persons seemed to retain any memory of them at all. To other crimes beyond description, which their own historian, Gildas, mournfully relates, they added this—that they never preached the faith to the Saxons, or English, who dwelt amongst them. Nevertheless, the goodness of God did not forsake his people, whom he foreknew, but sent to the aforesaid nation much more worthy heralds of the truth, to bring it to the faith.

448. The Annals of Ulster.

Several walls of the imperial city of Constantinople which had been freshly rebuilt with masonry, and fifty-seven towers collapsed as a result of a violent earthquake which prevailed in various places.

448. Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Saint Secundinus.

448. Annals of the Four Masters

The twentieth year of Laeghaire.

1. The family of Patrick of the prayers,

who had good Latin,

I remember; no feeble court were they,

their order, and their names.

2. Sechnall, his bishop without fault;

Mochta after him his priest;

Bishop Erc his sweet spoken Judge;

his champion, Bishop Maccaeirthinn;

3. Benen, his psalmist;

and Coemhan, his chamberlain;

Sinell his bell ringer,

and Aithcen his true cook;

4. The priest Mescan, without evil,

his friend and his brewer;

The priest Bescna, sweet his verses,

the chaplain of the son of Alprann.

5. His three smiths, expert at shaping,

Macecht, Laebhan, and Fortchern.

His three artificers, of great endowment,

Aesbuite, Tairill, and Tasach.

6. His three embroiderers, not despicable,

Lupaid, Erca, and Cruimthiris.

Odhran, his charioteer, without blemish,

Rodan, son of Braga, his shepherd.

7. Ippis, Tigris, and Erca,

and Liamhain, with Eibeachta:

For them Patrick excelled in wonders,

for them he was truly miraculous.

8. Carniuch was the priest that baptized him;

German his tutor, without blemish.

The priest Manach, of great endowment,

was his man for supplying wood.

9. His sister’s son was Banban, of fame;

Martin his mother’s brother.

Most sapient was the youth

Mochonnoc, his hospitaller.

10. Cribri and Lasra, of mantles,

beautiful daughters of Gleaghrann.

Macraith the wise, and Erc,—

he prophesied in his three wills.

11. Brogan, the scribe of his school;

the priest Logha, his helmsman,—

It is not a thing unsung,—

and Machui his true fosterson.

12. Good the man whose great family they were,

to whom God gave a crozier without sorrow;

Chiefs with whom the bells are heard,

a good family was the family of Patrick.

13. May the Trinity, which is powerful over all,

distribute to us the boon of great love;

The king who, moved by soft Latin,

redeemed by Patrick’s prayer.

448. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year John the Baptist showed his head to two monks, who came from the eastern country to Jerusalem for the sake of prayer, in the place that whilom was the palace of Herod.

448. Jordanes.

During this peace Attila was lord over all the Huns and almost the sole earthly ruler of all the tribes of Scythia; a man marvellous for his glorious fame among all nations. The historian Priscus, who was sent to him on an embassy by the younger Theodosius, says this among other things: “Crossing mighty rivers—namely, the Tisia and Tibisia and Dricca–we came to the place where long ago Vidigoia, bravest of the Goths, perished by the guile of the Sarmatians. At no great distance from that place we arrived at the village where King Attila was dwelling, a village, I say, like a great city in which we found wooden walls made of smooth-shining boards, whose joints so counterfeited solidity that the union of the boards could scarcely be distinguished by close scrutiny. There you might see dining halls of large extent and porticoes planned with great beauty, while the courtyard was bounded by so vast a circuit that its very size showed it was the royal palace.” This was the abode of Attila, the king of all the barbarian world; and he preferred this as a dwelling to the cities he captured.

449. The Annals of Ulster.

The emperor Theodosius came to the end of his life, as Marcellinus affirms. Marcianus succeeded him as emperor, as Marcellinus states. From this Theodosius Bologna, obtained the privilege of having a studium generale. He began his reign in AD 425 and ruled 27 years. On this see the gloss on the Clementinae, i.e. de magistris at the word Bononiensis.

449. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twenty first year of Laeghaire. Amhalghaidh, son of Fiachra, son of Eochaidh Muighmheadhoin, died. From him Tir Amhalghaidh is named.

SBG St Ailbe.

Ailbe now visited S. Brigid at Kildare, and was well received by her. Thence he went south to Munster, where he sought Aengus Mac Nadfraich, the king, at Cashel. Here it was that he is reported to have met S. Patrick, and that the altercation took place between Patrick on one side and SS. Ibar, Ailbe and Ciaran on the other, who were unwilling to recognise his supremacy over all Ireland. In the end some agreement was come to, and it was settled that Ailbe should be bishop over Munster, with his seat at Imlach Jubhair or Emly. (Archbishop Ussher supposes that this meeting took place in 449.)

Bede.

CHAP. XV.

How the Angles, being invited into Britain, at first drove off the enemy; but not long after, making a league with them, turned their weapons against their allies.

In the year of our Lord 449, Marcian, the forty-sixth from Augustus, being made emperor with Valentinian, ruled the empire seven years. Then the nation of the Angles, or Saxons, being invited by the aforesaid king, arrived in Britain with three ships of war and had a place in which to settle assigned to them by the same king, in the eastern part of the island, on the pretext of fighting in defence of their country, whilst their real intentions were to conquer it. Accordingly, they engaged with the enemy, who were come from the north to give battle, and the Saxons obtained the victory. When the news of their success and of the fertility of the country, and the cowardice of the Britons, reached their own home, a more considerable fleet was quickly sent over, bringing a greater number of men, and these, being added to the former army, made up an invincible force. The newcomers received of the Britons a place to inhabit among them, upon condition that they should wage war against their enemies for the peace and security of the country, whilst the Britons agreed to furnish them with pay. Those who came over were of the three most powerful nations of Germany, Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. From the Jutes are descended the people, of Kent, and of the Isle of Wight, including those in the province of the West-Saxons who are to this day called Jutes, seated opposite to the Isle of Wight. From the Saxons, that is, the country which is now called Old Saxony, came the East-Saxons, the South-Saxons, and the West Saxons. From the Angles, that is, the country which is called Angulus, and which is said, from that time, to have remained desert to this day, between the provinces of the Jutes and the Saxons, are descended the East-Angles, the Midland-Angles, the Mercians, all the race of the Northumbrians, that is, of those nations that dwell on the north side of the river Humber, and the other nations of the Angles. The first commanders are said to have been the two brothers Hengist and Horsa. Of these Horsa was afterwards slain in battle by the Britons, and a monument, bearing his name, is still in existence in the eastern parts of Kent. They were the sons of Victgilsus, whose father was Vitta, son of Vecta, son of Woden; from whose stock the royal race of many provinces trace their descent. In a short time, swarms of the aforesaid nations came over into the island, and the foreigners began to increase so much, that they became a source of terror to the natives themselves who had invited them. Then, having on a sudden entered into league with the Picts, whom they had by this time repelled by force of arms, they began to turn their weapons against their allies. At first, they obliged them to furnish a greater quantity of provisions; and, seeking an occasion of quarrel, protested, that unless more plentiful supplies were brought them, they would break the league, and ravage all the island; nor were they backward in putting their threats into execution. In short, the fire kindled by the hands of the pagans, proved God’s just vengeance for the crimes of the people; not unlike that which, being of old lighted by the Chaldeans, consumed the walls and all the buildings of Jerusalem. For here, too, through the agency of the pitiless conqueror, yet by the disposal of the just Judge, it ravaged all the neighbouring cities and country, spread the conflagration from the eastern to the western sea, without any opposition, and overran the whole face of the doomed island. Public as well as private buildings were overturned; the priests were everywhere slain before the altars; no respect was shown for office, the prelates with the people were destroyed with fire and sword; nor were there any left to bury those who had been thus cruelly slaughtered. Some of the miserable remnant, being taken in the mountains, were butchered in heaps. Others, spent with hunger, came forth and submitted themselves to the enemy, to undergo for the sake of food perpetual servitude, if they were not killed upon the spot. Some, with sorrowful hearts, fled beyond the seas. Others, remaining in their own country, led a miserable life of terror and anxiety of mind among the mountains, woods and crags.

449. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Marcian and Valentinian assumed the empire, and reigned seven winters. In their days Hengest and Horsa, invited by Wurtgern, king of the Britons to his assistance, landed in Britain in a place that is called Ipwinesfleet; first of all, to support the Britons, but they afterwards fought against them. The king directed them to fight against the Picts; and they did so; and obtained the victory wheresoever they came. They then sent to the Angles, and desired them to send more assistance. They described the worthlessness of the Britons, and the richness of the land. They then sent them greater support. Then came the men from three powers of Germany; the Old Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes. From the Jutes are descended the men of Kent, the Wightwarians (that is, the tribe that now dwelleth in the Isle of Wight), and that kindred in Wessex that men yet call the kindred of the Jutes. From the Old Saxons came the people of Essex and Sussex and Wessex. From Anglia, which has ever since remained waste between the Jutes and the Saxons, came the East Angles, the Middle Angles, the Mercians, and all of those north of the Humber. Their leaders were two brothers, Hengest and Horsa; who were the sons of Wihtgils; Wihtgils was the son of Witta, Witta of Wecta, Wecta of Woden. From this Woden arose all our royal kindred, and that of the Southumbrians also.

449. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

And in their days Vortigern invited the Angles thither, and they came to Britain in three ceols, at the place called Wippidsfleet.

449. Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

When, therefore, nineteen years had elapsed, Maurice and Valentine f became emperors of Rome; inwhose reign Hengist and Horsa at the invitation of Vortigern king of the Britons arrive at the place called Wippid’s-fleet, at first on the plea of assisting the Britons but afterwards they rebelled and became their enemies, as we have already said. Now the number of years, completed since the marvellous incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, was four hundred and forty-nine.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

Thus much of the alliance and promises of the Britons: now let us speak of their discord and ill fortune. For seeing the cunningness of the new people, they partly feared and partly despised them. They break their compact, and no longer render them the honours of alliance, but instead thereof, they try to drive them from their shores. These being their designs, the thing is made public, the treaty is Openly set aside, all parties fly to arms: the Britons give way, and the Saxons keep possession of the country. Again they send to Germany, not secretly as before, but by a public embassy, as victors are wont to do, and demand reinforcements. A large multitude joined them from every province of Germany; and they carried on war against the Britons, driving them from their territories with great slaughter, and ever remaining masters of the Held. At last the Britons bend their necks to the yoke, and pay tribute. This migration is said to have been made from the three provinces of Germany, which are said to have been the most distinguished, namely, from Saxony, Anglia, and Giota. The Cantuarians derived their origin from the Giotae [Jutes], and also the Uuhtii, who took their name from the island Wihta [Isle of Wight], which lies on the coast of Britain.

For out of Saxony, which is now called Ald-Sexe, or Old Saxony, came the tribes which are still called so among the English, the East Saxons, South Saxons, and West Saxons; that is, those who are called in Latin, the Oriental, Austral, and Occidental Saxons.

Out of the province of Anglia came the East Anglians, Middle Anglians, Mercians, and all the race of the Northumbrians. Moreover, Old Anglia is situated between the Saxons and Jutes, having a capital town, which in Saxon is called Sleswig, but in Danish Haithaby. Britain, therefore, is now called Anglia [England], because it took the name of its conquerors: for their leaders aforesaid were the first who came thence to Britain ; namely, Hengist and Horsa, sons of Wyhrtels their grandfather was Wecta, and their great- grandfather Withar, whose father was Woden, who also was king of a multitude of barbarians. For the unbelievers of the North are oppressed by such delusion that they worship him as a god even to this day, namely the Danes, the Northmen, and the Suevi; of whom Lucan says, “So pours forth the yellow Suevi from the North.”

So greatly did the invasion of those nations spread and increase, that they by degrees obliterated all memory of the inhabitants who had formerly invited them with gifts. They demand, their stipends: the Britons refuse : they take up arms, discord arises, and as we have before said, they drive the Britons into certain narrow isthmuses of the island, and themselves hold possession of the island from sea to sea even into the present time.

Armes Prydein Vawr. The Prophecy of Prydein the Great Book of Taliesin VI. From The Four Ancient Books of Wales.

The Awen foretells the hastening of
The multitude, possessed of wealth and peace;
And a bountiful sovereign, and eloquent princes.
And after tranquillity, commotion in every place,
Heroic men raising a tumult of fierce contention.
Swift the remorse of defending too long.
The contention of men even to Caer Weir, the dispersion of the Allmyn.
They made great rejoicing after exhaustion,
And the reconciling of the Cymry and the men of Dublin,
The Gwyddyl of Iwerdon, Mona, and Prydyn,
Cornwall and Clydemen their compact with them.
The Brython will be outcasts, when they shall have done,
Far will be foretold the time they shall be.
Kings and nobles will subdue them.
The men of the North at the entry surrounding them,
In the midst of their front they will descend.

II.
Myrdin foretells these will meet,
In Aber Peryddon, the stewards of the kings;
And though there be no right of slaughter they complain.
Of one will of the mind they will refuse.
Stewards their taxes would collect;
In the treasures of Cymry, there was not that they would pay.
One that is a proprietor says this.
There will not come one that will pay in slavery.
The great Son of Mary declareth, when it did not break out
Against the chief of the Saxons and their fondness,
Far be the scavengers to Gwrtheyrn of Gwynedd.
He drove the Allmyn to banishment.
No one will attain to anything, but what earth will deprive.
They know not what may be passing in every outlet.
When they bought Thanet through lack of discretion,
With Hors and Hengys, who were in their career,
Their prosperity has been derived from us without honour.
After a secret, the captive was worked upon at the Ynver.
Drunkeness will be pleased with much liquor of mead,
Poverty will bear with the death of many.
Terrors will bear with the tears of women;
An enervated chief will excite a wailing.
The sorrow of time world will bear with much irritation.
When the scavengers of Thanet are our kings,
May the Trinity ward off the blow that is intended.
To agitate the land of the Brython, and the Saxonsat variance.
Sooner may their kings be in banishment,
Than the Cymry should go into exile.

III
The great Son of Mary declareth, when will not break out
The Cymry against the surmise of a baron, and princes;
Foremost ones in asking, examples, one law they complain,
One meeting, one council, of one voice they are.
There were none, however great, who did not speak.
Except to dispense with Surmises they would not agree.
To God and David they recommended themselves.
Let him pay, let him refrain from a refusal to Allmymm.
Let them make ill reports of the wants of the townsman.
The Cymry will meet the Saxons.
For various mutual consumption and resistance.
Of the excessively great army, when they have experience,
And on the hill, at the blades and shout, they will tremble,
And on the Gwy severe rencounters will follow them.
And a banner will come, rough it will descend.
And like the budded blossoms the Saxons will fall.
The Cymry gathering strength with union of actions.
First and last the Granwynyon were in a strait,
The stewards to the value of their deceit prostrating them.
Their army in the running of blood surrounding them.
Others on their feet through woods will retreat.
Through the ramparts of the city they wilt flee.
A war without returning to the laud of Prydyn.
The council will be broken by hand, like the sea they will glide away.
The stewards of Caer Ceri dishonoured complain.
Some the valley and hill do not decline,
To Aber Peryddon they came not well.
Tremendous taxes they collect.
Nine score hundred men they descend.
Great mockery, except four, they did not return.
Tranquillity to their wives they say,
Their shirts full of gore they wash.
The Cymry, foremost in asking, profuse of soul,
The men of the South will defend their taxes,
With sharp-ground blades utterly they will kill.
There will be no advantage to the physician from what they do.
The armies of Cadwaladyr, mighty they come,
The Cymry were exalted, a battle they made.
A slaughter without measure they assailed.
In the end of their taxes, death they know.
Others, large branches they planted.
For age of ages their taxes they will not leave off.
In wood, in plain, on lull,
A candle in the dark will go with them.
Cynan opening a forward way in every descent.
Saxons against the Brython, woe they will sing.
Cadwaladyr a pillar with his princes.
Though prudence utterly attending to then.
When they drop their covering over their support.
In affliction, and the crimson gore on the cheeks of the Allmyn.
At the end of every expedition spoil they lead.
The Saxon on journey as far as Caer Wynt formerly who sooner skulked?
Happy they, the Cymry, when they say,
The Trinity delivered us from time former trouble.
Let not Dyved or Glywyssyg tremble.
The praise of stewards will not affect kings,
Nor shall time councils of the Saxons obtain what they say.
Meads shall not cause drunkenness with us,
Without the payment by fate of what we have.
From orphaned sons and others a few
Through time intercession of David and the saints of Prydeyn,
As far as the stream of Arlego they will flee out.

IV
The Awen foretells, the day will come,
When he will come to summon to one council,
One company, one council, and Lloegyr being burnt.
In the hope of detracting our most comely army.
And the song of another country will flee always.
lie knows not a hiding-place for my goods, and where will be a shelter?
They raise a barking, like a bear from the mountain.
To pay flattery their country will bleed.
Again shall come the toil of spears, fierce and sharp
The friend shall not spare the body of his companion.
Again shall come the head of a salmon without brains;
Again shall come widowed women and spare horses.
Again shall come a terrible shout from the assault of the warriors,
And many hands unequal before scattering armies.
The messengers of death met together,
When stood carcases according to their origin,
The tax will be avenged and the value daily,
And the many niessages on the false army.

V.
The Cymry have prevailed through the rencounter,
Completely unanimous: of one voice, of one faith.
The Cymry have prevailed to cause battle.
And the tribes of many a country they will collect,
And the holy banner of David they will raise,
To lead the Gwyddyl through the dark blue sea.
And the faction of Dublin with us stood,
When they come to the battle, they will not deny them selves;
They will ask the Saxons what they seek:
how much of debt from the country they hold?
Whence is their route when they settled?
Whence their generation? from what land did they come?
Since the time of Gwrtheyrn they trample upon us.
Truth will not be obtained in the land of discord.
Did they not trample entirety on the privilege of our saints?
Did they not entirely break through the miracles of David?
The Cymry will keep themselves, when they visit.
The Allmyn will not go from the places they stand on,
Until they shall have paid seven times the value of what they did.
And death shall scatter to the value of their wrong.
The kin of Garmawn will pay of honour,
In four years and four hundred.
Valiant men long-haired, the Lord will incite:
And a driving of the Saxons from Iwerdon there will be.
Thence will come from Lengo, a wanton fleet.
Time battle was ruined, the armies were torn.
There will come from Alclud, men, bold, faithful,
To drive from Prydein bright armies.
There will come from Llydaw, a seasonable ally,
Warriors from their war-horses will not regard their origin.
Saxons on all sides into disgrace will come;
Their age has passed away; there is not a country.
Death has been accomplished to the black auxiliary.
Disease and duty will deliver us,
After gold and silver and what is congenial.
Let a bush be their shelter in reward of their bad faith.
Let the sea be, let an anchor be, their counsellors.
Let gore be, let death be, their auxiliary.
Cynan and Cadwaladyr, mighty in armies;
They will be honoured until judgment: prosperity will attend them.
Two tenacious chiefs; profound their counsel.
Two that will overcome the Saxons, with the aid of the Lord.
Two generous ones, two treasurers of a merchant’s country.
Two fearless ones, ready, of one fortune, of one faith.
Two exalters of Prydein of bright armies.
Two bears do not know shame barking daily.
Druids foretell what great things will happen.
From Mynaw to Llydaw in their hands will he.
From Dyved to Thanet they will possess.
From the light to the ground along their Abers.
Their chief partly paid for the land.
A nakedness on Cynon, Saxons will not be.
The Gwyddyl will return to their native country,
The Cymry will raise up a mighty auxiliary.
Armies about ale from the tumult of soldiers.
And the kings of God that have kept their faith
Will summon to every fleet: trouble will end;
And Cynan will reconcile them with each other.
Cynon will not call in as combatants,
Save the scavengers of Cadwaladyr, and his merchants.
Like a Cymro, joyful of speech he will be,
About the afflicted isle swarms will cease;
When the carcases stand according to their race,
Even to Aber Santwic it will be noised,
That the Allmyn are about to emigrate abroad,
One after another, breaking afresh upon their race.
The Saxons at anchor on the sea always.
The Cymry venerable until doomsday shall be supreme
They will not seek books nor be covetous of poets.
The presage of this isle will be no other than this.
We will praise the King that created heaven and earth.
May David be a leader to the combatants.
Ynyr in Gelli Caer for God he is;
He will not die, he will not run away, he will not exhaust
He will not fade, lie will not fail, he will not bend, be will not tremble.

Liber Britannicus.

HERE FOLLOWS OF THE CONQUEST OF THE SAXONS.

Now it came to pass after the aforesaid battle, and after the slaughter of the Roman chieftains three times by the Britons, after they had been four hundred and forty-nine years under the Roman tribute, that Gortigern, son of Gudal, took the chief sovereignty of Britain, and he was oppressed by the fear of the Cruithnians and Gaels, and by the power of Ambrose, King of France and Letavian Britain.

There came three ciulae out of Germany (i. e. three barks) into exile, in which were the two brothers, Ors and Engist, from whom are the Saxons; this is their genealogy, viz.: Ors and Engist were the two sons of Guectilis, the son of Guigte, son of Guecta, son of Guta, son of Boden, son of Frealaif, son of Fredolf, son of Finn, son of Freann, son of Folcbhall, son of Gaeta, son of Vanli, son of Saxi, son of Neag.

Britas, son of Olon, from whom are the Britons of Leatha, was the son of Eolonn, son of Feithiver, son of Ogaman, son of Tai, or Teo, son of Bob, son of Sembob, son of Athacht, son of Aoth, son of Abar, son of Raa, son of Eassa, son of Joban, son of Jonan, son of Jafeth, son of Noe.

Now Gortigern held in peace, under the Romans, the government of the Cruithnians, and he gave up to them i. e. to the Saxons, the island whose name is Teineth Thanet, but Roinn is its British name. Gradian and Aequit were in the sovereignty of the Romans at that time. But it was from the birth of Christ, three hundred and forty-seven years; and it was in the time of that king, viz., of Gortigern, that Saint German came to preach in the island of Britain, and God wrought miracles and many wonders by this ecclesiastic in the island of Britain, and he healed many, and brought them under baptism and faith.

Nennius.

Vortigern then reigned in Britain. In his time, the natives had cause of dread, not only from the inroads of the Scots and Picts, but also from the Romans, and their apprehensions of Ambrosius.

In the meantime, three vessels, exiled from Germany, arrived in Britain. They were commanded by Horsa and Hengist, brothers, and sons of Wihtgils. Wihtgils was the son of Witta; Witta of Wecta; Wecta of Woden; Woden of Frithowald; Frithowald of Frithuwulf; Frithuwulf of Finn; Finn of Godwulf; Godwulf of Geat, who, as they say, was the son of a god, not of the omnipotent God and our Lord Jesus Christ (who before the beginning of the world, was with the Father and the Holy Spirit, co-eternal and of the same substance, and who, in compassion to human nature, disdained not to assume the form of a servant), but the offspring of one of their idols, and whom, blinded by some demon, they worshipped according to the custom of the heathen. Vortigern received them as friends, and delivered up to them the island which is in their language called Thanet, and, by the Britons, Ruym. Gratianus Aequantius at that time reigned in Rome. The Saxons were received by Vortigern, four hundred and forty-seven years after the passion of Christ, and, according to the tradition of our ancestors, from the period of their first arrival in Britain, to the first year of the reign of king Edmund, five hundred and forty-two years; and to that in which we now write, which is the fifth of his reign, five hundred and forty-seven years.

Gildas.

No sooner were they (the Romans) gone, then the Picts and Scots, like worms which in the heat of the mid-day come forth from their holes, hastily land again from their canoes, in which they had been carried beyond the Cichican valley, differing one from another in manners, but inspired with the same avidity for blood, and all more eager to shroud their villainous faces in bushy hair than to cover with decent clothing those parts of their body which required it. Moreover, having heard of the departure of our friends, and their resolution never to return, they seized with greater boldness than before on all the country towards the extreme north as far as the wall. To oppose them there was placed on the heights a garrison equally slow to fight and ill adapted to run away, a useless and panic-struck company, who slumbered away days and nights on their unprofitable watch. Meanwhile the hooked weapons of their enemies were not idle, and our wretched countrymen were dragged from the wall and dashed against the ground. Such premature death, however, painful as it was, saved them from seeing the miserable sufferings of their brothers and children. But why should I say more? They left their cities, abandoned the protection of the wall, and dispersed themselves in flight more desperately than before. The enemy, on the other hand, pursued them with more unrelenting cruelty than before, and butchered our countrymen like sheep, so that their habitations were like those of savage beasts; for they turned their arms upon each other, and for the sake of a little sustenance, imbrued their hands in the blood of their fellow countrymen. Thus, foreign calamities were augmented by domestic feuds; so that the whole country was entirely destitute of provisions, save such as could be procured in the chase.

For it has always been a custom with our nation, as it is at present, to be impotent in repelling foreign foes, but bold and invincible in raising civil war, and bearing the burdens of their offences: they are impotent, I say, in following the standard of peace and truth, but bold in wickedness and falsehood. The audacious invaders therefore return to their winter quarters, determined before long again to return and plunder. And then, too, the Picts for the first time seated themselves at the extremity of the island, where they afterwards continued, occasionally plundering and wasting the country. During these truces, the wounds of the distressed people are healed, but another sore, still more venomous, broke out. No sooner were the ravages of the enemy checked, then the island was deluged with a most extraordinary plenty of all things, greater than was before known, and with it grew up every kind of luxury and licentiousness. It grew with so firm a root, that one might truly say of it, “Such fornication is heard of among you, as never was known the like among the Gentiles.” But besides this vice, there arose also every other, to which human nature is liable and in particular that hatred of truth, together with her supporters, which still at present destroys everything good in the island; the love of falsehood, together with its inventors, the reception of crime in the place of virtue, the respect shown to wickedness rather than goodness, the love of darkness instead of the sun, the admission of Satan as an angel of light. Kings were anointed, not according to god’s ordinance, but such as showed themselves more cruel than the rest; and soon after, they were put to death by those who had elected them, without any inquiry into their merits, but because others still more cruel were chosen to succeed them. If any one of these was of a milder nature than the rest, or in any way more regardful of the truth, he was looked upon as the ruiner of the country, everybody cast a dart at him, and they valued things alike whether pleasing or displeasing to God, unless it so happened that what displeased him was pleasing to themselves. So that the words of the prophet, addressed to the people of old, might well be applied to our own countrymen: “Children without a law, have ye left God and provoked to anger the holy one of Israel? Why will ye still inquire, adding iniquity? Every head is languid and every heart is sad; from the sole of the foot to the crown, there is no health in him.” And thus, they did all things contrary to their salvation, as if no remedy could be applied to the world by the true Physician of all men. And not only the laity did so, but our Lord’s own flock and its shepherds, who ought to have been an example to the people, slumbered away their time in drunkenness, as if they had been dipped in wine; whilst the swellings of pride, the jar of strife, the griping talons of envy, and the confused estimate of right and wrong, got such entire possession of the, that there seemed to be poured out (and the same still continueth) contempt upon princes, and to be made by their vanities to wander astray and not in the way.

(Isa. I. 4,5. In most of these quotations there is great verbal variation from the authorised version: the author probably quoted from memory, if not from the Latin version.)

Meanwhile, God being willing to purify his family who were infected by so deep a stain of woe, and at the hearing only of their calamities to amend them; a vague rumour suddenly as if on wings reaches the ears of all, that their inveterate foes were rapidly approaching to destroy the whole country, and to take possession of it, as of old, from one end to the other. But yet they derived no advantage from this intelligence; for, like frantic beasts, taking the bit of reason between their teeth, they abandoned the safe and narrow road, and rushed forward upon the broad downward path of vice, which leads to death. Whilst, therefore, as Solomon says, the stubborn servant is not cured by words, the fool is scourged and feels it not: a pestilential disease morally affected the foolish people, which, without the sword, cut off so large a number of persons, that the living were not able to bury them. But even this was no warning to them, that in them also might be fulfilled the words of Isaiah the prophet, “And God hath called his people to lamentation, to baldness, and to the girdle of sackcloth; behold they begin to kill calves, and to slay rams, to eat, to drink, and to say, ‘We will eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die.'” For the time was approaching, when all their iniquities, as formerly those of the Amorrhaeans, should be fulfilled. For a council was called to settle what was best and most expedient to be done, in order to repel such frequent and fatal irruptions and plunderings of the above-named nations.

Then all the councillors, together with that proud tyrant Gurthrigern [Vortigern], the British king, were so blinded, that, as a protection to their country, they sealed its doom by inviting in among them like wolves into the sheep-fold), the fierce and impious Saxons, a race hateful both to God and men, to repel the invasions of the northern nations. Nothing was ever so pernicious to our country, nothing was ever so unlucky. What palpable darkness must have enveloped their minds-darkness desperate and cruel! Those very people whom, when absent, they dreaded more than death itself, were invited to reside, as one may say, under the selfsame roof. Foolish are the princes, as it is said, of Thafneos, giving counsel to unwise Pharaoh. A multitude of whelps came forth from the lair of this barbaric, in three cyuls, as they call them, that is, in there ships of war, with their sails wafted by the wind and with omens and prophecies favourable, for it was foretold by a certain soothsayer among them, that they should occupy the country to which they were sailing three hundred years, and half of that time, a hundred and fifty years, should plunder and despoil the same. They first landed on the eastern side of the island, by the invitation of the unlucky king, and there fixed their sharp talons, apparently to fight in favour of the island, but alas! more truly against it. Their mother-land, finding her first brood thus successful, sends forth a larger company of her wolfish offspring, which sailing over, join themselves to their bastard-born comrades. From that time, the germ of iniquity and the root of contention planted their poison amongst us, as we deserved, and shot forth into leaves and branches. the barbarians being thus introduced as soldiers into the island, to encounter, as they falsely said, any dangers in defence of their hospitable entertainers, obtain an allowance of provisions, which, for some time being plentifully bestowed, stopped their doggish mouths. Yet they complain that their monthly supplies are not furnished in sufficient abundance, and they industriously aggravate each occasion of quarrel, saying that unless more liberality is shown them, they will break the treaty and plunder the whole island. In a short time, they follow up their threats with deeds.

William of Malmesbury, © Paul Halsall, November 1998 ,

The Chronicle Of The Kings Of England, Book 1

CHAPTER 1: Of the arrival of the Angles, and of the Kings of Kent [A.D. 449]

In the year of the incarnation of our Lord 449, Angles and Saxons first came into Britain; and although the cause of their arrival is universally known, it may not be improper here to subjoin it: and, that the design of my work may be the more manifest, to begin even from an earlier period. That Britain, compelled by Julius Caesar to submit to the Roman power, was held in high estimation by that people, may be collected from their history, and be seen also in the ruins of their ancient buildings. Even their emperors, sovereigns of almost all the world, eagerly embraced opportunities of sailing hither, and of spending their days here. Finally, Severus and Canstantius, two of their greatest princes, died upon the island, and were there interred with the utmost pomp. The former, to defend this province from the incursions of the barbarians, built his celebrated and well-known wall from sea to sea. The latter, a man, as they report, of courteous manners, left Constantine, his son by Helena, a tender of cattle, a youth of great promise, his heir. Constantine, greeted emperor by the army, led away, in an expedition destined to the continent, a numerous force of British soldiers; by whose exertions, the war succeeding to his wishes, he gained in a short time the summit of power. For these veterans, where their toil was over, he founded a colony on the western coast of Gaul, where, to this day, their descendants, somewhat degenerate in language and manners from our own Britons, remain with wonderful increase.

In succeeding times, in this island, Maximus, a man well-fitted for command, had he not aspired to power in defiance of his oath, assumed the purple, as though compelled by the army, and preparing immediately to pass over into Gaul, he despoiled the province of almost all its military force. Not long after also, on Constantine, who had been elected emperor on account of his name, drained its whole remaining warlike strength; but both being slain, the one by Theodosius, the other by Honorius, they became examples of the instability of human greatness. Of the forces which had followed them part shared the fate of their leaders; the rest, after their defeat, fled to the continental Britons. Thus, when the tyrants had left none but half-savages in the country, and, in the towns, those only who were given up to the luxury, Britain, despoiled of the support of its youthful population, and bereft of every useful art, was for a long time exposed to the ambition of neighboring nations.

For immediately, by an excursion of the Scots and Picts, number of the people were slain, villages burnt, towns destroyed, and everything laid waste by fire and sword. Part of the harassed islanders, who thought anything more advisable than contending in battle, fled for safety to the mountains; others, burying their treasures in the earth, many of which are dug up in our own times, proceeded to Rome to ask assistance. The Romans, touched with pity, and deeming it above all things important to yield succor to their oppresses allies, twice lent their aid, and defeated the enemy. But at length, wearied with the distant voyage, then declined returning in [the] future; bidding them rather themselves not degenerate from the martial energy of their ancestors, but learn to defend their country with spirit, and with arms. They accompanied their advice with the plan of a wall, to be build for their defense; the mode of keeping watch on the ramparts; of sallying out against the enemy, should it be necessary, together with other duties of military discipline. After giving these admonitions, they departed, accompanied by the tears of the miserable inhabitants; and Fortune, smiling on their departure, restored them to their friends and country. The Scots, learning the improbability of their return, immediately began to make fresh and more frequent irruptions against the Britons; to level their wall, to kill the few opponents they met with, and to carry off considerable booty; while such as escaped fled to the royal residence, imploring the protection of their sovereign.

At this time Vortigern was King of Britain; a man calculated neither for the field nor the council, but wholly given up to the lusts of the flesh, the slave of every vice: a character of insatiable avarice, ungovernable pride, and polluted by his lusts. To complete the picture, as we read in the History of the Britons, he had defiled his own daughter, who was lured to the participation of such a crime by the hope of sharing his kingdom, and she had born him a son. Regardless of his treasures at this dreadful juncture, and wasting the resources of the kingdom in riotous living, he was awake only to the blandishments of abandoned women. Roused at length, however, by the clamors of the people, he summoned a council, to take the sense of his nobility on the state of public affairs. To be brief, it was unanimously resolved to invite over from Germany the Angles and Saxons, nations powerful in arms, but of a roving life. It was conceived that this would be a double advantage: for it was thought that, by their skill in war, these people would easily subdue their enemies; an, as they hitherto had no certain habitation, would gladly accept even an unproductive soil, provided it afforded them a stationary residence. Moreover, that they could not be suspected of ever entertaining a design against the country, since the remembrance of this kindness would soften their native ferocity. This counsel was adopted, and ambassadors, men of rank, and worthy to represent the country, were sent into Germany.

The Germans, hearing that voluntarily offered, which they had long anxiously desired, readily obeyed the invitation; their joy quickening their haste. Bidding adieu, therefore, to their native fields and the ties of kindred, they spread their sails to Fortune, and, with a favoring breeze, arrived in Britain in three of those long vessels which they call ceols. At this and other times came over a mixed multitude from three of the German nations; that is to say, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. For almost all the country lying to the north of the British ocean, though divided into many provinces, is justly denominated Germany, from it germinating so many men. And as the pruner cuts off the more luxuriant branches of the tree to impart a livelier vigor to the remainder, so the inhabitants of this country assist their common parent by the expulsion of a part of their members, lest she should perish by giving sustenance to too numerous an offspring; but in order to obviate discontent, they cast lots who shall be compelled to migrate. Hence the men of this country have made a virtue of necessity, and, then driven from their native soil, they have gained foreign settlements by force of arms. The Vandals, for instance, who formerly overran Africa; the Goths, who made themselves masters of Spain; the Lombards, who, even at the present time, are settled in Italy; and the Normans, who have given their own name to that part of Gaul which they subdued. From German, then, there first came into Britain, an inconsiderable number indeed, but well able to make up for their paucity by their courage. These were under the conduct of Hengist and Horsa, two brothers of suitable disposition, and of noble race in their own country. They were great-grandsons of the celebrated Woden, from whome almost all the royal families of these barbarous nations deduce their origin; and to whome the nations of the Angles, fondly deifying him, have consecrated by immemorial superstition the fourth day of the week, as they have the sixth to his wife Frea. Bede has related in what particular parts of Britain the Angles, Saxons and Jutes fixed their habitations: my design, however, is not to dilate, though there may be abundance of materials for the purpose, but to touch only on what is necessary.

The Angles were eagerly met on all sides upon their arrival: from the king they received thanks, from the people expressions of goodwill. Faith was plighted on either side, and the Isle of Thanet appropriated for their residence. It was agreed, moreover, that they should exert their prowess in arms for the service of the country; and, in return, receive a suitable reward for the people for whose safety they underwent such painful labors. Ere long, the Scots advanced, as usual, secure, as they supposed, of a great booty with very little difficulty. However, the Angles assailed them, and scarcely had they engaged, before they were put to flight, whilst the cavalry pursued and destroyed the fugitives. Contests of this kind were frequent, and victory constantly siding with the Angles, as is customary in human affairs, while success inflamed the courage of one party, and dread increased the cowardice of the other, the Scots in the end avoided nothing so cautiously as an engagement with them.

In the meantime, Hengist, not less keen in perception than ardent in the field, with consent of Vortigern, sends back some of his followers to his own country, with the secret purpose, however, of representing the indolence of the king and people, the opulence of the island, and the prospect of advantage to new adventurers. Having executed their commission adroitly, in a short time they return with sixteen ships, bringing with them the daughter of Hengist; a maiden, as we have heard, who might justly be called the masterpiece of nature and the admiration of mankind. At an entertainment, provided for them on their return, Hengist commanded his daughter to assume the office of cupbearer, that she might gratify the eyes of the king as he sat at table. Nor was the design unsuccessful: for he, ever eager after female beauty, deeply smitten with the gracefulness of her form and the elegance of her motion, instantly conceived a vehement desire for the possession of her person, and immediately proposed marriage to her father; urging him to a measure to which he was already well inclined. Hengist at first kept up the artifice by a refusal; stating, that so humble a connection was unworthy of a king: but, at last appearing the consent with reluctance, he gave way to his importunities, and accepted, as a reward, the whole of Kent, where all justice had long since declined under the administration of it Gourong (or Viceroy), who, like the other princes of the island, was subject to the monarchy of Vortigern. Not satisfied with this liberality, but abusing the imprudence of the king, the barbarian persuaded him to send for his son and brother, men of warlike talents, from Germany, pretending that he would defend the province on the east, while they might curb the Scots on the northern frontier. The king assenting, they sailed round Britain, and arriving at the Orkney Isles, the inhabitants of which they involved in the same calamity with the Picts and Scots, at this and after times, they finally settled in the northern part of the island, now called Northumbria. Still no one there assumed the royal title or insignia till the time of Ida, from whome sprang the regal line of the Northumbrians.; but of this hereafter. We will now return to the present subject.

SBG St Rhystyd.

Rioc, or Riocatus, was a British Bishop who visited Lerins and made acquaintance with S. Faustus, afterwards Bishop of Riez, and the latter gave Rioc two of his books to take back with him to Britain, about the year 450,

SBG St Llyr.

Llyr is stated to have been ” married to Margaret, daughter of the Earl of Oxford,” and Lhuyd * adds that he was ” Earl of Henffordd ” (Hereford). Other late accounts make him the husband of Gwen, daughter of Brychan, and of Tywanwedd, daughter of Amlawdd Wledig. Besides Llyr Merini, we have Llyr Llediaith, Llyr Luyddog, Llyr ab Bleiddut, and others.

The Annals of Clonmacnoise.

There were 3 long shipps carried, wherein there were 7 Saxons of whome Hingist & Orsa were Captines of the Saxons of Hingest or King of England and were Receaved and obeyed by Vertiger K. of Brittans 450.

451 – 476. Ambrosius, Uther

451 – 476

The Annals of Clonmacnoise.

451. The Resurection of Our Lord was celebrated the 8 of the Calends of May by the Pelagion heresie.

The Brittans were much trobled by certain french Bishopes therein, the Brittains Requireing aid of the Pope of Roome were sent for their ayd & Defence of their faith Germanuss Altiodorensis Bishopp & Bushopp Lupus, who confirmed their faith by worde, examples, & miracles.

The picts made great warrs with the Brittaines then which was likewise annihilated by Divine Providence for the Brittans chosed as their Governour of their armies against the Picts Lupus, who did overcome their enemies not with the sound of trumpet or Drum, nor force of armes, but the singing of Alleluia making it sound in the very skies, that thereby the said Bishopes ouercame their enemies & returned home with victory to Ravenna was with Great Reverence & honor Receaved by K.Valentinian & Placida his wife, whose body being after dead was carried with an honorable com- pany to Altiodorensis.

King Lagerius fought a battle with theLeinstermen, wherein the Leinstermen Got the worst.

Gildas.

Again, therefore, the wretched remnant, sending to Aetius, a powerful Roman citizen, address him as follow: “To Aetius, now consul for the third time: the groans of the Britons.” And again a little further, thus: “The barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea throws us back on the barbarians: thus two modes of death await us, we are either slain or drowned.” The Romans, however, could not assist them, and in the meantime the discomfited people, wandering in the woods, began to feel the effects of a severe famine, which compelled many of them without delay to yield themselves up to their cruel persecutors, to obtain subsistence: others of them, however, lying hid in mountains, caves and woods, continually sallied out from thence to renew the war. And then it was, for the first time, that they overthrew their enemies, who had for so many years been living in their country; for their trust was not in man, but in God; according to the maxim of Philo, “We must have divine assistance, when that of man fails.” The boldness of the enemy was for a while checked, but not the wickedness of our countrymen; the enemy left our people, but the people did not leave their sins.

Jordanes.

THE VISIGOTHS AND ROMANS AGAINST ATTILA 451

Then the Emperor Valentinian sent an embassy to the Visigoths and their king Theodorid, with this message: “Bravest of nations, it is the part of prudence for us to unite against the lord of the earth who wishes to enslave the whole world; who requires no just cause for battle, but supposes whatever he does is right. He measures his ambition by his might. License satisfies his pride. Despising law and right, he shows himself an enemy to Nature herself. And thus he, who clearly is the common foe of each, deserves the hatred of all. Pray remember–what you surely cannot forget–that the Huns do not overthrow nations by means of war, where there is an equal chance, but assail them by treachery, which is a greater cause for anxiety. To say nothing about ourselves, can you suffer such insolence to go unpunished? Since you are mighty in arms, give heed to your own danger and join hands with us in common. Bear aid also to the Empire, of which you hold a part. If you would learn how needful such an alliance is for us, look into the plans of the foe.”

Jordanes.

BATTLE OF THE CATALAUNIAN PLAINS A.D. 451

By these and like arguments the ambassadors of Valentinian prevailed upon King Theodorid. He answered them, saying “Romans, you have attained your desire; you have made Attila our foe also. We will pursue him wherever he summons us, and though he is puffed up by his victories over divers races, yet the Goths know how to fight this haughty foe. I call no war dangerous save one whose cause is weak; for he fears no ill on whom Majesty has smiled.” The nobles shouted assent to the reply and the multitude gladly followed. All were fierce for battle and longed to meet the Huns, their foe. And so, a countless host was led forth by Theodorid, king of the Visigoths, who sent home four of his sons, namely Friderich and Eurich, Retemer and Himnerith, taking with him only the two elder sons, Thorismud and Theodorid, as partners of his toil. O brave array, sure defense and sweet comradeship! having as its solace the peril of those whose one joy is the endurance of the same dangers.

451 Jordanes

On the side of the Romans stood the Patrician Aetius, on whom at that time the whole Empire of the West depended; a man of such wisdom that he had assembled warriors from everywhere to meet them on equal terms. Now these were his auxiliaries: Franks, Sarmatians, Armoricians, Liticians, Burgundians, Saxons, Riparians Olibriones (once Roman soldiers and now the flower of the allied forces), and some other Celtic or German tribes. And so, they met in the Catalaunian Plains, which are also called Mauriacian, extending in length one hundred leuva, as the Gauls express it, and seventy in width. Now a Gallic leuva measures a distance of fifteen hundred paces. That portion of the earth accordingly became the threshing-floor of countless races. The two hosts bravely joined battle. Nothing was done under cover, but they contended in open fight. What just cause can be found for the encounter of so many nations, or what hatred inspired them all to take arms against each other? It is proof that the human race lives for its kings, for it is at the mad impulse of one mind a slaughter of nations takes place, and at the whim of a haughty ruler that which nature has taken ages to produce perishes in a moment. But before we set forth the order of the battle itself, it seems needful to relate what had already happened in the course of the campaign, for it was not only a famous struggle but one that was complicated and confused. Well then, Sangiban, king of the Alani, smitten with fear of what might come to pass, had promised to surrender to Attila, and to give into his keeping Aureliani, a city of Gaul wherein he then dwelt. When Theodorid and Aetius learned of this, they cast up great earthworks around that city before Attila’s arrival and kept watch over the suspected Sangiban, placing him with his tribe in the midst of their auxiliaries. Then Attila, king of the Huns, was taken aback by this event and lost confidence in his own troops, so that he feared to begin the conflict. While he was meditating on flight–a greater calamity than death itself–he decided to inquire into the future through soothsayers. So, as was their custom, they examined the entrails of cattle and certain streaks in bones that had been scraped, and foretold disaster to the Huns. Yet as a slight consolation they prophesied that the chief commander of the foe they were to meet should fall and mar by his death the rest of the victory and the triumph. Now Attila deemed the death of Aetius a thing to be desired even at the cost of his own life, for Aetius stood in the way of his plans. So, although he was disturbed by this prophecy, yet inasmuch as he was a man who sought counsel of omens in all warfare, he began the battle with anxious heart at about the ninth hour of the day, in order that the impending darkness might come to his aid if the outcome should be disastrous.

451. Annals of Inisfallen.

The synod of Chalcedon assembles.

451 The Annals of Ulster.

Easter was celebrated on the eighth of the Kalends of May. Or more correctly: This year Theodosius the Younger died, as is clear from the gloss above-mentioned; the third year in the Clementinae i.e. de magistris at the word Bononiensis joined to what is contained in the second year on the preceding page.

452. Cronicum Scotorum.

A great battle-breach by Laeghaire, son of Niall, over the Lagenians.

452. The Annals of Ulster.

Here some place the birth of St. Brigit. A great slaughter of the Laigin. More correctly indeed in this year: Marcianus succeeded Theodosius, as is clear from the Clementinae i.e. de magistris at the word Bononiensis aforesaid, first year.

SBG St Bridgid.

Brigid was the daughter of Dubtach, son of Demri, eleventh in descent from Fedlimidh Rechtmar, king of Ireland in the second century of the Christian era. Her mother’s name was Brotseach, a slave in his house. Dubtach was married, and when his wife perceived the condition in which was Brotseach, full of jealousy, she forced her husband to get rid of the favourite maid-servant. The man, unable to resist, sold Brotseach to a Druid, but with the stipulation that he reserved property in the child she bore in her womb.

The Druid, who came from Meath, took his newly acquired slave to his home at Tochar-maine, now Pochard, and there Brigid was bom, about the year 453. The Druid and his wife were kind people, and finding that the little Brigid was delicate, reserved for her one cow, that she might drink of its milk only.

As Brigid grew up she was set various tasks in the house and on the farm. The Druid moved into Munster, and as she was now grown up, he sent word to her father that he acknowledged his claim, and that Dubtach might take her. Throughout the story, as far as he enters into it, the Druid shows himself an honourable and well-disposed man, and it is pleasing to know that eventually he became a Christian.

Dubtach came to the house of the Druid for his daughter, and the master allowed her, when she departed, to take her Christian nurse with her. Brigid was now for some time with her father, who also lived in Meath, but was not received with kindness by Dubtach’s wife and sons. Various stories are told of her childhood, showing how hard was the life in her father’s house. The stepmother made her drudge in the kitchen, scolded her, and took a stick to her back, if a dog ran away with some of the bacon, and heaped abuse on her head. Hearing that her mother, who still remained in bondage, was out of health, she begged leave to go to her assistance, and when this was granted, Brigid did her mother’s work for her. Her duty was to milk the cows and make butter at the summer-pasture lodge, the hafod as the Welsh would call it.

Some ill-natured people accused Brigid to the Druid of want of thrift, and of wasting the butter. He and his wife went to the pasture farm, to inquire into the matter, and required the girl to produce all the butter she had churned. Then Brigid went to and fro between the kitchen and the parlour, singing the following hymn, whilst fetching the pats of butter: —

Oh, my Prince

Who canst do all things,

Bless, O God, — a prayer unforbidden —

With Thy right hand, my kitchen.

My kitchen,

The kitchen of the WTiite God,

A kitchen which my King hath blessed,

A kitchen stocked with butter.

Mary’s Son, my friend, come thou

To bless my kitchen.

The Prince of the World to the border,

May He bring abundance with Him.

As she was able to exhibit abundance of butter, and all of excellent quahty, the Druid and his wife expressed their satisfaction. Then Brigid seized the opportunity to entreat them to give liberty to Brot- seach, and as the woman was in failing health, the Druid consented On Brigid’s return to her father’s house, petty annoyances recurred. Dubtach, for the sake of domestic peace, failed to take up her cause; he sent her, so as to be out of the way, to keep swine in the oakwoods. At length, to be relieved of the annoyance, he resolved on selling her. and thought to dispose of her to Dunlang, son of Faelan, king of Leinster.

Seeing that the poor girl was pleased at being in the chariot wth him, Dubtach said roughly: Do not suppose it is out of regard for you that I am taking you this drive, but to sell you to grind com in the quern of Dunlang.”

When Dubtach went into the fortress, he left his chariot outside, with Brigid in it, and also a handsome sword that had been given him by the King, He told Dunlang his purpose, and extolled the good qualities of his daughter. Presently the King said that he would go out and have a look at the girl, before coming to terms.

Now, whilst this was going on within, a leper came to the side of the chariot whining and asking alms. Brigid at once handed to him her father’s sword, and the fellow made haste to disappear with it

When Dunlang and Dubtach issued from the Caer, the latter at once missed his sword, and inquired after it.

” There came a poor wretch here begging,” answered Brigid, “and having nothing else to give him, I let him have that.”

” A wench so free-handed with other people’s property is not for me,” said Dunlang, laughing; ‘* I will not have her at any price.”Consequently, in very bad humour, Dubtach had to return home, with his daughter.

He now sought to dispose of her in marriage, but the girl showed great repugnance to be so got rid of. One of her half-brothers was violent, and ill-treated her. In an altercation she had with him. he hit her and almost bhnded her in one eye. According to one version of the story, the family sought to dispose of her to Dubtach, the chief bard of King Laoghaire, an elderly man and a widower, and she, at the time, could hardly have been above sixteen. But she resolutely refused the honour, and insisted on taking the veil. She was accordingly allowed to have her own way, and was veiled by Bishop Macchille at Usny Hill in West Meath about the year 469.

453. Cronicum Scotorum.

The Feast of Temhair celebrated by Laeghaire, son of Niall.

453. Annales Cambriae.

Easter altered on the Lord’s Day by Pope Leo, Bishop of Rome.

453. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twenty fifth year of Laeghaire. A great defeat was given by Laeghaire to the Leinstermen.

453. Annals of Ulster.

A battle-rout inflicted on the Laigin by Laegaire son of Niall. Kalends of January sixth feria, sixteenth of the moon.

453. Annals of Inisfallen.

The death of Marcian, who reigned seven years. Leo reigned, and the head of John the Baptist was discovered.

454. The twenty-sixth of the moon. Easter on the eighth of the Kalends of May [April 24].

454. The Annals of Ulster.

The Feast of Temair held by Laegaire son of Niall.

454. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twenty sixth year of Laeghaire. The feast of Teamhair was celebrated by Laeghaire, son of Niall. Saint Usaille, Bishop of Cill Usaille, in Liffe, died on the twenty seventh of August.

454. Annales Cambriae.

St. Brigid is born.

455.Annals of Inisfallen. Destruction of the Laigin. Here some place the birth of Saint Brigit. The Festival of Temuir [celebrated] by Laegaire, son of Niall.

455. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Hengest and Horsa fought with Wurtgern the king on the spot that is called Aylesford. His brother Horsa being there slain, Hengest afterwards took to the kingdom with his son Esc.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

In the sixth year after, Hengist and Horsa fought a battle against Vortigern in the plain of Egelsthrep. There Horsa was killed, and Hengist obtained the kingdom.

Gildas.

For the fire of vengeance, justly kindled by former crimes, spread from sea to sea, fed by the hands of our foes in the east, and did not cease, until, destroying the neighbouring towns and lands, it reached the other side of the island, and dipped its red and savage tongue in the western ocean. In these assaults, therefore, not unlike that of the Assyrian upon Judea, was fulfilled in our case what the prophet describes in words of lamentation; “They have burned with fire the sanctuary; they have polluted on earth the tabernacle of thy name.” And again, “O God, the gentiles have come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled,” &c. So that all the columns were levelled with the ground by the frequent strokes of the battering-ram, all the husbandmen routed, together with their bishops, priests, and people, whilst the sword gleamed, and the flames crackled around them on every side. Lamentable to behold, in the midst of the streets lay the tops of lofty towers, tumbled to the ground, stones of high walls, holy altars, fragments of human bodies, covered with livid clots of coagulated blood, looking as if they had been squeezed together in a press; and with no chance of being buried, save in the ruins of the houses, or in the ravening bellies of wild beasts and birds; with reverence be it spoken for their blessed souls, if, indeed, there were many found who were carried, at that time, into the high heaven by the holy angels. So entirely had the vintage, once so fine, degenerated and become bitter, that, in the words of the prophet, there was hardly a grape or ear of corn to be seen where the husbandman had turned his back.

Petronius Maximus Emperor of The West 455

Avitus Emperor of The West 455-456

455. Cronicum Scotorum.

Death of Enna, son of Cathbadh.

456. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twenty eighth year of Laeghaire. Enda, son of Caththadh, died.

Bede.

CHAP. XVI.

How the Britons obtained their first victory over the Angles, under the command of Ambrosius, a Roman. [456 A.D.]

When the army of the enemy, having destroyed and dispersed the natives, had returned home to their own settlements, the Britons began by degrees to take heart, and gather strength, sallying out of the lurking places where they had concealed themselves, and with one accord imploring the Divine help, that they might not utterly be destroyed. They had at that time for their leader, Ambrosius Aurelianus, a man of worth, who alone, by chance, of the Roman nation had survived the storm, in which his parents, who were of the royal race, had perished. Under him the Britons revived, and offering battle to the victors, by the help of God, gained the victory. From that day, sometimes the natives, and sometimes their enemies, prevailed, till the year of the siege of Badon-hill, when they made no small slaughter of those enemies, about forty-four years after their arrival in England. But of this hereafter.

456. The Annals of Ulster.

Victorius the astronomer flourished. Death of Énna son of Cathub, and the birth of St Brigit, as some say. The emperor Marcian breathed his last. He was emperor for 6 or 4 years and 6 months, as Marcellinus states. Leo succeeded him on his death.

457. The Annals of Ulster.

The synod of Chalcedon assembled. Repose of the elder Patrick, as some books state.

457. Cronicum Scotorum.

Repose of Old Saint Patrick, Bishop, i.e. of the church of Glastonbury.

Majorian Emperor of The West 457-461

457. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Hengest and Esc fought with the Britons on the spot that is called Crayford, and there slew four thousand men. The Britons then forsook the land of Kent, and in great consternation fled to London.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

But after two years, Hengist and Esc his son renewed the war against the Britons; and there fell in that day on the side of the Britons four thousand men. Then the Britons, leaving Cantia, which is commonly called Kent, fled to the city of London.

457. Annales Cambriae.

St. Patrick goes to the Lord.

457. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twenty ninth year of Laeghaire. The battle of Ath Dara was fought against the Leinstermen by Laeghaire, son of Niall. Laeghaire was taken in that battle; and Laeghaire took oaths by the Sun and the Wind, and all the elements, to the Leinstermen, that he would never come against them, after setting him at liberty.

Ard Machab was founded by Saint Patrick, it having been granted to him by Daire, son of Finnchadh, son of Eoghan, son of Niallan. Twelve men were appointed by him for building the town. He ordered them, in the first place, to erect an archbishop’s city there, and a church for monks, for nuns, and for the other orders in general, for he perceived that it would be the head and chief of the churches of Ireland in general.

Old Patrick yielded his spirit.

457.Annals of Inisfallen.

Victorius composed the Paschal cycle.

458. Death of Énna, son of Cathub.

458. Annales Cambriae.

St. David is born in the thirtieth year after Patrick left Menevia.

458. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Ath Dara gained by the Lagenians over Laeghaire, in which he was taken prisoner; but he was straightway set at liberty, upon swearing by the sun and wind that he would forgive them the Borumha.

458. Annals of the Four Masters.

After Laeghaire, the son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, had been thirty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he died by the side of Caissi, between Eire and Alba, i.e. two hills which are in Ui Faelain; and it was the Sun and the Wind that killed him, because he had violated them. Concerning which the poet said:

1. Laeghaire, son of Niall, died

On the side of Caissi, green its land;

The elements of God, whose guarantee he had violated,

Inflicted the doom of death upon the king.

458 The Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Áth Dara was won by the Laigin over Laegaire, and in it he himself was taken prisoner, but was then freed on swearing by sun and wind that he would remit to them the cattle-tribute.

459 Bishop Auxilius rested. Or in this year the battle of Áth Dara occurred according to others.

459. Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of Oilioll Molt, son of Dathi, son of Fiachra, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

459. Cronicum Scotorum. The battle of Ath Dara gained against Laeghaire by the Lagenians, over whom Crimthand was then commander.

459.Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Áth Dara [gained] against Laegaire by the Laigin.

SBG St David.

Thirty years before the birth of David, S. Patrick came to Vallis Rosina, or Glyn Rhosyn, in Menevia, and vowed that he would stay there; but an angel appeared to him, and told him that it was God’s will that he should cross over into Ireland, and become the apostle of that island, and further, that the settling at Glyn Rhosyn was reserved for one who would be born thirty years later. In token that this was a true message, the angel showed to Patrick from a seat among the rocks, since called Eisteddfa Badrig, the entire island of Hibernia. The monastery was probably double, or rather it was a school to which were admitted pupils of both sexes. Thus it was that Non Nonna, or Nonnita (Melaria, according to Breton tradition), was in it, as a pupil. Non was the daughter of Cynyr of Caer Gawch in Mynyw. Cynyr was the son of Gwyndeg ab Seithenin, and the husband of Anna, daughter of Gwrthefyr Fendigaid (Vortimer). Non became the Mother of David.

SBG St Fracan.

There was in the western parts of Britain a certain wealthy man of great repute among his neighbours, Fracan by name, having a wife of like rank, called in their native tongue Guen, which in Latin is Candida. Divine mercy accorded them three sons, of whom two were twins, the third was born later. The twins were Gwethenoc and James, the third was named Wing- waloe.

” Fracan, accompanied by his two lambs, that is, by his two sons, Wethenoc and Jacut, and by their mother Alba (Guen), embarked with a not very numerous retinue, traversed the British sea, and disembarked in Armorica, a forest-clad land, where he learned that the country was free from war; and the north-west wind breathing softly, they were carried to the port of Brahec. In which, looking about, and arriving about the eleventh hour, Fracan found a fairly extensive tract, suitable for the establishment of a single plou (community), surrounded on all sides by woods and thorn-brakes, since called after its discoverer, and watered by a certain river called Blood (Gouet). There he began to live, along with his company, secure against sicknesses.”

Garaby records a tradition that barbarians having arrived off the coast of L&M in a fleet so large that the masts resembled a forest, Fracan summoned the British to attack them. The marauders attempted to disembark at Guisseny. The commandant of the leading body of British cried out, ” Milguern! ” (A thousand sails!) And afterwards a cross was erected on the spot, called Croas ar Mil guern. Fracan attacked the camp of the pirates, routed them, cut them to pieces, and burnt their ships.

460.Annals of Inisfallen.

Auxilius fell asleep.

460. Cronicum Scotorum.

Death of Laeghaire, son of Niall, at Greallach Daiphil, on the side of Cais in Magh Lífé, between the two hills, viz., Erinn and Alba are their names. His guarantees to the Lagenians, i.e. the sun and wind, that killed him there, as the Poet said:—

Laeghaire, son of Niall, died. On the side of Cais, green its land;

The elements of God, which he had pledged as guarantee,

Inflicted the doom of death on the King.

460. Annals of Ulster.

Pope Leo died. He held the see of Peter for 27 or 24 years, 1 month and 13 days, as Bede relates in his chronicle.

SBG St Benignus.

“In the year 460 Saint Benignus came to Glastonbury. He was disciple of S. Patrick, and his third successor in the episcopate, as is recorded in their Acts. Benignus, by the counsel of an Angel, leaving his coimtry and pontificate and abandoning his dignity, having undertaken a voluntary pilgrimage arrived at Glastonbury, God being his guide; and there he encountered S. Patrick. Of how great favour he was in with God is manifested by many tokens. This is testified at Feringmere, where a spring rose at his prayers, and a great flourishing tree grew out of his dry staff. Here, finally, after great anguish he came to a blessed end, in the said island, and there rested till the days of William Rufus, when he was translated to Glastonbury.”

Benignus, after having spent many years in Ireland as a bishop, at the summons of an angel departed on pilgrimage, and came to Glastonbury where he found S. Patrick, who said to him “Go, my brother. content with your staff, and wheresoever it begins to bud, leaf and bloom, there abide, it is ordained for your resting place.” Then Benignus, attended by a boy. Pincius, went through the marsh and willow tangled waste, till they came to an islet or toft in the marsh called Ferramere, and there his rod rooted itself and put forth leaves. At that time, the river which now flows by it, took another course, and Benignus had to send his boy Pinch some distance for water.

One day Pinch was bringing a pitcher full, the weather was hot, and he lay down half-way and fell asleep. Whilst he snored a mischievous fellow stole the pitcher. Pinch awoke, and when he found the vessel gone, set up a howl, and presently, laughing, the practical joker showed himself and restored it. Pinch took the pitcher to his master and told him that the Devil had played him a trick, but had surrendered the vessel when he cried out to the God of Benignus. The hermit, compassionating the labour imposed on Pinch, thrust his staff into the soil and elicited a copious spring.

Benignus was wont at night to walk along a causeway he had constructed to Glastonbury to pray there in the church of S. Mary. One night he found his Passage obstructed by a monstrous form. He addressed it in these words, ” You bloody beast! what are you doing here? ” The Demon replied, “I have been awaiting you, you toothless old man, hoping to deceive you.” Thereupon Benignus went at him manfully, caught him by the scruff of the neck, belaboured him with his staff, and flung him into a well or mere hard by, where he sank and was never again seen, and this well or mere was held to be bottomless.

When he felt that his time was come, Benignus summoned his disciples to him and announced to them that his hour was at hand, then raising his eyes to heaven, he expired in their arms on November 3.

461. Annals of Ulster.

Hilary was made 44th pontiff of the Roman Church, and lived 6 years. Or this year Leo died. Here some record the repose of Patrick. Laegaire son of Niall lived for 7 years 7 months and 7 days after the Feast of Temair. The battle of Áth Dara was won against Laegaire by the Laigin, of whom Cremthann was then ruler.

461. Annals of Inisfallen.

The repose of Pope Leo, and the ordination of bishop Hilary.

461. Cronicum Scotorum.

Commencement of the reign of Oilill Molt, son of Nathi.

St Hilarius Pope 461-468

Libius Severus Emperor of The West 461-465

461. SBG Mansuetus.

In that year a British bishop, Mansuetus, attended the Council of Tours.

462. Annals of the Four Master.s

The fourth year of Oilioll. Domhangort, son of Nissi, died.

462. Annals of Ulster.

Death of Laegaire son of Niall, at Grellach Dabhaill or Grellach Ghaifil on the side of Caisse in Magh Life, between two hills called Eiriu and Albu; for the Laigin thought that it was sun and wind that killed him.

463. Annals of Ulster,

Beginning of the reign of Ailill Molt, son of Nath

463. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fifth year of Oilioll. The feast of Teamhair was celebrated by Oilioll Molt this year.

463. Annals of Inisfallen.

The death of Laegaire, son of Niall, at Grellach Dabaill between two hills, namely Ériu and Alba.

464. Ailill Molt reigned.

464. Annals of Ulster.

The first battle of Ard Corann, won by the Laigin.

The Angles came to England.

464. Annals of the Four Masters.

The sixth year of Oilioll. The battle of Dumha Aichir was fought by the Leinstermen, against Oilioll Molt.

Conall Gulban, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages (from whom are descended the Cinel Conaill), was slain by the old tribes of Magh Slecht, he, having been found unprotected, and was buried at Fidhnach Maighe Rein, by Saint Caillin, as the Life of the aforesaid saint relates.

464. Cronicum Scotorum.

Domangart Mac Nisi quievit.

465. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Hengest and Esc fought with the Welsh, nigh Wippedfleet; and there slew twelve leaders, all Welsh. On their side, a thane was there slain, whose name was Wipped.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

About eight years after, the same men took up arms against the Britons, and there was a great slaughter made on that day: twelve chiefs of the Britons fell near a place called Wipped’s-fleet ; there fell a soldier of the Saxons called Wipped, from which circumstance that place took its name.

SBG St Madrun, or Madryn.

She was the daughter of Vortimer, or Gwrthefyr Fendigaid, and wife of Ynyr Gwent, Regulus of Caerwent. Her sister Anne was married to Cynyr, of Caer Gawch, and mother of S. Non. Madrun had as children, Ceidio, Iddon, Cynheiddon, and Tegiwg. According to other accounts she was sometime also married to Gwgon Gwron, by whom she was the mother of S. Cedwyn.

Her daughter Tegiwg fell in love with a young carpenter engaged in building a palace for her father. The king was vastly incensed, but the girl was headstrong, and the parents had to give way. The carpenter, however, was not so amorous as Tegiwg, or felt overwhelmed with the honour, and being ashamed, we are told, at having only a humble home to which to conduct her, he cut off her head and left her. But S. Beuno raised her to life again. The young wife then retired from the world and embraced the religious life.

Ynyr received S. Tathan, an Irish Saint, and settled him at Caerwent, where he formed a college, and became the ecclesiastical director to the king and his family. Tathan’s holy life and teaching must have deeply impressed Madrun.

In the troubles that ensued on the bad government of Vortigern, and the wrath of the Britons against him for having introduced the Saxons into the country, that prince was compelled to fly from his own insurgent subjects, and took refuge in a valley under The Rivals, in Carnarvonshire, where he had a dun of wood. If any reliance may be placed on Nennius, then S. Germanus was strong in causing the rebellion, but at the head of the revolted Britons was Aurelius Ambrosius.

According to the legend, Madrun was with her grandfather, and had with her her eldest child, Ceidio, when the wooden castle was surrounded and set on fire. Vortigern perished in the flames, according to one account, but Madrun fled with Ceidio in her arms.

The troubles of her native land probably caused Madrun to take refuge in Cornwall, where she is called S. Materiana. Her father, Vortimer, died about 457, and her grandfather Vortigern ibout 464, and we may suppose that Madrun died in the first years the succeeding century.

SBG St Iddon.

The son of Ynyr Gwent, and brother of SS. Ceidio, Cynheiddon, and Tegiwg. His mother was S. Madrun, the daughter of Vortimer.

465. Cronicum Scotorum.

Quies of Benignus, successor of Patrick.

465. Annals of the Four Masters.

The seventh year of Oilioll Molt. The feast of Teamhair was celebrated by Oilioll Molt.Eoghan, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages (from whom are descended the Cinel Eoghain), died of grief for Conall Gulban, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, and was buried at Uisce Chain, in Inis Eoghain; concerning which was said:

1. Eoghan, son of Niall, died of tears,—good his nature,—

In consequence of the death of Conall, of hard feats,

So that his grave is at Uisce Chain.

Crimhthann, son of Enda Censelach, King of Leinster, was killed by the son of his own daughter, i.e. Eochaidh Guineach, one of the Ui Bairrche.

465. Annals of Ulster.

Hilarius, bishop of the Roman Church, died; he occupied the see of Peter for 6 years, 3 months and 10 days. Simplicius was consecrated, and he sat for 12 years, 1 month and days. Eógan son of Niall died.

SBG St Dubricius.

Pepiau, or Peipiau, king of Erging or Archenfield, ( Madley) in Herefordshire, son of Erb, King of Gwent and Erging, had a daughter named Efrddyl. On his return from a warfaring expedition he asked her to wash his head; and whilst she was thus engaged, he perceived that she was in the family-way. He was angry, and ordered her to be put in a skin bag and thrown into the river. She was, however, washed ashore, and then he sentenced her to be burnt alive.

Next morning, he sent to inquire about her ashes, and the messengers found her sitting on the pyre, nursing her new-born son. Pepiau ordered mother and child to be brought to him, and he took the infant in his arms.

Now Pepiau was afflicted with a drivelling mouth, and two servants attended continually to wipe away the saliva with napkins. It fell out that when the child on his lap stroked his cheeks, he was completely healed of his infirmity. Pepiau then granted to the child the place where it had been born, which was called Matle. Eventually, a stone was set up on the spot in commemoration of the marvellous birth there of the child Dubricius (Dyfrig).

465.Annals of Inisfallen.

Isserninus fell asleep.

466..

The battle of Ard Corainn.

466. Annals of the Four Masters.

The eighth year of Oilioll Molt. The feast of Tara held by Oilill Molt

466. Annals of Ulster.

An earthquake frightened the city of Ravenna. Domangart Mac Nisi rested.

Sidonius Apollinaris, Letter to his friend Domitius A.D. 461-7(?)

(Ed. If this place existed in Gaul, then there might be similar in Britain.)

Avitaci sumus. The villa of Avitacum, named from Avitus, is the estate which Sidonius received with his wife Papianilla. Fauchet considered that it was situated by the lake of Sorlieu, then called Abitac, and now, perhaps, Obier (Antiquites francaises,). But the position is uncertain; another opinion favours the lake of Aydat, in Puy-de-Dome. In any case, Avitacum was not far from Clermont. The description is modelled on Pliny’s pictures of his country-houses (Ep. II. xvii; V. vi). Cf. Chaix, i, pp. 148 ff.

You attack me for staying in the country; I might with greater reason complain of you for lingering in town. Spring already gives place to summer; the sun has travelled his full range to the Tropic of Cancer and now advances on his journey towards the pole. Why should I waste words upon the climate which we here enjoy? The Creator has so placed us that we are exposed to the afternoon heats. Enough said; the whole world glows; the snow is melting on the Alps; the earth is seamed with gaping heat-cracks. The fords are nothing but dry gravel, the banks hard mud, the plains dust; the running streams languish and hardly drag themselves along; as for the water, hot is not the word; it boils. We are all perspiring in light silks or linens; but there you stay at Ameria all swathed up under your great gown, buried in a deep chair, and setting with many yawns ‘My mother was a Samian’ to pupils paler from the heat than from any fear of you. As you love your health, get away at once from your suffocating alleys, join our household as the most welcome of all guests, and in this most temperate of retreats evade the intemperate dog-star.

You may like to know the kind of place to which you are invited. We are at the estate known as Avitacum, a name of sweeter sound in my ears than my own patrimony because it came to me with my wife. Infer the harmony which established between me and mine; it is God’s ordinance; but you might be pardoned for fearing it the work of some enchantment. On the west rises a big hill, pretty steep but not rocky, from which issue two lower spurs, like branches from a double trunk, extending over an area of about four jugera. But while the ground opens out enough to form a broad approach to the front door, the straight slopes on either side lead a valley right to the boundary of the villa, which faces north and south.

On the south-west are the baths, which so closely adjoin a wooded eminence that if timber is cut on the hill above, the piles of logs slide down almost by their own weight, and are brought up against the very mouth of the furnace.

At this point is the hot bath, which corresponds in size with the adjoining unguentarium, except that it has an apse with a semicircular basin; here the hot water pressing through the sinuous lead pipes that pierce the wall issues with a sobbing sound. The chamber itself is well heated from beneath; it is full of day, and so overflowing with light that very modest bathers seem to themselves something more than naked.

Next come the spacious frigidarium, which may fairly challenge comparison with those in public baths. The roof is pyramidal, and the spaces between the converging ridges are covered with imbricated tiles; the architect has inserted two opposite windows about the junction of walls and dome, so that if you look up, you see the fine coffering displayed to the best advantage.

The interior walls are unpretentiously covered with plain white stucco, and the apartment is designed by the nicest calculation of space to contain the same number of persons as the semicircular bath holds bathers, while it yet allows the servants to move about without impeding one another. No frescoed scene obtrudes its comely nudities, gracing the art to the disgrace of the artist. You will observe no painted actors in absurd masks, and costumes rivalling Philistio’s gear with colours gaudy as the rainbow. You will find no pugilists or wrestlers intertwining their oiled limbs in those grips which, in real bouts, the gymnasiarch’s chaste wand unlocks the moment the enlaced limbs look indecent. Enough you will see upon these walls none of those things which it is nicer not to look upon. A few verses there are, harmless lines enough, since no one either regrets perusal or cares to peruse again. If you want to know what marbles are employed, neither Paros nor Carystos, nor Proconnesos, nor Phrygia, nor Numidia, nor Sparta have contributed their diverse inlays. I had no use for stone that simulates a broken surface, with Ethiopic crags and purple precipices stained with genuine murex. Though enriched by no cold splendour of foreign marble, my poor huts and hovels do not lack the coolness to which a plain citizen may aspire.

But now I had really better talk about the things I have, than the things I lack.

With this hall is connected on the eastern side an annexe, a piscina, or, if you prefer the Greek word, baptistery, with a capacity of about twenty thousand modii. Into this the bathers pass from the hot room by three arched entrances in the dividing wall. The supports are not piers but columns, which your experienced architect calls the glory of buildings. Into this piscina, then, a stream lured from the brow of the hill is conducted in channels curving round the outside of the swimming basin; it issues through six pipes terminating in lions’ heads which, to one entering rapidly, seem to present real fangs, authentic fury of eyes, indubitable manes. When the master of the house stands here with his household or his guests about him, people have to shout in each other’s ears, or the noise of falling water makes their words inaudible; the interference of this alien sound forces conversations which are quite public to assume an amusing air of secrecy. On leaving this chamber you see in front of you the withdrawing-room; adjoining it is the storeroom, separated only by a movable partition from the place where the maids do our weaving.

On the east side a portico commands the lake, supported by simple wooden pillars instead of pretentious monumental columns. On the side of the front entrance is a long-covered space unbroken by interior divisions; it may be incorrect to call this a hypodrome, but I may fairly award it the name of cryptoporticus. At the end, it is curtailed by a section cut off to form a delightfully cool bay, and here when we keep open festival, the whole chattering chorus of nurses and dependants sounds a halt when the family retires for the siesta.

The winter dining-room is entered from this cryptoporticus; a roaring fire on an arched hearth often fills this apartment with smoke and smuts. But that detail I may spare you; a glowing hearth is the last thing I am inviting you to enjoy just now. I pass instead to things which suit the season and your present need. From here one enters a smaller chamber or dining-room, all open to the lake and with almost the whole expanse of lake in its view. This chamber is furnished with a dining-couch and gleaming sideboard upon a raised area or dais to which you mount gradually, and not by abrupt or narrow steps from the portico below. Reclining at this table you can give the idle moments between the courses to the enjoyment of the prospect.

If water of our famous springs is served and quickly poured into the cups, one sees snowy spots and clouded patches form outside them; the sudden chill dulls the fugitive reflections of the surface almost as if it had been greased. Such cups restrict one’s draughts; the thirstiest soul on earth, to say nothing of Your Abstemiousness, would set lip to the freezing brims with caution. From table you may watch the fisherman row his boat out to mid-lake, and spread his seine with cork floats, or suspend his lines at marked intervals to lure the greedy trout on their nightly excursions through the lake with bait of their own flesh and blood: what phrase more proper, since fish is literally caught by fish?

The meal over, we pass into a withdrawing-room, which its coolness makes a perfect place in summer. Facing north, it receives all the daylight but no direct sun: a very small intervening chamber accommodates the drowsy servants, large enough to allow them forty winks but not a regular sleep. It is delightful to sit here and listen to the shrill cicala at noon, the croak of frogs in the gloaming, the clangour of swans and geese in the earlier night or the crow of cocks in the dead of it, the ominous voice of rooks saluting the rosy face of Dawn in chorus, or, in the half-light, nightingales fluting in the bushes and swallows twittering under the eaves. To this concert you may add the seven-stopped pipe of the pastoral Muse, on which the very wakeful Tityri of our hills will often vie one with another, while the herds about them low to the cow-bells as they graze along the pastures. All these tuneful songs and sounds will but charm you into deeper slumbers.

If you leave the colonnade and go down to the little lakeside harbour, you come to a greensward, and, hard by, to a grove of trees where everyone is allowed to go. There stand two great limes, with roots and trunks apart, but the boughs interwoven in one continuous canopy. In their dense shade, we play at ball when my Ecdicius honours me with his company; but the moment the shadow of the trees shrinks to the area covered by the branches we stop for want of ground, and repose our tired limbs at dice.

I have described the house; I now owe you a description of the lake. It extends in a devious course towards the east, and when violent winds lash it to fury, drenches the lower part of the house with spray. At its head, the ground is marshy and full of bog-holes, impassable to the explorer; a slimy and saturated mud has formed there, and cold springs rise on all sides; the edges are fringed with weed. When the wind drops, small boats cleave its changeful surface in all directions. But if dirty weather comes up from the south the whole lake is swollen into monstrous waves and a rain of spray comes crashing over the tree-tops upon the banks. By nautical measure, it is seventeen stadia in length. Where the river comes in, the broken water foams white against the rocky barriers; but the stream soon wins clear of the overhanging crags, and is lost in the smooth expanse. Whether the river itself makes the lake, or is only an affluent, I know not; certain it is that it reaches the other end, and flows away through subterranean channels which only deprive it of its fish, and leave it intact in volume. The fish, driven into more sluggish waters, increase in size, red bodied and white under the belly. They cannot either return or escape; they fatten, and go self-contained as it were in portable jails of their own composition.

On the right, a wooded shore curves with an indented line; on the left, it opens to a level sweep of grass. On the southwest the shallows along the banks look green; overarching boughs lend the water their own hue, and the water transmits it to the pebbles at the bottom; on the east, a similar fringe of foliage produces a like tint. On the north, the water preserves its natural colour; on the west, the shore is covered with a tangle of common growths crushed in many places where boats have rowed over them; close by, tufts of smooth reeds bend to the wind, and pulpy flat leaves of aquatic plants float upon the surface; the sweet waters nourish the bitter sap of the grey-green willows growing near.

In the deep middle of the lake is an islet, at one end of which projects a turning post upon boulders naturally piled, worn by contact with oar-blades during our aquatic sports; at this point competitors often collide and come to cheerful grief. Our fathers used to hold boat-races here in imitation of the Trojan ceremonial games at Drepanum.

It is not in my bond to describe the estate itself; suffice it to say that it has spreading woods and flowery meadows, pastures rich in cattle and a wealth of hardy shepherds.

Here I must conclude. Were my pen to run on much further the autumn would overtake you before you reached the end. Accord me, then, the grace of coming quickly; your return shall be as slow as ever you choose. And forgive me if, in my fear of overlooking anything about our situation here, I have given you facts in excess and beyond the fair limits of a letter. As it is, there are points which I have left untouched for fear of being tedious. But a reader of your judgement and imagination will not exaggerate the size of the descriptive page, but rather that of the house so spaciously depicted. Farewell.

467. Annals of the Four Master.

The ninth year of Oilioll Molt. Benent, son of Sescnen, Bishop of Ard Macha Armagh, resigned his spirit.

467. Cronicum Scotorum.

The Feast of Temhair celebrated by Oilill Molt.

Anthemius Emperor of The West 467-472

467. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of bishop Benignus, successor of Patrick. The Feast of Temair held by Ailill Molt son of Dath Í son of Fiachra son of Eochu Mugmedón. Thus I have found in the Book of Cuanu.

Death of Uter Pendragon, king of England, to whom succeeded his son, King Arthur, who instituted the Round Table.

SBG St Bedwin.

Bedwin is mentioned in The Triads of Arthur and his Men, The Mabinogion, The Dream of Rohanwy, and The Sayings of the Wise, as Arthur’s chief Bishop or Archbishop. There are no churches dedicated to this saint, nor is his festival given.

468. Annales Cambriae.

The death of Bishop Benignus.

St Simplicius Pope 468-483

468. Annals of Ulster.

Bishop Isserninus dies. The battle of Duma Aichir, i.e. won against Ailill Molt, as I have found in the Book of Cuanu.

468. Annals of the Four Masters.

The eleventh year of Oilioll. The boxing battle of Bri Ele against the Leinstermen, by Oilioll Molt.

468. Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of bishop Benignus … dies in Rome. Death of Leo the Minor who reigned sixteen years, and Eman (Zeno) becomes emperor.

469.. The Festival of Temuir [celebrated] by Ailill Molt.

469. Annals of Ulster.

Or, the Feast of Temair held by Ailill Molt this year, according to others.

470. Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Duma Aichir [gained] against Ailill Molt. Illann was victor.

470. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twelfth year of Oilioll. The battle of Dumha Aichir against Oilioll Molt, by the Leinstermen.

SBG St Iltyd.

Iltyd was a native of Letavia, i.e. Armorica, or Lesser Britain. Among those who fled from Britain and settled in Lesser Britain was one Bicanus, of noble birth and military prowess. He was married to Rieingulid, daughter of Anblaud, King of Britain. Amlawdd Wledig, was married to Gwen, daughter of Cunedda Wledig, and was the father of Eigyr or Igerna, and grandfather of Arthur.

Illtyd was the fruit of the union, and he had as brother S. Sadwrn. He was educated in ” the seven sciences ” by Germanus the Armorican who became Bishop of Man, and was with him for awhile in Paris, and had Brioc as his fellow pupil.

SBG St Oudoceus.

The early history of Armorican Cornugallia is most obscure. We know that this portion of the Western peninsula had been colonized from Britain, at an early period. We hear of a king, Grallo, who ruled there about 470 to 505.

471. Cronicum Scotorum.

The conflict of Brí Ele gained over the Lagenians by Oilill Molt.

471.Annals of Inisfallen.

The second prey of the Saxon from Ireland.

471. Annals of Ulster.

The second prey of the Saxons from Ireland (as some state) was carried off this year, as Maucteus (Mochta) says. Thus, I have found in the Book of Cuanu.

Sidonius Apollinaris, Letters.

To the Lord Bishop Basilius A.D. 472-3

GOD has permitted us to give this generation a new example of what old friendship means; ours indeed is an attachment of long duration, and equal strength upon both sides. But our respective positions are by no means equal: you are the patron and I the client; perhaps, indeed, I presume too far in saying even so much. For so great is my unworthiness, that even the proven efficacy of your intercession can hardly make good my backsliding. Because you are doubly my lord and master, firstly as my protector, secondly as my friend; because I so well remember (was I not by?) the flow of your eloquence, springing from that fervent zeal of yours, when you pierced with the point of your spiritual testimonies Modaharius the Goth as he brandished the darts of Arian heresy against you; because of all this, I need fear no charge of disrespect towards other pontiffs when I pour into your ears my grief at the ravages of the great wolf of our times, who ranges about the ecclesiastical fold battening upon lost souls, and biting right and left by stealth and undetected. For that old enemy begins by threatening the shepherds’ throats, knowing it the best way to ensure his triumph over the bleating and abandoned sheep. I am not so far oblivious of my own career as to ignore that I am one whose conscience has yet to be washed clean by many tears; but by God’s grace my foulness shall at last be cleared away with the mystic rake of your intercession. But since consideration for the public safety must come before everything, even a man’s sense of his own unworthiness, I shall not hesitate to proclaim the cause of truth, disregarding all insinuations about my vanity, or doubts as to the sincerity of my faith. Neither a saint like you can fitly here discuss, nor a sinner like myself indict, the action of Euric the Gothic king in breaking and bearing down an ancient treaty to defend, or rather extend by armed force the frontiers of his kingdom. It is the rule here below, for Dives to be clothed in purple and fine linen, and for Lazarus to bear the lash of sores and poverty. So long as we walk in this allegoric land of Egypt, it is the rule that Pharaoh shall go with a diadem on his head, and the Israelite with the carrier’s basket. It is the rule that while we are burned in the furnace of this symbolic Babylon we must sigh and groan like Jeremiah for the spiritual Jerusalem, while Assur thunders in his royal pomp and treads the Holy of Holies beneath his feet. Yet when I compare the transient joys of this world with those which are to come, I find it easier to endure calamities which no mortal may escape. For, firstly, when I consider my own demerits, all possible troubles seem lighter than those which I deserve; and then know well that the best of cures for the inward man is for the outward man to be threshed by the flails of suffering. I must confess that formidable as the mighty Goth may be, I dread him less as the assailant of our walls than as the subverter of our Christian laws. They say that the mere mention of the name of Catholic so embitters his countenance and heart that one might take him for the chief priest of his Arian sect rather than for the monarch of his nation. Omnipotent in arms, keen-witted, and in the full vigour of life, he yet makes this single mistake—-he attributes his success in his designs and enterprises to the orthodoxy of his belief, whereas the real cause lies in mere earthly fortune. For these reasons, I would have you consider the secret malady of the Catholic Church that you may hasten to apply an open remedy. Bordeaux, Périgueux, Rodez, Limoges, Javols, Eauze, Bazas, Comminges, Auch, and many another city are all like bodies which have lost their heads through the death of their respective bishops. No successors have been appointed to fill their places, and maintain the ministry in the lower orders of the Church; the boundaries of spiritual desolation are extended far and wide. Every day the ruin spreads by the death of more fathers in God; so pitiful is her state, that the very heresiarchs of former times, to say nothing of contemporary heretics, might well have looked with pity on peoples orphaned of their pontiffs and oppressed by desperation at this catastrophe of their faith. Diocese and parish lie waste without ministers. You may see the rotten roofs of churches fallen in, the doors unhinged and blocked by growing brambles. More grievous still, you may see the cattle not only lying in the half-ruined porticoes, but grazing beside altars green with weeds. And this desolation is not found in country parishes alone; even the congregations of urban churches begin to fall away. What comfort remains to the faithful, when not only the teaching of the clergy perishes, but their very memory is lost out of mind? When a priest departs this life, not merely the holder of the sacred office dies, but the office itself dies with him, unless with his failing breath he gives his blessing to a successor. What hope remains when the term of a man’s life implies the end of religion in his parish? If you examine more closely the ills of the body spiritual, you will soon perceive that for every bishop snatched from our midst, the faith of a population is imperilled. I need not mention your colleagues Crocus and Simplicius, removed alike from their thrones and suffering a common exile, if different punishments. For one of them laments that he cannot see whither he is to return; the other that he sees only too clearly where he is to return no more. You for your part have about you the most holy bishops Faustus, Leontius, and Graecus, environed by the city, your order and their fraternal love. To you these miserable treaties are submitted, the pacts and agreements of two kingdoms pass through your hands. Do your best, as far as the royal condescension suffers you, to obtain for our bishops the right of ordination in those parts of Gaul now included within the Gothic boundaries, that if we cannot keep them by treaty for the Roman State, we may at least hold them by religion for the Roman Church. Deign to bear me in remembrance, my Lord Bishop.

472. Cronicum Scotorum.

Battle of Dumagh Aicher gained by the Lagenians over Oilill Molt.

Olybrius Emperor of The West 472

472. Annals of the Four Masters

The fourteenth year of Oilioll. Toca, son of Aedh, son of Senach, chief of Crioch Cualann, in Leinster, died.

472 Jordanes

His (Theodorid King of the Visigoths) brother Eurich succeeded him with such eager haste that he fell under dark suspicion. Now while these and various other matters were happening among the people of the Visigoths, the Emperor Valentinian was slain by the treachery of Maximus, and Maximus himself, like a tyrant, usurped the rule. Gaiseric, king of the Vandals, heard of this and came from Africa to Italy with ships of war, entered Rome and laid it waste. Maximus fled and was slain by a certain Ursus, a Roman soldier. After him Majorian undertook the government of the Western Empire at the bidding of Marcian, Emperor of the East. But he too ruled but a short time. For when he had moved his forces against the Alani who were harassing Gaul, he was killed at Dertona near the river named Ira. Severus succeeded him and died at Rome in the third year of his reign. When the Emperor Leo, who had succeeded Marcian in the Eastern Empire, learned of this, he chose as emperor his Patrician Anthemius and sent him to Rome. Upon his arrival, he sent against the Alani his son-in-law Ricimer, who was an excellent man and almost the only one in Italy at that time fit to command the army. In the very first engagement he conquered and destroyed the host of the Alani, together with their king, Beorg.

Now Eurich, king of the Visigoths, perceived the frequent change of Roman Emperors and strove to hold Gaul by his own right.

The Emperor Anthemius heard of it and asked the Brittones for aid. Their King Riotimus came with twelve thousand men into the state of the Bituriges by the way of Ocean, and was received as he disembarked from his ships. Eurich, king of the Visigoths, came against them with an innumerable army, and after a long fight he routed Riotimus, king of the Brittones, before the Romans could join him. So, when he had lost a great part of his army, he fled with all the men he could gather together, and came to the Burgundians, a neighboring tribe then allied to the Romans.

But Eurich, king of the Visigoths, seized the Gallic city of Arverna; for the Emperor Anthemius was now dead.

Engaged in fierce war with his son-in-law Ricimer, he had worn out Rome and was himself finally slain by his son-in-law and yielded the rule to Olybrius.

Glycerius Emperor of The West 473-474

473. Anglo Saxon Chronicle .

This year Hengest and Esc fought with the Welsh, and took immense Booty. And the Welsh fled from the English like fire.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

After eight years were completed, Hengist with his son Esc, a second time make war against the Britons, and having slaughtered their army, remain victors on the field of battle, and carry off immense spoils.

Gildas.

Some therefore, of the miserable remnant, being taken in the mountains, were murdered in great numbers; others, constrained by famine, came and yielded themselves to be slaves for ever to their foes, running the risk of being instantly slain, which truly was the greatest favour that could be offered them: some others passed beyond the seas with loud lamentations instead of the voice of exhortation. “Thou hast given us as sheep to be slaughtered, and among the Gentiles hast thou dispersed us.” Others, committing the safeguard of their lives, which were in continual jeopardy, to the mountains, precipices, thickly wooded forests, and to the rocks of the seas (albeit with trembling hearts), remained still in their country. But in the meanwhile, an opportunity happening, when these most cruel robbers were returned home, the poor remnants of our nation (to whom flocked from divers places round about our miserable countrymen as fast as bees to their hives, for fear of an ensuing storm), being strengthened by God, calling upon him with all their hearts, as the poet says,–“With their unnumbered vows they burden heaven,” that they might not be brought to utter destruction, took arms under the conduct of Ambrosius Aurelianus, a modest man, who of all the Roman nation was then alone in the confusion of this troubled period by chance left alive. His parents, who for their merit were adorned with the purple, had been slain in these same broils, and now his progeny in these our days, although shamefully degenerated from the worthiness of their ancestors, provoke to battle their cruel conquerors, and by the goodness of our Lord obtain the victory.

SBG ST Ambrosius.

The Church of Amesbury claimed to have been founded by one Ambrosius, but whether this were an abbot, or whether he were Ambrosius who headed the revolt against Gwrtheym; whether this latter, after having led the Britons to battle against the Saxons, in his old age became a monk and founded a religious house over which he ruled as abbot at Amesbury, is all uncertain, and never will be cleared up; but the latter supposition is not improbable. Aurelius Ambrosius. or Ambrosius Aurelianus, is the only one of his countrymen against whom the venomous Gildas does not inveigh. The monastery, according to Camden, contained three hundred monks, and was destroyed by “nescio quis barbarus Gormundus.” This Gormund was Gorman, son of Cormac Mac Diarmid, king of the Hy Bairche, who in the middle of the sixth century destroyed Llanbadam Fawr and other churches, and did much havoc in Britain.

In the Welsh Pedigrees, Ambrosius is Emrys Wledig, or as Nennius calls him, Embreis Guletic. The Welsh accounts make Ambrosius son of Cystennin, Constantine, whom they derive from Cynan Meiriadog, brother of Elen, wife of Maximus ; and they make Cystennin Gomeu the brother of Aldor, or Audroen, father of Emyr Llydaw, the ancestor of a noble army of Saints who drifted about between Armorica and South Wales. They make, moreover, Emrys, or Ambrosius, brother of Uthur Bendragon, the father of Arthur.’

SBG St Coel.

SBG St Owain,

He is sometimes called Owain Finddu, or the Black-lipped, the son of Macsen Wledig (the Emperor Maximus) by Elen Luyddog, of Carnarvon. He had as brothers, Ednyfed, Peblig, and Cystenniri, and is said to have been the father of S. Madog. Triads of the Third (or latest) Series assert that, after the departure of the Romans, he was elected by national convention to be supreme ruler of Britain. Under him, it is said, Britain was restored to a state of independence, and the annual tribute, which had been paid to the Romans since the days of Julius Caesar, was discontinued.

SBG St Peblig.

Peblig was the son of Maxen Wledig, or Maximus, and Elen Luyd-dog, and brother of Owain, who, after the death of Maximus, was acknowledged as King of all Britain, and who refused to pay the tribute demanded of Britain by the Romans. Cystennin, Ednyfed and Gwy- thyr (Victor) were also sons of Maxen. Peblig is esteemed the founder of Llanbeblig near Carnarvon. In this finger of land between the river and the Straits lay the ancient town of Segontium. The neighbourhood teems with memories of Elen, the wife of Maximus, and mother of Peblig. Here, among the crumbling remains of the town, he founded his church. The Irish had taken advantage of the departure of Maximus with the flower of the British youth in 387, to fall upon the coast of Wales, and to occupy it. But probably the Roman walls of Segontium held them at bay, and though they spread over the country and held Mon in force, they did not venture to break into the fortified town. So only can we account for the foundation of Peblig in Segontium.

473. Annals of Ulster.

The emperor Leo the Elder, having previously appointed Leo the Younger Caesar, died of disease, in the seventeenth year and sixth month of the reign, counting the years of his own rule and the months of this latter Leo’s reign. The emperor Leo the Younger, his son, appointed Zeno Caesar. Repose of the holy bishop Doccus, abbot of the Britons. The mêlée of Brí Éile won over the Laigin by Ailill Molt.

Julius Nepos Emperor of The West 474-475

474. Annals of the Four Masters.

The sixteenth year of Oilioll. Eirc, son of Eochaidh Muinreamhar, died.

474. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Duma Aichir won over Ailill Molt by the Laigin. Kalends of January fourth feria, ninth of the moon.

Sidonius Apollinaris.

Letters. To his [kinsman] Thaumastus A.D. 474-5

AT last we have discovered who the villains are who have accused your brother before our tetrarch for siding with the partisans of the new Emperor, unless, indeed, the stealthy steps of the informers have deceived the proved sagacity of our friends. They are the wretches, as you yourself have heard me say upon the spot, whom Gaul endures with groans these many years, and who make the barbarians themselves seem merciful by comparison. They are the scoundrels whom even the formidable fear. These are the men whose peculiar province it seems to be to calumniate, to denounce, to intimidate, and to plunder.

These are they who in quiet times make parade of their affairs, in peace of their ample spoils, in war of their evasions, over their cups of their victories. These are the creatures who will spin out a case if they are called in, and block its progress if they are kept out; who grow offensive if reminded of their duty, and if they once pocket your fee, forget their obligation. These are the fellows who buy themselves a lawsuit to sell their mediation; who control the appointment of arbitrators, dictate their sentence, and tear it up whenever it suits them to do so; who incite litigants to sue, and hold the hearing in suspense; who hale off the convicted, and force back into the court those who would fain escape by settlement. These are the men who, asked a favour opposed by none, will promise with reluctance what shame forbids them to refuse, and moan if they have to keep their word.

These are they at whose appearance the world’s great scoundrels would confess themselves surpassed, Narcissus, Asiaticus, Massa, Marcellus, Carus, Parthenius, Licinus, Pallas, and all their peers. These are they who grudge quiet folks their peace, the soldier his pay, the courier his fare, the merchant his market, the ambassador his gifts, the farmer of tolls his dues, the provincial his farm, the municipality its flamen’s dignity, the controllers of revenue their weights, the receivers their measures, the registrars their salary, the accountants their fees, the bodyguards their presents, towns their truces, tax gatherers their taxes, the clergy the respect men pay them, the nobles their lineage, superiors their seats in council, equals equality, the official his jurisdiction, the ex-official his distinctions, scholars their schools, masters their stipends, and finished pupils their accomplishments.

These are the upstarts drunken with new wealth (I spare you no sordid detail), who by their intemperate use betray their unfamiliarity with riches. They like to march under arms to a banquet, they will attend a funeral in white, and wear mourning at a marriage festival; they go to church in furs, and hear a litany in beaver. No race of men, no rank, no epoch is ever to their liking. In the market, they behave like Scyths; in the chamber they are vipers, at feasts buffoons. While they are harpies in exaction, in conversation you might as well talk to statues, or address a question to brute beasts. In negotiation slow as snails, they are sharp as money-lenders at a contract. In comprehension they are stones, in judgement stocks; swift as flame in anger, hard as iron in forgiveness, pards in friendship, bears in humour, foxes in deceit, overbearing as bulls, fierce as Minotaurs in destruction.

They believe in the unsettlement of affairs; the more troubled the time the firmer their faith in its advantage. Cowardice and a bad conscience destroy their nerves; they are lions in the palace and hares in camp; they dread treaties for fear of having to disgorge, and war for fear of having to fight. Let them but scent from afar a rusty purse, and you will see them fix on it the eyes of Argus, Briareus’ hands, the Sphinx’s claws; they will bring into play the perjuries of Laomedon, the subtleties of Ulysses, Sinon’s wiles; they will stick to it with the staunchness of Polymestor and the loyalty of a Pygmalion.

Such are the morals with which they hope to crush a man both powerful and good. And what can one man do, encompassed on every side by slanderers whose venomous lips distort each word he says? What should he do when nature meant him for honest company, but fortune cast him among thieves whose evil communications would make Phalaris more bloodthirsty, Midas more covetous, Ancus vainer, Tarquin haughtier, Tiberius craftier, Gaius more dangerous, Claudius more slothful, Nero more corrupt, Galba more avaricious, Otho more reckless, Vitellius more prodigal, Domitian more ferocious?

But we have one consolation in our trouble; fair Tanaquil restrains our Lucumon: she waits her chance, and rids his ears by a few coaxing words of all the poison with which the whisperers have filled them. You ought to know that we owe it to her interest if up till now the mind of our common patron has not been poisoned against our brothers by these younger Cibyrates; God willing, it never will be, while the present power holds Lyons for the German race, and our present Agrippina exerts her moderating influence on her Germanicus. Farewell.

SBG St Martin of Torry Island.

He laboured in Ireland, and belonged to S. Patrick’s mission, but he was a native of Britain. Patrick went into Ossory and founded churches and cloisters there (this was in 474), and he said that there would be nobles and clerics of the men of Ossory, and that no province would prevail against them long as they should bide as Patrick willed. Patrick afterwards, bidding them farewell, left with them Martin, an Elder, and a party of his people, where is at this day Martharthech in Mag Raigne.

Ciaran, who was at Saighir, held him in the highest respect. From the fact that he himself belonged to the expelled royal family, and that Ossory was in the hands of conquerors, who regarded him with mistrust, he was not able to travel about in Ossory, and was glad of the assistance of Martin, who, as a foreigner, was not looked on with suspicion. So highly indeed did Ciaran appreciate him, that he made Martin promise that, when they died, they should repose side by side. Eventually Martin retired to Torry Isle (Tor Inis), off Donegal, and there died.

SBG St Ciaran.

Whither he went we do not know, for all the story of his expedition to Rome and ordination by Pope Celestine must be dismissed as unhistorical. Probably he visited Cornwall and Armorica, whither, apparently, many Ossorians had fled when Aengus devastated Magh Feimhin, and gave it up to the Deisi.

Probably Ciaran returned to Ireland in 474, l and went first to his native island of Inis Cliar, for a church and cross are shown there that bear his name, or he may have attempted to settle at Rath Ciaran in Kilkenny, as this place bears his name. But he was very quickly summoned to the presence of Aengus MacNadfraich, King of Munster. A son of Ere MacDuach, one of his own kinsmen, perhaps the son of Ere his uncle, son of Ruman Duach, and therefore his first cousin, had maliciously ‘killed a horse belonging to S. Patrick, whilst the Saint was visiting Aengus. The king, not sorry for an excuse to deal sharply with one of the family of the Hy Duach, obtained his arrest, and declared his intention of putting him to death. Ciaran interceded for his kinsman, and undertook to pay the eric or legal fine for the horse. When, however, he endeavoured to raise the money, he found it impossible to collect the sum required. He was happily succoured by accident. Aengus caught a chill that settled in his eyes, producing acute inflammation. He at once concluded that Ciaran had “ill-wished ” him, and in a panic sent for him, made peace, released the man who had killed the horse, and remitted the fine.

However, Aengus would not suffer Ciaran to settle and make a foundation in the land of his fathers, and the saint wandered off to a place just beyond the confines of the intrusive Cucraidh. It was a spot near the centre of Ireland, on the boundary between the northern and southern divisions of Ireland, but on the Munster side. This, Seir-Ciaran or Saighir, is now a small village in the barony of Ballybritt, in King’s County, not far from the north-western extremity of the Slieve Bloom Mountains. In the legend, as afterwards elaborated, it was a spot to which Patrick, whom he had met abroad, had bidden him repair, and where was the well of Uaran, probably one to which sanctity attached in pagan times.

According to the story, Ciaran began by occupying a cell in the midst of a wood, living as a hermit, and his first disciples were a boar, a fox, a badger, a wolf and a doe. Happily, we are able to unravel this fable. One of his pupils was S. Sinnach, of the clan of the Hy Sin- nach, or the Foxes, in Teffia, near Saighir. Another may have been a member of the Broc tribe in Munster. Os (doe) was unquestionably an Ossorian disciple. S. Ciaran’s wolf was none other than his uncle Laig- hniadh Faeladh. But faeladh has a double meaning, it is ” hospitable,” as well as ” wolfish.” There is a Kiltorcan, which must have been founded by a Tore (boar), another pupil. By this we can see how marvels were developed out of simple facts.

S. Ciaran induced his mother, Liadhain, to found a religious house for women at Killeen, not far from Saighir. “A maiden came to Ciaran, and he made her a Christian, and a true servant of God ; and Ciaran constructed for her a little honourable cell near to the monastery, and he gathered other holy virgins around her.” Who this damsel was we are not informed in the text, but it would seem to have been Liadhain, a namesake of his mother, and a granddaughter of Cucraidh, who afterwards became abbess. Rapidly, however, the monastery grew in size, as disciples came to Ciaran from every quarter. In the treasury was a miraculous bell bestowed by S. Patrick on Ciaran, and which the apostle of Ireland had prophesied should remain mute until the latter arrived at the place designated as the site of his future resurrection. This bell, which was called ” Bardan Kierani,” had been made under the inspection of Germanus, the Gallican instructor of Patrick. It was extant, and held in high veneration at Saighir, when the first Life of Ciaran was written; it was also universally honoured throughout Ossory, being carried to the treaties of princes, sworn on for the defence of the poor, and used to sanction the collection of the tribute due to the monastery by the people of Ossory. The Paschal fire was lighted every Easter and kept burning during the entire year.

Ciaran was given a pupil, Carthach, son, or more probably grandson, of Aengus MacNadfraich, and who succeeded Ciaran as abbot. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that this was due to an arrangement arrived at by Ciaran with the king of Munster and the usurper of Ossory. Aengus agreed to allow Ciaran to organize the religious communities on the Ossorian frontier, on condition that his son or grandson should be made coarb; and that when he had arrived at a suitable age, Ciaran should resign in his favour. In like manner Cucraidh sent his granddaughter to Killeen on the stipulation that she was to succeed there. By this arrangement it \vas provided that the headships of the two great ecclesiastical and educational establishments for Ossory should pass ultimately into the hands of scions of the usurpers. Carthach, who was thrust upon Ciaran, gave him much trouble. He carried on an amour with one of the young pupils of Liadhain’s establishment; and when Cuach, Ciaran’s nurse, had either succeeded Liadhain at Killeen, or had founded another convent close by, Carthach carried on the same game with one of her damsels. At length, the scandal became so flagrant that Ciaran advised Carthach to travel and sow his wild oats at Rome. S. Itha said of this escapade

A damsel named Bruinech the Slender was with Liadhain at Killeen. She inspired Dioma, chief of the Hy Fiachach tribe in West Meath, with a violent passion, and he carried her off. The relation in which Ciaran stood to S. Patrick is uncertain. That the sons of Ere, Ciaran’s cousins, did steal his horses, we are told in the Life of S. Patrick, as also that he cursed them for so doing. There is, however, no mention in it of the intervention of Ciaran. Why they showed such hostility to the great apostle we are not in- formed. There exists a popular tradition among the natives of Ossory that Ciaran and Patrick were not on good terms, and that when they met Ciaran refused to salute Patrick. The tradition may be worthless. One thing, however, is clear, the apostle did encounter carping criticism and disparagement of his work on the part of some fellow workers, and his ” Confession ” was written to disarm this opposition.

In the Life of S. Ciaran, we read that King Aengus went with S. Patrick to Saighir, twenty years after Ciaran and Patrick had met abroad, and Ciaran slaughtered eight oxen and broached so many casks of wine that it was said he must have turned the water of his well into wine to furnish so much good liquor.

Aengus, no doubt, did visit Saighir at some time before 480; and it was between 480 and 490 that Patrick wrote his ” Confession.” It is possible enough that he may have visited Saighir and have met with a cool reception. There exists jealousy even among the best of men, and Ciaran may have thought that Patrick was taking too much upon him in trying to extend his influence in Munster. Whether on this occasion or on another we do not know, but eight of King Aengus’s harpers or bards were laid hold of and concealed in a bog. It is likely that the abduction was committed by some of the Meic Duach, who did not relish hearing the bards sing exaggerated accounts of the achievements of the victor, who had expelled them from the heritage of their fathers. Aengus took the matter in this light, sent for Ciaran, and stormed and threatened. Ciaran was able to appease his resentment only by recovering for him the eight men, who had been kept in concealment in an inaccessible fortress sur- rounded by morass. In the Life, this was developed into a resuscitation of the bards from the dead. In the Irish Life we are told that Aengus consulted Ciaran about his harpers, because, having become a Christian, he did not like to consult a Druid. Now it fell out that Aengus and his wife Ethne Uatach, or ” the Odious,” at whose instigation Aengus had expelled the Ossorians and planted the Deisi on their lands, arrived on a visit to Cucraidh, the usurper, in his dun. Ethne was daughter of Crimthan and granddaughter of Enna Cinnselach, who had banished the Clan Cliu, and with it Cuach, Ciaran’s nurse. She was the second wife of Aengus, who by this time was an old man, and she was young; had, in fact, been married to him whilst still a girl. A prophecy had been made to the Deisi, so says legend, that the man who should marry Ethne, who was being fostered among them, would give them wide and fertile lands to colonise. So they fed her on the flesh of infants to ripen her, early. This is the bitter comment of the Ossorians on her conduct in goading on her uxorious husband to invade Magh Feimhin and expel the Ossorians. What is true is that, when she married Aengus, mindful of her obligations to the Deisi of Waterford, she urged her husband to the wanton invasion of Ossory, and the colonizing of the land by the Deisi after he had driven out the natives.

When the royal pair arrived at the residence of Cucraidh, they were well received, and Ethne conceived a criminal passion for her host. This put Cucraidh in difficulties. He had no desire to embroil himself with his over-king; and in his dilemma, he sent for Ciaran, who arrived, bringing with him a basket of the blackberries he had preserved from the frost, as a present to the queen. The legend writer, so as to distort a very ordinary fact into a marvel, pretends that the season was Easter. It is far more probable that it was Samhain, the great feast and visiting time on November 1. Partaking of the fruit served the purpose of cooling the queen’s irregular desires, probably by upsetting her stomach, which blackberries out of season are notoriously liable to do; whence the popular saying that blackberries after Michaelmas Day belong to the devil.

475. Annals of the Four Masters.

The seventeenth year of Oilioll. Conall Cremhthoinn, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, from whom are sprung the Clann Colmain, and race of Aedh Slaine, died.

Romulus Augustulus Emperor of The West 475-476

475. Annals of Ulster.

The battle alias the mêlée of Brí Éile won by Ailill Molt over the Laigin. So I have found in the Book of Cuanu.

476. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Duma Aichir won against Ailill Molt by the Laigin.

476. Annals of the Four Master.s

The eighteenth year of Oilioll. The battle of Granard by Eochaidh, son of Cairbre, son of Oilioll, son of Dunlaing, son of Enda Niadh, against the King of Leinster, Fraech, son of Finuchadh, son of Garchu, son of Fothadh, son of Eochaidh Lamhdoidh, son of Mesincorb; and Fraech fell therein.

476. Cronicum Scotorum.

Death of Conall Crimhthann, son of Niall.

476 Romulus Augustulu Last Emperor of The West is deposed.

476.

END OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

IN THE WEST.

477 – 500 Ella, Cerdic.

476 Romulus Augustulu Last Emperor of The West is deposed.

END OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

IN THE WEST.

477 to 500

477. Anglo Saxon Chronicle .

This year came Ella to Britain, with his three sons, Cymen, and Wlenking, and Cissa, in three ships; landing at a place that is called Cymenshore. There they slew many of the Welsh; and some in flight they drove into the wood that is called Andred’sley.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

In the fourth year Ella landed in Britain from Germany with his three sons, at a place called Cymenes-Ora, and defeated the Britons at Aldredes-leage.

475 Annals of Ulster.

The battle alias the mêlée of Brí Éile won by Ailill Molt over the Laigin. So I have found in the Book of Cuanu.

476 Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Duma Aichir won against Ailill Molt by the Laigin.

Sidonius Apollinaris.

Letters. To the Lord Bishop Faustus After A. D. 475.

Faustus. Born in Britain. Abbot of Lerins (433-4) for twenty-seven years, where he established a school. Subsequently Bishop of Riez (462). Preserved the ascetic habits of monastic life . Celebrated for his learning and eloquence. One of the four bishops nominated to treat with Euric . Preached at the dedication of Patiens’ new church at Lyons . Published a famous letter maintaining the materiality of the soul, wrote against the Arians, for which he was exiled by Euric to the district of Limoges, where he enjoyed the intercourse of Ruricius; liberated in 484, and died at an advanced age (c. 490). His writings, which give evidence of a modified Pelagianism, were regarded as heretical after his death, but were not condemned in his lifetime.

You have lamented our long silence, venerable father, but while I recognize and applaud your desire that it should at last be broken, I cannot admit that any blame attaches to me. When you bade me some time back give you my news, I wrote before receiving your last communication, and my letter actually reached Riez; but though you were at Apt, you aptly escaped its perusal. I was most anxious, both to receive my due credit for having written, and to escape too severe a criticism when you read the missive. But on this point, I need say no more at present, especially as you again ask me for a letter, and one as voluminous as I can make it. I long to satisfy you; the goodwill is there, but unfortunately, I have no subject for my pen. Greetings should take up little space, unless they introduce some matter of real interest; to spin them out with mere verbiage, is to deflect from the path defined by Sallust when he said that Catiline had words enough but little wisdom. So, my vale will have to follow my ave at an exceedingly short interval. I beseech your prayers for me.

What a stroke of luck! Just as I was on the point of folding up my letter, something has occurred for me to write about, and if either the pleasure or the annoyance of the event delays my protest a single moment, I will own myself deserving of the indignity to which I have been exposed. You have fallen into my hands, Great Master, I do more than triumph; I have you at my mercy, and in my captive I find one of no less stature than the anticipations of years had led me to expect. I cannot say whether you are caught against your will, but it looks like it. For if you did not mean your books to pass me without my knowledge, you certainly did nothing to prevent the passage. It aggravates the offence that in traversing Auvergne they not merely went close under my walls but almost grazed my person. Were you afraid that I should be jealous? Thank God, I am less open to the charge of envy than any other; and were it otherwise, were I as guilty of this as of other defects, the hopelessness of a successful rivalry would be enough to purge me of emulation. Did you fear the frown of so severe and difficult a critic as your servant? What critic so swollen or so opinionated as not to kindle at your least ardent passages! Was it your low estimate of a junior that led you to ignore and to disdain me? I hardly think it. Was it that you thought me ignorant? I could put up with that if you mean ignorant of the art of writing, not ignorant in appreciation. I must remind you that only those who have taken part in the games presume to pass judgement on the racing chariots. Was there any casual disagreement between us, leading you to suppose that I might decry your work? Thanks be to God; my worst enemies cannot make me out a lukewarm friend. Why waste these words? you ask. Well, I will now let you have the whole story of this secretiveness which so incensed me, and of the discovery which has put me in such high spirits again. I had read those works of yours which Riochatus the priest and monk, and thus twice a stranger and pilgrim in this world, was taking back for you to your Bretons; for you, who may well be called Faustus to-day, since you cannot grow old, since you will always live in the mouths of men, and after your bodily death, attain immortality by your works. The venerable man made some stay in our city, waiting till the agitated main of peoples should calm down, for at that time the vast whirlwind of wars rose dreadful against us on this side and on that. All your other good gifts he freely produced; but managed to keep back, always with the most exquisite courtesy, the chief treasure he conveyed, unwilling perhaps to let me feel the contrast between your roses and my brambles. After rather more than two months, he hurriedly left us, a rumour having got abroad that he and his company had with them mysterious things of great price, carefully wrapped up from view. I went after him with horses swift enough easily to cancel the day’s start he had gained; I came up with my felon, I leapt at his throat with a kiss, laughing like a man but pouncing like a wild beast; I resembled a robbed tigress that with winged feet springs like a flash upon the neck of the Parthian hunter to dash her stolen cub from his grasp. To cut the story short, I embraced the knees of my captive friend; I stopped the horses, tied the bridles, opened his baggage, discovered the volume I sought, dragged it forth in triumph, and began reading away and dismembering it by making lengthy excerpts from the important chapters. I dictated as fast as I could, and the skill of my secretaries yet further abbreviated my task, for they were able to skip letters wholesale, using a system of substituted signs. The story of our parting would be an overlong tale, and after all of no great interest; our cheeks were wet with tears; we embraced and embraced again, hardly able to tear ourselves away. My exultation was justified by my safe return, laden with the spoils of loving-kindness and master of great riches for the soul.

And now for my opinion of this booty. I should rather like to hold it back, in order to keep you in suspense; judgement withheld were vengeance more complete. But I despair of taking down your pride; for you are conscious of so masterly an eloquence that sheer delight in what they read wrings eulogy from your readers, whether they wish to withstand the charm or not. Listen, then, to the sentence which an injured friend now passes on your book. It is a work of the most fruitful labour, varied, ardent, sublime, excellent in classification, rich in apt examples, well balanced by its form as dialogue, and by the fourfold division of its subject. There is much that is inspiring, much that is grand; here I find simplicity without clumsiness, there point not too far-fetched; grave matters are handled with ripe judgement, deep matters with proper caution; on debatable ground you take firm stand; in controversy your argument is always ready. Now persuasive, now severe, always intent to edify, you write with eloquence, with force, and with exquisite discrimination.

Following you over the whole wide field traversed in so many manners, I find you easily superior to all other writers alike in conception and in execution. You must appreciate my sincerity in this the more, when you remember that I pronounce my opinion under the smart of your affront. I think your work could only be improved by one thing—-your presence in person to read it, when something might yet be added by the author’s own voice, his gesture, his restrained art of physical expression. Endowed thus with all these intellectual and literary gifts, you have united yourself with a fair woman according to the precept of Deuteronomy. You saw her among the hostile squadrons; and then and there you loved her as she stood in the forefront of the adversary’s battle; through all the resistance of the foe, you bore her off in the strong arm of passion. Her name is Philosophy, r poison from the very venom of the serpent. I have said enough for the moment on your spiritual insight and on the soundness of your learning. For no one can follow in your footsteps with an equal stride, since to no other is it given to speak better than the masters who taught him, and to make his actions better than his words. Not without reason shall you be called by those qualified to judge, most blessed above all in our generation, as one who in deed and word enjoys a great and twofold glory; who after numbering years to be counted on the right hand, after being the she it is whom you snatched by force from among the impious arts; and having shorn the locks betokening a false faith, with the eyebrows arched with pride of earthly learning, and cut away the folds of her ancient vesture, which are the folds of sad dialectic, veiling perverse and unlawful conversation, you purified her and joined her to you in a close and mystical embrace. She has been your faithful follower from your early years; she was ever at your side, whether you practised your skill in the arena of the crowded city, or subdued the flesh in remote solitudes; in the Athenaeum she was with you, and in the monastery; with you she abjured the wisdom of the world, with you proclaims that which is from above. Whoever provokes you as her lawful spouse shall soon perceive the noble range of your philosophy, and find himself confronted by the Platonic Academy of the Church of Christ. He shall hear you first declare the ineffable omniscience of God and the eternity of the Holy Spirit. He shall not see you grow long hair or flaunt the pallium or staff as insignia of the philosophic state. He shall not see you pride yourself in nice apparel, indulging the exquisite’s pretension, or making squalor your boast. He shall not see you betray your envy when in the gymnasia, or the Schools of the Areopagus; Speusippus is pictured for admiring eyes with bowed head, Aratus with open countenance; Zeno with contracted brows, Epicurus with unwrinkled skin, Diogenes with hirsute beard, Socrates with failing hair, Aristotle with arm freed from the mantle, Xenocrates with his contracted leg, Heraclitus with his eyes closed by tears, Democritus with lips parted in a laugh, Chrysippus counting with clenched fingers, Euclid measuring with open hands, Cleanthes biting his nails over problems both of space and number. Far from all this, whoever challenges you shall see the Stoic, the Cynic, the Peripatetic, the Heresiarch all beaten with their own weapons and crushed by their own devices. Their followers who dare resist Christian faith and dogma to venture a bout with you shall soon be bound hand and foot and fall headlong into the toils of their own nets. The barbed syllogisms of your logic shall hook these voluble tongues even while they seek escape; you shall noose their slippery problems in categoric coils after the fashion of the clever doctor, who, if need be, will prepare his antidote fo model of this century and the desire of every other, shall die honoured for his excellence in every field, leaving his possessions to his own folk, and himself to the nations of the world. Deign to hold me in remembrance, my Lord Bishop.

Sidonius Apollinaris.

Letters. To his friend Secundinus c. A.D. 477

WHAT a long time it is since we used to read your masterly hexameters with outspoken admiration! Your verse was equally full of life, whether you were celebrating a wedding, or the fall of great beasts before the prowess of kings. But even you yourself would admit that you have never done anything better than your last poem in triple trochaics constructed in hendecasyllabic metre. What fine malice I found in it; what style, what pungent eloquence! it was impossible for me to keep my enthusiasm to myself. As for your subjects, you were fearless; only the necessity for respecting persons seemed to check somewhat the lightning of your genius and the free course of your irony. I think the Consul Ablabius never thrust more brilliantly at the family life of Constantine with a couplet, or gave more stinging point to the famous distich secretly appended to the palace gates:

‘Who wants back Saturn and his golden age? We have the diamond age—-Neronian.’

You remember that, when this was written, Constantine had done to death his consort Fausta in a hot bath and his son Crispus with cold poison. I would not have you deterred by anything from your bold and vivid use of satire. You will find the flourishing vices of our tyrant-ridden citizens a rich mine to exploit. For the folk whom we set down as fortunate according to the lights of our age or our locality comport themselves with such an arrogance that the future will not readily forget their names. The infamy of vice and the praise of virtue are both alike eternal. Farewell.

Sidonius Apollinaris.

Letters. To the Lord Bishop Faustus c. A.D. 477

YOUR old loyalty to a friend, and your old mastery of diction are both unchanged; I admire equally the heartiness of your letters, and the perfect manner of their expression. But I think, and I am sure that you will concur with me, that at the present juncture, when the roads are no longer secure owing to the movements of the peoples, the only prudent and safe course is to abandon for the present any regular exchange of messages; we must be less assiduous correspondents; we must learn the art of keeping silence. This is a bitter deprivation, and hard to bear when a friendship is as close as ours; it is imposed upon us not by casual circumstance, but by causes at once definite, inevitable, and diverse in their origin.

First among them 1 must set the examination of all letter-carriers upon the highways. Messengers may run small personal risk, since nothing can be alleged against them; but they have to put up with endless annoyance, while some vigilant official subjects them to an inquisitorial search. At the first sign of faltering in reply to questions, they are suspected of carrying in their heads instructions which cannot be found upon their persons. The sender of a letter is thus placed in an awkward position, and the bearer is liable to rough usage, especially at a time like this, when fresh disputes between rival nationalities have destroyed a treaty of long duration. In the second place I set the soreness of my heart over my own private troubles, for I was taken from home with a show of great consideration, but really removed by compulsion to this distant spot, where I am broken by every kind of mental anguish, enduring all the hardships of an exile and the losses of a proscript. It is therefore by no means the right moment to ask me for finished letters, and were I to attempt them, it would be impertinence, for the exchange of a lively or elaborate correspondence should be confined to happy people; to me it seems little less than a barbarism for a man to write gaily when his spirit is vexed within him. How much better it would be for you to give the benefit of your unremitting orisons to a soul conscious of its guilt and trembling as often as it recalls the debts of a sinful career! For you are versed in the prayers of the Island brotherhood, which you transferred from the wrestling-place of the hermit congregation, and from the assembly of the monks of Lerins, to the city over whose church you preside, for all your episcopal rank, an abbot still in spirit, and refusing to make your new dignity a pretext for any relaxation in the rigour of the ancient discipline. Obtain for me, then, by your most potent intercession that my portion may be in the Lord; that enrolled from henceforth among the companies of my tribesmen the Levites, I may cease to be of the earth earthly, I to whom not a yard of earth remains; and that I may begin to estrange myself from the guilt of this world, as I am already estranged from its riches. recalls the debts of a sinful career! For you are versed in the prayers of the Island brotherhood, which you transferred from the wrestling-place of the hermit congregation, and from the assembly of the monks of Lerins, to the city over whose church you preside, for all your episcopal rank, an abbot still in spirit, and refusing to make your new dignity a pretext for any relaxation in the rigour of the ancient discipline. Obtain for me, then, by your most potent intercession that my portion may be in the Lord; that enrolled from henceforth among the companies of my tribesmen the Levites, I may cease to be of the earth earthly, I to whom not a yard of earth remains; and that I may begin to estrange myself from the guilt of this world, as I am already estranged from its riches.

In the third place, and perhaps this after all is the chief reason why I have given up writing to you, I have a boundless admiration for your tropical figurative style, and for that consummately varied and perfected diction of which your last letter affords such ample evidence. Many years ago, I sat a hoarse demonstrative listener when you preached either extempore, or, if occasion demanded, after careful preparation. I especially remember the week’s festival of the dedication of the church at Lyons, when you were called upon by the general desire of your venerable colleagues to deliver an oration. On that occasion you proved yourself a master both of forensic and religious eloquence, and held the balance between them with such perfection that we hung upon your words with ears strained and roused emotions; you cared less to indulge our simple predilections because you knew that you had wholly satisfied our reason.

There you have the cause of my present and my future silence; I could not refuse a few words without disobedience, but henceforward I shall hold my peace and learn in silence. In future the word lies with you, my Lord Bishop. It is yours to devote yourself to the teaching of sound and perfect doctrine in works destined to live; for not a man hears you in argument or exposition who does not learn to deserve the praise of others in deed no less than word. Forgive my simple letter, which has at least the virtue of conforming to your desires; I have myself to admit that, by comparison with yours, my style is inarticulate as a child’s. But there is little point in all this heavy repetition; the most foolish thing in the world is to be always deprecating one’s own follies. Judgement rests with you, and if you put things to a thorough test, you will find much to laugh at, and even more to censure. I shall welcome it if your notorious kindness of heart allows you for once to abandon your dislike of being critical, and condemn such points as need correction. Only if you strike out passages here and there, shall I have the satisfaction of feeling that you approve what you leave intact. Deign to hold me in remembrance, my Lord Bishop.

Sidonius Apollinaris.

Letters. To his friend Aquilinus c.A.D. 477

I FIND it certainly to my advantage, friend capable of every virtue, and I trust you will feel the same, that we should have as many ties to bind us as we have reasons for being united. Such ties are hereditary in our families; I do but recall the experience of the past. Let me summon as my witnesses our grandfathers Rusticus and Apollinaris, whom like fortunes and aversions united in a noble friendship. They had a similar taste in letters, their characters were alike; they had enjoyed similar dignities and undergone the same dangers. They were equally agreed in detesting the inconstancy of Constantine, the irresolution of Jovinus, the perfidy of Gerontius; both singling out the fault proper to each person, and both finding in Dardanus the sum of all existing vices.

If we come down to the years between their time and our own, we find our fathers brought up together from their tender youth until they came to manhood. In Honorius’ reign, as tribunes and secretaries, they served abroad together in such close comradeship that among all the grounds of their agreement the fact that their own fathers had been friends appeared to be the least. Under Valentinian, one of the two ruled all Gaul, the other only a region of it; even so they managed to balance their dignities with a fraternal equilibrium; the one who held the lower rank had seniority in office. And now the old tradition comes down to us grandsons, whose dearest care it should be to prevent the affection of our parents and our forefathers from suffering any diminution in our persons. But there are ties of all kinds, over and above that of this hereditary friendship, which needs must bring us close together; we are linked by equality of years no less than by identity of birthplace; we played and learned together, shared the same discipline and relaxation, and were trained by the same rule. So then, for what remains of life now that our years touch upon the threshold of age, let us under the providence of God be two persons with but a single mind; and let us instil into our sons the same mutual regard: let us see that the objects which they desire and refuse, pursue or shun, are the same. It would indeed crown our vows if the boys who bear the honoured names of Rusticus and Apollinaris renewed within their breasts the hearts of those illustrious ancestors. Farewell.

Sidonius Apollinaris.

To his friend Lampridius.A. D. 478

ON my arrival at Bordeaux, your messenger brought me a letter from you full of nectar, rich with blooms and pearls. You arraign my silence, and ask me for some of my poems, in a few of those verses of yours which your cadenced voice so often sends echoing from your melodious palate, like music poured from a flute of many stops. In this you take mean advantage of your royal munificence; you have sent your gift; you feel impregnable. Perhaps you have forgotten one satirist’s remark about another:

‘When Horace says “Evohe”, he has plenteously dined.’

Enough! You are right to send a command from your place of ease, bidding me sing because you are in the mood to dance. In any case I must obey; and far from acknowledging compulsion, I yield of my own free will; but spare me, if you can, the criticism of your proud Catonian brow. You know well enough what manner of thing a poet’s gladness is; his spirit is entangled in grief as the fish in nets; if sorrow or affliction comes, his sensitive soul does not so lightly work free from the bonds of anguish: I am still unsuccessful in obtaining a decision about my mother-in-law’s estate, even provisionally, though I have offered a third part of it as ransom. You must see whether the theme of my verses is such as to please you; but my cares forbid me to live in one mood and write in another. It would be unfair to me were you to institute a comparison between our two poems. I am harassed; you are happy. I am in exile; you enjoy your rights of citizenship. I cannot attain your level; I want of you verse like my own, but receive something infinitely better. But if by any chance these trifles composed in the midst of much mental tribulation obtain indulgence at your hands, I will let you persuade me that they are like the swan’s notes, whose song is more harmonious just before his death; or that they are like lyre-strings tensely drawn, which make the sweeter music the tighter they are strained. But if verses without suggestion of gaiety or ease can never really please, you will find nothing satisfactory in the enclosed. Do not forget, moreover, a second point which tells against me, namely that a piece which you only read and cannot hear recited is robbed of all the advantage which delivery by the author lends it. His manuscript once dispatched, the most musical of poets has no further resource; distance does not allow him to do for himself what mimics do by their accompaniment—-make bad verse acceptable by dint of fine delivery.

‘Lampridius, glory of our Thalia, why urge me now to sing of Cirrha, or the Boeotian Muses, or Helicon’s poetic stream called by neighing Pegasus to life at a stroke of his hoof? Why would you make me write as if I had received the Delphic insignia from your Delian god, and, myself a new Apollo, possessed the hangings, and the tripods, the lyre, the quivers, the bows, and gryphons, or tossed from my brow the laurel and the ivy? You, O happy Tityrus, have won your lands again; you may wander through the groves of plane and myrtle, and strike a lyre with which your voice makes perfect harmony. Wondrous is the music of string and tone and measure.

Twice has the moon risen upon me prisoned here; and but once have I been received into the presence. For scant leisure has the King even for himself, since all the subjugated earth awaits his nod. We see in his courts the blue-eyed Saxon, lord of the seas, but timid landsman here. The razor’s keen blade, content no more to hold its usual course round the head’s extremity, with clean strokes shearing to the skin, drives the margin of the hair back from his brow, till the head looks smaller and the visage longer. We see thee, aged Sygambrian warrior, the back of thy head shaven in sign of thy defeat; but now thou guidest the new-grown locks to the old neck again. Here strolls the Herulian with his glaucous cheeks, inhabitant of Ocean’s furthest shore, and of one complexion with its weedy deeps. Here the Burgundian bends his seven feet of stature on suppliant knee, imploring peace. Here the Ostrogoth finds a powerful patron, and crushing the Hun beyond his border, triumphs at home only through his homage to this mighty patron. And here, O Roman, thou also seekest thy protection; if the Great Bear menaces commotion, and the Scythian hordes advance, the strong arm of Euric is invoked, that Garonne, drawing power from the Mars who loves his banks, may bring defence to the dwindled stream of Tiber. Here the Parthian Arsacid himself asks grace to hold, a tributary, his high hall of Susa. He perceives in the regions of the Bosphorus dread war arise with all its enginery, nor hopes that Persia, dismayed at the mere sound of conflict, shall avail to guard alone Euphrates’ bank. He who boasts himself kin with stars and near allied to Phoebus, even he becomes a simple mortal, and descends to lowly supplication.

At such a court my days go by in vain. But do you, O Tityrus, refrain, nor invite me more to song. I envy thee no longer; I can but marvel at thy fortune. For myself, I effect nothing; I utter fruitless prayers, and so become another Meliboeus.’

There is the poem. Read it at your leisure, and like a charioteer already crowned, look down from the balcony to the arena where I struggle still in the sweat and dust of contest. Do not expect me to do the like again, whatever pleasure you derive from this present effort, until the happy day arrives when I can turn my mind once more from dark vaticinations to the service of the Muse. Farewell.

478. Annals of the Four Masters.

After Oilioll Molt, son of Dathi, son of Fiachra, had been twenty years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he was slain in the battle of Ocha, by Lughaidh, son of Laeghaire, Muircheartach Mac Earca, Fearghus Cerrbhel, son of Conall Cremththainne, Fiachra, son of Laeghaire, King of Dal Araidhe, and Cremhthann, son of Enna Cennsealach, King of Leinster. It was on this occasion that the Lee and Cairloegh were given to Fiachra as a territorial reward for the battle. It was of this battle Beg Mac De said:

1. The great battle of Ocha was fought,

In which many battalions were cut off,

Against Oilioll Molt, son of Nathi,

Who was defeated by the Dal Araidhe.

479. Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of Lughaidh, son of Laeghaire, in sovereignty over Ireland.

480 Annals of Ulster

Death of Conall of Cremthann, son of Niall.

Sidonius Apollinaris.

Letters. To his friend Namatius c.A. D. 480

CAIUS JULIUS CAESAR, reputed the greatest master of strategy who ever lived, was a great reader and a great writer also. Though he was the first man of his age, and the arts of war and rhetoric disputed his genius with equally glorious results, yet he never considered himself to have attained the summit in either branch of knowledge until your orator of Arpinum proclaimed him without a rival among men. To compare small things with great, it has been the same in my own case, however vast my inferiority. No one should know this better than yourself, concerned as you have always been for my success and for my modesty in bearing it. I learn that Flavius Nicetius, distinguished above all his countrymen by his birth, his rank, his merit, his prudence, his wise knowledge of the world, has accorded my small work unlimited praise. He has gone further and declared that while yet in the prime of life I have surpassed in the two fields of literature and war the great number of our young men and not a few of the older among us. If I may say it without vanity, I derive real satisfaction from the approval of so eminent a judge. If he is right, his weight counts for much; if partial, I have a fresh proof of his friendship; though nowadays every man of us is but a sluggard in deed, and in word an infant in comparison with his forefathers. To the men of earlier ages the ruler of all ages granted supreme excellence in these arts; but now the world waxes old, the quickening seed is exhausted, the marrow lost; and if in our time aught of admirable or memorable appears, it is manifest in exceeding few. Nicetius may lead all learning and all letters, but I fear that our intimacy may have led him to exaggerate my merit through the bias natural to friendship. And were it so, I will not deny that in the past I used often to attend the delivery of his luminous speeches, and however fleeting or imperfect my memories, I may properly recall some of them in the present place, even at the risk of being thought to join a game of mutual admiration.

I heard him speak when I was growing to manhood and had just left boyhood behind me; at that time, my father was praetorian prefect presiding over the tribunals of Gaul, and in his term of office Astyrius assumed the trabea and in a propitious hour inaugurated his consulship. On that day, I hardly stirred from the curule chair; my age gave me no right to a seat, but my rank allowed me to keep in the foreground; so I stood next to the censor’s men who in their official mantles stood nearest to the consul. As soon as the largess had been distributed (and that took little time though it was no little one), as soon as the diptychs had been bestowed, the representative advocates of the province who had come in from every district asked with one consent that the assumption of the consul’s office might be celebrated in a panegyric. The ceremonies had anticipated the day, and there was yet some time before the late dawn, which otherwise would have been passed in silence. All eyes turned at once towards Nicetius, the first men present were the first to look his way; the assembly called upon him not by a voice here or there, but by general acclamation; he reddened, and cast down his eyes, giving us such an earnest of his modest nature as gained him hardly fewer bravos than the eloquence he subsequently displayed. He spoke with method, with gravity, with fire; if his ardour was great, his fluency was yet greater, and his science greatest of all; his coloured and golden language seemed to enhance the splendour of the consul’s palm-embroidered robe, steeped though it was in Sarranian dyes and rich with applied strips that rustled at every movement of the wearer. About that time (to speak like a decemvir) was promulgated the statute of limitations which decreed in summary terms that all cases protracted to thirty years should automatically lapse. It was our orator who first introduced this law, as yet unknown in Gaul; he advocated it at the tribunal; he expounded it to the various parties; and he finally saw it added to the statute-book, before a great audience whose members mostly kept their feet in their excitement and only interrupted by applause. I had many other occasions of observing his intellectual capacity, myself unobserved, and therefore in the best of all positions to see the real man; for though my father governed the province, it was to Nicetius that he went for advice. It must suffice to say that I never heard of a single action of which I did not like to hear, and which I did not admire.

The union in his person of all these fine qualities naturally makes me proud to receive the suffrage of a critic so high in the public esteem. Whatever his opinion, it must have great influence; if rumour is true, he is on my side, and I shall have just as good reason to be reassured as I should have had to feel uneasy had his vote gone the other way. In any case, I am determined, as soon as I know for certain what he thinks, either to give silence a loose rein, or curb my facility according to the verdict. For if he supports me I shall be inclined to go on talking like an Athenian; if he condemns, no citizen of Amyclae shall hold his tongue like me.

But no more of myself or of my friend: how does the world go with you? I am every whit as eager to hear your news as to give you mine. Are you hunting, or building, or playing the country gentleman? Are you indulging one only of these pursuits or each in turn, or all together? As for Vitruvius and Columella, you do well to study either one or both, for you are competent to deal with either admirably, as one who is equally at home in agriculture and in building. With sport the case is different, and I beg you not to plume yourself upon your prowess. It is useless to invite the boar to meet your spears, so long as you take the field alone with those exceedingly merciful hounds of yours; you just rouse the quarry, but not enough to make him run. It is excusable enough that your dogs should dread close quarters with such formidable beasts as boars; but what apology can you make when they hunt poor helpless kids and timid does, head high and spirits prone, stinting the pace but prodigal of music? You will find it more profitable to net in the rough rocks and likely coverts, and cry the dogs on from a chosen post; if you have any self-respect left, you will give up galloping over the open country and lying in wait for the leverets of Oléron. Indeed, it is hardly worth while to worry them on rare occasions by unleashing the hounds in the open, unless our good Apollinaris comes to help you and your father, and gives you a better run.

But, joking apart, do let me know how things go with you and your household. Just as I was on the point of ending a letter which had rambled on long enough, lo and behold! a courier from Saintonges. I whiled away some time talking with him about you; and he was very positive that you had weighed anchor, and in fulfilment of those half military, half naval duties of yours were coasting the western shores on the look-out for curved ships; the ships of the Saxons, in whose every oarsman you think to detect an arch-pirate. Captains and crews alike, to a man they teach or learn the art of brigandage; therefore, let me urgently caution you to be ever on the alert. For the Saxon is the most ferocious of all foes. He comes on you without warning; when you expect his attack, he makes away. Resistance only moves him to contempt; a rash opponent is soon down. If he pursues he overtakes; if he flies himself, he is never caught. Shipwrecks to him are no terror, but only so much training. His is no mere acquaintance with the perils of the sea; he knows them as he knows himself. A storm puts his enemies off their guard, preventing his preparations from being seen; the chance of taking the foe by surprise makes him gladly face every hazard of rough waters and broken rocks.

Moreover, when the Saxons are setting sail from the continent, and are about to drag their firm-holding anchors from an enemy’s shore, it is their usage, thus homeward bound, to abandon every tenth captive to the slow agony of a watery end, casting lots with perfect equity among the doomed crowd in execution of this iniquitous sentence of death. This custom is all the more deplorable in that it is prompted by honest superstition. These men are bound by vows which have to be paid in victims, they conceive it a religious act to perpetrate this horrible slaughter, and to take anguish from the prisoner in place of ransom; this polluting sacrilege is in their eyes an absolving sacrifice. I am full of anxiety and apprehension about these dangers, though on the other hand there are factors which encourage me mightily. Firstly, the standards under which you sail are those of an ever-victorious nation. Secondly, men of prudence, among whose number you may fairly be included, are not in the habit of leaving anything to chance. Thirdly, very intimate friends who live far from each other are apt to feel alarm without due cause, because it is natural to be apprehensive of events at once incalculable and occurring very far away. You will perhaps argue that the cause of my uneasiness need not be taken so seriously. That may be true; but it is also true that we are most timid in regard to those whom we love best. So take the first opportunity of relieving the fears which your situation has aroused by a good account of your fortunes. I am incorrigible on this head, and shall always fear the worst for friends abroad until they contradict it themselves, especially those harassed by the watchword or the signal for attack. In accordance with your request, I send you the Libri Logistorici of Varro and the Chronology of Eusebius. If these models reach you safely, and you find a little leisure from the watches and the duties of the camp, you will be able, your arms once furbished, to apply another kind of polish to an eloquence which must be getting rusty. Farewell.

480. Annals of the Four Masters.

The second year of Lughaidh. The battle of Granard, in the land of Leinster, between the Leinstermen themselves, wherein Finnchadh, Lord of Ui Cennsealaigh, was slain by Cairbre.

480. Annals of Inisfallen.

The son of Conall, son of Cremthann, son of Niall dies.

481. Repose of Iarlaithe, the third abbot of Ard Macha

481 Annals of Ulster.

Repose of Iarlaithe son of Trian, third bishop of Ard Macha. Felix

was consecrated 46th bishop of the Roman Church and lived 12 or 13 years. From the beginning of the world according to the Seventy Interpreters 5879 years; according to the Hebrews 4685. From the Incarnation according to the Hebrews 734; but according to Dionysius 481.

481. Annals of the Four Master.s

The third year of Lughaidh. Saint Jarlaithe, son of Treana, Bishop of Ard Macha Armagh, resigned his spirit.

482. Anglo Saxon Chronicle. This year the blessed Abbot Benedict shone in this world, by the splendour of those virtues which the blessed Gregory records in the book of Dialogues.

482.Annals of Inisfallen. The battle of Uchbath [gained] over the Laigin by Crimthann, or by Fiachra Glomrach, son of Caelub, son of Crund, of Dál Araide.

482. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Ochae i.e. won by Lugaid son of Laegaire and by Muirchertach Mac Erca, in which Ailill Molt fell. From Conchobor Mac Nessa to Cormac son of Art, 308 years; from Cormac to the above battle 116, as Cuanu has written.

482. Cronicum Scotorum.

Oilill Molt fell in the battle of Ocha by Muircertach Mac Erca (i.e. King of Erinn); and by Lughaidh, son of Laeghaire; and by Fergus Cirrbel, son of Conall Crimthainn; and by Fiachra Lonn, son of Caelboth, King of Dál Aráidhe, of which Bec Mac De said:—

The great battle of Ocha was fought,

Through which many fights were contested;

Over Oilill Molt, son of Dathi,

It was gained by the Dál Aráidhe,

By Lughaidh, by Fiachra Lonn,

And by the great, puissant Muircertach,

By Fergus, son of mild Conall—

By them fell the noble King Ailill;

And by Fergus of the blemish—

By them fell the noble Ailill Molt.

From the time of Conchobhar Mac Nessa to Cormac Mac Art there are 307

years; from Cormac to this battle.

St felix III (II) Pope 483-492

482. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year the blessed Abbot Benedict shone in this world, by the splendour of those virtues which the blessed Gregory records in the book of Dialogues.

SBG St Dogfael or Dogwel.

He is said to have become the 58th Bishop of Lexovia in Brittany. He died in 498. Lexovia was probably not founded by a follower of Joseph of Aramathea in 72 AD

483. Cronicum Scotorum.

Commencement of the reign of Lughaidh, son of Laeghaire.

483. Annals of Ulster.

The slaying of Cremthann son of Anna Cennselach son of Bresal Bélach son of Fiacha ba Aiccid son of Cathaír Már, king of Laigin. Or, this year the battle of Ocha according to others, won by Muirchertach Mac Erca and by Fergus Cerball son of Conall of Cremthann, and by Fiachra Lon son of the king of Dál nAraide.

SBG St Brendan

Brendan the voyager was born in 483 in Kerry..

484. Annals of Ulster.

Beginning of the reign of Lugaid son of Laegaire this year.

484. Cronicum Scotorum.

Criomthann, son of Enna Cennsealach, King of Laighen, mortally wounded by Eochaidh Guinech of the Ibh Bairrche, and by the men of Aradh Cliach. First battle of Graine, in which Muircertach Mac Erca was the victor. Another battle was fought, at Graine, in the land of Laighen, between the Lagenians themselves, in which Finnchadh, King of Ui Cennsealaigh, fell, and Eochaidh Mac Coirpre was the victor.

485. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Ella fought with the Welsh nigh Mecred’s-Burnsted.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

After eight years, the same people fight against the Britons, near a place called Mearcraedsburn.

485 Cronicum Scotorum.

Quies of Bishop Mael at Ard Curadh.

485. Annals of Ulster.

The first battle of Granairet. Coirpre, son of Niall Naígiallach, was victor, and Finnchad fell; or, Mac Erca was victor, as others state. The mortal wounding of Cremthann, son of Énna Cennselach.

485.Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Granard (Mac Erce victor), in which Finnchad, king of the Laigin, fell; and Cairpre [was] victor, as others say. The mortal wounding of Crimthann Ceinnselach, king of Laigin, whom Echaid Glúinech slays.

486. Birth of Brénainn, son of Finnlug.

486. Annals of Ulster.

Or, this year, the first battle of Graineret in which Muirchertach Mac Erca was victor.

486. Cronicum Scotorum.

Quies of Saint Cianan of Damhliag, on whom Patrick bestowed his Gospel.

487 Quies of Bishop Mac Caille.

The battle of Cill Osnaigh in Magh Fea, in which fell Aengus Mac Nathfraeich, King of Mumhan, and his wife, i.e. Eithne the hateful, daughter of Criomthann, son of Enna Cennsealach. Iollann, son of Dunlaing, and Oilill, his brother, and Eochaidh Guinech, and Muircertach Mac Erca, King of Ailech, were victors, as was said:—

A branch of the great spreading tree died— Aengus the praiseworthy, son of Nathfraeich; His head was left with Iollann, In the battle of foul Cill-Osnaigh.

487.Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Crimthann Ceinnselach.

487. Annals of the Four Masters.

The ninth year of Lughaidh. Mel, Bishop of Ard Achadh, in Teathbha, disciple of Patrick, died.

487 Annals of Ulster .

Repose of St Mel, a bishop, in Ardachadh.

488. Repose of St Ciannán, to whom St Patrick presented the Gospel.

488. Annals of the Four Masters

The tenth year of Lughaidh. Cianan, Bishop of Doimhliag, died.

488. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Esc succeeded to the kingdom; and was king of the men of Kent twenty-four winters.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

After this, at an interval of three years, Esc, son of Hengist, began to reign in Kent.

William of Malmesbury.

The Chronicle Of The Kings Of England, Book 1

Vortimer, the son of Vortigern thinking it unnecessary longer to dissemble that he saw himself and his Briton circumvented by the craft of the Angles, turned his thoughts to their expulsion, and stimulated his father to the same attempt. At his suggestion, the truce was broken seven years after their arrival; and during the ensuing twenty, they frequently fought partial battles, and, as the [Anglo-Saxon] chronicle relates, four general actions. From the first conflict they parted on equal terms: one party lamenting the loss of Horsa, the brother of Hengist; the other, that of Katigis, another of Vortigern’s sons. The Angles, having the advantage in all the succeeding encounters, peace was concluded; Vortimer, who had been the instigator of the war, and differed far from the indolence of his father, perished prematurely, or he would have governed the kingdom in a noble manner, had God permitted. When he died, the British strength decayed, and all hope fled from them; and they would soon have perished altogether, had not Ambrosius, the sole survivor of the Romans, who became monarch after Vortigern, quelled the presumptuous barbarians by the powerful aid of warlike Arthur. It is of this Arthur that the Britons fondly tell so many fables, even to the present day; a man worthy to be celebrated, not by idle fictions, but by authentic history. He long upheld the sinking state, and roused the broken spirit of his countrymen to war. Finally, at the siege of Mount Badon, relying on an image of the Virgin, which he had affixed to his armor, he engaged nine hundred of the enemy, single-handed, and dispersed them with incredible slaughter. On the other side, the Angles, after various revolutions of fortune, filled up their thinned battalions with fresh supplies of their countrymen; rushed with greater courage to the conflict, and extended themselves by degrees, as the natives retreated, over the whole island: for the counsels of God, in whose hand is every change of empire, did not oppose their career. But this was effected in process of time; for while Vortigern lived, no new attempt was made against them.

About this time, Hengist, from that bad quality of the human heart which grasps after more in proportion to what it already possesses, by a preconcerted piece of deception, invited his son-in-law, with three hundred of his followers, to an entertainment; and when, by more than usual compotations, he had excited them to clamor, he began, purposely, to taunt them severally, with sarcastic raillery: this had the desired effect, of making them first quarrel, and then come to blows. Thus, the Britons were basely murdered to a man, and breathed their last amid their cups. The king himself, made captive, purchased his liberty at the price of three provinces. After this, Hengist died, in the thirty-ninth year after his arrival; he was a man, who urging his success not less by artifice than courage, and giving free scope to his natural ferocity, preferred effecting his purpose rather by cruelty than by kindness. He left a son named Eisc; who, more intent on defending than enlarging his dominions, never exceeded the paternal bounds.

489. Cronicum Scotorum.

Patrick, Archbishop and Apostle of the Irish, in the 122nd year of his age,on the l6th of the Kalends of April, quievit, ut dicitur:—

1. Since Christ was born, a joyful reckoning,

Four hundred and fair ninety;

Three exact years after that

To the death of Patrick, Chief Apostle.

489. Annals of the Four Masters.

The eleventh year of Lughaidh. Bishop Maccaille, died. Aenghus, son of Nadfraech, King of Munster, fell in the battle of Cell Osnadha fought against him by Muircheartach Mac Earca, by Illann, son of Dunlaing, by Ailill, son of Dunlaing, and by Eochaidh Guineach, of which was said:

1. Died the branch, the spreading tree of gold,

Aenghus the laudable, son of Nadfraech,

His prosperity was cut off by Illann,

In the battle of Cell Osnadha the foul.

The battle of Tailtin against the Leinstermen, by Cairbre, son of Niall.

489. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of bishop Mac Caille. The battle of Cenn Losnada or Cell Losnaig in Mag Fea, in which fell Aengus son of Nad-fraích, king of Mumu, as Cuanu has written.

SBG St Iltyd.

Iltyd had no desire to embrace the monastic life, and, leaving the Continent, he crossed the sea and served under King Arthur, who was his first cousin. He is said to have been one of ” the three Knights of the Court of Arthur who kept the Greal ” (the Holy Grail), the other two being S. Cadoc and Peredur. He married Trynihid, a virtuous woman.

SBG St Tathan.

Caradog was then king of the two Gwents (Uchcoed and Iscoed), and presently hearing of the arrival of Tathan and his monks, sent him an invitation to come and see him. This Tathan declined, but the king, accompanied by his twenty-four knights, went to him in person. Caradog besought him to come and found a monastic school at Caerwent. Tathan acceded to his request, and the king gave him “a piece of land nigh unto the city, extending from the high road (the Via Julia) even to the river ” (the Neddern brook), where Tathan beheld a spot most suitable for ” Divine Service and the habitation of clergy.” There he founded a collegiate church in honour of the Holy and Undivided Trinity and placed therein twelve canons.

Tathan’s college became famous. The five ” presbiteri Tathiu ” who witnessed King Griffith’s privilegium, during the episcopate of Herwald (consecrated Bishop of Llandaff in 1056), were clergy of Caerwent ;

490. Annals of Ulster.

Zeno Augustus departed from life in the 17th year and 6th month, counting both the years of his own reign as well as those of the tyrant Basilicus. These six months and the six months of Marcian make a year, which the Chronicles do not count. Anastasius was made emperor. Or here, the battle of Cell Losnaidh according to others. Mac Erca was victor, and the king of Caisel defeated.

490. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Ella and Cissa besieged the city of Andred, and slew all that were therein; nor was one Briton left there afterwards.

491. Annals of Ulster.

The Irish state here that Patrick the Archbishop died.

Three score years (we deem it few), And an mystic nine,

Patrick spent preaching in Ireland with many miracles.

And Vincent in the Speculum Historiarum states that Patrick spent four score years in Ireland preaching and that at Patrick’s request God restored to life 40 persons; he founded 365 churches and created the same number of bishops, as well as 3000 priests; and he baptized 12,000.

491. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Taillten was gained over the Lagenians by Coirpre, son of Niall.

491. Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Cianán of Dam Liac. Death of Zeno, who reigned seventeen years. Anastasius becomes emperor.

492. Cronicum Scotorum.

The second battle of Graine, in which fell Fraech, son of Finnchadh, King of Southern Leinster. Eochaidh, son of Coirpre, was the victor.

St Gelasius 1 Pope 492-496.

492. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Sruth. Gelasius was consecrated 47th bishop of the Roman Church and lived 3 years. The second battle of Granairet.

Patrick, arch-apostle, or archbishop and apostle of the Irish, rested on the 16th of the Kalends of April in the 120th year of his age, in the 60th year after he had come to Ireland to baptize the Irish.

From the beginning of the world according to the Seventy Interpreters 5946 years; according to the Hebrews 4697. From the Incarnation according to the Hebrews 746 years, from the Incarnation according to Dionysius 483

492. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fourteenth year of Lughaidh. The battle of Sleamhain, in Meath was fought by Cairbre, son of Niall, against the Leinstermen.

492. Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of bishop Mac Caille. The battle of Cenn Losnada, in which fell Aengus, son of Nad Fraích, and Eithne Uathach his wife.

493.Annals of Inisfallen. The battle of Srath Echaill, in which Fraech son of Finnchad, king of Laigin, fell, and Eochu, son of Cairpre, was victor.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

After three years, Ella and Assa besieged a town called Andreds-cester, and slew all its inhabitants, both small and great, leaving not a single soul alive.

493. Cronicum Scotorum.

Rest of Cuindidh, son of Cathmogha, i.e. Mac Cuilind, Bishop of Lusca. An eclipse of the sun appeared. Battle of Dunlethglaise. Gelasius quievit.

493. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Tailtiu won over the Laigin by Cairpre son of Niall.

493. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fifteenth year of Lughaidh. Patrick, son of Calphurn, son of Potaide, archbishop, first primate, and chief apostle of Ireland, whom Pope Celestine the First had sent to preach the Gospel and disseminate religion and piety among the Irish, was the person who separated them from the worship of idols and spectres, who conquered and destroyed the idols which they had for worshipping; who had expelled demons and evil spirits from among them, and brought them from the darkness of sin and vice to the light of faith and good works, and who guided and conducted their souls from the gates of hell (to which they were going), to the gates of the kingdom of heaven. It was he that baptized and blessed the men, women, sons and daughters of Ireland, with their territories and tribes, both fresh waters and sea inlets. It was by him that many cells, monasteries, and churches were erected throughout Ireland; seven hundred churches were their number. It was by him that bishops, priests, and persons of every dignity were ordained; seven hundred bishops, and three thousand priests was their number. He worked so many miracles and wonders, that the human mind is incapable of remembering or recording the amount of good which he did upoh earth. When the time of St. Patrick’s death approached, he received the Body of Christ from the hands of the holy Bishop Tassach, in the 122nd year of his age, and resigned his spirit to heaven.

There was a rising of battle, and a cause of dissension in the province contending for the body of Patrick after his death. The Ui Neill and the Oirghialla attempting to bring it to Armagh; the Ulta to keep it with themselves. And the Ui Neill and the Oirghialla came to a certain water, and the river swelled against them so that they were not able to cross it in consequence of the greatness of the flood. When the flood had subsided, these hosts united on terms of peace, i.e. the Ui Neill and the Ulta, to bring the body of Patrick with them. It appeared to each of them that each had the body conveying it to their respective territories, so that God separated them in this manner, without a fight or battle. The body of Patrick was afterwards interred at Dun Da Lethglas with great honour and veneration; and during the twelve nights that the religious seniors were watching the body with psalms and hymns, it was not night in Magh Inis or the neighbouring lands, as they thought, but as if it were the full undarkened light of day. Of the year of Patrick’s death was said:

Since Christ was born, a correct enumeration, Four hundred and fair ninety, Three years add to these, Till the death of Patrick, chief Apostle.

494. Cronicum Scotorum.

Anastasius was ordained Pope, and lived afterwards two years. The battle of Slemhain of Meath gained over the Lagenians by Coirpre, son of Niall. Mochaoe of Naendruim quievit. Bishop Cormac indernidhe, comharb of Patrick, pausavit.

494. Annals of the Four Masters.

The sixteenth year of Lughaidh. The battle of Ceann Ailbhe by Cairbre, son of Niall, against the Leinstermen.

495. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year came two leaders into Britain, Cerdic and Cynric his son, with five ships, at a place that is called Cerdic’s-ore. And they fought with the Welsh the same day. Then he died, and his son Cynric succeeded to the government, and held it six and twenty winters. Then he died; and Ceawlin, his son succeeded, who reigned seventeen years. Then he died; and Ceol succeeded to the government, and reigned five years. When he died, Ceolwulf, his brother, succeeded, and reigned seventeen years. Their kin goeth to Cerdic. Then succeeded Cynebils, Ceolwulf’s brother’s son, to the kingdom; and reigned one and thirty winters. And he first of West-Saxon kings received baptism. Then succeeded Cenwall, who was the son of Cynegils, and reigned one and thirty winters. Then held Sexburga, his queen, the government one year after him. Then succeeded Escwine to the kingdom, whose kin goeth to Cerdic, and held it two years. Then succeeded Centwine, the son of Cynegils, to the kingdom of the West-Saxons, and reigned nine years. Then succeeded Ceadwall to the government, whose kin goeth to Cerdic, and held it three years. Then succeeded Ina to the kingdom of the West-Saxons, whose kin goeth to Cerdic, and reigned thirty-seven winters. Then succeeded Ethelheard, whose kin goeth to Cerdic, and reigned sixteen years. Then succeeded Cuthred, whose kin goeth to Cerdic, and reigned sixteen winters. Then succeeded Sigebriht, whose kin goeth to Cerdic, and reigned one year. Then succeeded Cynwulf, whose kin goeth to Cerdic, and reigned one and thirty winters. Then succeeded Brihtric, whose kin goeth to Cerdic, and reigned sixteen years. Then succeeded Egbert to the kingdom, and held it seven and thirty winters, and seven months. Then succeeded Ethelwulf, his son, and reigned eighteen years and a half. Ethelwulf was the son of Egbert, Egbert of Ealmund, Ealmund of Eafa, Eafa of Eoppa, Eoppa of Ingild, Ingild of Cenred (Ina of Cenred, Cuthburga of Cenred, and Cwenburga of Cenred), Cenred of Ceolwald, Ceolwald of Cuthwulf, Cuthwulf of Cuthwine Cuthwine of Celm, Celm of Cynric, Cynric of Creoda, Creoda of Cerdic. Then succeeded Ethelbald, the son of Ethelwulf, to the kingdom, and held it five years. Then succeeded Ethelbert, his brother, and reigned five years. Then succeeded Ethelred, his brother, to the kingdom, and held it five years. Then succeeded Alfred, their brother, to the government. And then had elapsed of his age three and twenty winters, and three hundred and ninety-six winters from the time when his kindred first gained the land of Wessex from the Welsh. And he held the kingdom a year and a half less than thirty winters. Then succeeded Edward, the son of Alfred, and reigned twenty-four winters. When he died, then succeeded Athelstan, his son, and reigned fourteen years and seven weeks and three days. Then succeeded Edmund, his brother, and reigned six years and a half, wanting two nights. Then succeeded Edred, his brother, and reigned nine years and six weeks. Then succeeded Edwy, the son of Edmund, and reigned three years and thirty-six weeks, wanting two days. When he died, then succeeded Edgar, his brother, and reigned sixteen years and eight weeks and two nights. When he died, then succeeded Edward, the son of Edgar, and reigned….. (There is a gap here.)

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

After the lapse of three more years, Cerdic and his son Cynric sailed to Britain with five ships, to a port called Cerdic’s-ore, and on the same day fought a battle against the Britons, in which they were finally victorious

495. Annals of Ulster.

The second battle of Granairet, in which fell Fraech son of Finnchad son of Gairchú son of Fothad son of Eochu Lámhdóid son of Mess Corb, king of Laigin. Eochu, son of Coirpre—i.e. Eochu son of Coirpre son of Ailill son of Dúnlang son of Énna Niad—was victor. An eclipse of the sun was visible. Repose of Mac Cuilinn, bishop of Lusca.

496. Annals of Ulster.

The storming of Dún Lethglaise. Or here, the battle of Tailtiu.

496. Cronicum Scotorum.

Symmachus, 49th Pope of the Roman Church lived fifteen years. The battle of Cenn Ailbhe gained over the Lagenians by Coirpre, son of Niall

Anastasius II Pope 496-498

496. Annals of the Four Masters.

Mochaoi, Abbot of Aendruim, died on the twenty third day of the month of June.The battle of Druim Lochmaighe was gained by the Leinstermen over the Ui Neill.Cormac, of Chrioch In Ernaidhe, successor of Patrick, resigned his spirit.

496. Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Patrick on the 16th of the Kalends of April in the 432nd year from the Passion of the Lord. Repose of Mac Cuilinn of Lusca.

497. Repose of Cormac, bishop of Ard Macha.

497. The Annals of Ulster.

Mo-Chaí of Naendruim rested. Repose of Cormac, bishop of Ard Macha, successor of Patrick. Or here, the second battle of Granairet, in which Fraech son of Finnchad, king of Laigin Desgabhair, fell. Eochu, son of Coirpre, was victor.

497. Annals of the Four Masters.

The nineteenth year of Lughaidh. The battle of Inde Mor, in Crioch Ua nGabhla, was gained over the Leinstermen and Illann, son of Dunlaing, by Muircheartach mac Earca.

497. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Seghais gained by Muircertach Mac Earca over Duach Tengumha, King of Connacht, in which Duach was slain; of which Cennfaeladh said:—

The battle of Seghais—A certain woman caused it;

Red blood was brought over lancesBy Duisech, daughter of Duach.

The battle of Delg, and battle of Mucremhe, And the battle of Tuaim Drubha,

With the battle of Seghais, wherein fell Duach Tengumha.

SBG St Cadoc.

Gwynllyw, King of Gwynllywg, had married Gwladys, daughter, or more probably granddaughter, of Brychan, and had carried her off in his arms. Cadoc was their son. Gwynllyw, who was a lawless tyrant, had sent his robber bands into Gwent, beyond the Usk, and had carried off the cow of an Irish hermit, whose name was Tathan or Meuthi. The hermit ventured to the caer of the King to implore its restoration. According to the account in the Life of Cadoc he was well received and courteously treated; but according to that in the Life of Tathan he was treated with horse-play and insult. However, Gwynllyw retained him to baptize the child that was then born to him, and it was given the name of Cathmail, which occurs in mediaeval Irish as Cathmal, in Welsh Cadfael. Although Cathmail was his name, he is known as Cadoc or Catwg, in Latin Cadocus. In lit manner, Briomaglus is the Brioc of hagiology. In the Quimper cartulary it is Catuodus. Later on, the boy was entrusted to Tathan or Meuthi, to be educate at Caerwent, where he had a college, that had been founded by Yny king of that portion of Gwent. ” And he, willingly receiving him and diligently instructed him in Donatus and Priscian, and other arts for twelve years.”

498 or 503. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twentieth year of Lughaidh. Fearghus Mor, son of Erc, son of Eochaidh Muinreamhair, with his brothers, went to Alba Scotland.

498 Annals of Ulster.

This year a great earthquake shook the province of Pontus. Repose of Cuinnid son of Cathmug, i.e. Mac Cuilinn, bishop of Lusca. Simmachus was appointed 49th bishop of the Roman Church, and lived 15 years.

St Symmachus Pope 498-514

The Annals of Clonmacnoise.

Anastatius pope died in anno 501. Sym- machus raigned pope 15 yeares. Carbry m c Neale gave the battle of Kynnailve 2 to Leinstermen. The battle of Seaisse was Given by Moriertagh mac Earka to Dwagh eangowa, king of Connaught, where Dwagh was slain. Fergus More mac earka, with Certaine Ulstermen held part of Brittaine where the said Fergus Remayned until he dyed.

498.Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Mo-Chóe of Naendruim.

499.. Repose of bishop Ibar

499. Cronicum Scotorum.

Battle of Druim Lochmaighe gained by the Lagenians over the Ui Neill.Fergus Mor Mac Erca, with the tribe of Dál Riada, held a part of Britain and died there.

SBG St Ailbe.

The Dal-Riadan King, Fintan Finn, had recently been engaged

in war against the men of Connaught, who had captured his castle and three sons. On the arrival of Ailbe in his land the King at once sought him and entreated him to accompany his host to battle and show his power by cursing the enemy, after the usual Druidic method. Ailbe consented, and success attended the King, who nearly exterminated the men of Connaught, and recovered his wife and sons.

499 or 504. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twenty first year of Lughaidh. Cerban, a bishop of Feart Cearbain, at Teamhair, died. The battle of Seaghais was fought by Muircheartach mac Earca against Duach Teangumha, King of Connaught. The cause of the battle was this, viz.: Muircheartach was a guarantee between the King and Eochaidh Tirmcharna, his brother, and Eochaidh was taken prisoner against the protection of Muircheartach. In proof of which Ceannfaeladh said:

The battle of Seaghais; a certain woman caused it;

red blood was over lances, By Duiseach, daughter of Duach.

The battle of Dealga, the battle of Mucramha, and the battle of Tuaim Drubha,

With the battle of Seaghais, wherein fell Duach Teangumha.

Against the Connaughtmen these battles were gained.

499 Annals of Ulster.

A battle in which Mac Erca was victor. (The battle of Slemain of Mide won, by Cairpre son of Niall over the Laigin. Or here, Mo-Chaí of Naendruim according to another book.)A battle.

SBG St Carannog.

Ceredig was King in Ceredigion, from which had been expelled the Gwyddyl (Irish) who had occupied the seaboard of Wales. Notwithstanding that Ceredig had established himself in Ceredigion, these latter made a descent on the coast, and attempted to recover their ‘lost possessions. This may be the occasion when Ceredig, whom we equate with Coroticus, captured so many baptized Irish and held them in durance, calling forth the letter of S. Patrick in protest. As Ceredig was aged, and the incursions were frequent, the Bishop of the principality went to him, and said : ” Thou art too old to fight, it is therefore well that one of thy sons should be appointed in thy room, and let that one be the eldest.” To this he consented. Accordingly they appealed to Carannog to be their king and leader. But he, loving the Kingdom of Heaven above all earthly things, changed clothes with a beggar, took his staff and wallet, ran away and took refuge at a place called Guerit Carantauc.

This place, as appears, was Carhampton in Somersetshire. Carannog resided some time here. On arriving, he borrowed a spade from a poor man, wherewith to dig the ground. And he whittled at intervals, when tired of digging, the staff he had brought with him.

Then he observed a wood pigeon fly out of the nearest grove, and carry off the shavings in its beak. He followed the bird, and found that it had dropped the chips in one particular spot. He determined on building a church there. And this was, as we are informed, the city of Carrov. When running away from home, he had thrown his portable altar into the Severn Sea. It had been washed up, and Arthur, who with Cado ruled in those parts at the time, got hold of it, and resolved on converting it to secular uses. However, there was a dragon in the neighbourhood that created great depredation, and this monster Carannog subdued, and in return for the favour Arthur surrendered to him the altar, but with some reluctance. Arthur held his Court at the time in Dindraithou. This is probably the Dun Tradui, the three- fossed fortress erected by Crimthan Mor (366-378) to hold down the British, when he held dominion from Alba to the Ictian Sea (the English Channel). 3 This is spoken of by Cormac in his Old Irish

Glossary. Cormac was King-Bishop of Cashel, born 831, and killed in battle 903.

This Dun Tradui was apparently in Map Lethain, ” in the lands of the Cornish Britons ” (dind map Lethain i tirib Bretan Cornn).

After having completed his church, placed in it his altar, and built the city called Carrov, 5 ” in which innumerable persons were buried, whose names are not given,” a voice came from heaven bidding him depart for Ireland, and assist S. Patrick in his missionary labours.

Poems Referring to Arthur

XXVIII.BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXV.

IT broke out with matchless fury.
The rapid vehement fire.
Him we praise above the earth,
Fire, the fiery meteor of the dawn.
Above the high gale,
Higher than every cloud.
Great his animal.
He will not delay
Nor the wedding-feast of Llyr.
His path is like a water-course,
Thy rage in the chief streams.
The dawn smiles, repelling gloom,
At the dawn with violence,
At every meet season,
At the meet sea-son of his turnings,
At the four stages of his course,
I will extol him that judges violence,
Of the strong din, deep his wrath.
I am not a man, cowardly, gray,
A scum, near the wattle.
The illusion of my two relatives,
Two groans of affliction without appetite.
From my hand to thy hand God will give naught.
Thrice three protections,
Returning to the old places,
With a steed used to the field.
And the steed of Genethawg,
And the steed of Caradawg,
Perfect for travelling.
And the steed of Gwythur,
And the steed of Gwarddur,
And the steed of Arthur.
Dauntless to cause an ache,
And the steed of Taliessin,
And the steed of Lleu half domesticated,
And of Pebyr, the dark gray of the grove.
And Grei, the steed of Cunin.
Cornan stubborn in the conflict,
Of ardent desires,
The Black, from the seas famous,
The steed of Brwyn, betrayer of the country.
And the three cloven-footed ones
They will not go a journey conveniently,
The terrible steed of Ceidaw,
A hoof with bribery on it.
Mottle-shouldered Ysgodig
The steed of Llemenig
The horse of Rhydderch Rhyddig
Of the gray colour of a pear.
And Llamre, full of inherent vigour,
And Froenvoll of a vigorous growth,
The steed of Sadyrnin,
And the steed of Constantine.
And others handling,
For the country, the smart of foreigners.
The good Henwyn brought
A tale from Hiraddug.
I have been a sow, I have been a buck,
I have been a sage, I have been a snout,
I have been a horn, I have been a wild sow,
I have been a shout in battle.
I have been a torrent on the slope,
I have been a wave on the extended shore.
I have been the light sprinkling of a deluge,
I have been a cat with a speckled head on three trees.
I have been a circumference, I have been a head.
A goat on an elder-tree.
I have been a crane well filled, a sight to behold.
Very ardent the animals of Morial,
They kept a good stock.
Of what is below the air, say the hateful men,
Too many do not live, of those-that know me.

XXIX.THE VERSES OF THE GRAVES. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XIX.

POEMS REFERRING TO ARTHUR THE GULEDIG.VI. THE CHAIR OF THE SOVEREIGN. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XV.

THE declaration of a clear song,
Of unbounded Awen,
About a warrior of two authors,
Of the race of the steel Ala.
With his staff and his wisdom,
And his swift irruptions,
And his sovereign prince,
And his scriptural number,
And his red purple,
And his assault over the wall,
And his appropriate chair,
Amongst the retinue of the wall.
Did not (he) lead from Cawrnur
Horses pale supporting burdens?
The sovereign elder.
The generous feeder.
The third deep wise one,
To bless Arthur,
Arthur the blessed,
In a compact song.
On the face in battle,
Upon him, a restless activity.
Who are the three chief ministers
That guarded the country?
Who are the three skilful (ones)
That kept the token?
That will come with eagerness
To meet their lord?
High (is) the virtue of the course,
High will be the gaiety of the old,
High (is) the horn of travelling,
High the kine in the evening.
High (is) truth when it shines,
Higher when it speaks.
High when came from the cauldron
The three awens of Gogyrwen.
I have been Mynawg, wearing a collar,
With a horn in my hand.
He deserves not the chair
That keeps not my word.
With me is the splendid chair,
The inspiration of fluent (and) urgent song.
What the name of the three Caers,
Between the flood and the ebb?
No one knows who is not pressing
The offspring of their president.
Four Caers there are,
In Prydain, stationary,
Chiefs tumultuous.
As for what may not be, it will not be.
It will not be, because it may not be.
Let him be a conductor of fleets.
Let the billow cover over the shingle,
That the land becomes ocean,
So that it leaves not the cliffs,
Nor hill nor dale,
Nor the least of shelter,
Against the wind when it shall rage.
The chair of the sovereign
He that keeps it is skilful.
Let them be sought there!
Let the munificent be sought.
Warriors lost,
I think in a wrathful manner.
From the destruction of chiefs,
In a butchering manner,
From the loricated Legion,
Arose the Guledig,
Around the old renowned boundary.
The sprouting sprigs are broken,
Fragile in like manner.
Fickle and dissolving.
Around the violent borders.
Are the flowing languages.
The briskly-moving stream
Of roving sea-adventurers,
Of the children of Saraphin.
A task deep (and) pure
To liberate Elphin.

VII.BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XXXI.

WHAT man is the porter?
Glewlwyd Gavaelvawr.
Who is the man that asks it?
Arthur and the fair Cai.
How goes it with thee?
Truly in the best way in the world.
Into my house thou shalt not come,
Unless thou prevailest,
I forbid it.
Thou shalt see it.
If Wythnaint were to go,
The three would be unlucky:–
Mabon, the, son of Mydron,
The servant of Uthir Pendragon;
Cysgaint, the son of Banon;
And Gwyn Godybrion.
Terrible were my servants
Defending their rights.
Manawydan, the son of Llyr,
Deep was his counsel.
Did not Manawyd bring
Perforated shields from Trywruid?
And Mabon, the son of Mellt,
Spotted the grass with blood?
And Anwas Adeiniog,
And Llwch Llawynnog–
Guardians were they
On Eiddyn Cymminog,
A chieftain that patronised them.
He would have his will and make redress.
Cai entreated him,
While he idled every third person.
When Celli was lost
Cuelli was found; and rejoiced
Cai, as long as he hewed down.
Arthur distributed gifts,
The blood trickled down.
In the hall of Awarnach,
Fighting with a hag,
He cleft the head of Palach.
In the fastnesses of Dissethach,
In Mynyd Eiddyn,
He contended with Cynvyn;
By the hundred there they fell,
There they fell by the hundred,
Before the accomplished Bedwyr.
On the strands of Trywruid,
Contending with Garwlwyd,
Brave was his disposition,
With sword and shield;
Vanity were the foremost men
Compared with Cai in the battle.
The sword in the battle
Was unerring in his hand.
They were stanch commanders
Of a legion for the benefit of the country–
Bedwyr and Bridlaw;
Nine hundred would to them listen;
Six hundred gasping for breath
Would be the cost of attacking them.
Servants I have had,
Better it was when they were.
Before the chiefs of Emrais
I saw Cai in haste.
Booty for chieftains
Was Gwrhir among foes,
Heavy was his vengeance,
Severe his advance.
When he drank from the horn,
He would drink with four.
To battle when he would come
By the hundred would he slaughter;
There was no day that would satisfy him.
Unmerited was the death of Cai.
Cai the fair, and Llachau,
Battles did they sustain,
Before the pang of blue shafts.
In the heights of Ystavingon
Cai pierced nine witches.
Cai the fair went to Mona,
To devastate Llewon.
His shield was ready
Against Cath Palug
When the people welcomed him.
Who pierced the Cath Palug?
Nine score before dawn
Would fall for its food.
Nine score chieftains.

VIII. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXX.

I. I WILL praise the sovereign, supreme king of the land,
Who hath extended his dominion over the shore of the world.
Complete was the prison of Gweir in Caer Sidi,
Through the spite of Pwyll and Pryderi.
No one before him went into it.
The heavy blue chain held the faithful youth,
And before the spoils of Annwvn woefully he sings,
And till doom shall continue a bard of prayer.
Thrice enough to fill Prydwen, we went into it;
Except seven, none returned from Caer Sidi.

II. Am I not a candidate for fame, if a song is heard?
In Caer Pedryvan, four its revolutions;
In the first word from the cauldron when spoken,
From the breath of nine maidens it was gently warmed.
Is it not the cauldron of the chief of Annwvn? What is its intention?
A ridge about its edge and pearls.
It will not boil the food of a coward, that has not been sworn,
A sword bright gleaming to him was raised,
And in the hand of Lleminawg it was left.
And before the door of the gate of Uffern the lamp was burning.
And when we went with Arthur, a splendid labour,
Except seven, none returned from Caer Vedwyd.

III. Am I not a candidate for fame with the listened song
In Caer Pedryvan, in the isle of the strong door?
The twilight and pitchy darkness were mixed together.
Bright wine their liquor before their retinue.
Thrice enough to fill Prydwen we went on the sea,
Except seven, none returned from Caer Rigor.

IV. I shall not deserve much from the ruler of literature,
Beyond Caer Wydyr they saw not the prowess of Arthur.
Three score Canhwr stood on the wall,
Difficult was a conversation with its sentinel.
Thrice enough to fill Prydwen there went with Arthur,
Except seven, none returned from Caer Golud.

V. I shall not deserve much from those with long shields.
They know not what day, who the causer,
What hour in the serene day Cwy was born.
Who caused that he should not go to the dales of Devwy.
They know not the brindled ox, thick his head-band.
Seven score knobs in his collar.
And when we went with Arthur, of anxious memory,
Except seven, none returned from Caer Vandwy.

VI. I shall not deserve much from those of loose bias,
They know not what day the chief was caused.
What hour in the serene day the owner was born.
What animal they keep, silver its head.
When we went with Arthur of anxious contention,
Except seven, none returned from Caer Ochren.

VII. Monks congregate like dogs in a kennel,
From contact with their superiors they acquire knowledge,
Is one the course of the wind, is one the water of the sea?
Is one the spark of the fire, of unrestrainable tumult?
Monks congregate like wolves,
From contact with their superiors they acquire knowledge.
They know not when the deep night and dawn divide.
Nor what is the course of the wind, or who agitates it,
In what place it dies away, on what land it roars.
The grave of the saint is vanishing from the altar-tomb.
I will pray to the Lord, the great supreme,
That I be not wretched. Christ be my portion.

THE BATTLE OF GODEU. BOOK OF TALIESSIN VIII.

I HAVE been in a multitude of shapes,
Before I assumed a consistent form.
I have been a sword, narrow, variegated, Arthur
I will believe when it is apparent.
I have been a tear in the air,
I have been the dullest of stars.
I have been a word among letters,
I have been a book in the origin.
I have been the light of lanterns
A year and a half.
I have been a continuing bridge,
Over three score Abers.
I have been a course, I have been an eagle.
I have been a coracle in the seas:
I have been compliant in the banquet.
I have been a drop in a shower;
I have been a sword in the grasp of the hand:
I have been a shield in battle.
I have been a string in a harp,
Disguised for nine years.
In water, in foam.
I have been sponge in the fire,
I have been wood in the covert.
I am not he who will not sing of
A combat though small,
The conflict in the battle of Godeu of sprigs.
Against the Guledig of Prydain,
There passed central horses,
Fleets full of riches.
There passed an animal with wide jaws,
On it there were a hundred heads.
And a battle was contested
Under the root of his tongue;
And another battle there is
In his occiput.
A black sprawling toad,
With a hundred claws on it.
A snake speckled, crested.
A hundred souls through sin
Shall be tormented in its flesh.
I have been in Caer Vevenir,
Thither hastened grass and trees,
Minstrels were singing,
Warrior-bands were wondering,
At the exaltation of the Brython,
That Gwydyon effected.
There was a calling on the Creator,
Upon Christ for causes,
Until when the Eternal
Should deliver those whom he had made.
The Lord answered them,
Through language and elements:
Take the forms of the principal trees,
Arranging yourselves in battle array,
And restraining the public.
Inexperienced in battle hand to band.
When the trees were enchanted,
In the expectation of not being trees,
The trees uttered their voices
From strings of harmony,
The disputes ceased.
Let us cut short heavy days,
A female restrained the din.
She came forth altogether lovely.
The head of the line, the head was a female.
The advantage of a sleepless cow
Would not make us give way.
The blood of men up to our thighs,
The greatest of importunate mental exertions
Sported in the world.
And one has ended
From considering the deluge,
And Christ crucified,
And the day of judgment near at hand.
The alder-trees, the head of the line,
Formed the van.
The willows and quicken-trees
Came late to the army.
Plum-trees, that are scarce,
Unlonged for of men.
The elaborate medlar-trees,
The objects of contention.
The prickly rose-bushes,
Against a host of giants,
The raspberry brake did
What is better failed
For the security of life.
Privet and woodbine
And ivy on its front,
Like furze to the combat
The cherry-tree was provoked.
The birch, notwithstanding his high mind,
Was late before he was arrayed.
Not because of his cowardice,
But on account of his greatness.
The laburnum held in mind,
That your wild nature was foreign.
Pine-trees in the porch,
The chair of disputation,
By me greatly exalted,
In the presence of kings.
The elm with his retinue,
Did not go aside a foot;
He would fight with the centre,
And the flanks, and the rear.
Hazel-trees, it was judged
That ample was thy mental exertion.
The privet, happy his lot,
The bull of battle, the lord of the world.
Morawg and Morydd
Were made prosperous in pines.
Holly, it was tinted with green,
He was the hero.
The hawthorn, surrounded by prickles,
With pain at his hand.
The aspen-wood has been topped,
It was topped in battle.
The fern that was plundered.
The broom, in the van of the army,
In the trenches he was hurt.
The gorse did not do well,
Notwithstanding let it overspread.
The heath was victorious, keeping off on all sides.
The common people were charmed,
During the proceeding of the men.
The oak, quickly moving,
Before him, tremble heaven and earth.
A valiant door-keeper against an enemy,
His name is considered.
The blue-bells combined,
And caused a consternation.
In rejecting, were rejected,
Others, that were perforated.
Pear-trees, the best intruders
In the conflict of the plain.
A very wrathful wood,
The chestnut is bashful,
The opponent of happiness,
The jet has become black,
The mountain has become crooked,
The woods have become a kiln,
Existing formerly in the great seas,
Since was heard the shout:–
The tops of the birch covered us with leaves,
And transformed us, and changed our faded state.
The branches of the oak have ensnared us
From the Gwarchan of Maelderw.
Laughing on the side of the rock,
The lord is not of an ardent nature.
Not of mother and father,
When I was made,
Did my Creator create me.
Of nine-formed faculties,
Of the fruit of fruits,
Of the fruit of the primordial God,
Of primroses and blossoms of the hill,
Of the flowers of trees and shrubs.
Of earth, of an earthly course,
When I was formed.
Of the flower of nettles,
Of the water of the ninth wave.
I was enchanted by Math,
Before I became immortal,
I was enchanted by Gwydyon
The great purifier of the Brython, Maelgwyn
Of Eurwys, of Euron,
Of Euron, of Modron.
Of five battalions of scientific ones,
Teachers, children of Math.
When the removal occurred,
I was enchanted by the Guledig.
When he was half-burnt,
I was enchanted by the sage
Of sages, in the primitive world.
When I had a being;
When the host of the world was in dignity,
The bard was accustomed to benefits.
To the song of praise I am inclined, which the tongue recites.
I played in the twilight,

I slept in purple;
I was truly in the enchantment
With Dylan, the son of the wave.
In the circumference, in the middle,
Between the knees of kings,
Scattering spears not keen,
From heaven when came,
To the great deep, floods,
In the battle there will be
Four score hundreds,
That will divide according to their will.
They are neither older nor younger,
Than myself in their divisions.
A wonder, Canhwr arc born, every one of nine hundred.
He was with me also,
With my sword spotted with blood.
Honour was allotted to me
By the Lord, and protection (was) where he was.
If I come to where the boar was killed,
He will compose, he will decompose,
He will form languages.
The strong-handed gleamer, his name,
With a gleam he rules his numbers.
They would spread out in a flame,
When I shall go on high.
I have been a speckled snake on the hill,
I have been a viper in the Llyn.
I have been a bill-hook crooked that cuts,
I have been a ferocious spear
With my chasuble and bowl
I will prophesy not badly,
Four score smokes
On every one what will bring.
Five battalions of arms
Will be caught by my knife.
Six steeds of yellow hue
A hundred times better is
My cream-coloured steed,
Swift as the sea-mew
Which will not pass
Between the sea and the shore.
Am I not pre-eminent in the field of blood?
Over it are a hundred chieftains.
Crimson (is) the gem of my belt,
Gold my shield border.
There has not been born, in the gap,
That has been visiting me,
Except Goronwy,
From the dales of Edrywy.
Long white my fingers,
It is long since I have been a herdsman.
I travelled in the earth,
Before I was a proficient in learning.
I travelled, I made a circuit,
I slept in a hundred islands.
A hundred Caers I have dwelt in.
Ye intelligent Druids,
Declare to Arthur,
What is there more early
Than I that they sing of.
And one is come
From considering the deluge,
And Christ crucified,
And the day of future doom.
A golden gem in a golden jewel.
I am splendid
And shall be wanton
From the oppression of the metal-workers.

POEM REFERRING TO GWYDDNO AND GWYNN AP NUDD. XVIII. BLACK BOOK OF CAERMARTHEN XXXIII.

I, BULL of conflict was he, active in dispersing an arrayed army,
The ruler of hosts, indisposed to anger,
Blameless and pure his conduct in protecting life.

II. Against a hero stout was his advance,
The ruler of hosts, disposer of wrath.
There will be protection for thee since thou askest it.

III. For thou hast given me protection
How warmly wert thou welcomed!
The hero of hosts, from what region thou comest?

IV. I come from battle and conflict
With a shield in my hand;
Broken is the helmet by the pushing of spears.
V. I will address thee, exalted man,
With his shield in distress;
Brave man, what is thy descent?

VI. Round-hoofed is my horse, the torment of battle,
“Whilst I am called Gwyn, the son of Nud,
The lover of Creurdilad, the daughter of Llud.

VII. Since it is thou, Gwyn, an upright man,
From thee there is no concealing;
I also am Gwydneu Garanhir.

VIII. He will not leave me in a parley with thee,
By the bridle, as is becoming;
But will hasten away to his home on the Tawy.

IX. It is not the nearest Tawy I speak of to thee,
But the furthest Tawy;
Eagle! I will cause the furious sea to ebb.

X. Polished is my ring, golden my saddle and bright:
To my sadness
I saw a conflict before Caer Vandwy.

XI. Before Caer Vandwy a host I saw,
Shields were shattered and ribs broken
Renowned and splendid was he who made the assault.

XII. Gwyn ab Nud, the hope of armies,
Sooner would legions fall before the hoofs
of thy horses, than broken rushes to the ground.

XIII. Handsome my dog and round-bodied,
And truly the best of dogs;
Dormach was he, which belonged to Maelgwn.

XIV Dormach with the ruddy nose! what a gazer
Thou art upon me! because I notice
Thy wanderings on Gwibir Vynyd.

XV. I have been in the place where was killed Gwondoleu,
The son of Ceidaw, the pillar of songs,
When the ravens screamed over blood.

XVI. I have been in the place where Bran was killed,
The son of Gweryd, of far-extending fame,
When the ravens of the battle-field screamed.

XVII. I have been where Llachau was slain,
The son of Arthur, extolled in songs,
When the ravens screamed over blood.

XVIII. I have been where Meurig was killed,
The son of Carreian, of honourable fame,
When the ravens screamed over flesh.

XIX. I have not been where Gwallawg was killed,
The son of Goholeth, the accomplished,
The resister of Lloegir, the son of Lleynawg.

I have been where the soldiers of Prydain were slain,
From the East to the North;
I am alive, they in their graves!

Dialogue of Arthur and Eliwlod

Arthur
I wonder, seeing I am a bard,
On the top of the oak and its branches on high
What the vision of an eagle, what the illusion.

Eagle
Arthur, who hast attained distant tame
Joy and advantage of thine host,
The eagle heretofore hast thou seen.

Arthur
I wonder at thy station by the side of the wall.
And I will ask of thee in metre
What the illusion, what the vision, of an eagle.

Eagle
Arthur whose fame hath travelled far
And whose host is of gladsome aspect.
The eagle hast thou seen heretofore.

Arthur
Eagle, being on the top of the oak
If thou beest of the race of birds
Thou canst not be either domestic or tame

Eagle
Arthur, gladial portent,
Before whose onset nothing stands.
I am the sott of Madoc son of Uthyr.

Arthur
I know not the kind of the eagle
[As one] that frequents the vales ot Cornwall.
The son of Madoc ap Uthyr liveth not.

Eagle
To meditate unrighteous treason
And conceal your purpose long
Is called complete sin.

Arthur
Eagle, gentle in discourse,
Speak thou without reserve.
What shall enable me to escape?

Eagle
Praying God at every dawn,
And seeking to obtain remission
And asking the aid of the saints.

Arthur
Eagle, not poor of speech,
I will question thee on thy discourse,
Of what sort is the worst that happens to sin.

Eagle
To obtain the long penance infernal,
And get an irrecoverable fell,
And lose God to eternity.

Arthur
Eagle of speech about to depart,
I will ask of thee previously,
Is there a course devoid of hope?

Eagle
Arthur of exalted elocution,
If thou wouldest obtain a share of the world,
With the mighty hope is weak.

Eagle
Arthur of speech both subtle and fierce,
Whose host is of unreproached wrath,
Eliwlod erewhile was I called.

Arthur
Eagle of blameless aspect
And whose discourse is not evil,
Art thou Eliwlod my nephew?

Eagle
Arthur audacious in the onset,
If I be Eliwlod
Am I a good connection of thine?

Arthur
Eagle, untreacherous in discourse,
If thou art Eliwlod,
Was the battle-slaughter good around thee?

Eagle
Arthur, audacious in answering,
Before whose face no enemy standeth,
From death there is no escape.

Arthur
Eagle, undisguised of speech,
No one could through war
Bring thee to life again.

Eagle
Arthur, dignitaiy among the generous,
If the words of the canon shall be believed.
With God contention is not good.

Arthur
Eagle clear of speech,
Wilt thou say unto Arthur
What thing is evil for him to do?

Eagle
To purpose evil with premeditation,
And to abide long in the purpose,
Is called sin and failure.

Arthur
Eagle, most wise in discourse,
Of thyself will I enquire,
How shall I attain to God’s approbation?

Eagle
To love God with righteous mind,
And ask upright requests,
Procures heaven and the mundane gift.

Arthur
Eagle, veracious in declaring,
If it be correct, I will ask thee,
Is the praising of him good in Christ’s sight?

Eagle
Arthur, thou art the most mighty.
On the tower I will expect the excellent hero.
Let evety spirit praise its Lord.

Arthur
Eagle of serene existence,
Without intrusion I will ask thee.
Who doth the spirit say is nearest?

Eagle
Arthur, restless with blades,
Who has fallen by the pain of thy blood-sheddings,
Christ it is, whose faith is not concerning falsehoods.

Arthur
Eagle speaking words of acknowledgment
I will ask, the while I cry out,
What is the course to seek for heaven?

Eagle
Repentance for perverseness,
And to hope for mercy.
This procureth peace.

Arthur
Eagle not ungracious in speech.
Declare thou with clearness
What thing it is evil to do.

Arthur
Eagle sincere of speech,
Of thyself it shall be asked,
When is not the mighty possessor of the earth?

Eagle
Arthur, exalted gwyddva,
Not to lose God or the Alpha
Is the summit of mightiness.

Arthur
Eagle, certain in thy speech,
I will question thee on thy words:
Except that I myself am mighty.

Eagle
Arthur head of the battles of Cornwall,
Exalted one, acute-edged of shape,
None is mighty excepting God.

Arthur
Eagle of intricate speech,
I will ask thee without trifling,
What doeth God with [my] retinue?

Eagle
If the retinue be sincere to worship,
If uptight in praying together,
God will not give hell to them.

Arthur
Eagle of speech, dismal as the grave,
I will ask thee in my mightiness,
Who shall give judgment in the doomsday?

Eagle
Arthur, exalted gwyddva.
Sacred enigma of the divided-place,
God himself shall judge.

Arthur
Eagle of celestial destiny,
Hast thou not obtained to see
What Christ doeth to those who believe?

Eagle
Arthur, gwyddva of gladness.
With thy host thou wert a complete huntsman,
Thy self shall know the judgment-day.

Arthur
Eagle, with the speech of … … …
I will ask of thee the owner ot hosts,
What shall the judgment-day do to the Gentiles?

Eagle
Arthur, exalted switly-moving lamp,
Whose pure innocency is gash-extinguish’d.
There shall each one know his place.

Arthur
Eagle, not fitter in discourse,
I will ask of thee without offence,
Is it good for the sun to obtain service?

Eagle
If thou seekest to have the service of the sun.
And favour with God afterwards.
Blessed art thou by reason thereof.

Arthur
Eagle condescending in discourse,
By the Concealed-God I will ask thee.
What shall be mine, if I shall be without it?

Eagle
If thou wilt have unveiled discourse,
Thou art the sun, saith Necessity. saith Destiny,
Until the other sun of no illusory lustre.

Arthur
Eagle of very notable discourse,
I will ask thee in all security,
What is the course for the soul?

Eagle
The Pater and prayers,
And fasting and charities,
And calmness of the soul until death.

The Dialogue of Melwas and Gwenhyfer

Melwas
Black is my steed and brave beneath me
No water will make him fear
And no man will make him swerve

Gwenhyfar
Green is my steed of the tint of leaves
No disgrace like his who boasts and fails:
He is no man who fulfills not his word

Gwenhyfar
………………………………….
………………in the forefront of the fray
No man holds out but Kei the tall, son of Sevin

Melwas
It is I that will ride and will stand,
And walk heavily on the brink of the ebb:
I am the man to hold out against Kei.

Gwenhyfar
Pshaw, young man, it is strange to hear thee!
Unless thou be other than thou lookest
Thou wouldst not, on of a hundred, hold against Kei

Melwas
Gwenhwyvar of the bright face
Do not insult me small though I be:
I would hold against a hundred myself

Gwenhyfar
Pshaw, young man of black & yellow!
After scanning long thy looks
Me thought I had seen thee before

Melwas
Gwenhwyvar of the ……… face
Tell me if you know it
Where you saw me before

Gwenhyfar
I have seen a man of moderate size
At Arthur’s long table in Devon
Dealing out wine to his friends

Melwas
Gwenhwyvar of facetious speech
It is woman’s nature to banter:
There it is thou didst me see

Cei:
Who is the man who sits in the common part of the feast,
Without for him either its beginning or its end,
Seated down there below the hall?

Melwas:
Melwas from the Isle of Glass
Thou with the golden, gilded caskets [of wine]
I have drunk non of thy wine.

Cei:
Wait a little ??
I do not pour out my wine
For a man who cannot bide, cannot hold out in the fray.

Gwenhyfer:
… [lines missing]
… [“]
He would not stand up to Cei in his wine.

Melwas:
I would wade a ford
Even if it were a fathom deep
With a coat of mail (on the shore) of the ebb tide
I am the man who would stand up to Cei.

Gwenhyfer:
Silence, lad, silence to thy idle talk
If thou (art) not better than thy appearance
Thou wouldst not stand up to Cei, if thou were one of eight.

Melwas:
Gwenhyfer of the deer’s glance
Do not despise me although I am young
I would stand up to Cei alone.

Gwenhyfer:
Though lad (?) above a number
With thy head red like lungs
Thou art unlike Cei in size.

Melwas:
It is a drunken man’s nature to be weak
We will therefore keep to what is right (?)
I am Melwas, let us leave it at that.

Cei:
Since you have begun
Go on with your conversation
A lad knows who fondles him.

Gwenhyfer:
Where before have you seen me?

Melwas:
In a court of honour and privilege
Drinking wine to (?with) his companions
??? in the land of Dyfneint.

I hate the smile of an old gray-haired man
With his sword like a skewer beneath his chin
Who desires but cannot achieve.

Cei:
Still more hateful to me
A proud man, timid except in words
Who will not be silent nor draw his sword.

Melwas:
Take that!

Cei:
You take that!

Death of Duran ap Arthur

Sandde [Bryd Angel] drive the crow
off the face of Duran [son of Arthur].
Dearly and belovedly his mother raised him.

Arthur [sang it]

The Quarrel of Arthur and Huail

Kaw o Brydain was the name of a chieftain who ruled of Edeirnion, in North Wales. He had two sons, Gildas and Huail. Huail was gwr gorhewg anllad ‘cheeky and wanton’. He obtained possession of one of Arthur’s mistresses. Arthur cam to spy upon the pair, and a fierce combat took place between him and Huail. Finally Huail wounded Arthur in the knee. After this peace was made between them, on the condition that Huail should never reproach Arthur with regard to his wound. Arthur returned to his court at Caerwys, but for ever after he remained slightly lame.

On a subsequent occasion Arthur dressed himself in women’s clothes in order to visit a girl at Rhuthun. Huail chanced to come there, and he recognized Arthur by his lameness, as he was dancing in a company of girls. These were his words:

Da iawn yw downshio velly oni bai’r glun ‘This dancing were all right if it were not for the knee’. Arthur heard them and knew who had spoken them. He returned to his court where he caused Huail to be brought before him, and he reproached him bitterly with his faithlessness. Huail was taken to Rhuthin, where Arthur cutt off his head on a stone in the market-place, which to this day is known as Maen Huail.

Triads of King Arthur

Twenty-four ordained Knights were in Arthur’s Court dwelling continuously, and each one of them had an inflate peculiarity of achievement beyond other people.

Three Golden-Tongued Knights were in Arthur’s Court:
Gwalchmai son of Llew son of Cynfarch, and Drudwas son of Tryffin, and Eliwlod son of Madog son of Uthur: and there was neither king nor lord to whom those came who did not listen to them; and whatever quest they sought, they wished for and obtained it, either willingly or unwillingly.

Three Virgin Knights were in Arthur’s Court:
Bwrt son of Bwrt King of Gascony, and Peredur son of Earl Efrog, and Galath son of Lanslod Lak. Wherever those came, where there might be giant or witch or fiendish being—(such) could not withstand one of those Three Virgin Knights.

Three Knights of Battle were in Arthur’s Court:
Cadwr Earl of Cornwall, and Lanslod Lak, and Ywain son of Urien Rheged. The peculiarities of those were that they did not flee for fear of spear or sword or arrow; and Arthur was never shamed in battle on the day that he saw their faces in the field. And therefore, they were called Knights of Battle.

Three Enchanter Knights were in Arthur’s Court:
Menw son of Teirgwaedd, and Trystan son of Tallwch, and E(i)ddilig the Dwarf; since they changed themselves into the form they wished when they were hard-pressed, and therefore no one could overcome them.

Three Royal Knights were in Arthur’s Court:
Nasiefn son of the King of Denmark, and Medrod son of Llew son of Cynfarch, and Howel son of Emyr Llydaw. The peculiarities of those were that there was neither king nor emperor of the world who could refuse them, on account of their beauty and wisdom in peace; while in war no warrior or champion could withstand them, despite the excellence of his arms. And therefore, they were called Royal Knights.

Three Just Knights were in Arthur’s Court:
Blaes son of the Earl of Llychlyn, and Cadog son of Gwynlliw the Bearded, and Pedrog Splintered-Spear, son of Clement Prince of Cornwall. The peculiarities of those were that whoever might do wrong to the weak, they contended against him who did him wrong in the cause of justice; and whoever might do wrong they slew, however strong he might be. For those three had dedicated themselves to preserve justice by every Law:

Blaes by earthly Law, Cadog by the Law of the Church, and Pedrog by the Law of arms. And those were called Just Knights.

Three Offensive Knights were in Arthur’s Court:
Morfran son of Tegid, and Sanddef Angel-Face, and Glewlwyd Mighty-Grasp. The peculiarities of those were that it was ~repugnant to anyone to refuse them anything: Sanddef because of his beauty, Morfran because of his ugliness, and Glewlwyd because of his size and his strength and his ferocity. And therefore, they were called Offensive Knights.

Three Counsellor Knights were in Arthur’s Court:
Cynon son of Clydno Eiddyn, and Aron son of Cynfarch, and Llywarch the Old son of Elidir Lydanwyn. And those three were Counsellors to Arthur: whatever hardship came pon him, they counselled him, so that nobody could overcome him. And thus, Arthur triumphed over everyone, and in every eat, and over every nation in the world; through the strength the powerful spirit and the faith and hope that were in his eart towards those men, and through the sacred weapons at God had given him: Rhongomiant his spear, Caledfwlch a sword, and Carnwennan his dagger.

Three tribal thrones of the Island of Prydain.

Arthur the Chief Lord at Menevia, and David the chief bishop, and Maelgwyn Gwyned the chief elder. Arthur the chief lord at Kelliwic in Cornwall, and Bishop Betwini the chief bishop, and Caradawg Vreichvras the chief elder. Arthur the chief lord in Penrionyd in the north, and Cyndeyrn Garthwys the cheif bishop, and Gurthmwl Guledic the chief elder.

Three naturalists of the Island of Prydain.

Gwalchmei son of Gwyar; and Llachau son of Arthur; and Rhiwallawn Gwallt Banadlen

Three red-spotted ones of the Island of Prydain. Arthur; and Run son of Beli; and Morgant Mwynfawr.

Three front leaders of battle of the Island of Prydain.

Trystan son of Tallwch; and Huil son of Caw; and Cei son of Cynyr Cynfarfawc and one person was supreme over these three: Bedwyr son of Pedrawt was that one.

Three primary illusions of the Island of Prydain.

The illusion of Math son of Mathonwy; and the illusion of Uthyr Pendragon; and the illusion of Gwydelen Gor.

Three disloyal households of the Island of Prydain.

The household of Goronw Pebyr of Penllyn who refused to stand in place of their lord to recieve the poisoned darts from Lew Law Gyffes in Lech Goronwy in Blaen Cynfael; and the household of Gwrgi and Peredur, who deserted their lords at Caer Greu, when there was appointment for battle next morning against Eda Glinmaur, and they were both slain; and the third, the household of Alan Fyrgan, who returned back by stealth from their lord, on the road at night with his servants at Camlan, and there he was slain.

Three Frivolous Bards of the Island of Britain:
Arthur, and Cadwallawn son of Cadfan, and Rahawd son of Morgant.

Three Fortunate Concealments of the Island of Britain:
The Head of Bran the Blessed, son of Llyr, which was concealed in the White Hill in London, with its face towards France. And as long as it was in the position in which it was put there, no Saxon Oppression would ever come to this Island; The second Fortunate Concealment: The Dragons in Dinas Emrys, which Lludd son of Beli concealed; And the third: the Bones of Gwerthefyr the Blessed, in the Chief Ports of this Island. And as long as they remained in that concealment, no Saxon Oppression would ever come to this Island. And they were the Three Unfortunate Disclosures when these were disclosed. And Gwrtheyrn the Thin disclosed the bones of Gwerthefyr the Blessed for the love of a woman. That was Ronnwen the pagan woman; And it was he who disclosed the Dragons; And Arthur disclosed the Head of Bran the Blessed from the White Hill, because it did not seem right to him that this Island should be defended by the strength of anyone, but by his own.

Three Harmful Blows of the Island of Britain:
The first of them Matholwch the Irishman struck upon Branwen daughter of Llyr; The second Gwenhwyfach struck upon Gwenhwyfar: and for that cause there took place afterwards the Action of the Battle of Camlan; And the third Golydan the Poet struck upon Cadwaladr the Blessed.

Three Unrestrained Ravagings of the Island of Britain:
The first of them when Medrawd came to Arthur’s Court at Celliwig in Cornwall; he left neither food nor drink in the court that he did not consume. And he dragged Gwenhwyfar from her royal chair, and then he struck a blow upon her; The second Unrestrained Ravaging when Arthur came to Medrawd’s court. He left neither food nor drink in the court; And the third Unrestrained Ravaging when Aeddan the Wily came to the court of Rhydderch the Generous at Alclud [Dumbarton]; he left neither food nor drink nor beast alive.

Three Great Queens of Arthur:
Gwennhwyfar daughter of Cywryd Gwent, and Gwenhwyfar daughter of Gwythyr son of Greidiawl, and Gwenhwyfar daughter of Gogfran the Giant.

Three Well-Endowed Men of the Island of Britain:
Rhiwallawn Broom-hair, and Gwal(chmai) son of Gwyar, and Llachau son of Arthur.

Three Unfortunate Counsels of the Island of Britain:
To give place for their horses’ fore-feet on the land to Julius Caesar and the men of Rome, in requital for Meinlas; and the second: to allow Horsa and Hengist and Rhonwen into this Island; and the third: the three-fold dividing by Arthur of his men with Medrawd at Camlan.

Three Red Ravagers of the Island of Britain:
Rhun son of Beli, and Lleu Skilful Hand, and Morgant the Wealthy. But there was one who was a Red Ravager greater than all three: Arthur was his name. For a year neither grass nor plants used to spring up where one of the three would walk; but where Arthur went, not for seven years.

Three Unrestricted Guests of Arthur’s Court, and Three Wanderers:
Llywarch the Old, and Llemenig, and Heledd.

Three Exalted Prisoners of the Island of Britain:
Llyr Half-Speech, who was imprisoned by Euroswydd, and the second, Mabon son of Modron, and third, Gwair son of Geirioedd. And one (Prisoner), who was more exalted than the three of them, was three nights in prison in Caer Oeth and Anoeth, and three nights imprisoned by Gwen Pendragon, and three nights in an enchanted prison under the Stone of Echymeint. This Exalted Prisoner was Arthur. And it was the same lad who released him from each of these three prisons- Goreu, son of Custennin, his cousin.

Three powerful swineherds of the Island of Prydain. 1

Trystan son of Tallwch, who kept the swine of March, son of Meirchiawn, while the swineherd went on a message to Essyllt to desire a meeting with her, and Arthur desired one pig by deceit or by theft, and could not get it; and Pryderi son of Pwyll, who kept the swine of Pendaran Dyfed in Glencuwch in Emlyn; And Coll son of Collfrewy, who kept the ancient sow of Dallweir Dalben, who went burrowing as far as Penryn Awstin in Cornwall, and there going to the sea, landed at Abertorogi in Gwent Iscoed, and Coll son of Collfrewy having his hand on her bristles, wherever she went on the sea or on the land, and at Maes Gwenith in Gwent she dropped wheat and bees, and from henceforth there is the best wheat there, and from thence she went to Lonwen in Penbro, and there she dropped barley and bees, and from thence there is the best barley in Lonwen, and from thence she proceeded to the Riw Cyferthwch in Eryri, and there she dropped a wolf-cub and an eagle, and Coll son of Collfreuy gave the eagle to Brynach Gwyddel of the north, and the wolf he gave to Menwaed fo Arllechwedd, and these are the wolf of Menwaed and the eagle of Brynach, and thence going to Maendu in Llanfare, in Arvon, and there she dropped a kitten, and Coll son of Collfrewy threw the kitten in the Menai, and she became afterwards the Paluc cat.

Three Powerful Swineherds of the Island of Britain. 2
Pryderi son of Pwyll, Lord of Annwfn, tending the swine of Penndaran Dyfed his foster-father. These swine were the seven animals which Pwyll Lord of Annwfn brought, and gave them to Penndaran Dyfed his foster-father. And the place where he used to keep them was in Glyn Cuch in Emlyn. And this is why he was called a Powerful Swineherd: because no one was able either to deceive or to force him; and the second, Drystan son of Tallwch, tending the swine of March son of Meirchyawn, while the swineherd went with a message to Essyllt. Arthur and March and Cai and Bedwyr were (there) all four, but they did not succeed in getting so much as one pigling – neither by force, nor by deception, nor by stealth; And the third, Coll son of Collfrewy, tending the swine of Dallwyr Dallben in Glyn Dallwyr in Cornwall. And one of the swine was pregnant, Henwen was her name. And it was prophecied that the Island of Britain would be the worse for the womb-burden. Then Arthur assembled the army of the Island of Britain, and set out to seek to destroy her. And then she set off, about to bring forth (?), and at Penrhyn Awstin in Cornwall she entered the sea, and the Powerful Swineherd after her. And in the Wheat Field in Gwent she brought forth a grain of wheat and a bee. And therefore, from that day to this the Wheat Field in Gwent is the best place for wheat and for bees. And at Llonion in Pembroke she brought forth a grain of barley and a grain of wheat. Therefore, the barley of Llonion is proverbial. At the Hill of Cyferthwch in Arfon she brought forth a (wolf-cub) and a young eagle. The wolf was given to (M)ergaed and the eagle to Breat, a prince of the North: and they were both the worse for them. And at Llanfair in Arfon under the Black Rock she brought forth a kitten, and the Powerful Swineherd threw it from the Rock into the sea. And the sons of Palug fostered it in Môn, to their own harm: and that was Palug’s Cat, and it was one of the Three Great Oppressions of Môn, nurtured therein. The second was Daronwy, and the third was Edwin, king of Lloegr.

Three Favourites of Arthur’s Court,

And Three Battle-Horsemen: they would never endure a PENTEULU over them. And Arthur sang an ENGLYN:
These are my Three Battle-Horsemen:
and Lludd Llurugawc [of the Breastplate],
and the Pillar of the Cymry, Caradawg.

Three Lively Steeds of the Island of Britain:Gwineu Gwdwc Hir [Chestnut Long-neck] horse of Cei, and Grei hourse of Edwin, and Llwyd [Grey] horse of Alfer son of Maelgwn.

(Ed. See also When a Host went to Llychlyn. At 380 AD.)

Three Wild Spectres of the Island of Britain:
The Spectre of Banawg, and the Spectre of Ednyfedawg the Sprightly, and the Spectre of Melen.

Three Humble Princes of the Island of Prydain.

Llywarch Hen son of Elidyr Lydanwyn; and Manawydan son of Llyr Lledyeith; and Gwgawn Gwrawn son of Peredur son of Eliffer Gosgordvaur.

Trystan and Esyllt

Welsh Triad. Three Enemy-Subduers of the Island of Britain:
Greidiawl Enemy-Subduer son of Envael Adrann, and Gweir of Great Valour, and Drystan son of Tallwch.

Trystan and Esyllt

In the interim Trystan ap Tallwch and Esyllt the wife of March y Meirchion, fled into the forest of Clyddon, Golwg Hafddydd, her handmaiden, and Back Bychan his page, carrying pasties and wine with them. A couch of leaves was made for them.

And then March y Meirchion went to complain to Arthur against Trystan, and to entreat him to avenge upon Trystan the insult offered him, because he was nearer of kindred to him [Arthur] than Trystan was, for March y Meirchion was first cousin to Arthur and Trystan was but the nephew-son of a first cousin to Arthur. “I will go, I and my family,” said Arthur, “to seek either satisfaction or bloodshed [?] And then they surrounded the wood of Clyddon.

One of the peculiarities of Trystan was that whoever drew blood upon him died, and whoever Trystan drew blood upon died also.

When Esyllt heard the talking around the wood, she trembled against the two hands of Trystan. And then Trystan asked her why she trembled, and she said it was because of fear for him. Then Trystan sang this englyn:

Fair Esyllt, be not fearful:
While I am protecting thee,
Three hundred knights will not succeed in carrying thee off.
Nor three hundred armed men.

And then Trystan rose up and hastily took his sword in his hand, and approached the first battalion as quickly as he could until he met March y Meirchion. And then March y Meirchion said, “I will kill myself in order to kill him.” And then the other men all said, “Shame upon us if we interfere with him.” Thereupon Trystan went through the three battalions uninjured.

Kai Hir (Kay the Long) was in love with Gowlg Hafddydd. Thus he did : he [went to] the place where Esvllt was and spoke, singing this englyn:

Blessed Esyllt, loving seagull
Speaking in conversation, [I say that]
Trystan has escaped

Esyllt:

Blessed Kai, if it is true what thou sayest,
In conversation with me,
Thou wilt obtain a precious [lit. “golden”] mistress.

Kae:

A golden mistress I desire not
Because of what I have said… (?)
Golwg Hafddydd I seek.

Esyllt:

If it is true the tale
Thou has just told me with thy mouth
Golwg Hafddydd will be thine.

And then March y Meirchion went a second time to Arthur and lamented to him because he obtained neither satisfaction nor blood for his wife. Arthur said, ‘I know no counsel to give thee except to send instrumental musicians to sound toward him from afar, and after that to send vocal musicians with englynion (epigrams) of praise.” So they did. Thereupon Trystan called to him the artists and gave them handfuls of gold and silver. After that someone was sent to him concerning peace: namely, Gwalchmei. And Gwalchmei sang this englyn:
Tumultuous is the nature of the wave,
When the sea is at its height.
Who art though, mysterious warrior?
Trystan:
Tumultuous are the waves and the thunder.
In their bursting forth let them be tumultuous
In the day of conflict I am Trystan
Gwalchmei:
Trystan of the faultless speech,
Who in the day of battle, would not retreat,
A companion of thine was Gwalchmei.
Trystan:
I would do for Gwalchmei in that day,
In the which the worlk of slaughter is let loose,
That which one brother would not do for another
Gwalchmei:
Trystan, endowed with brilliant qualities,
Whose spear has oft been shivered in the toil of warI am Gwalchmei the nephew of Arthur.
Trystan:
Gwalchmei, there swifter than Mydrin,
Shouldst thou be in danger,
I would cause blood to flow till it reached the knees
Gwalchmei:
Trystan, for thy sake would I strive
Until my wrist should fail me;
Also for thee I would do my utmost
Trystan:
I ask it in defiance,
I ask it not through fear–
Who are the warriors before me?
Gwalchmei:
Trystan, of distinguished qualities
Are they not known to thee?
It is the household of Arthur that comes.
Trystan:
Arthur will I not shun,
To nine hundred combats will I dare him–
If I am slain, I wil also slay.
Gwalchmei:
Trystan, the friend of damsels,
Before commencing the work of strife,
The best of all things is peace.
Trystan:
Let me but have my sword upon my thigh,
And my right hand to defend me,
And I myself will be more formidable than they all
Gwalchmei:
Trystan of brilliant qualities,
Before exciting the tumult of conflict–
Reject not Arthur as a friend.
Trystan:
Gwalchmei, for thy sake will I deliberate,
And with my mouth I utter it–
As I am loved, so will I love.
Gwalchmei:
Trystan, of aspiring mind,
The shower wets a hundred oaks.
Come to an interview with thy kinsman.
Trystan:
Gwalchmei of persuasive answers,
The shower wets a hundred furrows.
I will go where’re thou wilt.

Then Trystan went with Gwalchmei to Arthur, and Gwalchmei sang this englyn:
Arthur, of courteous replies,
The shower wets a hundred heads.
Here is Trystan, be thou joyful.
Then Arthur sang:
Gwalchmei, of faultless answers,
The shower wets a hudnred dwellings.
A welcome to Trystan, my nephew.
Notwithstanding that, Trystan said nothing, and Arthur sang the second englyn:
Worthy Trystan, chief of the host,
Love thy race, remember the past;
Am I not the Chief of the Tribe?
Still Trystan said nothing, and Arthur sang:
Trystan, leader of onsets,
Take equal with the best,
But leave the sovereignty to me.
Yet again Trystan said nothing, and Arthur sang this englyn:
Trystan, wise and mighty chieftain,
Love they kindred, one shall harm thee,
Let there be no coldness between friend and friend.
Finally, Trystan responded, and sang this englyn to Arthur, his uncle:Arthur, to thee will I attend,
To thy command will I submit,
And that thou wishest will I do.
And then peace was made by Arthur between Trystan and March y Meirchion and Arthur conversed with the two of them in turn, and neither of them was willing to be without Esyllt. Then Arthur adjudged her to one while the leaves should be on the wood, and to the other during the time that the leaves should not be on the wood, the husband to have the choice. And the latter chose the time when the leaves should not be on the wood, because the night is longest during that season. And Arthur announced that to Esyllt, and she said. “Blessed be the judgment and he who gave it!” And Esyllt sang this englyn;
Three trees are good in nature:
the holly, the ivy, and the yew,
which keep their leaves throughout their lives:I am Trystan’s as long as he lives!
And in this way March y Meirchion lost his wife forever. And so ends the story.

Voyages to Thule

Avienius.

(Wrote sometime in the 4th century AD, but copies information from earlier sources).

Beneath the height of the promontory there opens out for the inhabitants of the Sinus Oestrymnicus, in which apear the Oestrymnides islands, widely spaced and rich in the metal of tin and lead. Great is the strength of this race, proud their spirit, skilful their art, constant the care of all of them for business, and in their woven boats they ply the rough sea far and wide and the abyss of Ocean, full of monsters. For these men know not to build their barks of pine and maple and do not shape their skiffs in fir, as the custom is, but for a marvel, they fit out their boats with hides joined together and often traverse the wide sea on skins. But from here it is two days journey by ship to the sacred island (sacram insulam), and the ancients called it. This spreads its broad fields among the waves and far and wide the race of the Hierni inhabit it. Near it again lies the island of Albiones (insula Albionum). The Tartessians were wont to trade as far as the bounds of the Oestrymnides, and the colonists of Carthage and the people dwelling near the pillars of Hecules went to these seas. And Hamilco the Carthaginian says that they can scarcely be crossed in four months, as he says he had proved by voyaging there himself: such lack of breeze is there to drive on the boat, so sluggish is the water of the sticky sea. He adds this too, that there is much weed in the turbulent waters and often it holds back the ship like a thicket. He says nevertheless that the mantle of the sea is not deep and the land is covered by but a little water. He says that ever here and there the sea beasts come to meet you and monsters swim between the slow and gently moving boats. If anyone dare from the Oestrmnic isles (ab insulis Oestrymnicis) to urge his craft into those waters where the air freezes beneath the turning of the Bear, he comes to the land of the Ligures void of inhabitants. For the fields have been made empty by the hand of the Caltae and by many battles.

West of Tartessos in Southern Spain there swells the mountain Cassius and it is from this that the Greek tongue first called tin cassiteros.

SBG St Brendan.

Voyages between 519 and 527 to Brittany, Norway, the Faroes and Iceland. Irish monks did inhabit Iceland before it was colonized bv the Northmen. The Islendinga Bok says that Irish clerics were there when the colonists arrived in 870, and only then departed.

St Brendan, son of Finnlug Ua Alta, of the race of Eoghan, was born in the marshy district of Munster He was famed for his great abstinence and his many virtues, and was the patriarch of nearly three thousand monks. While he was in his spiritual warfare, at a place called Ardfert-Brendan there came to him one evening, a certain father, named Barinthus, of the race of King Niall, who, when questioned by St Brendan, in frequent converse, could only weep, and cast himself prostrate, and continue the longer in prayer; but Brendan raising him up, embraced him, saying: ‘Father, why should we be thus grieved on the occasion of your visit? Have you not come to give us comfort? You ought, indeed, make better cheer for the brethren. In God’s name, make known to us the divine secrets, and refresh our souls by recounting to us the various wonders you have seen upon the great ocean.’ Then Barinthus, in reply, proceeds to tell of a certain island: ‘My dear child, Mernoc, the guardian of the poor of Christ, had fled away from me to become a solitary, and found, nigh unto the Stone mountain, an island full of delights. After some time I learned that he had many monks there in his charge, and that God had worked through him many marvels. I, therefore, went to visit him, and when I had approached within three days’ journey, he, with some of the brethren, came out to meet me, for God had revealed to him my advent. As we sailed unto the island the brethren came forth from their cells towards us, like a swarm of bees, for they dwelt apart from each other, though their intercourse was of one accord, well grounded in faith, hope, and charity; one refectory; one church for all, wherein to-discharge the divine offices. No food was served but fruits and nuts, roots and vegetables of other kinds. The brethren, after compline, passed the night in their respective cells until the cock-crow, or the bell tolled for prayer. When my dear son and I had traversed the island, he led me to the western shore, where there was a small boat, and he then said: ‘Father, enter this boat, and’ we will sail on to the west, towards the island called the Land of Promise of the Saints, which God will grant to those who succeed us in the latter days.’

When we entered the boat and set sail, clouds overshadowed us on every side, so dense that we could scarcely see the prow or the stern of the boat. After the lapse of an hour or so, a great light shone around us, and land appeared, spacious and grassy, and bearing all manner of fruits. And when the boat touched the shore; we landed, and walked round about the island for fifteen days, yet could not reach the limits thereof. No plant saw we there without its flower; no tree without its fruit; and all the stones thereon were precious gems. But on the fifteenth day we discovered a river flowing from the west towards the east, when, being at a loss what to do, though we wished to cross over the river, we awaited the direction of the Lord. While we thus considered the matter, there appeared suddenly before us a certain man, shining with a great light, who, calling us by our names, addressed us thus’: ‘Welcome, worthy brothers, for the Lord has revealed to yon the land He will grant unto His saints. There is one-half of the island up to this river, which you are not permitted to pass over; return, therefore, whence you came’.

When he had ceased to speak, we asked him his name, and whence he had come. But he said: ‘Why do you ask these questions? Should you not rather inquire about this island. Such as you see it now, so has it continued from the beginning of the world. Do you now need food or drink? Have you been weighed down by sleep, or shrouded in the darkness of the night I Know then for certain that here it is for ever day, without a shadow of darkness, for the Lord Jesus Christ is the light thereof, and if men had not transgressed the commandment of God, in this land of delights would they have always dwelt.’

Hearing this we were moved to tears, and having rested awhile, we set out on our return journey, the man aforesaid accompanying us to the shore, where our boat was moored. When we had entered the boat, this man was taken from our sight, and we went on into the thick darkness we had passed through before, and thus unto the Island of delights. But when the brethren there saw us, they rejoiced with great joy at our return, as they had long bewailed our absence, and they said: ‘Why, O fathers, did you leave us, your little flock, to stray without a shepherd in the wilderness? We knew, indeed, that our abbot frequently departed somewhere from us, and remained away sometimes a month, sometimes a fortnight, or a week more or less.

When I heard this, I tried to console them, and said: ‘Brethren, harbour no thought of evil, for your lives here are certainly passed at the very portals of paradise. Not far away from you lies the island, called the ‘Land of Promise of the Saints,’ where night never falls nor day closes; thither your abbot, Mernoc, resorts, as the angels of God watch over it. Do you not know, by the fragrance of our garments, that we have been in the paradise of God?’. They replied: ‘Yes, father, we knew well that you had been in the paradise of God, for we often found this fragrance from the garments of our abbot, which lingered about us for nearly forty days.’ I then told them that I had abided therein with my dear son, for a fortnight, without food or drink; yet, so complete was our’ bodily refreshment, that we would ‘seem to others to have been filled to repletion. ‘When forty days had passed, having received the blessings of the abbot and the brethren, I came away with my companions, that I may return to my little cell to which I will go on to-morrow.

Having heard all this, St Brendan and his brethren cast themselves on the ground, giving glory to God in these words: ‘Righteous Thou art, O Lord, in all Thy ways, and holy in all Thy works, who hast revealed to Thy children so many and so great wonders; and blessed be Thou for Thy gifts, who hast this day refreshed, us all with this spiritual repast,’ ‘When these discourses were ended, St Brendan said: ‘Let us now proceed to the refection of the body, and the new commandment’. The night having passed, St Barinthus, receiving the blessing of the brethren, returned to his own cell.

St Brendan part II

St Brendan soon after selected from his whole community fourteen monks. Taking these apart, the venerable father Brendan retired with them into an oratory where he thus addressed them: ‘Dearly beloved fellow-soldiers of mine, I request your advice and assistance, for my heart and mind are firmly set upon one desire; if it be only God’s holy will, I have in my heart resolved to go forth in quest of the Land of Promise of the Saints, about which Father Barinthus discoursed to us. What do you think? What is your advice?’ But they, well knowing the purpose of their holy father, replied, as with one voice: ‘Father-abbot, your will is our will also. Have we not forsaken our parents? Have we not slighted our family prospects? Have we not committed into your hands even our very bodies? We are, therefore, ready to go with you, whether unto life or unto death, provided only we find such to be the will of God.’

St Brendan part III

St Brendan and the chosen brethren then decided to make a fast of forty days, at three days’ intervals, and afterwards to take their departure. Those forty days having elapsed, St Brendan, affectionately taking leave of his monks, and commending them to the special care of the Prior of his monastery, who was afterwards his successor there, sailed forth towards the west, with fourteen brethren, to the island wherein dwelt St Enda, and remained there three days and three nights.

St Brendan part IV

Having received the blessing of this holy father and all his monks, he proceeded to the remotest part of his own country, where his parents abode. However, he willed not to visit them, but went up to the summit of the mountain there, which extends far into the ocean, on which is ‘St Brendan’s Seat;’ and there he fitted up a tent, near a narrow creek, where a boat could enter. Then St Brendan and his companions, using iron implements, prepared a light vessel, with wicker sides and ribs, such as is usually made in that country, and covered it with cow-hide, tanned in oak-bark, tarring the joints thereof, and put on board provisions for forty days, with butter enough to dress hides for covering the boat and all utensils needed for the use of the crew.

He then ordered the monks to embark, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

St Brendan part IV

But while he stood on the shore and blessed the little creek, behold three more monks from his monastery came up, and cast themselves at his feet, saying: ‘O dearest father, suffer us, for the love of Christ, to accompany you on your voyage, otherwise we will die hereof hunger and thirst, for we are resolved to travel with thee all the days of our lives.’ When the man of God saw their great urgency, he ordered them to embark, saying: ‘Have your will, my children;’ but adding: ‘I know well why you have come hither. One of you has acted well, for God had provided for him an excellent place; but for two others, He has appointed harm and judgement.’

St Brendan part VI

St Brendan then embarked, and they set sail towards the summer solstice. They had a fair wind, and therefore no labour, only to keep the sails properly set; but after twelve days the wind fell to a dead calm, and they had to labour at the oars until their strength was nearly exhausted. Then St Brendan would encourage and exhort them: ‘Fear not, brothers, for our God will be unto us a helper, a mariner, and a pilot; take in the oars and helm, keep the sails set, and may God do unto us, His servants and His little vessel, as He willeth.’. They took refreshment always in the evening, and sometimes a wind sprung up; but they knew not from what point it blew, nor in what direction they were sailing.

At the end of forty days, when all their provisions were spent, there appeared towards the north, an island very rocky and steep. When they drew near it, they saw its cliffs upright like a wall, and many streams of water rushing down into the sea from the summit of the island; but they could not discover a landing-place for the boat. Being sorely distressed with hunger and thirst, the brethren got some vessels in which to catch the water as it fell; but St Brendan cautioned them: ‘Brothers! do not a foolish thing; while God wills not to show us a landing-place, you would take this without His permission; but after three days the Lord Jesus Christ will show His servants a secure harbour and resting-place, where you ‘may refresh your wearied bodies.’

When they had sailed round the island for three days, they descried, on the third day, about the hour of none, a small cove, where the boat could enter; and St Brendan forthwith arose and blessed this landing-place, where the rocks stood on every side, of wonderful steepness like a wall. When all had disembarked and stood upon the beach, St Brendan directed them to remove nothing from the boat, and then there appeared a dog, approaching from a bye-path, who came to fawn upon the saint, as dogs are wont to fawn upon their masters. ‘Has not the Lord,’ said St Brendan, ‘sent us a goodly messenger; let us follow him;’ and the brethren followed the dog, until they came to a large mansion, in which they found a spacious hall, laid out with couches and seats, and water for washing their feet, ‘When they had taken some rest, St, Brendan warned them thus: ‘Beware lest Satan lead you into temptation, for I can see him urging one of the three monks, who followed after us from the monastery, to a wicked theft. Pray you for his soul, for his flesh is in Satan’s power.’

The mansion where they abode had its walls hung around with vessels made of various metals, with bridle bits and horns inlaid with silver,

St Brendan ordered the serving brother to produce the meal which God had sent them; and without delay the table was laid with napkins, and with white loaves and fish for each brother. When all had been laid out, St Brendan blessed the repast and the brethren: ‘Let us give praise to the God of heaven, who provideth food for all His creatures.’ Then the brethren partook of the repast, giving thanks to the Lord, and took likewise drink, as much as they pleased. The meal. being finished, and the divine office discharged, St Brendan said: ‘Go to your rest now; here you see couches well dressed for each of you; and you need to rest those limbs over-wearied by your labours during our voyage.’

When the brethren had gone to sleep, St Brendan saw the demon, in the guise of a little black boy, at his work, having in his hands a bridle-bit, and beckoning to the monk before mentioned: then he rose from his couch, and remained all night in prayer.

When morning came the brethren hastened to perform the divine offices, and wishing to take to their boat again, they found the table laid for their meal. as on the previous day; and so for three days and nights did God provide their repasts for His servants.

St Brendan part VII

Afterwards St Brendan set out on his journey with the brethren, first cautioning them not to take away any property from the island. ‘God forbid,’ said they, ‘that any of us should dishonour our journey by theft;’ whereupon St Brendan said: ‘Behold the brother of whom I spoke to yon on yesterday has concealed in his bosom a silver bridle bit which the devil gave him last night.’ When the brother in question heard this, he cast away the bridle-bit out of his. bosom, and fell at the feet of the saint, crying aloud: ‘O father, I am guilty: forgive me, and pray that my soul may not be lost’ and all the brethren cast themselves on the ground, earnestly beseeching the Lord for his soul’s sake. When they rose from the ground, and St Brendan had raised up the guilty brother, they all saw a little black boy leap out of his bosom, howling loudly: ‘Why, O man of God, do you expel me from my abode, where I have dwelt for seven years, and drive me away, as a stranger, from my secure possession? Then St Brendan said: ‘I command thee, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that thou injure no man until the day of judgement’ and turning to the penitent brother, he told him to prepare without delay to receive the body and blood of the Lord, for that his soul would soon depart from his body, and that there would he his burial-place; hut that the other brother who accompanied him from the monastery would he buried in hell. Soon after the soul of the brother who received the Holy Viaticum departed this life, and was taken up to heaven by angels of light in the sight of his brethren, who gave him Christian burial in that place.

St Brendan part VIII

St Brendan and the brethren came to the shore where the boat lay, and embarked at once; whereupon a young. man presented himself to them, bearing a basket full of loaves of bread and a large bottle of water, and said: ‘Accept this blessing from your servant, for a long way lies before you ere you obtain the comfort yon seek; but this bread and water will not fail you from this day until Pentecost.’ Under this blessing they sailed forth upon the ocean, partaking of food only every second day, while the boat was borne along in divers directions.

St Brendan part IX

One day they came within view of an island, not far off, towards which they sailed with a favourable wind. When the boat touched a landing-place, the man of God ordered all to disembark, he being the last to leave the boat. In making a circuit of the island, they saw great streams of water flowing from many fountains, full of all kinds of fish. St Brendan ‘said to the brethren: ‘Let us here perform the divine office, and sacrifice unto God the Lamb without spot, for this day is the festival of the Lord’s Supper;’ and they remained there until Easter Saturday.

In the island, they found many flocks of sheep, all pure white, so numerous as to hide the face of the land. Then the saint directed the brethren to take from the flocks what was needful for the festival; and they caught one sheep, which, being tied by the horns, followed at their heels, as if it were tame; and he also told them to take one spotless lamb. When they had obeyed those orders, they prepared to celebrate the office of the next day; and there came to them a man with a basket of hearth-cakes and other provisions, which he laid at the feet of the man of God, prostrating himself three times, and saying, with tears: ‘Oh, precious pearl of God, how have I deserved this, that thou shouldst take food at this holy season from the labour of my hands.’ St Brendan, then raising him up from the ground, said: ‘My Son, our Lord Jesus Christ has provided for us a suitable place wherein to celebrate His holy resurrection.’

Afterwards he proceeded to perform the ‘ministering to the servants of God’, and to prepare what was needful for to-morrow’s festival. When the supply of provisions was taken into the vessel, the man who brought them said to St Brendan: ‘Your boat can carry no more now, but after eight days I will send you food and drink sufficient until Pentecost,’ Whereupon the man of God said to him: ‘How can you know for certain where we will be after eight days ?’ and he replied: ‘This night you will spend on that island you see near you, and to-morrow also until noon; then you will sail on to the island not far from it towards the west, called the ‘Paradise of Birds,’ and there will you abide until the octave of Pentecost,’

St Brendan asked him also why the sheep were so very large on that island, larger even than oxen; and he told him that they were so much huger there than in the lands known to St Brendan because they were never milked, and felt not the stress of winter, having at all seasons abundant pasture.

They then went on board their vessel, and having given and received parting blessings, they proceeded on their voyage.

St Brendan part X

When they drew nigh to the nearest island, the boat stopped ere they reached a landing-place; and the saint ordered the brethren to get out into the sea, and make the vessel fast, stem and stern, until they came to some harbour; there was no grass on the island, very little wood, and no sand on the shore. While the brethren spent the night in prayer outside the vessel, the saint remained in it, for he knew well what manner of island was this; but he wished not to tell the brethren, lest they might be too much afraid. When morning dawned, he bade the priests to celebrate Mass, and after they had done so, and he himself had said Mass in the boat, the brethren took out some un cooked meat and fish they had brought from the other island, and put a cauldron on a fire to cook them, After they had placed more fuel on the fire, and the cauldron began to boil, the island moved about like a wave; whereupon they all rushed towards the boat, and implored the protection of their father, who, taking each one by the hand, drew them all into the vessel; then relinquishing what they had removed to the island, they cast their boat loose, to sail away, when the island at once sunk into the ocean.

Afterwards they could see the fire they had kindled still burning more than two miles off, and then Brendan explained the occurrence: ‘Brethren, you wonder at what has happened to this island,’ ‘Yes, father,’ said they: ‘we wondered, and were seized with a great fear.’ ‘Fear not, my children,’ said the saint, ‘for God has last night revealed to me the mystery of all this; it was not an island you were upon, but a fish, the largest of all that swim in the ocean, which is ever trying to make its head and tail meet, but cannot succeed, because of its great length. Its name is Iasconius.’

St Brendan part XI

When they had sailed beside the island, where they had already been, for three days, and reached the end thereof, they saw towards the west another island, not far off, across a narrow sound, which was very grassy, well-wooded, and full of flowers; and they bore away towards its landing-place. When they had sailed to the southern side of this island they found a rivulet flowing into the sea, and there they brought the boat to land, the saint ordered them to leave the boat, and tow it up against the stream, which was only wide enough for its passage; and thus, they towed it for a mile up to the source of the rivulet, the saint sitting on board the while.

After some consideration, St, Brendan said to them: ‘Behold, my brothers, God has provided for us a suitable place wherein to abide during the Paschal time; and if we had no other provisions, this fountain would, I believe, serve for food as well as drink;’ for the fountain was, in truth, a. very wonderful one. Over it hung a large tree of marvellous width, but no great height, covered over with snow-white birds, so that they hid its boughs and leaves entirely. When the man of God saw this, he was considering with himself why this immense number of birds were thus brought together in one assemblage; and the question grew so irksome to him that he with tears besought the Lord, on his bended knees, thus: ‘O God, who knowest what is unknown, and revealest what is hidden, Thou seest the anxious distress of my heart; therefore I beseech Thee that Thou wouldst vouchsafe, in Thy great mercy, to reveal Thy secret in what I see here before me; not for any desert of my own worthiness, but solely in regard to Thy clemency, do I presume to ask this favour.’

Thereupon one of the birds flew off the tree, and in his flight his wings had a tinkling sound like little bells, over to the boat where the man of God was seated; and, perching on the prow, it spread out its wings in token of gladness, and looked complacently towards St Brendan. Then the man of God, understanding from this that his prayer was granted, addressed the bird: ‘If you are a messenger from God, tell me whence have those birds come, and why this concourse of them here?’ The bird at once made answer: ‘We are partakers in the great ruin of the ancient enemy, having fallen, not by sin of our will or consent, but soon after our creation our ruin resulted from the fall of Lucifer and his followers. The Almighty God, however, who is righteous and true, has doomed us to this place, where we suffer no pain, and where we can partially see the Divine presence, but must remain apart from the spirits who stood faithful. We wander about the world, in the air, and earth, and sky, like the other spirits on their missions; but on festival days we take the shapes you see, abide here, and sing the praises of our Creator. You and your brethren have been now one year on your voyage, and six more years’ journeying awaits you; where you celebrated your Easter this year, there will you celebrate it every year, until you find what you have set your hearts upon, the ‘Land of Promise of the Saints’’. When it had spoken thus, the bird arose from the prow of the vessel, and flew back to the other birds.

On the approach of the hour of vespers, all the birds, in unison, clapping their wings, began to sing a hymn, ‘O Lord, becometh Thee in Sion, and a vow shall be paid to Thee in Jerusalem’ (Ps. lxiv.); and they alternately chanted the same psalm for an hour; and the melody of their warbling and the accompanying clapping of their wings, sounded like unto a delightful harmony of great sweetness.

Then St Brendan said to the brethren: ‘Take bodily refreshment now, for the Lord has sated your souls with the joys of His divine resurrection.’ When supper was ended, and the divine office discharged, the man of God and his companions retired to rest until the third watch of the night, when he aroused them all from sleep, chanting the verse: ‘Thou, O Lord, wilt open my lips;’ whereupon all the birds, with voice and wing, warbled in response: ‘Praise the Lord, all His angels, praise Him all His virtues.’ Thus, they sang for an hour every night; and when morning dawned, they chanted: ‘May the splendour of the Lord God be upon us,’ in the same melody and measures their matin praises of God. Again, at tierce, they sang the verse: ‘Sing to our God, sing; sing to our King, sing wisely;’ at sext: The Lord hath caused the light of His countenance to shine upon us, and may He have mercy on us;’ and at none they sang: ‘Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in unity.’ Thus, day and night those birds gave praise to God. St Brendan, seeing all this, made thanksgiving to the Lord for all His wonderful works; and the brethren were thus regaled with such spiritual viands until the octave of the Easter festival.

At the close of the festival days, St Brendan said: ‘Let us now partake of the water’ of this fountain; hitherto we had need of it only to wash our hands or feet.’ Soon after this the man with whom they had been three days before Easter, who had supplied them with provisions for the Paschal season, came to them with his boat full of food and drink; and having laid it all before the holy father, he said: ‘My brothers, you have here abundance to last until Pentecost; but do not drink of that fountain, for its waters have a peculiar virtue, so that anyone drinking thereof, though it seems to have the taste and quality of ordinary water, is seized with sleep and cannot awaken for twenty-four hours.’

After this, having received the blessing of St Brendan, he returned to his own place.

St Brendan remained where he was with his brethren until Pentecost, the singing of the birds being a delight ever new to them. On the feast of Pentecost, when St Brendan and the priests had celebrated Mass, their venerable procurator, or provider, brought sufficient food for the festival; and when they had sat down together at their repast, he said to them: ‘My brothers, you have yet a long journey before you; take, therefore, from this fountain vessels full of its water, and dry bread that may keep for another year, and I will supply as much as your boat can carry,’ He then departed with a blessing from all; and St, Brendan, eight days afterwards, got the boat laden with the provisions brought by this man, and all the vessels filled with water from the fountain.

When they had brought everything down to the shore, the bird before mentioned flew towards them, and alighted on the prow of the boat; and the saint, understanding that it would make something known to him, stood still where he was. Then the bird, in human voice, addressed him: ‘With us you have celebrated the Paschal time this year; you will celebrate it with us also next year, and where you have been .in the past year on the festival, of the Lord’s Supper, there will you also be on the same festival next year, In like manner, you will celebrate the festival of the Lord’s Pasch, as you did before on the back of the great fish Iasconius; and after eight months you will find the island of St Ailbe, where you will celebrate the Nativity of Jesus Christ,’ Having spoken thus, the bird returned to its place on the tree. The brethren got the boat ready, and set sail forth into the ocean, while all the birds sung in concert: Hear us, O God Our Saviour, the hope of all the ends of the earth, and in the sea afar off.

St Brendan part XII

After this St Brendan and his brethren were tossed about to and fro on the billows of the ocean for the space of three months, during which they could. see nothing hut sea and sky, and they took refreshment only every second day. One day, however, an island came into view, not far off; but when they drew near the shore the wind drove them aside, and thus for forty days they sailed round about the island without finding a landing-place. The brethren meanwhile besought the Lord with tears that He would vouchsafe to help them, for their strength was almost exhausted because of their great fatigue; and when they had thus persevered in frequent prayer for three days, and in fasting also, at length they found a narrow creek fit to receive one boat, and beside it two fountains, one foul and the other limpid. Then the brethren hastened to take some of the water, the man of God said to them: ‘My children, do nothing that may be unlawful. Take nothing here without the leave of the venerable fathers who are on this island, and they will freely give what you would take by stealth,’

When all had landed and were considering in what direction they should go, there came to them an old man, wasted from extreme old age, whose hair was white as snow and, his face pellucid like glass. He prostrated himself. thrice, before he went to embrace the man of God, who, raising him up from the ground, embraced him, as did all the brethren, in like manner. Then this aged man, taking the holy father by the hand, led him to the monastery, about a furlong distant, when St Brendan stood at the entrance, and asked his guide whose monastery this was, and who was its superior. He put to him various questions in this way, but could get no reply, only manual signs, indicating silence with much gentleness. As soon as the holy father recognised that silence was the rule of the place, he cautioned his brethren: ‘Restrain your tongues from much talking, lest the monks here may be scandalized by your foolish speeches.’

After this, there came forth to meet them eleven monks, in their habits and crosses, chanting the versicle: ‘Arise, you holy ones from your dwellings, and come forth to meet us; sanctify this place; bless this people, and vouchsafe to guard us, thy servants, in peace.’ The versicle being ended, the abbot embraced St Brendan and his companions in due order, and in like manner his monks embraced the brethren of the holy man. When the kiss of peace was thus mutually given and received, they conducted them into the monastery, according to the custom in western countries; and the abbot and his monks proceeded to wash the feet of their guests, and to chant the ‘New Commandment.’

Then he led them all into the refectory, in strict silence; and when they had washed their hands he gave them a signal to take their seats, when one of the monks, on a given signal, rose up and supplied the table with loaves of bread of marvellous whiteness and roots of delicious flavour. The monks had taken places at table alternately with their guests, in due order, and between each pair a whole loaf was served, when the ministering brother set before them also some drink. Father abbot, in much cheerfulness, pressed his guests: ‘Brothers, from the fountain, out of which to-day you wished to drink stealthily, make now a loving cup in gladness and in the fear of the Lord. From the other fountain of foul water, which you saw, are the feet of the brethren washed, for it is always tepid. Those loaves of bread which you now see before you, we know not where. they are prepared, or who brings them to our cellar; but we know well that, by the free gift of God, they are supplied to us, as some alms, by some obedient creature of His; and thus is fulfilled in our regard the words of divine truth; ‘Those who fear God want for nothing.’ Here we are twenty-four brothers, having each day twelve loaves for our support, one loaf for two brothers; but on Sundays and great festivals the Lord allows us a full loaf for each brother, so that of what remains we may have a supper; and now, on your advent, we have a double supply. Thus, it is that from the days of St Patrick and St Ailbe, our patriarchs, for eighty years until now, Christ provides us with sustenance. Moreover, neither old age nor bodily infirmities increase upon us here, neither do we need cooked food, nor are we oppressed with heat or distressed with cold; but we live here, as it were, in the paradise of God. When the hours for the divine office and for Mass arrive, the lamps in our church, which, under God’s guidance, we brought with us from our own country, are set alight, and burn always without growing less.’

When the repast was over, and they had thrice taken some drink, the abbot gave the usual signal, and all the brethren, in great silence, rose from table, giving thanks to God, and preceded the fathers to the church, at the door of which they met twelve other monks, who readily bent the knee, as they passed. Then St Brendan said: ‘Father abbot, why have not those monks dined with us?’. For your sakes,’ said the abbot, ‘as our table could not seat us all together. They will now take their meal. for through God’s holy will they shall want for’ nothing. We will now enter the church and sing vespers, so that the brethren who are now dining, may sing’-the office afterwards in proper time,’ When vespers had concluded, St Brendan took heed of the structure of the church: it was a perfect square of equal length and breadth, and in it were seven lamps, so arranged that three of them hung before the central altar, and two before each of the side altars. All the altars were of crystal, and the chalices, paten as, cruets, and the other vessels required for the Divine Sacrifice were also of crystal. Around the church were ranged twenty-four benches, with the abbot’s seat between the two choirs of monks in rows on either side. No monk from either choir was allowed to intone the chant of the office, but the abbot; and throughout the monastery no voice was heard, nor any sound whatever; but if a brother needed anything, he went to the abbot, and on his knees made signs that he wanted aught; and then the father wrote on a tablet what God had intimated to him to be needful for the brother.

While St Brendan was pondering all these things, the abbot said to him: ‘Father, it is now time to return to the refectory, that all may be done with day-light, as it is written: ‘He who walketh in the light, stumbleth not.’ So it was done, and when all things were completed in due order of the daily routine, all hastened with alacrity to compline. Then the abbot intoned the versicle: ‘Incline us to my aid, O Lord,’ invoking at the same time the Most Holy Trinity; and they sub-join the antiphon: ‘We have sinned; we have acted unrighteously; we have worked iniquity; Thou, O Lord Christ, ‘who art all mercy, have pity on us. In unto the selfsame, I will sleep and take my rest.’

They proceed to chant the office of compline.

When the office had concluded, the brethren went to their cells, taking their guests with them; but the abbot remained with St Brendan, in the church, to await the lighting of the lamps. The saint asked the father about the rule of silence they observed; how such a mode of intercourse in a community was possible to flesh and blood. The abbot, with much reverence and humility, replied: ‘Holy father, I declare before the Lord, that during the eighty years that have passed since we came to this island, none of us has heard from the other the sound of the human voice, save only when we sing the praises of God. Amongst us twenty-four brothers, no voice is raised; but signs are made by the fingers or the eyes; and this is permitted only to the elder monks. None of us, since we came here, have suffered any infirmity of body or mind, such as may be fatal to mankind.’ Upon this St Brendan said with many tears: ‘Vouchsafe, I beseech thee, father abbot, to let us know whether we are permitted or not to abide here.’ The abbot rejoined: ‘You are not permitted, for such is not the will of God; but why do you ask me, when God had revealed to you, before you came to us, what you must do? You must return to your own country, where God has prepared for you, as well as for your fourteen companions, the place of sepulchre. Of the other two monks, one will have his pilgrimage in the island of the anchorites; but the other will suffer in hell the worst of all deaths;’ and these events afterward came to pass.

While they were thus conversing, behold, as they looked on, a fiery arrow, passing in through a window, set alight all the lamps that hung before the altars; and passing out through the same window, left the lamps burning. Then St Brendan inquired who would extinguish those lamps in the morning, and the abbot replied: ‘Come, and see the secret of all this: you observe those tapers burning in the vases; yet none of them is consumed, nor do they grow less, nor do any ashes remain in the morning, for the light is entirely spiritual.’ ‘How,’ said St Brendan, ‘can a spiritual flame thus burn in a material substance?’ ‘Have you not read,’ said the abbot, ‘of the burning bush, near Mount Sinai, which remained unconsumed by the burning?’ ‘Yes,’ said the saint, ‘I have read of this; but what analogy has it to this case?’

When they had thus remained on watch until morning, St Brendan asked permission to depart from the island, but the abbot replied: ‘No, O man of God, you must celebrate with us the festival of our Lord’s Nativity, and afford us the joy of your company until the Octave of Epiphany.’ The holy father, therefore, with his brethren, remained until that time on this Island of St Ailbe.

St Brendan part XIII

When those festival days had passed, St Brendan, with the blessing of the abbot and all his monks, and with a supply of the necessary provisions, set sail into the ocean; and there the vessel, without the use of oar or sail, drifted about in various directions, until the beginning of Lent. One day they saw an island not far off, and’ quickly made sail towards it; for they were harassed with hunger and thirst, their store of food and water having, been exhausted three days before. When St Brendan’ had blessed the landing-place, and all had landed, they found a spring of limpid water, and herbs and vegetables of divers kinds around it, and many sorts of fish in the stream that flowed from it to the sea. Then St Brendan said: ‘Brothers, God has surely given us comfort, after our wearisome labours. Take of those fishes sufficient for your repast, and dress them on the fire, and gather also those herbs and roots which God has provided. for His servants.’ When this was done, they poured out some of the water to drink; but the man of J God cautioned them: ‘Take heed, my brethren that you use this water in moderation. But the brethren paid not equal heed to this caution, for while some drank only one cup of the water, others drank two cups, and others again drank three of them; so that upon some of them there fell a sudden stupor, which lasted for the space of three days and nights; when upon others it befell only for one day and night; but St Brendan prayed without ceasing to God for them, as they incurred this great danger through ignorance. When three days had passed, the father said to his. companions: ‘Let us, my children, hasten away from this fatal place, lest greater evil befall you; the Lord had given you refreshment, but you have turned it to your detriment. Go forth, therefore, from this island, taking with you as much fish as yon may want for a meal on every third day, until the festival of the Lord’s Supper; and also one cup of this water for each man, with a like supply of the vegetables.’ Having laden the boat with those provisions, as the man of God directed, they set sail into the ocean in a northerly course.

St Brendan part XIV

After three days and nights the wind ceased, and the sea became like a thick curdled mass, so great was the calm. ‘hen the holy father said: ‘Take in-your oars, and cast loose the sails, for the Lord will guide our boat whithersoever He willeth.’ In this manner was the boat kept in motion for the space of about twenty days, until at length God sent a favourable wind; when they put on sail, and worked their oars also in an easterly direction, taking refreshment every third day.

St Brendan part XV

On a certain day, there came into view an island, like a cloud, at a distance, when St Brendan asked the brethren whether they recognised it. On their replying that they did not, the holy father said to them: ‘I know it well, my children, for we were on it last year, on the festival of the Lord’s Supper, and therein our good procurator abides,’ Hearing this the brethren, in great joy, plied their oars vigorously, putting forth all their strength; but the man of God said to them: ‘Senseless you are thus to tire out your limbs. Is not the Almighty God the pilot of our vessel? Leave her therefore, in His hands, for He will guide her course,’ as He willeth.

When they drew near to the island, their procurator came out to meet them; and, giving glory to God, led them to the same landing-place where they had landed the year before, where he embraced the feet of St Brendan and all the brethren, saying: Wonderful is God in His saints. Having finished the versicle, and everything being removed from the boat, be set up a tent, and prepared a bath for them, for it was the festival of the Lord’s Supper; and he provided new garments for all the brethren, as well as for St Brendan, performing all other services to them as was his wont. The brethren then celebrated with great diligence the festival of the Passion of our Lord, until Holy Saturday, when all the offices and ceremonies of the day being ended, and the festival of the Lord’s Supper being fully completed, the procurator said to them: ‘Go now to your boat, in order that you may celebrate the vigil of Easter, where you celebrated it last year, and also the day itself, until the hour of sext; then sail on to the Paradise of Birds, where you were last year, from Easter until the Octave of Pentecost. Take with you what you require of food and drink, and I will, visit, you on next Sunday week.’ And the brethren acted accordingly. St Brendan, giving his blessing to this good brother, embarked with all his brethren, and made sail to another island. When they drew near to the landing-place they found the caldron, which in their flight the year before they had left on the back of Iasconius. Then St Brendan, going on land, sung the ‘Hymn of the Three Children’ to the close, and cautioned the brethren: ‘Watch and pray, my children, that you enter not into temptation; consider well, how the Almighty God has placed under us, without difficulty, this greatest monster of the deep.’ The brethren made their vigils here and there over the island, until the morning watch, when all the priests said their masses until the hour of tierce; but St Brendan, getting into the boat, with the brethren, there offered to God the holy sacrifice of the Immaculate Lamb, saying: ‘Last year we celebrated here our Lord’s resurrection; and I desire, if it be God’s holy will, to celebrate it here also this year.’ Proceeding thence they came to the island called the Paradise of Birds; and when they reached the landing-place, all the birds sang in concert: ‘Salvation to our God, who sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb;’ and, again: ‘The Lord is God, and He hath shone upon us; appoint a solemn day, with shady boughs, even to the horn of the altar,’ Thus, with voice and wing they warbled, until St Brendan and his companions were settled in their tent’ where they passed the Paschal time, until the Octave of Pentecost. The procurator already mentioned came to them, as he had promised, on Low Sunday, bringing what was needed for their sustenance; and in mutual joy all gave thanks to God. When they were seated at their repast, behold! the bird before spoken of perched on the prow of the boat, spreading out and clapping its wings with a loud sound, like a great organ, and St Brendan knew that it wished to convey to him this message, which it spoke as follows: ‘The Almighty and merciful God has appointed for you four certain places, at four different seasons of the year, until the seven years of your pilgrimage will be ended; on the festival of our Lord’s Supper you will be each year with your procurator, who is here present: the vigil and festival of Easter you will celebrate on the back of the great whale with us here you will spend the Paschal time, until the Octave of Pentecost, and on the island of St Ailbe you will remain from Christmas until the festival of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. After those seven years, through many and divers perils, you will find the Land of Promise of the Saints which you are seeking, and there you will bide for forty days; then will God guide your return to the land of your birth.’ When St Brendan had heard this, he, with many tears, cast himself prostrate, as did also the brethren, giving thanks and praises to the great Creator of all things. The bird then flew back to its place on the tree, and when the meal was ended, the procurator said: ‘I will, with God’s help, come to you again on Pentecost Sunday with provisions,’ And with a blessing from all, he took his departure.

The venerable father remained here for the appointed time, and then ordered the brethren to make ready the boat, and to till all the water vessels from the fountain. When the boat was launched, the procurator met them in his boat laden with provisions, which he quickly transferred into the boat of the man of God; and, with a parting embrace, returned whence he had come.

St Brendan part XVI

The saint sailed forth into the ocean, and the boat was borne along for the space of forty days. One day a fish of enormous size appeared swimming after the boat, spouting foam from its nostrils, and ploughing through the waves in rapid pursuit to devour them. Then the brethren cried out to the Lord: ‘O Lord, who hast made us, deliver us, Thy servants;’ and to St Brendan they cried aloud: ‘Help, O father, help us;’ and the saint besought the Lord to deliver His servants, that this monster might not devour them, while he also sought to give courage to the brethren in these words: ‘Fear not, you of little faith, for God, who is always our protector, will deliver us from the jaws of this monster, and from every other danger.’ When the monster was drawing near, waves of immense size rushed on before it, even up to the gunwale of the boat, which caused the brethren to fear more and more; but St Brendan, with hands upraised to heaven, earnestly prayed: ‘Deliver, O Lord, Thy servants, as Thou didst deliver David from the hands of the giant Goliath, and Jonas from the power of the great whale.’ When these prayers were uttered, a great monster came into view from the west, and rushing against the other, spouting flame from its mouth, at once attacked it. Then St Brendan spoke: ‘Behold, my children, the wonderful work of our Saviour; see here the obedience of the creature to its Creator: await now the end in safety, for this conflict will bring no evil to us, but only greater glory to God.’ Thereupon the rueful monster that pursued the servants of God is slain, and cut up in their presence into three parts, and its victor returned whence it came. Next day they saw at a distance an island full of herbage and of wide extent. When they drew near it, and were about to land, they found the hinder portion of the monster that was slain. Behold,’ said St Brendan, ‘what sought to devour you. Now make your food of it, and fill yourselves abundantly with its flesh, for you will have a long delay upon this island. Draw the boat higher up on the land, and seek out a suitable place whereon to fix our tent.’ When the father had selected a site for their tent, and the brethren had, in compliance with his directions, placed therein the requisite fittings, he said to them: ‘Take now, of this monster’s flesh, sufficient provision for three months, as this night will its carcass be devoured by the great fishes of the sea.’ The brethren acted accordingly, and took as much of its flesh as was needed; but they said to St Brendan: ‘Holy father, how can we live here without water to drink?’ ‘Is it more difficult,’ said the saint, ‘for the Almighty to give us water than to give us food? Go to the southern side of the island, and there you will find a spring of clear water and abundance of herbs and roots, of which you will take a supply sufficient for your wants.’ And they found everything as the man of God bad told them. St Brendan remained on this island for three months, for violent storms prevailed at sea, and severe stress of weather, from hail and rain. The brethren went to see what had become of the remains of the great monster, of which the saint had spoken; and they found, where its carcass had lain, only its bones, as the father had told them; and when they mentioned this to him: ‘If you needed to test the truth of my words,’ said he, ‘I will give you another sign; this night will a large part of a fish, breaking loose from a fisher’s net, be cast ashore here, and to-morrow you will have your repast on it.’ Next day they went to the place indicated, and finding there what the man of God had foretold, brought away as much fish as they could carry. The. venerable father then said to them: ‘Keep this carefully, and salt it, for it will be much needed, as the Lord will grant calm weather to-day and to-morrow; and on the third day, when the turbulence of the sea and the waves will have subsided, we will take our departure from this island.’

When those days had elapsed, St Brendan ordered them to load their boat with the skins and water-vessels filled from the fountain, and with a supply of herbs and roots also, as much as may be needful; for the saint, since he was ordained a priest, ate of nothing in which had held the breath of life. Having thus laden the boat, they set sail in a northerly direction.

St Brendan part XVII

One day they saw an island afar off, when St Brendan said to his brethren: ‘On that island, now in view, there are three classes of people: boys, young men, and elders; and one of our brothers will have his pilgrimage there,’ The brethren asked him which of them it was; but he was loath to tell; when, however, they pressed the question, and seemed grieved at not being told, he said: ‘This is the brother who is to remain on this island,’ He was one of the monks who had come after the saint from his own monastery, about whom he had made a prediction when they embarked in their own country. They then drew near to the island, until the boat touched the shore.

The island was remarkably flat, almost level with the sea, without a tree or anything that waved in the wind; but it was of wide extent, and covered over with white and purple flowers. Here, as the man of God had told, were three troops of monks, standing apart, about a stone’s cast from each other, and keeping at this distance asunder when they moved in any direction. One choir, in its place, chanted: The saints shall advance from virtue to virtue; God shall be manifest in Sion; and then another choir took up the same chant; and thus they chanted unceasingly. The first choir was of boys, robed in snow-white garments; the second was of young men, dressed in violet; and the third of the elder men, in purple dalmatics.

When the boat reached the landing-place it was the fourth hour; and at the hour of sext, all the choirs of monks sung together the Psalm: May God have mercy on us, and bless us, to the end; and Incline unto my aid, O Lord; and also the psalm, I have believed, therefore have I spoken, with the proper prayer. In like manner, at the hour of none, they chanted three other psalms: Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord; Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity; and Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Sion. Again, at Vespers, they sang the psalms: A hymn, O Lord, becometh Thee in Sion; Bless the Lord, O my soul; and Praise the Lord, ye children; praise ye the name of the Lord; then they chanted, when seated, the fifteen gradual psalms.

After they had finished this chanting, a cloud of marvellous brightness overshadowed the Island, so that they could not see what was visible before; but they heard the voices, without ceasing, in the same chant until the morning-watch, when they sung the psalms: Praise the Lord from the heavens; Sing unto the Lord; and Praise the Lord in his saints; and then twelve psalms, in the order of the psaltery, as far as the psalm: ‘The fool saith in his heart’. At the dawn of day, this cloud passed away from the island, and then the choirs chanted the three psalms: Have mercy on me, O Lord; The Lord is my refuge; and, O God, my God. Again, at the hour of tierce, they sang three other psalms: ‘Oh, clap your hands, all ye nations’; Save me, O God, by Thy name; and, I have loved, because the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer, with the Alleluia. Then they offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Immaculate Lamb, and all received the Holy Communion with the words: ‘This Sacred Body of the Lord and the Blood of our Saviour receive unto life everlasting.’

When the Holy Sacrifice was ended, two members of the choir of the young men brought a basket full of purple grapes, and placed it in the boat of the man of God, saying: ‘Partake of the fruit of the isle of the Strong Men, and deliver to us our chosen brother; then depart in peace.’ St Brendan then called this brother to him, and said: ‘Give the kiss of peace to your brethren, and go with those who are inviting you. I say to you that in a happy hour did your mother conceive you, because you have deserved to abide with so holy a community.’ St Brendan then, with many tears, gave him the kiss of peace, as did also the brethren, and said to him: ‘Remember, my dear son, the special favours to which God has preferred thee in this life; go thy way, and pray for us,’ Bidding them all farewell, the brother quickly followed the two young men to the companies of the saints, who, on seeing him, sang the verse: ‘Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity;’ and in a higher key intoned the Te Deum laudamus (‘We praise Thee, O God’); and then, when all had. embraced him, he was admitted into their society.

St Brendan set sail from the island, and when mealtime had come, he told the brethren to refresh themselves with the grapes they got on the island, Taking up one of them, and seeing its great size, and how full of juice it was, he said, in wonder: ‘Never have I seen or read of grapes so large.’ They were all of equal size, like a large hall, and when the juice of one was pressed into a vessel, it yielded a pound weight. This juice the father divided into twelve parts, giving a part every day to each of the brethren, and thus for twelve days, one grape sufficed for the refreshment of ‘each brother, in whose mouth it always tasted like honey.

St Brendan part XVIII

When those days had passed, St Brendan ordered a fast for three days, after which a resplendent bird flew towards the boat, bearing in its beak a branch of an unknown tree, on which there was a cluster of very red grapes; and dropping it near the man of God, flew away, Then he said to the brethren: ‘Enjoy this feast the Lord hath sent us;’ and the grapes being as large as apples, he gave some to each of them; and thus they had food enough for four days, after which they resumed their previous fasting.

Three days after, they saw near at hand an island covered all over with trees, closely set, and laden with such grapes as those, in surprising abundance, so that all the branches were weighed down to the ground, with fruit of the same quality and colour, and there was no tree fruitless or of a different kind in the whole island. The brethren then drew up to the landing-place; and St Brendan, leaving the boat, walked about the island, where the fragrance was like that of a house stored with pomegranates; the brethren the while remaining in the boat awaited his return, and the wind laden with those odours blew towards them, and so regaled them with its fragrance, that they heeded not their long fast. The venerable father found on the island six fountains, watering the greenest herbage and vegetables of divers kinds. He then returned to the brethren, bringing with him some samples, as first-traits of the island: and he said to them: ‘Leave the boat now, and fix up your tent here; be of good cheer, and enjoy the excellent fruits of this land which God has shown to us.’ And thus, for forty days they fasted on the grapes, and herbs, and vegetables watered by those fountains.

After that period, they embarked again, taking with them some of the fruits of the island, and sailed along as the winds shaped their course.

St Brendan part XIX

Suddenly there appeared flying towards them the bird called Gryphon. When the brethren saw it, they cried out to the holy father: ‘Help us, O father, for this monster comes to devour us.’ But the man of God told them to fear it not, for God was their helper. And then another great bird came into view, and in rapid flight flew against the Gryphon, engaging it in a combat, that seemed for some time of doubtful event; but at length, tearing out its eyes, it vanquished and slew it; and the carcass fell into the sea, in the sight of all the brethren, who thereupon gave thanks and praises to God; while the bird which gained the victory flew away, whence it had come.

St Brendan part XX

They went to the island of St Ailbe, to celebrate the Christmas festival, and afterwards taking leave of the abbot, with mutual blessings, they sailed about the ocean for a long time, taking- rest only at Easter and Christmas on the islands before mentioned.

St Brendan part XXI

On a certain occasion, when St Brendan was celebrating the festival of St Peter, in the boat, they found the sea so clear that they could plainly see what was at the bottom. They, therefore, saw beneath them various monsters of the deep, and so clear was the water, that it seemed as if they could touch with their hands its greatest depths; and the fishes were visible in great shoals, like flocks of sheep in the pastures, swimming around, heads to tails. The brethren entreated the man of God to say Mass in a low voice, lest those monsters of the deep, hearing the strange voice, may be stirred up to attack them; but the saint said: ‘I wonder much at your folly. Why do you dread those monsters? Is not the largest of them all already devoured? While seated, and often chanting upon its back, have you not chopped wood, and kindled it there, and even cooked some of its flesh? Why, thereore, should you fear those? For our God is the Lord Jesus; Christ, who can bring to nought all living things.’ Having thus spoken, he proceeded to sing the Mass in a louder voice, as the brethren were still gazing at the large fishes; and these, when they heard the voice of the man of God, rose up from the depths, and swam around the boat in such numbers, that the brethren could see nothing but the swimming fishes, which, however, came not close to the boat, but swam around at some distance, until the Mass was ended, when they swam away from them in divers directions, out of the view or the brethren. For eight days, even with a favourable wind, and all sails set, they were scarcely able to pass out of this pellucid sea.

St Brendan part XXII

One day, on which three Masses had been said, they saw a column in the sea, which seemed not far off, yet they could not reach it for three days. When they drew near it St Brendan looked towards its summit, but could not see it, because of its great height which seemed to pierce the skies. It was covered over with rare canopy, the material of which they knew not; but it had the colour of silver and was hard as marble, while the column itself was of the clearest crystal

St Brendan ordered the brethren to take in their oars, and to lower the sails and mast, and directed some of them to hold onto the fringes of the canopy which extended about a mile from the column, and about the same depth into the sea. When this had been done. St Brendan said: ‘Run in the boat now through an opening, that we may get a closer view of the wonderful works of God’. And when they had passed through the opening, and looked around them, the sea seemed to transparent like glass, so that they could plainly see everything beneath them, even the base of the column, and the skirts of the canopy lying on the ground, for the sun shone as brightly within as without.

St Brendan measured an opening between four pavilions, which he found to be four cubits on every side. When they had sailed along for all day by one side of the column, they could always feel the shade as well as the heat of the sun, beyond the ninth hour; and after thus sailing about the column for four days, they found the measurement of each side to be four hundred (?) cubits. On the fourth day, they discovered on the south side, a chalice of the same material as the canopy and a patella like that of the column, which St Brendan at once took up, saying: The Lord Jesus Christ has displayed to us this great marvel, and has given to us two gifts therefrom, in testimony of the fact to others the holy father then directed the brethren to perform the divine office, and afterwards to take refreshment.; for they had taken none since they came in sight of the column. Next day they rowed towards the north, and having passed out through an opening, they set up the mast, and unfurled the sails again, while some of them held on by the fringes, or skirts of the canopy, until all was right in the boat. When they had set sail, a favourable wind came on in the rear, so that they had on occasion to use the oars, out only to hold the ropes and the tiller. And thus for eight days were they borne along towards the north,

St Brendan part XXIII

When those days had passed, they came within view of an island, which was very rugged and rocky, covered over with slag, without trees or herbage, but full of smiths’ forges. St Brendan said to the brethren: ‘I am much distressed about this island; I have no wish to enter it or even to approach it – yet the wind is driving us directly towards it, as if it were the aim of our course.’

When they had passed on further, about a stone’s cast, they heard the noise of bellows’ blowing like thunder, and the beating of sledges on the anvils and iron. Then St Brendan armed himself all over his body with the sign of the Cross, saying: ‘O Lord Jesus Christ, deliver us from this malign island.’ Soon after one of the inhabitants came forth to do some work; he was all hairy and hideous, begrimed with fire and smoke. When he saw the servants of Christ near the island, he withdrew into his forge, crying aloud: ‘Woe! Woe! Woe!’

St Brendan again armed himself with the sign of the Cross, and said to the brethren: ‘Put on more sail, and ply your oars more briskly, that we may get away-from this island.’ Hearing this, the savage man, above mentioned, rushed clown to the shore, bearing in his hand tongs with a burning mass of the slag, of great size and intense heat, which he flung at once after the servants of Christ; but it did them no hurt, for they were protected by the sign of the Cross. It passed them at a furlong’s distance, and where it fell into the sea, it fumed up like a heap of burning coals, and a great smoke arose as if from a fiery furnace. When they had passed on about a mile beyond the spot where this burning mass had fallen, all the dwellers on the island crowded down to the shore, bearing, each of them, a large mass of burning slag, which they flung, everyone in turn, after the servants of God; and then they returned to their forges, which they blew up into mighty flames, so that the whole island seemed one globe of fire, and the sea on every side boiled up and foamed, like a caldron set on a fire well supplied with fuel. All day the brethren, even when they were no longer within view of the island, heard a loud wailing from the inhabitants thereof, and a noisome stench was perceptible at a great distance. Then St Brendan sought to animate the courage of the brethren, saying: ‘Soldiers of Christ, be strong in faith unfeigned and in the armour of the Spirit, for we are now on the confines of hell; watch, therefore, and act manfully.’

St Brendan part XXIV

On another day, there came into view a large and high mountain in the ocean, not far off, towards the north, with misty clouds about it, and a great smoke issuing from its summit, when suddenly the wind drove the boat rapidly towards the island until it almost touched the shore. The cliffs were so high they could scarce see the top, were black as coal, and upright like a wall. Here the monk, who remained of the three who followed St Brendan from his monastery, leaped from the boat, and made his way to the foot of the cliff, wailing and crying aloud: ‘Woe is me! father, for I am forcibly torn away from you, and cannot return.’ But the brethren, seized with a great fear, quickly drew off from the shore; and, lamenting loudly, cried unto the Lord: ‘Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us!’ St Brendan plainly saw how the wretched man was carried off by a multitude of demons, and was already burning amongst them, and he exclaimed: ‘Woe is yours, unhappy man, who has made you so evil an end of your life.’

Afterwards a favourable breeze caught the boat, and drove them southwards; and as they looked back, they saw the peak of the mountain unclouded, and shooting up flames into the sky, which it drew back again to itself, so that the mountain seemed a burning pyre.

St Brendan part XXV

After this dreadful sight, they sailed for seven days towards the south, and then St. Brendan observed a very dense cloud, on approaching which there came into view what had the shape of a man, sitting on a rock, with a veil before him as large as a sack, hanging between two iron prongs; and he was tossed about like a small boat in a storm. When the brethren saw this, some thought it was a bird, others, that it was a boat; but the man of God told them to cease the discussion, and to steer directly for the place, where, on his arrival, he finds the waves all around motionless, as if frozen over. They found a man sitting on a rugged and shapeless rock, with the waves on every side, which in their flowing beat upon him, even to the top of his head, and in their ebbing exposed the bare rock on which the wretched man was sitting; and the cloth which hung before him, as the winds tossed it about, struck him on the eyes and on the forehead.

When the saint asked him who he was, for what crime he was sent there, and how he had deserved to suffer so great a punishment, he answered: ‘I am that most unhappy Judas, the most wicked of all traffickers; not for any deserving of mine, but through the unspeakable mercy of Jesus Christ; am I placed here. I expect no place for repentance; but through the forbearance and mercy of the redeemer of the world, and in honour of His Resurrection, I have this cooling relief, as it is now the Lord’s Day; while I sit here, I seem to myself to be in a paradise of delights, considering the agony of the torments that are in store for me afterwards; for when I am in my torments, I burn like a mass of molten lead, day and night, in the heart of that mountain you have seen. There Leviathan and his satellites dwell, and there was I when it swallowed down your lost brother, for which all hell exulted, and belched forth great flames, as it always does, when it devours the souls of the reprobate, But that you may know the boundless mercy of God, I will tell you of the refreshing coolness I have here every Sunday from the first vespers to the second; from Christmas Day to the Epiphany; from Easter to Pentecost; on the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and on the festival of her Assumption, On all other days I am in torments with Herod and Pilate, with Annas and Caiphas; and, therefore, I adjure you, through the Redeemer of the world, to intercede for me With the Lord Jesus, that I may remain here until sunrise tomorrow, and that the demons, because of your coming here, may not torment me, nor sooner drag me off to my heritage of pain, which I purchased at an evil price.’

The saint then said: ‘The will of the Lord be done; you will not be taken away by the demons until to-morrow.’ And he asked him what meant that cloth ‘in front of him. Judas replied: ‘This cloth I once gave to a leper, when I was the purse-bearer of the Lord; but as it was not my own, I find no relief from it, but rather hurt; those iron prongs on which it hangs, I once gave to the priests for supporting their caldrons; and the stone on which I am sitting, I placed in a trench on a public road before I became a disciple of the Lord’s’.

When evening came, a multitude of demons gathered around in a circle, shouting: ‘Depart from us, O man of God, for we cannot come near our comrade unless you retire from him, and we dare not see the face of our prince until we bring back to him his pet victim; give us therefore, our prey, and keep it not from us this night.’ The saint then said: ‘I protect him not, but the Lord Jesus Christ has permitted him to remain here this night.’ The demons cried out: ‘How could you invoke the name of the Lord on behalf of him who had betrayed Him?’ The man of God then commanded them in the name of Jesus Christ to do him no hurt until morning.

When the night had passed, at early dawn, when St Brendan was proceeding on his way a countless multitude of demons covered the face of the deep, uttering dreadful cries: ‘O man of God, accursed be thy coming and thy going, for our chief has this night scourged us with cruel stripes, because we had not brought back his wretched captive.’ ‘Not on us,’ said the saint, ‘but on yourselves shall those curses be; for blessed is he whom you curse, and accursed is he whom you bless.’ The demons shouted: ‘He wiIl suffer double punishment for the next six days, because you saved him from his punishment last night.’ But the man of God warned them: ‘You have no power, neither has your chief, only whatever power God may give you; and I command you in the name of the Lord, that yon increase not his torments beyond those you were wont to inflict before.’ ‘Are you,’ said they, ‘the Lord of all, that we should thus obey your command?’ ‘No,’ rejoined the saint, ‘but I am the servant of the Lord of all; and whatsoever I command in His name, it is done, and I am His minister only in what He grants to me.’ In this manner they pursued him with their blasphemies until he was far away from Judas; and they bore off this wretched soul with great rushing and howling.

St Brendan part XXVI

St Brendan afterwards made sail for some time towards the south, in all things giving the glory to God. On the third day, a small island appeared at a distance, towards which as the brethren plied their oars briskly, the saint said to them: ‘Do not, brothers, thus exhaust your strength. Seven years will have passed at next Easter, since we left our country, and now on this island you will see a ‘holy hermit, called Paul the Spiritual, who bas dwelt there for sixty years without corporal food, and who for twenty years previously received his food from a certain animal.’

When they drew near the shore, they could find no place to land, so steep was the coast; the island’ was small and circular, about a furlong in circumference, and on its summit, there was no soil, the rock being quite bare. When they sailed around it, they found a small creek, which scarcely admitted the prow of their boat, and from which the ascent was very difficult. St Brendan told the brethren to wait there until he returned to them, for they should not enter the island without the leave of the man of God who dwells there. ‘‘When the saint hail ascended to the highest part of the island, he saw, on its eastern side, two caves opening opposite each other, and a small cup-like spring of water gurgling up from the rock, at the mouth of the cave in which the soldier of Christ dwelt. As St Brendan approached the opening of one of the caves, the venerable hermit came forth from the other to meet him, greeting him with the words: ‘Behold how good and how pleasant for brethren to dwell together in unity.’’ And then he directed St Brendan to summon all the brethren from the boat. When they came he gave each of them the kiss of peace, calling him by his proper name, at which they all marvelled much, because of the prophetic spirit thus shown. They also wondered at his dress, for he was covered all over from head to foot with the hair of his body, which was white as snow from old age, and no other garment had he save this.

St Brendan, observing this, was moved to grief, and heaving many sighs, said within himself: ‘Woe is me, a poor sinner, who wear a monk’s habit, and who rule over many monks, when I here see a man of angelic condition, dwelling still in the flesh, yet unmolested by the vices of the flesh.’ On this, the man of God said: ‘Venerable father, what great and wonderful things has God shown to thee, which He has not revealed to our saintly predecessors! And yet, you say in your heart that you are not worthy to wear the habit of a monk; I say to you, that you are greater than any monk, for the monk is fed and clothed by the labour of his own hands, while God has fed and clothed you and all your brethren for seven years in His own mysterious ways; and I, wretch that I am, sit here upon this rock, without any covering, save the hair of my body.’ Then St Brendan asked him about his coming to this island, whence he came, and how long be had led this manner of life. The man of God replied: ‘For forty years I lived in the monastery of St Patrick, and had the care of the cemetery. One day when the prior had pointed out to me the place for the burial of a deceased brothel’, there appeared before me an old man, whom I knew not, who said: ‘Do not, brother, make the grave there, for that is the burial-place of another.’ I said’ ‘Who are you, father?’ ‘Do you not know me?’ said he. ‘Am I not your abbot?’ ‘St Patrick is my abbot,’ I said. I am he,’ he said; and yesterday I departed this life and this is my burial-place.’ He then pointed out to me another place, saying: ‘Here you will inter our deceased brother; but tell no one what I have said to you. Go down on to-morrow to the shore, and there you will find a boat that will bear you to that place where you shall await the day of your death.’ Next morning, in obedience to the directions of the abbot, I went to the place appointed, and found what he had promised. I entered the boat, and rowed along for three days and nights, and then I allowed the boat to drift whither the wind drove it. On the seventh day, this rock appeared, upon which I at once landed, and I pushed off the boat with my foot, that it may return whence it had come, when it cut through the waves in a rapid course to the land it bad left.

‘On the day of my arrival here, about the hour of none, a certain animal, walking on its hind legs, brought to me in its fore paws a fish for my dinner, and a bundle of dry brushwood to make a fire, and having set these before me, went away as it came. I struck fire with a flint and steel, and cooked the fish for my meal; and thus, for thirty years, the same provider brought every third day the same quantity of food, one fish at a time, so that I felt no want of food or of drink either; for, thanks to God, every Sunday there flowed from the rock water enough to slake my thirst and to wash myself.

‘After those thirty years I discovered these two caves and this spring-well, on the waters of which I have lived for sixty years, without any other nourishment whatsoever. For ninety years, therefore, I have dwelt on. this island, subsisting for thirty years of these on fish, and for sixty years on the water of this spring. I had already lived fifty years in my own country, so that all the years of my life are now one hundred and forty; and for what may remain, I have to await here in the flesh the day of my judgment. Proceed now on your voyage, and carry with you skins full of water from this fountain, for you will want it during the forty days’ journey remaining before Easter Saturday. That festival of Easter, and all the Paschal holidays you will celebrate where you have celebrated them for the past six years, and afterwards, with a blessing from your procurator, you shall proceed to that land you seek, the most holy of all lands; and there you will abide for forty days, after which the Lord your God will guide you safely back to the land of your birth.’

St Brendan part XXVII

St Brendan and his brethren, having received the blessing of the man of God, and having given mutually, the kiss of peace in Christ, sailed away towards the south during Lent, and the boat drifted about to and fro, their sustenance all the time being the water brought from the island, with which they refreshed themselves every third day, and were glad, as they felt neither hunger nor thirst. On Holy Saturday they reached the island of their former procurator, who came to meet them at the landing-place, and lifted everyone of them out of the boat in his arms. As soon as the divine offices of the day were duly performed, he set before them a repast.

In the evening they again entered their boat with this man, and they soon discovered, in the usual place, the great whale, upon whose back they proceeded to sing the praises of the Lord all the night, and to say their Masses in the morning. When the Masses had concluded, Iasconius moved away, all of them being still on its back; and the brethren cried aloud to the Lord: ‘Hear us, O Lord, the God of our salvation.’. But St Brendan encouraged them: ‘Why are you alarmed? Fear not, for no evil shall befall us, as we have here only a helper on our journey.’

The great whale swam in a direct course towards the shore of the Paradise of Birds, where it landed them all unharmed, and on this island, they sojourned until the Octave of Pentecost, When that solemn season had passed, their procurator, who was still with them, said to St Brendan: ‘Embark now in your boat, and fill all the water-skins from the fountain. I will be the companion and the conductor’ of your journey hence-forth, for without my guidance you could not find the land you seek, the Land of Promise of the Saints.’ Then, while they were embarking, all the birds of the island, as soon as they saw St Brendan, sung together in concert: ‘May a happy voyage under his guidance bring you safely to the island of your procurator.’

St Brendan part XXVIII

They took with them provisions for forty days, as their course lay to the west [nb. Latin says ‘east’] for that space of time; during which the procurator went on before them, guiding their way. At the end of forty days, towards evening, a dense cloud overshadowed them, so dark that they could scarce see one another. Then the procurator said to St Brendan: ‘Do you know, father, what darkness is this?’ And the saint replied that he knew not. ‘This darkness,’ said he, ‘surrounds the island you have sought for seven years; you will soon see that it is the entrance to it;’ and after an hour had elapsed a great light shone around them, and the boat stood by the shore.

When they had disembarked, they saw a land, extensive and thickly set with trees, laden with fruits, as in the autumn season. All the time they were traversing that land, during their stay in it, no night was there, but a light always shone, like the light of the sun in the meridian, and for the forty days they viewed the land in various directions, they could not find the limits thereof. One day, however, they came to a large river flowing towards the middle of the land, which they could not by any means cross over. St Brendan then said to the brethren: ‘We cannot cross over this river, and we must therefore remain ignorant of the size of this country.’ While they were considering this matter, a young man of resplendent features, and very handsome aspect, came to them, and joyfully embracing and addressing each of them by his own name, said: ‘Peace be with you, brothers, and with all who practise the peace of Christ. Blessed are they who dwell in thy house, O Lord; they shall praise Thee for ever and ever.’

He then said to St Brendan: ‘This is the land you have sought after for so long a time; but you could not hitherto find it, because Christ our Lord wished, first to display to you His divers mysteries in this immense ocean. Return now to the land of your birth, bearing with you as much of those fruits and of those precious stones, as your boat can carry; for the days of your earthly pilgrimage must draw to a close, when you may rest in peace among your saintly brethren. After many years this land will be made manifest to those who come after you, when days of tribulation may come upon ‘the people of Christ. The great river you see here divides this land into two parts; and just as it appears now, teeming with ripe fruits, so does it ever remain, without any blight or shadow whatever, for light unfailing shines thereon.’ When St Brendan inquired whether this land ‘would be revealed unto men, the young man replied: ‘When the Highest Creator has brought all nations under subjection, then will this land be made known to all His elect.’ Soon after, St Brendan, having received the blessing of this man, prepared for his return to his own country. He gathered some of the fruits of the land, and various kinds of precious stones; and having taken a last farewell of the good procurator who had each year provided food for him arid his brethren, he embarked once more and sailed back through the darkness again.

When they had passed through this, they reached the ‘Island of Delights,’ where they remained for three days, as guests in the monastery; and then St Brendan, with the abbot’s parting blessing, set sail in a direct course, under God’s guidance, and arrived at his own monastery, where all his monks gave glory to God for the safe return of their holy patron, and learned from him the wonderful works of God, which he had seen or heard during his voyage.

Afterwards he ended in peace the days of his life, on the nones of July, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, whose kingdom and empire endure for ever and ever. Amen!

SBG St Brendan.

SBG Saint Ailbe.

We are informed that, weary with the duties of his office, Ailbe meditated flight to the Isle of Thule. This is Iceland, and it is certain that Irish hermits did occupy the Westmann Islands off the south coast before the arrival of the Norse colonists in 870, as Irish bells and other ecclesiastical relics were discovered there by the new settlers. When, however, Aengus Mac Nadfraich heard of Ailbe’s intention, he gave orders that all the harbours should be watched to prevent the departure of the bishop.

527. Procopius.

Afterwards, although some few of them remained at peace with the Romans, as will be told by me in the following narrative, all the rest revolted for the following reason. The Eruli, displaying their beastly and fanatical character against their own “rex,” one Ochus by name, suddenly killed the man for no good reason at all, laying against him no other charge than that they wished to be without a king thereafter. And yet even before this, while their king did have the title, he had practically no advantage over any private citizen whomsoever. But all claimed the right to sit with him and eat with him, and whoever wished insulted him without restraint; for no men in the world are less bound by convention or more unstable than the Eruli. Now when the evil deed had been accomplished, they were immediately repentant. For they said that they were not able to live without a ruler and without a general; so after much deliberation it seemed to them best in every way to summon one of their royal family from the island of Thule. And the reason for this I shall now explain.

When the Eruli, being defeated by the Lombards in the above-mentioned battle, migrated from their ancestral homes, some of them, as has been told by me above, made their home in the country of Illyricum, but the rest were averse to crossing the Ister River, but settled at the very extremity of the world; at any rate, these men, led by many of the royal blood, traversed all the nations of the Sclaveni one after the other, and after next crossing a large tract of barren country, they came to the Varni, as they are called. After these they passed by the nations of the Dani, without suffering violence at the hands of the barbarians there. Coming thence to the ocean, they took to the sea, and putting in at Thule, remained there on the island.

Now Thule is exceedingly large; for it is more than ten times greater than Britain. And it lies far distant from it toward the north. On this island, the land is for the most part barren, but in the inhabited country thirteen very numerous nations are settled; and there are kings over each nation. In that place, a very wonderful thing takes place each year. For the sun at the time of the summer solstice never sets for forty days, but appears constantly during this whole time above the earth. But not less than six months later, at about the time of the winter solstice, the sun is never seen on this island for forty days, but never-ending night envelops it; and as a result of this dejection holds the people there during this whole time, because they are unable by any means to mingle with one another during this interval. And although I was eager to go to this island and become an eye-witness of the things I have told, no opportunity ever presented itself. However, I made enquiry from those who come to us from the island as to how in the world they are able to reckon the length of the days, since the sun never rises nor sets there at the appointed times. And they gave me an account which is true and trustworthy. For they said that the sun during those forty days does not indeed set just as has been stated, but is visible to the people there at one time toward the east, and again toward the west. Whenever, therefore, on its return, it reaches the same place on the horizon where they had previously been accustomed to see it rise, they reckon in this way that one day and night have passed. When, however, the time of the nights arrives, they always take note of the courses of the moon and stars and thus reckon the measure of the days. And when a time amounting to thirty-five days has passed in this long night, certain men are sent to the summits of the mountains–for this is the custom among them–and when they are able from that point barely to see the sun, they bring back word to the people below that within five days the sun will shine upon them. And the whole population celebrates a festival at the good news, and that too in the darkness. And this is the greatest festival which the natives of Thule have; for, I imagine, these islanders always become terrified, although they see the same thing happen every year, fearing that the sun may at some time fail them entirely.

But among the barbarians who are settled in Thule, one nation only, who are called the Scrithiphini, live a kind of life akin to that of the beasts. For they neither wear garments of cloth nor do they walk with shoes on their feet, nor do they drink wine nor derive anything edible from the earth. For they neither till the land themselves, nor do their women work it for them, but the women regularly join the men in hunting, which is their only pursuit. For the forests, which are exceedingly large, produce for them a great abundance of wild beasts and other animals, as do also the mountains which rise there. And they feed exclusively upon the flesh of the wild beasts slain by them, and clothe themselves in their skins, and since they have neither flax nor any implement with which to sew, they fasten these skins together by the sinews of the animals, and in this way manage to cover the whole body. And indeed not even their infants are nursed in the same way as among the rest of mankind. For the children of the Scrithiphini do not feed upon the milk of women nor do they touch their mother’s breast, but they are nourished upon the marrow of the animals killed in the hunt, and upon this alone. Now as soon as a woman gives birth to a child, she throws it into a skin and straightway hangs it to a tree, and after putting marrow into its mouth she immediately sets out with her husband for the customary hunt. For they do everything in common and likewise engage in this pursuit together. So much for the daily life of these barbarians.

But all the other inhabitants of Thule, practically speaking, do not differ very much from the rest of men, but they reverence in great numbers gods and demons both of the heavens and of the air, of the earth and of the sea, and sundry other demons which are said to be in the waters of springs and rivers. And they incessantly offer up all kinds of sacrifices, and make oblations to the dead, but the noblest of sacrifices, in their eyes, is the first human being whom they have taken captive in war; for they sacrifice him to Ares, whom they regard as the greatest god. And the maner in which they offer up the captive is not by sacrificing him on an altar only, but also by hanging him to a tree, or throwing him among thorns, or killing him by some of the other most cruel forms of death. Thus, then, do the inhabitants of Thule live. And one of their most numerous nations is the Gauti, and it was next to them that the incoming Eruli settled at the time in question.

On the present occasion, therefore, the Eruli who dwelt among the Romans, after the murder of their king had been perpetrated by them, sent some of their notables to the island of Thule to search out and bring back whomsoever they were able to find there of the royal blood. And when these men reached the island, they found many there of the royal blood, but they selected the one man who pleased them most and set out with him on the return journey. But this man fell sick and died when he had come to the country of the Dani. These men therefore went a second time to the island and secured another man, Datius by name. And he was followed by his brother Aordus and two hundred youths of the Eruli in Thule. But since much time passed while they were absent on this journey, it occurred to the Eruli in the neighbourhood of Singidunum that they were not consulting their own interests in importing a leader from Thule against the wishes of the Emperor Justinian. They therefore sent envoys to Byzantium, begging the emperor to send them a ruler of his own choice. And he straightway sent them one of the Eruli who had long been sojourning in Byzantium, Suartuas by name. At first the Eruli welcomed him and did obeisance to him and rendered the customary obedience to his commands; but not many days later a messenger arrived with the tidings that the men from the island of Thule were near at hand. And Suartuas commanded them to go out to meet those men, his intention being to destroy them, and the Eruli, approving his purpose, immediately went with him. But when the two forces were one day’s journey distant from each other, the king’s men all abandoned him at night and went over of their own accord to the newcomers, while he himself took to flight and set out unattended for Byzantium. Thereupon the emperor earnestly undertook with all his power to restore him to his office, and the Eruli, fearing the power of the Romans, decided to submit themselves to the Gepaedes. This, then, was the cause of the revolt of the Eruli

St. Columban.

Boat Song (c 600AD)

Cut in the forests, swept down the two-horned Rhine,
Our keel, tight-caulked, now floats upon the sea.
Heia, men! Let the echoes resound with our heia!
The wild gusts swell, the slashing torrents fall,
But manly strength has force to tame the storm.
Heia, men! Let the echoes resound with our heia!
To earnest effort, clouds and tempest yield;
Zeal and unceasing labor conquer all.
Heia, men! Let the echoes resound with our heia!
Endure and save yourselves for better things;
0 you who have suffered worse, this too shall end.
Heia, men! Let the echoes resound with our heia!
So when the loathsome foe assaults our hearts,
Tempting and shaking the depths of our hearts with passion,
Let your souls, men, remembering Christ, cry heia!
In resolution fixed, scorn Satan’s wiles.
By virtues armed, defend yourselves with valor.
Let your souls, men, remembering Christ, cry heia!
Firm faith and holy ardor conquer all.
The ancient fiend, defeated, breaks his arrows.
Let your souls, men, remembering Christ, cry heia!
The Source of Good and Being, the Highest Power,
Offers the warrior and gives the victor prizes.
Let your souls, men, remembering Christ, cry heia!

Íslendingabók, Libellus Islandorum by Ari Þorgilsson.

Here begins the little book of Icelanders. On the settlement of Iceland.

Iceland was first settled from Norway in the days of Haraldr inn hárfagri [the handsome-hair], son of Hálfdan inn svarti [=the black], at that time—according to the reckoning and telling of Teitr, my foster- father, the person whom I consider wisest, son of Bishop Ísleifr; and of Þorkell, my uncle, son of Gellir, who remembered far back; and Þuríðr daughter of Snorri the Chieftain, who was both very wise and not unreliable—when Ívarr son of Ragnarr loðbrókar [hairy-trousers] had Saint Eadmund, king of the English, killed. And that was eight hundred and seventy winters after the birth of Christ, as is written in his [Eadmund’s] saga.

There was a Norwegian called Ingólfr, of whom it is said truthfully that he was the first to travel from there to Iceland—when Haraldr inn hárfagri was sixteen years old, and on another occasion a few years later. He lived to the south in Reykjavík. Where Ingólfr first made landfall, to the east of Minþakseyri, is called Ingólfshöfði, but where he established his own property, to the west of Ölfossá, is called Ingólfsfell.

At that time, Iceland had woods growing between the mountains and the shore. Christians were here then, whom Scandinavians [Norðmenn] call Papar, but then they left, because they did not want to be here alongside heathen people. They left Irish books, bells and croziers, from which one can tell that they were Irishmen.

Íslendingabók,

—–In the book of the Course of Ages [De sex hujus saeculi aetatibus, part of the book De ratione temporum] which priest Beda the holy made, there is spoken of an Island which is called Thile in books [in Latin], and it is said that it lies six days’ [24 hours’-day] sailing north of Bretland [Brittannia]. There, he said, there came not any day in the winter when the night is longest and no night in summer when the day is longest. The reason why wise men hold that Iceland is Thile, is because over much of the country the sun shines through the night when the day is longest or in the longest day, and the sun is not seen in the longest night. Now priest Beda died 735 years after the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, as it is written, more than 100 years before Iceland was settled by Northmen. But before Iceland was settled by Northmen there were there those people whom the Northmen call Papas. They were Christian men, and people think that they must have been from the West of the Sea [the British Isles] because there were found after them Irish books and bells and crooks, and yet more things, by which it might be perceived that they were West-men. These things were found in East Papey and in Papyli. And it is also spoken of in English books that at that time men went between the lands [British group and Iceland].

Íslendingabók,

A river ran by the very hall of As-wolf. It was about the beginning of the winter; the river was then full of fish. Thor-gar said that they were fishing in his fishery. Then As-wolf went away and made another hall to the west by another river, which was called the Irishman’s River, for they were Irish. But when men came to the river it was full of fish, so that men thought such a wonder had never been seen, but all those that were in the eastern river were gone.

Íslendingabók,

GALMAN [Irish] was the name of a man that took in settlement Galman’s-strand, between Thor-wald’s-dale-river and Reistar-river.

Íslendingabók,

That summer in which Ing-wolf and Heor-leif went to settle in Iceland, king Harold Fairhair had been twelve years king in Norway. There was then past from the beginning of this Age and from the time when Adam was created 6073 winters [reckoning AC. to be 5199 AM.], and from the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 874 winters.

They kept company till they saw Iceland ; then they were parted, But as soon as Ing- wolf saw land, he pitched his porch -pillars over- board to get an omen, saying as he did so, that he would settle where the pillars should come ashore. Ing-wolf turned to shore at the place which is now called Ing-wolf’s Head. But Heor-leif was driven westward off the land, and he and his men grew short of water. Then the Irish thralls took to the plan of kneading meal and butter together, and they declared that this was a thirst-slake. They called it minn-thac. But when this was made ready there came a great rain, and then they caught water on the awnings. And when the minn-thac began to grow mouldy they heaved it overboard, and it drifted ashore at the place that is now called Minn-thac’s eyre.

Heor-leif turned to the shore off Heor-leif ‘s Head, and there was a frith there, and the bottom of the frith turned towards the headland. Heor-leif built two halls, and the toft [enclosure] of the one is 18 / fathoms and the other 19 fathoms [long]. Heor-leif sat there through the winter.

But in the spring he wished to sow. He had one ox only, and he made his thralls drag the plough. But when Heor-leif and his men were in the hall, Duf-thac made a plan that the thralls should slay the ox, and say that a bear of the wood had slain it, and then that they should fall upon Heor-leif and his men as they were seeking the bear. And they did so, and told their tale to Heor-leif. And as they went forth to seek the bear, and were scattered through the shaw, the thralls slew every one his man, and murdered them every one. Then they ran away with the women and the stock and the boat. The thralls went out to the islands which they could see in the sea to the south-west, and there they dwelt for some little while.

Weevil and Carle were the names of Ing-wolf’s thralls: he sent them west along the sea to seek his porch-pillars, but when they came to UHeor-leif’s head, they found Heor-leif there dead. Then they went back and told Ing-wolf these tidings, and he was very angry. And afterwards Ing- wolf went west to Heor-leif’s Head, and when he saw Heor-leif dead, he said, ‘ It was a pitiful death for a brave man that thralls should slay him, but I see how it goes with those who will never perform sacrifice.’ Ing-wolf had Heor-leif and his fellows buried, and looked after their ship and share of the stock.

Then Ing- wolf went up to the headland and saw islands lying in the sea to the south-west. It came into his mind that the thralls must have run away thither, for the boat had disappeared. So he and his men went to seek the thralls, and found them there at a place called Eith [the Tarbet] in the islands. They were sitting at their meat when Ing-wolf fell upon them. They became fearful [panic-stricken], and every man of them ran off’ his own way. Ing-wolf slew them all. The place is called Duf-thac’s Scaur, where he lost his life. Many of them leaped over the rock, which was afterwards called by their name. The islands were afterwards called the West-men isles whereon they were slain, for they were West-men [Irishmen]. Ing-wolf and his men kept with them the wives of them that had been murdered,

and they brought them back to Heor-leif’s head. Ing-wolf was there another winter.

Landnama-Book

Now are told up those men who settled in the settlement of Ing- Hvolf westward from him.

There was a man whose name was Aawang, an Irishman, the first man that dwelt at Bottom. There was then so great a shaw there that he built a ship out of it, and loaded her at a place that is now called Lathe-hammer or Loading-rock. His son was Thor-laf, the father of Thurid, whom Thor-mod, Thiost-here’s son o’ Elfetsness, and Id-wen Mold-Gnup’s daughter, had to wife. Their son was Bore, the father of Thord, the father of Eadwin o’ Road-holt.

Thor-Mod [pr. Diarmaid] the Old and Cetil [pr. Cathal], Brese’s son, went from Ireland to Iceland and took in settlement at Acre-ness between Trout-water and Colman’s river. They were Irish.

Colman was also Irish, after whom the river is named, and he dwelt first at Caith-ness [in Iceland]. These brethren exchanged land with each other, so that Diarmaid owned [all] south of Rowan and up to Colman’s river, and dwelt at the inner Holm. But Cathal, his brother, owned [all] from the west of Rowan, and north of Acre-fell to Trout-water. His son was named Berse [i.e. Brese], the father of Thor-gest, the father of Starre o’ Holm, the father of Cnatt, the father of Asdis, whom Claeng, Snae- beorn’s son, the [father] of Haven-worm, had to wife. Gar-laug was the daughter of Thor-mod the Old [and] the mother of Ord o’ Tongue.

Eorwend The Christian was the son of Cathal, Brese’s son. He dwelt at Eor-wends-holt, which is now called Garth. He kept well to Christendom to the day of his death, and was a hermit or solitary in his old age. The son of Eorwend was Clepp or Clemp, the father of Einar, the father of Narfe. Ha-where was the name of another son of Clepp; [he was] the father of Thor-gar. Ethna, or Aithne, was the name of the daughter of Cathal, Brese’s son. She was given in marriage in Ireland to a man named Conall. Their son was As-wolf Al-scic, who at that time went from Ireland to Iceland, and came to land in the East- friths to Oyce. [He was a kinsman of Eor-wend of Garth, and was a Christian man, and would not have anything to do with heathen men, ” and would not receive meat of them.]

They went twelve together from the East until they came to the house of Thor-gar the Hard at Holt under Eyfell, and there they pitched their tent, but three of his fellows fell sick and died there; but priest John Thorgarsson, the father of Grim of Holt, found their bones and translated them to the church. Afterwards As-wolf made him a hall near to where the tower of the church now is at East As-wolf’s- hall under Eyfell, by the counsel of Thor-gar. For Thor-gar would not have them in his house.

Íslendingabók,

THESE are the names of the bishops that have been in Iceland, strangers, according to the saying of Tait. Frith-rec came here in the heathen days, but these were later: Beam-hard the Book-wise, five years ; Col, four years ; Hroth-olf, nineteen years ; Johan the Irish, four years ; Beam-hard, nineteen years ; Heinrec, two years –

Erik the Red. (Vineland)

Now, before this, when Leif was with King Olaf Tryggvason, and the king had requested him to preach Christianity in Greenland, he gave him two Scotch people, the man called Haki, and the woman called Hækja. The king requested Leif to have recourse to these people if ever he should want fleetness, because they were swifter than wild beasts. Eirik and Leif had got these people to go with Karlsefni. Now, when they had sailed by Furdustrandir, they put the Scotch people on land, and requested them to run into the southern regions, seek for choice land, and come back after three half-days were passed. They were dressed in such wise that they had on the garment which they called biafal. It was made with a hood at the top, open at the sides, without sleeves, and was fastened between the legs. A button and a loop held it together there; and elsewhere they were without clothing. Then did they cast anchors from the ships, and lay there to wait for them. And when three days were expired the Scotch people leapt down from the land, and one

of them had in his hand a bunch of grapes, and the other an ear of wild wheat.

Dicuili.

Liber de Mensura Orbis Terrae.

“Many other islands lie in the northerly British Ocean. One reaches them from the northerly islands of Britain, by sailing directly for two days and two nights with a full sail in a favorable wind the whole time…. Most of these islands are small, they are separated by narrow channels, and for nearly a hundred years hermits lived there, coming from our land, Ireland by boat. But just as these islands have been uninhabited from the beginning of the world, so now the Norwegian pirates have driven away the monks; but countless sheep and many different species of sea fowl are to be found there…”

500 – 524. Saint David, Arthur, The Battle of Longborth.

500 to 524

SBG St David.

Saint Non retired from the monastery of Maucan to a cottage on

the cliffs beyond Bryn y Garn, above a bay that bears her name, here she brought forth her child. Rhygyfarch says that there was a “certain man in the district, a tyrant,” who sought the life of the young child, and Non had to fly from him. The tyrannus in the district was her own father Cynyr, who may not have relished the scandal. The child was born in a violent storm. ” The mother, when bringing forth, had a certain stone near her, against which, when in pain, she pressed her hands ; whereby the mark was left on it as an impression upon wax.” Moreover, the stone against which she leaned was split by lightning, and one portion leaped over her and planted itself at her feet. ” In that place a church is built, in the foundation of whose altar the stone lies covered.”

SBG St Cain.

Cain abandoned her home in Brecknockshire, and directing her voyage across the Severn, settled at Keynsham in Somersetshire, where she turned the reptiles into stone. This is how the natives explained the existence of ammonites found in the lias rocks. The like account is given of their origin in the cliffs of Whitby, where the miracle is attributed to S. Hilda.

After some years spent at Keynsham she retired to a certain ” Monticulus ” near her home, where she caused a spring to break forth that was of great virtue. According to the legend, when her death approached angels visited her. One divested her of her coarse shift, and another invested her in a fine linen garment, over which he threw a scarlet tunic woven with gold thread in stripes. S. Cadoc ministered to her when she died, and buried her in her oratory.

SBG St Columba.

There was a Columba at Sens, slain about 273 with the sword, according to the Roman Martyrology, in the reign of the Emperor Aurelian,.

The Columba of Cornwall. legend has happily been recovered from an olde Cornish Rythme containing her legend.

Columba was daughter of King Lodan and Queen Manigild, both pagans. The Holy Ghost appeared to her in the likeness of a dove, assuring her of His blessing and love, whereupon she vowed virginity, and forbearing to go with her parents to the idolatrous temple, she withdrew into a solitary place to pray, and there was granted a vision of the Blessed Trinity. Her parents urged her to quit her solitude and return to them, but this she refused to do, and confessed herself to be a Christian. This ” greived her parents so greatlie, as they pfed all means, first by kinde usage to remove her; and they sawe that would not serve, fell to great anger and caused her to be whipped and tormented. All which she indured with great patience, still prayeing Christ to give her grace to psever, whcse prayers prevailed so farr, as shee was much encouradged. And as her Father committed her to prison into a dark Dungion, it pleased God there to comfort her w th an Angell, whoe delivered her out of that prison and guided her into a Desert farr distant from that place; where she came, being destitute of all releif and bodelie food, she fell to prayer, and having help from God, whoe provided in such sort for her as she founde convenient sustaynance. At last, a great enemie of Christian religion dwelling hard by and hearing of her, sent certaine to apprehend her, whoe seing her beautie and mode of behaviour, was sodainlie surprised with it, and offered to marrye her to his sonn and make her the mistress of all that he had, so as she would first forsake her faith. For which, rendering great thanks signified she could not accept of them, having vowed Chastitie. Wherewith the Tyrant caused her to be tyed to a wheele to be tormented; at which time the Angell of God did protect her and she recieved no harme.” She was recommitted to prison and two ruffians sent in to insult her; but Divine power was manifested for her protection, ” the Angell of God interfering and conducting her out of the prison, and directed her to goe towards the sea-coaste and take the first. shipp that she did meet withall, and soe she did, having come to the coaste, the Holy

Ghoste appeared again unto her in the form of a Dove on the topp of the shipp, with which being comforted she at last arrived at a place \y in Cornwall called Trevelgvy, where the Tyrant, having intelligence of it, pursued her, and at a place called Ruthwas overtoke her, and refusing to renounce Christian religion, chopt ofTier head. At which place is a Well at this daie which beareth her name.”

SBG St Dubricius.

When Germanus and Lupus came to Britain to oppose the Pelagian heresy, they raised Aurelius Ambrosius to be king of all Britain in the place of Vortigern, and they consecrated Samson to the See of York and Dubricius to that of Caerleon, each with the title of Archbishop. Aurelius having been poisoned, his brother Uthyr succeeded for a few years, and on his death his son Arthur was chosen king – at the instigation of Dubricius.

SBG St Edern.

He is sometimes said to have been a bard. In romance, as Edern ab Nudd, he assumes a wholly military garb, and is represented as a knight of King Arthur’s court, and is one of Arthur’s counsellors. In Geraint ab Erbin we have the story of an encounter between Geraint and him.

There was set up yearly in a meadow, near the town which is now called Cardiff, a silver rod between two forked sticks, and on this a sparrow-hawk, and for it knights jousted. Edern won it two years in succession. Had he won it the third year, it would have been his for ever, and he would have been styled the ” Knight of the Sparrow-hawk,” but Geraint contested the prize with him, and won it, wounding him severely. The attendant on Edern was a dwarf, who had struck one of Queen Gwenhwyfar’s soldiers across the face with a whip. When Geraint had defeated Edern he sent him to Arthur’s court to apologize for the insult offered.

SBG Saints Gwyn, Gwyno, Gwynoro, Celynin and Ceitho.

These five were brothers, who were born the same time, at one birth, of one woman. Their father was named Cynyr Farf- wyn, of the parish of Cynwyl Gaio, in Carmarthenshire; and their names were Gwyn, Gwyno, Gwynoro, Celynin, and Ceitho. A curious legend connects the Five Saints with a large block of sandstone at Cynwyl Gaio called Carreg Pumpsaint. It stands upright at the foot of the hill below the Ogofau, the old Roman gold mines, and is shaped like a basalt column, with large artificial oval basin- shaped hollows on its sides. It is three and a half feet high and a little over two feet in width. The legend says that, time out of mind, there lived in the neighbourhood five saints who had a wide reputation for sanctity, and were objects of ill-will to a wicked magician who dwelt in caverns near. He had in vain tried to bring them into his power, until one day they happened to be crossing the Ogofau, and he, by his wicked enchantments, raised a terrific storm of thunder, lightning and hail, which beat upon and bruised the saints, and they laid their heads against a large boulder standing near for shelter. So great was the force of the hail that the impression of their heads can be seen to this day upon the four sides of the stone. The enchanter transported the saints into his caverns (the Ogofau) where they sleep. Tradition says they will awake, and come back to the light of day, when King Arthur returns, or when the Diocese is blessed with a truly pious and apostolic prelate!

According to another version they were five young pilgrims on their way to the shrine of S. David, who, exhausted with fatigue, reposed on this pillow their weary heads which a violent storm of rain and lailstones affixed to the stone. A malignant sorcerer appeared and carried them off to his cavern, where they are destined to remain asleep until the happy day mentioned.

The block, supposed to have on it the impression of the five heads on each of its four sides, has been extracted from the mine, anid was originally horizontal. The hollows are actually mortars in rhich the quartz was crushed for gold.

Another legend relates that once upon a time a certain woman lamed Gweno was induced to explore the recesses of the cavern beyond frowning rock which had always been the prescribed limit to the of the inquisitive. She passed beyond it, and was no more. She had been seized by some superhuman power, as a warning to others not to invade those mysterious penetralia; and still on stormy nights, when the moon is full, the spirit of Gweno is seen to pass over the crag like a wreath of mist.

SBG St Gwladys.

Gwladys was one of the many daughters of Brychan, Gwynllyw is said to have carried her off by force. She was of ” very high reputation, elegant in appearance, beautiful in form, and adorned with silk vestments.” He sent messengers to Brychan ” earnestly requesting that she should be given to him in marriage; but Brychan was angry, and, full of rage, refused to be- troth his daughter, and slighted the messengers.” Gwynllyw there- upon ” armed as many as three hundred slaves, who should take the young lady away by force.” They came to Brychan’s court at Talgarth, ” and found the young lady before the door of her residence, sitting with her sisters, and passing the time in modest conversation; whom they immediately took by force, and returned with speed.” Brychan followed in hot pursuit, ” whom when Gwynllyw saw, he frequently ordered the said young lady to be brought forward, and he made her ride with him; and not flying, but taking her slowly on horseback, he preceded his army, waited for his soldiers, and manfully exhorted them to battle.” He arrived safely with her at the hill Boch riu earn (now Vochriw), which formed the boundary between Brycheiniog and Gwynllywg. Sitting on top of the hill happened to be King Arthur with his two knights, Cai and Bedwyr, playing dice, and they observed what was taking place. ” Arthur was immediately seized with love towards the lady,” but his companions dissuaded him from taking her away from her captor, and, on learning that Gwynllyw was within his own territory, they ” rushed upon his enemies, who, turning their backs, fled with great confusion to their own country.” Thus, with the assistance of Arthur, Gwynllyw brought his prize triumphantly ” to his palace that was on that hill,” which was afterwards called Allt Wynllyw.

” King Gwynllyw united himself in lawful wedlock ” to Gwladys, and ” four lamps were seen shining every night, with great brightness, in the four corners of the house where she remained, until she brought forth her first-born son,” Cadoc. Gwynllyw, now advancing in years, still clung to his free-booting habits, and otherwise “disgraced his life with crimes.” Cadoc was grieved at hearing this, and sent three of his faithful dis- ciples to try to prevail upon him to mend his ways. Gwladys reasoned with her husband, ” Let us trust to our son, and he will be a father to us in heaven.” He gave way, and they both ” confessed their crimes with the satisfaction of penance.” They now devoted themselves to religion, and in expiation of their sins,

SBG St Maelog.

Maelog was one of the sons of Caw, mentioned in the tale of Culhwch and Olwen as Meilig, but not Maelog. The two names are the same, In the Mabinogion he is introduced in the story of Culhwch and Olwen. The young Culhwch arrives at King Arthur’s Court to demand of the king permission to woo and wed Olwen, a damsel so fair and good that wherever she stepped four white trefoils sprang up in her steps. The request having been granted, Culhwch claimed the assistance on his quest of Arthur’s knights present, and among those mentioned is ” Meilic, son of Caw.”

But no prospect was open to Maelog in any other direction except that of Religion, and he became an ecclesiastic, under S. Cadoc at Llancarfan; but he left it and joined himself to S. Cybi, and is numbered among those who were with him in Cornwall, and who had to leave Cornwall with him, after the failure of the insurrection which had as its object the placing of Cybi on the throne, in the room, probably, of Constantine.

Gwynedd gave him lands in Anglesey, and there Maelog founded the Church of Llanfaelog. Then he went to Llowes, in Elfael, or Elwel, in Radnorshire, near the Wye, possibly it was one of the grants made to the family of Caw by Arthur as blood-fine for the slaying of Huail.

There was a Mailoc, bishop of Bretona, in Gallicia, in Spain, whose signature occurs among those present at the Second Council of Braga, in 572.

SBG St Meugan.

Meugant, Meugan, or Meigan, was the son of Gwyndaf Hen ab Emyr Llydaw, by Gwenonwy, daughter of Meurig ab Tewdrig, king of Morganwg. He was brother to S. Henwyn, or Hywyn. He does not appear to be included in any pedigrees but those in the lolo MSS. These state that he was a Saint or monk of Cor Illtyd, at Llantwit, and afterwards of Cor Dyirig, at Caerleon-on-Usk. In his old age. Geoffrey of Monmouth says that a certain Meugant (Mauganius) was made bishop of Caer Fuddai, or Silchester, in Hampshire, by King Arthur, but assuming that he is not apocryphal, it is very improbable that he is the same person as Meugant ab Gvvyndaf . Geoffrey also introduces a Meugant Ddevvin, ” the Magician ” (Maugantius), into the legendary history of Vortigern as having been consulted by the king respecting the birth of Myrddin.

Meugan may have been the holy man Moucan, or Maucan, mentioned in the Life of S. Cadoc as intervening to obtain a reconciliation between that Saint and Maelgwn.

SBG St Meurig.

One other document in the lolo MSS. gives another Meurig as a Welsh Saint in the following two passages: ” Meurig, King of Dyfed, the son of Gwrthelin ab Eudaf ab Flaws Hen, King of Dyfed, the son of Gwrtherin, a prince of Rome, who expelled the Goidels from Dyfed and Gower.” ” Meurig, King of Dyfed, was one of the four Kings who bore the Golden Sword before the Emperor Arthur, on the Three Principal Festivals, and on every festival and feast of rejoicing and dignity.”He is apocryphal as a Saint, but Cynyr of Caer Gawch, S. David’s grandfather, is also traced up to the same ” prince of Rome.”

SBG St Finnian.

Finnian was born about 472-5; he was a native of Leinster, and is variously stated to have been son or grandson of Fintan of the race of Lochain. His mother’s name was Talech. When he was born his parents, who must have been Christians, sent him to be baptised by Bishop Fortchern at Roscor, but on the way met Bishop Ailbe (Abban), who proceeded to baptise him. When sufficiently old, Finnian was committed to Fortchern to be educated- Fortchern held Trim for three days only after his master’s death, and then migrated probably to Cill Fortchern of the Hy Drona in the land of the Hy Cinnselach, between the Barrow and the Blackstairs and Mount Leinster.

At the age of thirty Finnian departed for South Wales, paying a. visit to S. Caeman of Dayr-Innis on his way. He had with him his nephew Gabhran, and a friend Buit, and they accompanied S. Cadoc, who had just then visited Ireland.

In Wales, the friends together founded Melboc (Meibod) and Nant- Carvan. During his stay in Wales an inroad of Saxons took place, and as they were in a valley, Finnian with his staff upset a mountain upon them, and buried them under the stones. This incursion is also, mentioned in the Life of S. Aidan.

That Finnian was for a while with Cadoc at Llancarfan. He was wont to go to the island called Echni, i.e. the Flat Holmes, in the Channel, for privacy, staying with saints Cadoc and Gildas; the former was wont to retreat to it for Lent.

St Symmachus Pope 498-514 Opposed by Laurentius

500. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Inde Mór, in Crich Ui Gabhla, gained over the Lagenians, and over Illann, son of Dunlaing, in which Muircertach Mac Erca was victorious. Death of Bishop Ibar on the 9th of the Kalends of May, whose age was 303 years.

500. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of bishop Ibar on the 9th of the Kalends of May. A battle. Muirchertach was victor; and the death of bishop Ibar on the 9th of the Kalends of May.

500. Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Inne Mór. Mac Erce victor …

500. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twenty second year of Lughaidh. Saint Ibhar, the bishop, died on the twenty third day of the month of April. Three hundred and four years was the length of his life.The battle of Lochmagh by the Leinstermen, against the Ui Neill.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

Six years after their arrival, they (Cerdic and his son Cynric ) sailed round the western part of Britain, which is now called Wessex.

501. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twenty third year of Lughaidh.The battle of Freamhain, in Meath, against Fiacha, son of Niall, by Failge Berraidhe, concerning which this quatrain was composed:

The other king whom I shall mention was Fiacha, son of Niall, I shall not conceal him; It was against him, contrary to a false prophecy, the battle of Freamhain in Meath, was gained.

501 Annales Cambriae.

Bishop Ebur rests in Christ, he was 350 years old.

501. Annals of Ulster.

The Gospel which Matthew the Evangelist wrote with his own hands, and the relics of Barnabas, were discovered in this year. The battle of Cenn Ailbe won over the Laigin by Cairpre son of Niall.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

Also after a year Port landed in Britain with his son Bieda.

501. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Porta and his two sons, Beda and Mela, came into Britain, with two ships, at a place called Portsmouth. (Llongborth?) They soon landed, and slew on the spot a young Briton of very high rank.

501? Llywarch Hen.

The Battle of Llongborth, (Portsmouth?) (The Elegy for Geraint.)

BEFORE Geraint, the enemy of oppression, I saw white horses jaded and gory, And after the shout, a terrible resistance.

Before Geraint, the unflinching foe, I saw horses jaded and gory from the battle, And after the shout, a terrible impulsion.

Before Geraint, the enemy of tyranny, I saw horses white with foam, And after the shout, a terrible torrent.

In Llongborth I saw the rage of slaughter, And biers beyond all number, And red-stained men from the assault of Geraint.

In Llongborth I saw the edges of blades in contact, Men in terror, and blood on the pate, Before Geraint, the great son of his father.

In Llongborth I saw the spurs of men who would not flinch from the dread of the spears, And the drinking of wine out of the bright glass.

In Llongborth I saw the weapons of men, and blood fast dropping, And after the shout, a fearful return.

In Llongborth I saw Arthur, and brave men who hewed down with steel, Emperor, and conductor of the toll.

In Llongborth Geraint was slain, A brave man from the region of Dyvnaint, and before they were overpowered, they committed slaughter.

Under the thigh of Geraint were swift racers, Long-legged, with wheat for their corn, Ruddy ones, with. the assault of spotted eagles.

Under the thigh of Geraint were swift racers, long their legs, grain was given them, Ruddy ones, with the assault of black eagles.

Under the thigh of Geraint were swift racers, Long-legged, restless over their grain, Ruddy ones, with the assault of red eagles.

Under the thigh of Geraint were swift racers, Long-legged, grain-scattering, Ruddy ones, with the assault of white eagles.

Under the thigh of Geraint were swift racers, Long-legged, with the pace of the stag, With a nose like that of the consuming fire on a wild mountain.

Under the thigh of Geraint were swift racers, Long-legged, satiated with grain, Grey ones, with their manes tipped with silver.

Under the thigh of Geraint were swift racers, Long-legged, well deserving of grain, Ruddy ones, with the assault of grey eagles.

Under the thigh of Geraint were swift racers, Long-legged, having corn for food, Ruddy ones, with the assault of brown eagles.

When Geraint was born, open were the gates of heaven, Christ granted what was asked, Beautiful the appearance of glorious Prydain.

SBG St Geraint.

This Geraint ab Erbin is, in the Third or latest series of the Triads, said to have been one of the three Llyngesog, or fleet-owners, of the Isle of Britain, each of whom formed a fleet of six score ships with six score men in each, to patrol the coast against Saxon pirates, who in conjunction with the Irish, infested the coast of the Severn Sea.

The piratical vessels reached Llongborth, and were there met by King Arthur and Geraint; a battle ensued, in which Geraint was slain. His death is thus described in a poem to his memory, attributed to Llywarch Hen, who writes as an eye-witness.

Welsh Triad

Three fleet owners of the Island of Prydain. Gereint son of Erbin; and Gwenwywnwyn son of Naf; and March son of Meirchiaun.

501 or 502 The Annals of Ulster .

The battle of Segais in which fell Daue or Duach Tenga Umae i.e. king of Connacht. Muirchertach Mac Erca was victor.

502. Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Segais, in which Tenga Uma fell. Mac Erce was victor.

503. Repose of Domangart of Cenn Tíre.

503. The Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Druim Lochmaige won by the Laigin over the Úí Néill.

503. Annals of the Four Masters.

After Lughaidh, son of Laeghaire, had been twenty-five years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he was killed at Achadh Farcha, being struck by a flash of lightning, by the miracles of God, on account of the insult which he had offered to Patrick, as this quatrain states:

At Achadh Farcha warlike, the death of Laeghaire’s son, Lughaidh occurred,

Without praise in heaven or here, a heavy flash of lightning smote him.

Eochaidh, son of Muireadhach Muindearg, King of Uladh, died.

504. Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of Muircheartach, son of Muireadhach, son of Eoghan, son of Niall, as king over Ireland.

504. Annals of Ulster.

Cerpan died—a bishop from Ferta Cerpáin at Temair. The battle of Manu won by Aedán. Or here, the death of bishop Ibar. Death of Bruide son of Máelchú.. Death of Bruide son of Máelchú.

505. Repose of bishop Mac Cairthinn of Clochar.

505. Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of bishop Cerpán in Ferta Cerpáin.

505. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Fremhain, in Midhe, gained over Fiachaidh, son of Niall, by Foilge Berraidhe; The other king they mention, Fiachaidh, son of Niall, they deny not; Over him, against a false prophecy. The battle of Slemhain of Midhe, was won.

506. Annals of the Four Masters.

The third year of Muircheartach. Illann, son of Dunlaing, King of Leinster, died. The battle of Luachair was fought by Cucorb against the Ui Neill, of which was said:

The fierce battle of Luachair, over head, Brighit saw, no vain vision;

The bloody battle of Fionnabhair was noble, about the body of Illann after his death.

506. Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Ard Corainn.

507. Annals of the Four Masters

The fourth year of Muircheartach. The battle of Druim Deargaighe was gained against Foilghe Berraidhe, by Fiacha, son of Niall. From that time forward the land extending from Cluain In Dibhair to Uisneach belongs to the Cinel Fiachach, as Ceannfaeladh said:

The vengeance of God lasted for seven years; But the joy of his heart was

The battle of Druim Deargaighe, By which the plain of Meath was detached.

507. Cronicum Scotorum.

Death of Lughaidh, son of Laeghaire, King of Temhair, in Achadh Farcha. He was struck on the head with lightning from heaven, for denying Patrick.

507. The Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Ard Corann, and the death of Lugaid son of Laegaire; and as some state, Domangart Mac Nissi of Réte retired into religion? in his 35th year. Repose of Mac Nissi, bishop of Condaire.

508. And the death of Lugaid son of Laegaire, and the battle of Ard Corran.

508. Cronicum Scotorum.

Muircertach Mac Earca begins to reign. Mac Cnissi, i.e. Aengus, Bishop of Condere, quievit; whose father was called Fobraech; and whose mother was Cnes, daughter of Comaide, of the Dál Ceithire, from whom he was named Mac Cnisi.

508. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Cerdic and Cynric slew a British king, whose name was Natanleod, and five thousand men with him. After this was the land named Netley, from him, as far as Charford.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

Seven years after his arrival, Cerdic with his son Cynric slay Natan-Leod, king of the Britons, and five thousand men with him.

508. Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Frémann of Mide. Rus Failge was victor.

509. Repose of Mac Nise of Connere.

509. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year St. Benedict, the abbot, father of all the monks, ascended to heaven.

510 Cronicum Scotorum.

Quies of Bron, Bishop of Caisel Irre.

An eclipse of the sun occurred.

510 Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Fréamu won against Fiacha son of Niall. Failge Berraide was victor. The second battle of Ard Corann, as some state.

511. Annals of the Four Masters.

The eighth year of Muircheartach. Saint Bron, Bishop of Cuil Irra, in Connaught, died on the eighth day of the month of June.

511. Cronicum Scotorum.

Quies of Erc, Bishop of Slane, in the 90th year of his age, of whom Patricksaid:—

Bishop Erc— Everything which he adjudged was right;

Everyone that passes a just judgment Shall receive the blessing of Bishop Erc.

511. Annals of Inisfallen.

Birth of Ciaran, son of the wright.

512. Repose of Dubthach, bishop of Ard Macha. Repose of Erc of Sláine.

512. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of bishop Bron. There was an eclipse of the sun. Birth of St Ciarán, son of the wright. Or here, the death of Lugaid son of Laegaire, according to the Book of the Monks.

512. Annals of the Four Masters.

The ninth year of Muircheartach, Saint Erc, Bishop of Lilcach and of Fearta Fear Feig, by the side of Sidhe Truim, to the west, died on the second day of the month of November. His age was four score and ten years when he departed. This Bishop Erc was judge to Patrick. It was for him Patrick composed this quatrain:

Bishop Erc,— Every thing he adjudged was just; Every one that passes a just judgment Shall receive the blessing of Bishop Erc. Dubhthach, i.e. of Druim Dearbh, Bishop of Ard Macha Armagh, resigned his spirit.

512. Cronicum Scotorum.

Birth of Saint Ciaran, son of the artificer.

Battle of Druim Dergaighe gained over Foilge Berraidhe by Fiachaidh, son of Niall, on account of which the plain of Midhe was taken from the Lagenians, as Cendfaeladh sang:

The seven years’ vengeance of God It was that tamed his heart;

The battle in the Droma Dergaighe— By it the plain of Midhe was lost.

513. Cronicum Scotorum.

Dubtach, Abbot of Ardmacha, quievit.

513. Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Druim Derga [gained] against Failge. Fiacha, son of Niall, was victor. Thereupon the plain of Mide was taken from the Laigin.

513. Annals of the Four Masters.

The tenth year of Muircheartach. Saint Macnisi, i.e. Aenghus, Bishop of Coinnere Connor, died on the third day of November.The battle of Dedna, in Droma Breagh, by Muircheartach mac Earca, and by Colga, son of Loite, son of Crunn, son of Feidhlimidh, son of Colla Dachrich, chief of Airghialla, where Ardghal, son of Conall Creamhthainne, son of Niall, was slain.

513. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of Erc, bishop of Sláne. Dubthach from Druim Derb, bishop of Ard Macha, died. Muirchertach Mac Erca begins to reign.

514. Annals of Ulster.

Cairpre Daim Airgit son of Eochu son of Crimthann son of Fiach son of Daig Duirn son of Reochad son of Colla Dá Crích, king of Airgialla, died. Mac Nise i.e. Aengus bishop of Condaire, rested.

514. Cronicum Scotorum.

Quies of Darerca, of Cill-Slebhe-Cuilinn, who was afterwards called Moninne, Aninne sanatho.

St Hormisdas Pope 514-523

514. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year came the West-Saxons into Britain, with three ships, at the place that is called Cerdic’s-ore. And Stuff and Wihtgar fought with the Britons, and put them to flight.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

Six years after, Stuf and Whitgar landed in Britain at Cerdic’s-ore, and suddenly make war on the Britons, whom they put to flight, and themselves remain masters of the field. Thus was completed the fifty-sixth f year since Hengist and Horsa first landed in Britain.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

Five years after, Cerdic and Cynric fought a battle against the Britons at Cerdic’s-ford on the river Avon, and that same year nominally began to reign.

515. Cronicum Scotorum.

Comgall, of Bennchair, born.

515. Annals of Ulster.

Hormistas was ordained fortieth bishop of the Roman Church, and lived nine years.

Caradoc of Llancarfan.

The Life of St Gildas

Nau, the king of Scotia, was the noblest of the kings of the north. He had twenty-four sons, victorious warriors. One of these was named Gildas, whom his parents engaged in the study of literature. He was a boy of good natural disposition, devoted to study, and distinguished for his talents. Whatever he heard from his master he would repeat most diligently, and forgetfulness did not harm him. He eagerly and diligently studied among his own people in the seven arts until he reached the age of youth; when, on becoming a young man, he speedily left the country.

515.Annals of Inisfallen.

Birth of Comgall of Bennchor.

516. Repose of bishop Conlaed, and repose of Dar Erca.

516. Cronicum Scotorum.

Cainnech, of Achadh Bó, born.

516. Annales Cambriae.

The Battle of Badon, in which Arthur carried the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights on his shoulders (ie shield) and the Britons were the victors.

SBG St Dubricius.

The battle of Mount Badon, during which Dubricius was engaged in prayer and exhortation to the Britons, as a second Moses on a mountain-top above the contending hosts.

Gildas

After this, sometimes our countrymen, sometimes the enemy, won the field, to the end that our Lord might in this land try after his accustomed manner these his Israelites, whether they loved him or not, until the year of the siege of Badon-hill, when took place also the last almost, though not the least slaughter of our cruel foes, which was (as I am sure) forty-four years and one month after the landing of the Saxons, and also the time of my own nativity. And yet neither to this day are the cities of our country inhabited as before, but being forsaken and overthrown, still lie desolate; our foreign wars having ceased, but our civil troubles still remaining. For as well the remembrance of such terrible desolation of the island, as also of the unexpected recovery of the same, remained in the minds of those who were eyewitnesses of the wonderful events of both, and in regard thereof, kings, public magistrates, and private persons, with priests and clergymen, did all and every one of them live orderly according to their several vocations. But when these had departed out of this world, and a new race succeeded, who were ignorant of this troublesome time, and had only experience of the present prosperity, all the laws of truth and justice were so shaken and subverted, that not so much as a vestige or remembrance of these virtues remained among the above-named orders of men, except among a very few who, compared with the great multitude which were daily rushing headlong down to hell, are accounted so small a number, that our reverend mother, the church, scarcely beholds them, her only true children, reposing in her bosom; whose worthy lives, being a pattern to all men, and beloved of God, inasmuch as by their holy prayers, as by certain pillars and most profitable supporters, our infirmity is sustained up, that it may not utterly be broken down, I would have no one suppose I intended to reprove, if forced by the increasing multitude of offences, I have freely, aye, with anguish, not so much declared as bewailed the wickedness of those who are become servants, not only to their bellies, but also to the devil rather than to Christ, who is our blessed God, world without end.

William of Malmesbury.

Chronicle of the Kings of England.

When he (Vortigern) died, the British strength decayed, and all hope fled from them; and they would soon have perished altogether, had not Ambrosius, the sole survivor of the Romans, who became monarch after Vortigern, quelled the presumptuous barbarians by the powerful aid of warlike Arthur. It is of this Arthur that the Britons fondly tell so many fables, even to the present day; a man worthy to be celebrated, not by idle fictions, but by authentic history. He long upheld the sinking state, and roused the broken spirit of his countrymen to war. Finally, at the siege of Mount Badon, relying on an image of the Virgin, which he had affixed to his armor, he engaged nine hundred of the enemy, single-handed, and dispersed them with incredible slaughter. On the other side, the Angles, after various revolutions of fortune, filled up their thinned battalions with fresh supplies of their countrymen; rushed with greater courage to the conflict, and extended themselves by degrees, as the natives retreated, over the whole island: for the counsels of God, in whose hand is every change of empire, did not oppose their career. But this was effected in process of time; for while Vortigern lived, no new attempt was made against them.

Liber Britannicus.

THE FORTRESS OF AMBROSE, AND OF HIS CONTEST WITH THE DRUIDS.

And afterwards Gortigern invited to him twelve Druids, that he might know from them what was proper to be done. The Druids said to him, ‘Seek the borders of the island of Britain, and thou shalt find a strong fortress to defend thyself against the foreigners to whom thou hast given up thy country and thy kingdom, for thine enemies will slay thee, and will seize upon thy country and lands after thee.’ Gortigern, with his hosts and with his Druids, traversed all the south of the island of Britain, until they arrived at Guined, and they searched all the mountain of Herer, and there found a Dinn over the sea, and a very strong locality fit to build on; and his Druids said to him, ‘Build here thy fortress,’ said they, ‘for nothing shall ever prevail against it.’ Builders were then brought thither, and they collected materials for the fortress, both stone and wood, but all these materials were carried away in one night; and materials were thus gathered thrice, and were thrice carried away. And he asked of his Druids, ‘Whence is this evil?’ said he. And the Druids said, ‘Seek a son whose father is unknown, kill him, and let his blood be sprinkled upon the Dun, for by this means only it can be built.’

Messengers were sent by him throughout the island of Britain to seek for a son without a father; and they searched as far as Magh Eillite, in the territory of Glevisic, where they found boys a-hurling; and there happened a dispute between two of the boys, so that one said to the other, ‘O man without a father, thou hast no good at all.’ The messengers asked, ‘Whose son is the lad to whom this is said?’ Those on the hurling green said, ‘We know not,’ said they, ‘his mother is here,’ said they. They asked of his mother whose son the lad was. The mother answered, ‘I know not,’ said she, ‘that he hath a father, and I know not how he happened to be conceived in my womb at all.’ So, the messengers took the boy with them to Gortigern, and told him how they had found him.

On the next day the army was assembled, that the boy might be killed. And the boy was brought before the king, and he said to the king, ‘Wherefore have they brought me to thee?’ said he. And the king said, ‘To slay thee,’ said he, ‘and to butcher thee, and to consecrate this fortress with thy blood.’ The boy said, ‘Who instructed thee in this?’ ‘My Druids,’ said the king. ‘Let them be called hither,’ said the boy. And the Druids came. The boy said to them, ‘Who told you that this fortress could not be built until it was first consecrated with my blood?’ And they answered not. ‘I know,’ said he; ‘the person who sent me to you to accuse you, is he who induced you to tell this lie; howbeit, O king,’ said he, ‘I will reveal the truth to thee; and I ask of thy Druids, first, what is concealed beneath this floor before us?’ The Druids said, ‘We know not,’ said they. ‘I know,’ said he; ‘there is a lake of water there; let it the floor be examined and dug.’ It was dug, and the lake was found there. ‘Ye prophets of the king,’ said the boy, ‘tell what is in the middle of the lake?’ ‘We know not,’ said they. ‘I know,’ said he, ‘there are two large chests of wood face to face, and let them be brought out of it.’ It was examined, and they were brought forth. ‘And O Druids,’ said the boy, ‘tell what is between those two wooden chests?’ ‘We know not,’ said they. ‘I know,’ said he; ‘there is a sail-cloth there.’ And it was brought forth, and the sail was found rolled up between the two wooden chests. ‘Tell, O ye learned,’ said the boy, ‘what is in the middle of that cloth?’ And they answered not, for they understood not. ‘There are two maggots there,’ said he, ‘namely, a red maggot and a white maggot. Let the cloth be unfolded.’ The sail-cloth was unfolded, and there were two maggots asleep in it. And the boy said, ‘See now what the maggots wiIl do.’ They advanced towards each other, and commenced to rout, cut, and bite each other, and each maggot drove the other alternately to the middle of the sail and again to its verge. They did this, three times. The red maggot was at first the feeble one, and was driven to the brink of the cloth; but the beautiful maggot was finally the feeble one, and fled into the lake, and the sail immediately vanished. The boy asked the Druids: ‘Tell ye,’ said he, ‘what doth this wonder reveal?’ ‘We know not,’ said they. ‘I will reveal it to the king,’ said the boy. ‘The lake is the kingdom of the whole world, and the sail is thy kingdom, O king. And the two maggots are the two powers, namely, thy power in conjunction with the Britons, and the power of the Saxons. The red maggot, which was first expelled the kingdom, represents thy power; and the white maggot, which occupied the whole sail except a little, represents the power of the Saxons, who have taken the island of Britain, except a small part, until ultimately driven out by the power of the Britons. But do thou, O king of Britain, go away from this fortress, for thou hast not power to erect it, and search the island of Britain and thou shalt find thine own fortress.’ The king said, ‘What is thy name, O boy,’ said he. The youth replied, ‘Ambrose,’ said he, ‘is my name.’ (He was Embros Gleutic, king of Britain.) ‘Tell thy race,’ said the king. ‘My father, said he, was a Roman consul, and this shall be my fortress.’ Then Gortigern left the fortress to Ambrose, and also the government of all the west of Britain, and went with his Druids to the north of the island of Britain, that is, to the land which is called Gunnis, and built a fortress there, which city is named Caer Gortigern.

Liber Britannicus.

OF THE WARFARE OF GORTIMER.

After this, Gortimer the victorious, son of Gortigern, with his brother Catigern, rose up against Hengist and Orsa, and the Britons fought fiercely along with them, so that they drove the Saxons to the island of Teineth, and the Britons took this island thrice from them; so that forces arrived to their assistance out of Germany, and they fought against the Britons, and were one time victorious and another time defeated.

And Gortimer gave them four battles, viz., a battle on the bank of the Deirgbeint; a battle on the bank of Rethenergabail, in which Orsa and Catigern, son of Gortigern, were slain; and a battle on the shore of the Iccian sea, where they drove the Saxons to their ships, muliebriter; and a battle on the banks of Episfort. Gortimer died soon after, and he said to the Britons shortly before his death, to bury him on the brink of the sea, and that the strangers would never afterwards come into the island. The Britons did not do this. After this the power of the Saxons increased, for Gortigern was their friend on account of his wife.

Now it came to pass after the death of Gortimer, and after the peace between Hengist and Gortigern, that the Saxons committed an act of treachery upon the Britons; that is, the Britons and Saxons were assembled together in equal numbers in one place, as if in peace, viz., Hengist and Gortigern, neither party having arms; but the Saxons carried knives concealed between them and their sandals, and they killed all the Britons who were there except Gortigern alone, and they fettered Gortigern, and he gave the one-third of his land for the sparing of his life viz., All-Saxan, and Sut-Saxan, and Mitil-Saxan.

Now German had admonished Gortigern to put away his wife, that is, his own daughter; but he fled away from German, and concealed himself in the land which is named Gortigernmain; and German, with the clergy of Britain, went after him, and remained there for forty days and nights; and Gortigern fled again from the clergy to his fortress, and they followed him and tarried there three days and three nights fasting. And the fire of God from heaven burned Gortigern there, with all his people. Others assert that he died of grief and tears, wandering from place to place. Another authority asserts that the earth swallowed him up the night on which his fortress was burnt.

He had three sons, viz., Gortimper, who fought against the Saxons; Catigern; Pascant, to whom Ambrose the king of Britain gave Bocuelt and Gortigernmain, after the death of his father; Saint Faustus, his son by his own daughter, and whom Germain baptized, fostered, and instructed, and for whom he built a city on the brink of the River Raen. Nennius said this. Fearmael, who is now chief over the lands of Gortigern, is the son of Tedubre, son of Paistcenn, son of Guodicann, son of Morut, son of Alltad, son of Eldoc, son of Paul, son of Mepric, son of Briacat, son of Pascent, son of Gortigern, son of Guatal, son of Guatulin, son of Glou. Bonus, Paul, and Muron were three other sons of Glou, who built the city of Caer Gloud, i. e. Glusester, on the banks of the Severn. German returned home, to his own country.

After the death of Gortigern, the power of the Saxons prevailed over the Britons. Ochta, the son of Hengist, assumed government over them. Arthur, however, and the Britons fought bravely against them, and gave them twelve battles, viz., the first battle at the mouth of the river Glein; the second, the third, the fourth, and the fifth battle, on the brink of the river Dubhglas; the sixth battle on the brink of the Bassa; the seventh battle in the wood of Callidon, that is, Cait Coit Cleiduman; the eighth battle at Lesc Guinidon; it was here Arthur carried the image of Mary on his shoulder, and drove out the Pagans; the ninth battle at the city of Legion; the tenth battle at Robruid; in the twelfth battle there were slain, by the hand of Arthur, eight hundred and forty men in one day, and he was victorious in all these battles. And the Saxons sought assistance from Germany, and it was from thence they brought their kings until the time of Ida, who was the first king that ruled over them at this side of Inbher Onic, that is, to the north of Umbria Humber. Ida was the son of Ebba. Enfled, the daughter of Edwin, was the first of the Saxons that was baptized in the island of Britain.

SBG St Ambrosius.

The Church of Amesbury claimed to have been founded by one Ambrosius, but whether this were an abbot, or whether he were Aurelius Ambrosius who headed the revolt against Gwrtheym; whether this latter, after having led the Britons to battle against the Saxons, in his old age became a monk and founded a religious house over which he ruled as abbot at Amesbury, is all uncertain, and never will be cleared up; but the latter supposition is not improbable.

The monastery, according to Camden, contained three hundred monks, and was destroyed by Gormundus.This Gormund was Gorman, son of Cormac Mac Diarmid, king of the Hy Bairche, who in the middle of the sixth century destroyed Llanbadam Fawr and other churches, and did much havoc in Britain.

Aurelius Ambrosius. or Ambrosius Aurelianus, is the only one of his countrymen against whom the venomous Gildas does not inveigh. In the Welsh Pedigrees, Ambrosius is Emrys Wledig, or as Nennius calls him, Embreis Guletic.The Welsh accounts make Ambrosius son of Cystennin, whom they derive from Cynan Meiriadog, brother of Elen, wife of Maximus; and they make Cystennin Gomeu the brother of Aldor, or Audroen, father of Emyr Llydaw, the ancestor of a noble army of Saints who drifted about between Armorica and South Wales. They make, moreover, Emrys, or Ambrosius, brother of Uthur Pendragon, the father of Arthur.

SBG St Henwg.

Taliessin, Chief of the Bards, founded the church of Llanhenwg at Caerleon on Usk in memory of his father, named St. Henwg, who went to Rome to Cystennin Fendigaid to bring SS. Garmon and Bleiddan to Britain to ameliorate the Faith and renew Baptism.”

Taliesin.

The Death Song of Uther Pendragon

Am I not with hosts making a din?
I would not cease, between two hosts, without gore.
Am I not he that is called Gorlassar?
My belt was a rainbow to my foe.
Am I not a prince, in darkness,
(To him) that takes my appearance with my two chief baskets?
Am I not, like Cawyl, ploughing?
I would not cease without gore between two hosts.
Is it not I that will defend my sanctuary?
In separating with the friends of wrath.
Have I not been accustomed to blood about the wrathful,
A sword-stroke daring against the sons of Cawrnur?
I shared my shelter,
a ninth share in Arthur’s valour.
I broke a hundred forts.
I slew a hundred stewards.
I bestowed a hundred mantles.
I cut off a hundred heads.
I gave to an old chief
very great swords of protection.
Is it not I that performed the rights of purification,
When Hayarndor went to the top of the mountain?
To my deprivation, to my sorrow, sinew was brave.
The world would not be if not for my offspring.
I am a bard to be praised. The unskilful
May he be possessed by the ravens and eagle and bird of wrath.
Avagddu came to him with his equal,
When the bands of four men feed between two plains.
Abiding in heaven was he, my desire,
Against the eagle, against the fear of the unskilful.
I am a bard, and I am a harper,
I am a piper, and I am a crowder.
Of seven score musicians the very great enchanter.
There was of the enamelled honour the privilege.
Hu of the expanded wings.
Thy son, thy barded proclamation,
Thy steward, of a gifted father.
My tongue to recite my death-song.
If of stone-work the opposing wall of the world.
May the countenance of Prydain be bright for my guidance.
Sovereign of heaven, let my messages not be rejected

Taliesin. The Death-Song of Madawg
MADAWG, the joy of the wall,
Madawg, before he was in the grave,
Was a fortress of abundance
Of games, and society.
The son of Uthyr before he was slain,
From his hand he pledged thee.
Erof the cruel came,
Of impotent joy;
Of impotent sorrow.
Erof the cruel caused
Treacheries to Jesus.
Though he believed.
The earth quaking,
And the elements darkening,
And a shadow on the world,
And baptism trembling.
An impotent step
Was taken by fierce Erof,
Going in the course of things
Among the hideous fiends
Even to the bottom of Uffern.

516. Annals of Ulster.

The birth of Comgall of Bennchor. The battle of Druim Derg against Failge. Fiacha was victor. Thereafter the plain of Mide was taken away from the Laigin.

1. The other king that you mention (?),— You do not hide Fiachu son of Niall— It was he who, despite a false prophecy, (?)— Was defeated in the battle of Fremain of Mide.

2. Vengeance in seven years’ time was his heart’s desire: The battle at Druim Dergaide, It was thereby that Mag Mide was forfeited.

517. Cronicum Scotorum.

Conlaedh, Bishop of Cill Dara, quievit.

517. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fourteenth year of Muircheartach. Saint Darerca, of Cill Sleibhe Cuilinn, whose first name was Moninne, died on the 6th of July. Nine score years was the length of her life; of whom was said:

Nine score years together, according to rule without error,

Without folly, without evil, without danger, was the age of Moninne.

517. Annals of Ulster.

The repose of Dar Ercae of Cill Sléibe Cuilinn on the third of the nones 5th of July. Or according to another book, the birth of Ciarán in this year. (The battle of Druim Dergaide won by Fiacha son of Niall against Failge Berraide. Thence the plain of Mide was taken away from the Laigin, as Cend Faelad sang:

Vengeance in seven years’ time Was his heart’s desire:

The battle at Druim Dergaide, It was thereby that Mag Mide was forfeited.)

518. Cronicum Scotorum.

Battle of Detna, in Droma-Bregh, in which fell Ardgal, son of Conall Crimhthann, son of Niall. Muircertach Mac Earca, and Colga, son of Cloith, son of Crunn, son of Fedhlimidh, King of Airghiall, were the victors.

Buti, son of Bronach, died, and Colum Cille was born, of whom was said:—

The gentle birth of Colum, our cleric, To-day over noble Erinn;

On the same day occurred — no arrogant saying—The bright, victorious death of the son of Bronach.

Ailill, Abbot of Ardmacha, slept. Beoid, Bishop of Ardcarna, rested.

518. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Anastasius, who reigned twenty-five years. Iustinus becomes emperor. (Ed. Emperor of the Byzantine Empire.)

518. Annals of Ulster.

The emperor Anastasius was overtaken by sudden death and died aged over eighty. He reigned 27 years, two months, 29 days.

SBG St Lleuddun.

Lleuddun of Ynys Eiddin, in the North, Lleuddun Luyddog (” of the Hosts “), of Dinas Eiddyn, in the North, that is, Edinburgh. He is the Leudonus of the old fragmentary Life of S. Kentigern, and the eponymus of Lleudduniawn, or Leudonia, the Lothians of to-day. He appears as Llew in Geoffrey’s Brut, where it is stated that King Arthur gave the districts in the North that he had wrested from the Saxons to three brothers, Urien (of Rheged), Llew and Arawn. Llew had Lodoneis, that is, the Lothians. In the earlier Life of S. Kentigern he is also called Lothus, and is said to have been a ” vir semipaganus,” and King of the Picts.

SBG St Kyndeyrn.

Saint Kentigern was born, like Christ, of a pure virgin. Or alternativly, Cyndeyrn was the son of Owain ab Urien, of the race of Coel Godebog. His grandfather Urien Rheged is distinguished in history and romance.

His mother Denw. was daughter of Lleuddun Luyddog, of Dinas Eiddyn (Edinburgh), the Lothian of to-day. He is the Llew or Lot of Geoffrey’s Brut. Denw was the sister of Beren, S. Beuno’s mother.

Or alternativly, Ileudonus was king of the province in North Britain called Leudonia; and he had a step-daughter named Thaneu. This damsel was sought in marriage by Owein but refused his adresses. The king sent her to live with a swine-herd; and whilst she was in this menial capacity Owain disguised himself as a girl, and seduced her.

When Theneu gave signs of becoming a mother, the king was furious, and ordered her to be stoned to death. But the executioners instead placed her in a cart, pulled this to the top of the mountain Kepduf, and toppled it over the brink. But by a miracle she was not hurt, the mark of the wheels was left in the stone, and a miraculous spring bubbled up on the spot.

Then’ she was taken about three thousand paces off to Aberlessic, so called because the fishermen covered the strand with the offal of the fish they netted there, and the place stank. Here she was committed to the sea in a coracle and was carried by the current to Culros.

The king then went after the swine-herd, supposing that he had seduced Theneu, and he fled to some marshes, where being still pursued, he flung his spear at the king and transfixed him. “And the friends of the king erected as a royal token, a great stone in the place where he fell, which still remains, distant from Dunpleder, on the south side, about a mile.”

She was washed ashore, and had just time to crawl to the remains of a fire still smouldering, which some shepherds had left, before the pangs of maternity were on her.

Next morning, the shepherds, returning to the spot, saw Theneu and her new-born son. They at once announced the fact to S. Serf or Servan, who lived near.

When S. Serf came to the spot and saw the pretty babe, his dry heart melted, and he exclaimed ” Mochohe! Mochohe! ” (i.e., My darling, my darling!) He at once adopted both mother and child, and baptized them, calling the latter Centiern or King’s Head. The child grew up in the old man’s cell, and was instructed by him in all sacred knowledge; and he was such a ready pupil and so amiable that Serf was wont to call him Munghu (Dear Pet), and this is the name by which in Scotland Kentigern is generally known.

Serf had other pupils, and they became jealous of the predilection shown to Munghu, and vented their spite upon him by wringing the neck of a tame robin, of which he was fond, and by extinguishing the fire on the night when it was his turn to sit up and watch it. On the latter occasion, he rekindled the fire by rubbing together dry hazel sticks. At length, the animosity of his fellow pupils made it intolerable for him to remain longer with S. Serf, but his dissatisfaction was brought to a head when the cook died, and the duties this man had discharged were imposed on Kentigern. This was so distasteful to him that, in spite of the urgency of his master, he resolved to leave.

The young saint now went to Carnock, where lived a certain Fergus, who was dying, and with his last breath made over to him his cell.

519. Annals of Ulster.

The birth of Colum Cille on the same day as Buite son of Bronach fell asleep. The repose of Dar Ercae who was called Moninne.

519. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Cerdic and Cynric undertook the government of the West-Saxons; the same year they fought with the Britons at a place now called Charford. From that day have reigned the children of the West-Saxon kings.

519. Annals of the Four Masters.

The sixteenth year of Muircheartach. Saint Connlaedh, Bishop of Kildare, Bridget’s brazier, died on the 3rd of May.

520. Cronicum Scotorum.

Pope Hormisdas quievit, to whom succeeded Pope John, who ruled three years.

520. Annals of Ulster.

Conlaedh, bishop of Cell Dara, died. The battle of Detnae in Dromma Breg in which fell Ardgal son of Conall son of Niall. Colgu Moo Cluethi, king of Airthir, and Muirchertach Mac Erca were the victors. Comgall of Bennchor was born according to some.

SBG St Samson.

Samson born, circa 485, put as pupil to Illtyd c. 490, ordained priest c. 515 converts his father and becomes Abbot of Ynys Pyr, c. 516, goes to Ireland c. 518, returns and retreats into a desert. c. 520, is consecrated Bishop and made Abbot of Llantwit.

SBG St Aidan Maidoc.

This Aidan, with his name taking the form of Maidoc, may have been associated with Catwg in the quarrel and reconciliation with King Arthur recorded in the Vita S. Cadoci. Catwg had given refuge to a certain Ligessauc, son of Eliman, suniamed Lauhir, who had killed three of Arthur’s men. Catwg retained him in Gwynllywg for seven years before Arthur discovered where he was concealed. Then Arthur was highly incensed, as this was exceeding the time limit allowed for sanc- tuary, and Catwg had to send a deputation to Arthur to settle terms for the man. The deputation was composed ot S. David, S. Teilo, S. Dochu, Cynidr and Maidoc. It proceeded to the banks of the Usk, and Arthur held communications with the commissioners by shouting across the river. At last it was promised that Catwg should pay to the king a blood fine of three of the best quahty of ox for each man slain, but this was rejected, and it was decided that Catwg should pay one hundred cows.

When this number had been collected and driven to the bank, Arthur refused to receive them, unless they were all of one quality of colour, the fore part red, and white behind. Catwg found it im- possible to comply. The story goes on to say that Arthur despatched Cai and Bedwyr into the mud of the Usk to meet the men of Catwg in the middle of the stream, as he sulkily consented finally to receive the cattle. According to the legend, when the cows were passed over into the possession of Arthur, they were transformed into bundles of fern. This probably means no more than that he accepted fern- coloured cattle.

Then Arthur granted to Catwg the right of sanctuary for seven years, seven months and seven days.

SBG St Cadoc.

Cathmail, having resolved on embracing the ecclesiastical professioin deserted his home and the lands of his father, and went into Mo: ganwg, to the territory of his uncle, Paul or Pol, of Penychen, who ruled over that district in Morganwg. Here he wandered about alone in a marshy district, and coming suddenly on a herd swine belonging to Paul, scared and scattered them. The swineherd incensed at this, raised his lance, and would have transfixed him, had not Cathmail told him his name and relationship to his master.

When Paul learned that his nephew was wandering homeless in his territory, he sent for him and offered him some land on which to settle. Cathmail gladly accepted the marshy valley where he had met the swineherd, and his uncle made it over to him.

In one part of the marsh, where was higher ground, a wild swan had nested, and there also an old grey boar had its lair. As Cathmail was looking about for a suitable spot on which to erect his wattle cell, he disturbed the swan and the boar. The former flew away, but the boar retired reluctantly, and turned thrice to observe the man who had invaded its retreat. Cathmail put sticks into the ground to mark the spots where the boar had halted, and resolved to plant his monastery there, and build his church, refectory and dormitory, at the points where the beast had turned to watch him. He was soon joined by other young men, probably those who had been his fellow students, and had no liking for the rowdy career of a man of war, and this was the beginning of the famous monastery of Llancarfan.

“Then the holy man undertook to throw up a large mound of earth, and to make therein a very beautiful cemetery, to be dedicated to the honour of God; in which the bodies of the faithful might be buried around the temple. The mound being completed, and the cemetery finished in it, he made four large paths over rising grounds about his cell.”After that his buildings of wood were completed, he looked out for another site that would serve as a place of refuge in the event of political incursions or civil war, and chose a hill-top, now Llanfeithin, and there also he threw up a mound that was circular, and on it erected a castle, called Castell Cadog

SBG ST Cado. CADO, CADOR, or CADWY,

THIS saint was a son of Geraint, prince of Devon and Cornwall. He has been laid hold of by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and brought into his fictitious history. He makes Cador, Duke of Cornwall, come to the assistance of Arthur when besieging the Saxon Colgrin in York. Colgrin appeals for help to Germany, and Baldulf, brother of Colgrin, goes to his aid at the head of a body of six thousand men, but is waylaid by Cador and defeated. A little later, when Arthur hastens to Alclud, where Howel lies sick, and is besieged by the Picts and Scots, Cador is placed in command of the army opposed to the Saxons. ” The Duke of Cornwall, who had the command of ten thousand men, would not as yet pursue the Saxons in their flight, but speedily made himself master of their ships. After this he hastily pursued the enemy and allowed no quarter.” Then we have Lucius Tiberius, procurator of the Roman Commonwealth, making war on Arthur, and in a great battle that ensues Cador distinguishes himself.

All this rubbish may be cast aside. The sole element of truth in it, is the naming of Cado as Duke of Cornwall, and father of Constantine, probably “the tyrannical whelp of the unclean lioness of Domnonia,” whom Gildas assailed with such rancour. Cato or Cado is mentioned in the Life of S. Carannog where we are told, in an episode relating to the foundation of Carantock Church in Cornwall, that “in those times, Cato and Arthur ruled in that country, living at Dindraithov,” that is, in Welsh, Dindraethwy, a place known to be in Cornwall, the Dun Tredui, the three-fossed fort of Crimthan Mor in Britain, when the Gadhels held sway there down to the Ictian Sea.” He is mentioned, as “Cathov Gerentonis,” in the Genealogy of S. Winnoc. Cado, son of Geraint, occurs in the early fifteenth century pedigrees in the Jesus College (Oxon) MS. 20, and he is there given a son, Pedur or Peredur, who is probably to be identified with the Berth, son of Cado, in the Tale of Culhwch and Olwen. 6 His name assumes also the form Cadwy; and he is mentioned in the Triads as one of the three men (all the three in Arthur’s court) who were ” best towards guests and strangers.”

No churches bear the name of Cado in Wales or in Cornwall. It is possible that Portscatho may be named after him; it is in a portion of Cornwall redolent with reminiscences of Geraint and the royal Domnonian family. But probably any church he may have founded, if he did found any, has been attributed to the better known and more popular Cadoc.

SBG St Cenydd (Keneth).

In the days of King Arthur, the prince of Letavia (Llydaw) or Britannia Minor, was Dihoc, and he became the father of Keneth, who was born of incest.

Summoned by King Arthur, as a tributary, to come to his court to celebrate the Feast of Christmas in Gower, he took with him the woman, and she gave birth to a child, who was born a cripple, with the calf of one leg attached to the thigh.

Dihoc ordered the infant to be thrown into the river, but before this was done, a priest baptised it and gave it the name of Keneth. The child was placed in an osierwoven cradle and launched on the stream. This stream speedily carried it down to the river Lothur, and that swept it out to sea.

(Ed Kenneth was brought up by seagulls, a stag and an angel of the Lord. He became a hermit, with a servant.)

SBG St Hoernbiu or Huerve.

His father was Hoarvian was a Briton and a bard, who crossed the seas and visited the Court of Childebert at Paris, where he delighted the courtiers by singing his own ballads, to melodies of his own composition.

At length, the desire came on him to revisit Britain, but he desired first of all to see his countrymen settled in Armorica. Childebert loaded Hoarvian with presents, gave him a letter to Conmore, who was his viceroy in Armorica, ordering him to prepare for the bard a boat to carry him over to his native isle. “Short is the passage between our Domnonia and further Britain,” The King further gave instructions that Hoarvian should be lodged on his journey in the Royal villes on the way. He arrived at the castle of Conmore, who was then in Leon, and rode about with him, and doubtless amused him with his harp and songs at night.

One day as they were out together, they lighted on a spring and saw there a singing girl, whose good looks, and possibly her voice, charmed Hoarvian; he asked her name, and learned that it was Rivanon, that she lived with her brother Rigur, and that her parents were dead. The chief of their plou was Maltot.

Hoarvian urged Conmore to obtain the girl for him to be his wife; the brother and the chief gave their consent, the girl herself does not seem to have been consulted, and the same night they were married. There was no losing time between love-making and wedlock in those days, apparently. Next morning Rivanon cursed the child that would be conceived in her womb, that it should never see the light. Hoarvian was greatly shocked at this outburst; but the curse had been uttered and could not be recalled.

When the child was born, he was named Hoernbiu or Hoarve, and he was born blind. Rivanon hated her child; however, she reared it to the age of seven.

We hear no more of the boy’s father Hoarvian. His relations with Rivanon were strained, and he probably abandoned her, and returned to Britain.

From a very early age Huerve “wandered about as a beggar, with another boy as his guide, whose name is variously given as Guurihuran Wiuharan, and in late times Guiharan.

As they passed through a village, the peasants who were at their dinner, charitably gave the blind boy some cakes, and Huerv, seated on a stone, sent his guide to collect alms. Whilst thus seated, a fit of sneezing came on, and one of his milk teeth fell out, and he put it on the stone. The inhabitants of the village saw it blaze like a lamp and increase in splendour till it became a globe of fire radiating light in all directions. So as not to frighten the people, Guiharan picked up the tooth and carried it off.

Another day the two boys were traversing a village, when a group of little shepherd children yelled after Huerve, “Where are you off to, little blind boy? ” No gross insult, but enough to enrage Huerve, who turned and cursed them that they should ever be stunted in their growth, in fact be dwarfs. Some little time after, passing by the same spot, Huerve “struck his foot against a stone and hurt it, whereupon he cursed all the stones of the place that neither iron nor steel should be able to cut them.

At the age of seven, Huerve went to a saintly monk named Harthian or Arthian, whom Albert le Grand calls Martianus, and remained with him till he was fourteen, learning grammar and the ecclesiastical chant. Then he departed to a kinsman (consobrinus) S. Urphoed, in the land of Ach.

He asked Urphoed where his mother was, she had retired from the world to lead an eremitical (hermitical) life. Urphoed replied that he did not know, but if Huerve would occupy his cell, and the guide, Guiharan, would attend to his farm and harrow the ground with the ass, he would depart in quest of her. The MS. of S. Vincent du Mans adds, that Urphoed told him she had taken with her a little maid, named Christina.

After some search, Urphoed found Rivanon, and she consented to see her son. Meanwhile, a wolf had carried off the ass and eaten it. Huerve prayed, and the beast came to him and submitted to the yoke and did all the farm work hitherto performed by the ass. Urphoed now returned and informed Huerve of where his mother was to be found, and added that she was in failing health. The youth then departed and saw her, and she begged him to revisit her when she was at the point of death, and that he might be within reach, she bade him request Urphoed to abandon his cell to him. Huerve did so, and Urphoed obligingly departed into the forest of Duna, that once covered Bourgblanc, near Plabennec, and much country round. Huerve now occupied the old cell so that he seems already to have been gathering a party about him.

When Rivanon was dying, Huerve was with her, and administered to her the last Communion. He was only a layman at the time, and it must have been entrusted to him by a priest to convey to her.

After having buried his mother, he remained for three years in the cell that Urphoed had surrendered to him, and he had many scholars who came to him. Then he considered it his duty to inquire after Urphoed, and he went in quest of him, but found him dead, buried in his cell, which had fallen into ruins. He next visited S. Hoardun, Bishop of Lon, who ordained him exorcist, and wandered about taking with him Christina, his mother’s niece and companion. His scholars accompanied him whereverhe went, so, did the wolf.

At last he resolved on making a permanent settlement, and decided on planting himself by the stream Lyssem, the present La Heche, that separates the parishes of Lanhouarneau and Ploune venter. He arrived here when the crops were green, and demanded of the owner of a field, named Innoc, to surrender part of it to him. The man demurred; however he consented at last, and Huerve cut down the green corn where he purposed constructing his monastery. At harvest the remainder of the crop yielded a double quantity. The place has since been called Lanhouarneau.

Four Ancient Books of Wales.

The Battleof Godeu. Book of Taliessin VIII

I HAVE been in a multitude of shapes,
Before I assumed a consistent form.
I have been a sword, narrow, variegated,
I will believe when it is apparent.
I have been a tear in the air,
I have been the dullest of stars.
I have been a word among letters,
I have been a book in the origin.
I have been the light of lanterns
A year and a half.
I have been a continuing bridge,
Over three score Abers.
I have been a course, I have been an eagle.
I have been a coracle in the seas:
I have been compliant in the banquet.
I have been a drop in a shower;
I have been a sword in the grasp of the hand:
I have been a shield in battle.
I have been a string in a harp,
Disguised for nine years.
In water, in foam.
I have been sponge in the fire,
I have been wood in the covert.
I am not he who will not sing of
A combat though small,
The conflict in the battle of Godeu of sprigs.
Against the Guledig of Prydain,
There passed central horses,
Fleets full of riches.
There passed an animal with wide jaws,
On it there were a hundred heads.
And a battle was contested
Under the root of his tongue;
And another battle there is
In his occiput.
A black sprawling toad,
With a hundred claws on it.
A snake speckled, crested.
A hundred souls through sin
Shall be tormented in its flesh.
I have been in Caer Vevenir,
Thither hastened grass and trees,
Minstrels were singing,
Warrior-bands were wondering,
At the exaltation of the Brython,
That Gwydyon effected.
There was a calling on the Creator,
Upon Christ for causes,
Until when the Eternal
Should deliver those whom he had made.
The Lord answered them,
Through language and elements:
Take the forms of the principal trees,
Arranging yourselves in battle array,
And restraining the public.
Inexperienced in battle hand to band.
When the trees were enchanted,
In the expectation of not being trees,
The trees uttered their voices
From strings of harmony,
The disputes ceased.
Let us cut short heavy days,
A female restrained the din.
She came forth altogether lovely.
The head of the line, the head was a female.
The advantage of a sleepless cow
Would not make us give way.
The blood of men up to our thighs,
The greatest of importunate mental exertions
Sported in the world.
And one has ended
From considering the deluge,
And Christ crucified,
And the day of judgment near at hand.
The alder-trees, the head of the line,
Formed the van.
The willows and quicken-trees
Came late to the army.
Plum-trees, that are scarce,
Unlonged for of men.
The elaborate medlar-trees,
The objects of contention.
The prickly rose-bushes,
Against a host of giants,
The raspberry brake did
What is better failed
For the security of life.
Privet and woodbine
And ivy on its front,
Like furze to the combat
The cherry-tree was provoked.
The birch, notwithstanding his high mind,
Was late before he was arrayed.
Not because of his cowardice,
But on account of his greatness.
The laburnum held in mind,
That your wild nature was foreign.
Pine-trees in the porch,
The chair of disputation,
By me greatly exalted,
In the presence of kings.
The elm with his retinue,
Did not go aside a foot;
He would fight with the centre,
And the flanks, and the rear.
Hazel-trees, it was judged
That ample was thy mental exertion.
The privet, happy his lot,
The bull of battle, the lord of the world.
Morawg and Morydd
Were made prosperous in pines.
Holly, it was tinted with green,
He was the hero.
The hawthorn, surrounded by prickles,
With pain at his hand.
The aspen-wood has been topped,
It was topped in battle.
The fern that was plundered.
The broom, in the van of the army,
In the trenches he was hurt.
The gorse did not do well,
Notwithstanding let it overspread.
The heath was victorious, keeping off on all sides.
The common people were charmed,
During the proceeding of the men.
The oak, quickly moving,
Before him, tremble heaven and earth.
A valiant door-keeper against an enemy,
His name is considered.
The blue-bells combined,
And caused a consternation.
In rejecting, were rejected,
Others, that were perforated.
Pear-trees, the best intruders
In the conflict of the plain.
A very wrathful wood,
The chestnut is bashful,
The opponent of happiness,
The jet has become black,
The mountain has become crooked,
The woods have become a kiln,
Existing formerly in the great seas,
Since was heard the shout:–
The tops of the birch covered us with leaves,
And transformed us, and changed our faded state.
The branches of the oak have ensnared us
From the Gwarchan of Maelderw.
Laughing on the side of the rock,
The lord is not of an ardent nature.
Not of mother and father,
When I was made,
Did my Creator create me.
Of nine-formed faculties,
Of the fruit of fruits,
Of the fruit of the primordial God,
Of primroses and blossoms of the hill,
Of the flowers of trees and shrubs.
Of earth, of an earthly course,
When I was formed.
Of the flower of nettles,
Of the water of the ninth wave.
I was enchanted by Math,
Before I became immortal,
I was enchanted by Gwydyon
The great purifier of the Brython,
Of Eurwys, of Euron,
Of Euron, of Modron.
Of five battalions of scientific ones,
Teachers, children of Math.
When the removal occurred,
I was enchanted by the Guledig.
When he was half-burnt,
I was enchanted by the sage
Of sages, in the primitive world.
When I had a being;
When the host of the world was in dignity,
The bard was accustomed to benefits.
To the song of praise I am inclined, which the tongue recites.
I played in the twilight,
I slept in purple;
I was truly in the enchantment
With Dylan, the son of the wave.
In the circumference, in the middle,
Between the knees of kings,
Scattering spears not keen,
From heaven when came,
To the great deep, floods,
In the battle there will be
Four score hundreds,
That will divide according to their will.
They are neither older nor younger,
Than myself in their divisions.
A wonder, Canhwr arc born, every one of nine hundred.
He was with me also,
With my sword spotted with blood.
Honour was allotted to me
By the Lord, and protection (was) where he was.
If I come to where the boar was killed,
He will compose, he will decompose,
He will form languages.
The strong-handed gleamer, his name,
With a gleam he rules his numbers.
They would spread out in a flame,
When I shall go on high.
I have been a speckled snake on the hill,
I have been a viper in the Llyn.
I have been a bill-hook crooked that cuts,
I have been a ferocious spear
With my chasuble and bowl
I will prophesy not badly,
Four score smokes
On every one what will bring.
Five battalions of arms
Will be caught by my knife.
Six steeds of yellow hue
A hundred times better is
My cream-coloured steed,
Swift as the sea-mew
Which will not pass
Between the sea and the shore.
Am I not pre-eminent in the field of blood?
Over it are a hundred chieftains.
Crimson (is) the gem of my belt,
Gold my shield border.
There has not been born, in the gap,
That has been visiting me,
Except Goronwy,
From the dales of Edrywy.
Long white my fingers,
It is long since I have been a herdsman.
I travelled in the earth,
Before I was a proficient in learning.
I travelled, I made a circuit,
I slept in a hundred islands.
A hundred Caers I have dwelt in.
Ye intelligent Druids,
Declare to Arthur,
What is there more early
Than I that they sing of.
And one is come
From considering the deluge,
And Christ crucified,
And the day of future doom.
A golden gem in a golden jewel.
I am splendid
And shall be wanton
From the oppression of the metal-workers.

521. Annals of Inisfallen.

Birth of Colum Cille and the falling asleep of Buite, son of Brónach.

521. Annals of Ulster.

Cainnech of Achad Bó was born this year according to some.

521. Annales Cambriae.

St. Columba is born. The death of St. Brigid.

521. Annals of the Four Masters.

The eighteenth year of Muircheartach. Saint Buite mac Bronaigh, bishop of Mainister, died on the 7th of December.

Let Buite, the virtuous judge of fame, come each day to my aid,

The fair hand with the glories of clean deeds, the good son of Bronach, son of Bolar.

523. The twentieth year of Muircheartach. Beoaidh, Bishop of Ard Carna, died the eighth day of March. Eochaidh, son of Aenghus, King of Munster, died.

523. The Annals of Ulster.

(The battle of Dethna in Droma Breg, in which Ardgal, son of Conall of Cremthann son of Niall, fell, according to others. Buite son of Brónach died. Colum Cille was born.)

St John 1 Pope 523-526

523. Cronicum Scotorum.

Dormitatio of Saint Brigid, in the 87th year of her age, or 77th, as some assert. Pope John quievit.

524. Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Saint Brigit

524. Cronicum Scotorum.

Death of Illann, son of Dunlaing, King of Laighen. The battle of Luachair gained by Coirpre over the Uibh Neill, of which was

said:—

The fierce battle of Luachair, over head, downwards,

Brigid saw; no fruitless miracle;

The bloody battle of Finnabhair was noble, About the body of Illann after death.

524. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twenty first year of Muircheartach. The battle of Ath Sighe was gained by Muircheartach against the Leinstermen. where Sighe, the son of Dian, was slain, from who Ath Sighe is called.

524. The Annals of Ulster .

The battle of Cainri son of Niall; and Beo-aed, bishop of Ard Carna, rested. Repose of St Brigit in the 70th year of her age.

Saint Bridget

LIFE OF BRIGIT BETHU BRIGTE

(Author: [unknown])

…The miracles were published abroad. One day in that place Broicsech went to milk and she leaves nobody in her house except the holy girl who was asleep. They saw that the house had caught fire behind them. The people run to its aid, thinking that they would not one house-post against another. The house is found intact and the girl asleep and her face like … And Brigit is revered [there] as long as it may exist (?).

On a certain day, the druid was asleep and he saw three clerics wearing white hooded garments baptizing (the above-mentioned) Brigit, and one of the three said to him, ‘Let Brigit be your name for the girl.’

The druid and the female slave and her child were at Loch Mescae, and the druid’s mother’s brother was there too; the latter was a Christian. When they were there at midnight the druid was watching the stars and he saw a fiery column rising out of the house, from the precise spot where the slave and her daughter were. He woke his mother’s brother and he saw it also, and the latter said that she was a holy girl. ‘That is true’, said he, ‘if I were to relate to you all her deeds.’

On another occasion when the druid and his mother’s brother were in a house and the girl asleep, wherever her mother was, they heard the low voice of the girl in the side of the house, and she had not yet begun to speak. ‘Look for us’, said the druid to his maternal uncle, ‘how our girl is, for I do not dare to do so since I am not a Christian.’ He saw her lying in a crossvigil and she was praying. ‘Go again’, said the druid, ‘and ask her something this time, for she will say something to you now.’ He goes and addressed her. ‘Say something to me, girl’, said he. The girl then spoke two words to him: ‘This will be mine, this will be mine.’ The maternal uncle of the druid did not understand that. ‘Reveal [it] to us’, said he to the druid, ‘for I do not understand [it].’ ‘You will be very displeased with it’, said the druid. ‘This is what she has said’, said the druid, ‘this place will be hers till the day of doom.’ The maternal uncle of the druid shrank for the idea of (?) Brigit’s holding the land. The druid said, ‘Truly it shall be fulfilled. This place will be hers although she go with me to Munster’.

When it was time to wean her the druid was anxious about her; anything he gave her [to eat] she vomited at once, but her appearance was none the worse. ‘I know’, said the druid, ‘what ails the girl, [it is] because I am impure.’ Then a white red-eared cow was assigned to sustain her and she became well as a result.

Thereafter the druid went to Munster, to be precise into Úaithne Tíre. There the saint is fostered. After a time, she says to her fosterer: ‘I do not desire to serve here, but send me to my father, where he may come to meet me.’ This was done and her father Dubthach brought her away to his own patrimony in the two plains of Uí Fhailgi. She remained there among her relatives, and while still a girl performed miracles.

Then she was taken to a certain virgin to be fostered by her. It is Brigit who was cook for her afterwards. She used to find out the number of guests that would come to her fostermother, and whatever the number of guests might be the supply of bread did not fail them during the night.

Once her fostermother was seriously ill. She was sent with another girl to the house of a certain man named Báethchú to ask for a drink of ale for the sick woman. They got nothing from Báethchú … They came to a certain well. She brought three vessels’ full therefrom. The liquid was tasty and intoxicating, and her fostermother was healed immediately. God did that for her.

One day Dubthach made her herd pigs. Robbers stole two of the boars. Dubthach went in his chariot from Mag Lifi and he met them and recognized his two boars with them. He seizes the robbers and bound a good mulct for his pigs on them. He brought his two boars home and said to Brigit: ‘Do you think you are herding the pigs well?’ ‘Count them’, said she. He counts them and finds their numbers complete.

On a certain day, a guest came to Dubthach’s house. Her father entrusted her with a flitch of bacon to be boiled for the guest. A hungry dog came up to which she gave a fifth part of the bacon. When this had been consumed she gave another [fifth]. The guest, who was looking on, remained silent as though he was overcome by sleep. On returning home again the father finds his daughter. ‘Have you boiled the food well?’, said her father. ‘Yes’, said she. And he himself counted [them] and found [them intact]. Then the guest tells Dubthach what the girl had done. ‘After this’, said Dubthach, ‘she has performed more miracles than can be recounted.’ This is what was done then: that portion of food was distributed among the poor.

On another occasion after that an old pious nun who lived near Dubthach’s house asked Brigit to go and address the twenty-seven Leinster saints in one assembly. It was just then that Ibor the bishop recounted in the assembly a vision which he had seen the night before. ‘I thought’, said he, ‘that I saw this night the Virgin Mary in my sleep, and a certain venerable cleric said to me: ‘This is Mary who will dwell among you’.’ Just then the nun and Brigit came to the assembly. ‘This is the Mary who was seen by me in a dream.’ The people of the assembly rose up before her and went to converse with her. They blessed her. The assembly was held where now is Kildare, and there Ibor the bishop says to the brethren: ‘This site is open to heaven, and it will be the richest of all in the whole island; and today a girl, for whom it has been prepared by God, will come to us like Mary.’ It happened thus.

Another time thereafter she wished to visit her mother who was in slavery in Munster, and her father and fostermother would scarcely allow her to go. She went however. Her mother was at that time in … engaged in dairy work away from the druid, and she was suffering from a disease of the eye. Brigit was working in her stead, and the druid’s charioteer was herding the cattle; and every churning she made, she used to divide the produce into twelve portions with its curds, and the thirteenth portion would be in the middle and that was greater than every other portion. ‘Of what advantage to you deem that to be?’, said the charioteer. ‘Not hard’, said Brigit. ‘I have heard that there were twelve apostles with the Lord, and he himself the thirteenth. I shall have from God that thirteen poor people will come to me one day, the same number as Christ and his apostles.’ ‘And why do you not store up some of the butter?’ said the charioteer, ‘for that is what every dairy-worker does.’ ‘It is difficult for me’, said Brigit, ‘to deprive Christ of his own food.’ Then baskets were brought to her to be filled from the wife of the druid. She had only the butter of one and a half churnings. The baskets were filled with that and the guests, namely the druid and his wife, were satisfied. The druid said to Brigit: ‘The cows shall be yours and let you distribute the butter among the poor, and your mother shall not be in service from today and it shall not be necessary to buy her, and I shall be baptized and I shall never part from you.’ ‘Thanks be to God’, said Brigit.

On one occasion Dubthach brought Brigit to the king of Leinster, namely Dúnlang, to sell her as a serving slave, because her stepmother had accused her of stealing everything in the house for clients of God. Dubthach left her in his chariot to mind it on the green of the fort and he leaves his sword with her. She gave it to a leper who came to her. Dubthach said to the king: ‘Buy my daughter from me to serve you, for her manners have deserved it.’ ‘What cause of annoyance has she given?’, said the king. ‘Not hard’, said Dubthach. ‘She acts without asking permission; whatever she sees, her hand takes.’ Dubthach on returning questions her about that precious sword. She replied: ‘Christ has taken it.’ Having learned that, he said: ‘Why, daughter, did you give the value of ten cows to a leper? It was not my sword, but the king’s.’ The girl replied: ‘Even if I had the power to give all to Leinster, I would give it to God.’ For that reason, the girl is left in slavery. Dubthach returned to his home. Wonderful to relate, the virgin Brigit is raised by divine power and placed behind her father. ‘Truly, Dubthach’, said the king, ‘this girl can neither be sold nor bought.’ Then the king gives a sword to the virgin, and …After the afore-mentioned miracles they return home.

Shortly afterwards a man came to Dubthach’s house to woo Brigit. His name was Dubthach moccu Lugair. That pleased her father and her brothers. ‘It is difficult for me’, said Brigit, ‘I have offered up my virginity to God. I will give you advice. There is a wood behind your house, and there is a beautiful maiden [therein]. She will be betrothed to you, and this is how you will recognize it: You will find an enclosure wide open and the maiden will be washing her father’s head and they will give you a greater welcome, and I will bless your face and your speech so that whatever you say will please them.’ It was done as Brigit said.

Her brothers were grieved at her depriving them of the bride-price. There were poor people living close to Dubthach’s house. She went one day carrying a small load for them. Her brothers, her father’s sons, who had come from Mag Lifi, met her. Some of them were laughing at her; others were not pleased with her, namely Bacéne, who said: ‘The beautiful eye which is in your head will be betrothed to a man though you like it or not.’ Thereupon she immediately thrusts her finger into her eye. ‘Here is that beautiful eye for you’, said Brigit. ‘I deem it unlikely’, said she, ‘that anyone will ask you for a blind girl.’ Her brothers rush about her at once save that there was no water near them to wash the wound. ‘Put’, said she, ‘my staff about this sod in front of you.’ That was done. A stream gushed forth from the earth. And she cursed Bacéne and his descendants, and said: ‘Soon your two eyes will burst in your head.’ And it happened thus.

Dubthach said to her: ‘Take the veil then, my daughter, for this is what you desire. Distribute this holding to God and man.’ ‘Thanks be to God’, said Brigit.

On a certain day, she goes with seven virgins to take the veil to a foundation on the side of Cróchán of Bri Éile, where she thought that Mel the bishop dwelt. There she greets two virgins, Tol and Etol, who dwelt there. They said: ‘The bishop is not here, but in the churches of Mag Taulach.’ While saying this they behold a youth called Mac Caille, a pupil of Mel the bishop. They asked him to lead them to the bishop. He said: ‘The way is trackless, with marshes, deserts, bogs and pools.’ The saint said: ‘Extricate us [from our difficulty].’ As they proceeded on their way, he could see afterwards a straight bridge there.

The hour of consecration having arrived, the veil was raised by angels from the hand of Mac Caille, the minister, and is placed on the head of saint Brigit. Bent down moreover during the prayers she held the ash beam which supported the altar. It was afterwards changed into acacia, which is neither consumed by fire nor does it grow old through centuries. Three times the church was burned down, but the beam remained intact under the ashes.

The bishop being intoxicated with the grace of God there did not recognise what he was reciting from his book, for he consecrated Brigit with the orders of a bishop. ‘This virgin alone in Ireland’, said Mel, ‘will hold the Episcopal ordination.’ While she was being consecrated a fiery column ascended from her head.

Afterwards the people granted her a place called Ached hÍ in Saltus Avis. Remaining there a little while, she persuaded three pilgrims to remain there and granted them the place. She performed three miracles in that place, namely: The spring flowed in dry land, the meat turned into bread, the hand of one of the three men was cured.

Once at Eastertide: ‘What shall we do?’, said Brigit to her maidens. ‘We have one sack of malt. It was well for us to prepare it that we might not be without ale over Easter. There area moreover seventeen churches in Mag Tailach. Would that I might keep Easter for them in the matter of ale on account of the Lord whose feast it is, that they might have drink although they should not have food. It is unfortunate for us only that we have no vessels.’ That was true. There was one vat in the house and two tubs. ‘They are good; let it be prepared(?).’ This is what was done: the mashing in one of the tubs, in the other it was put to ferment; and that which was put to ferment in the second tub, the vat used to be filled from it and taken to each church in turn, so that the vat kept on coming back, but though it came back quickly that which was in the tub was ale. Eighteen vatfuls had come from the one sack, and what sufficed for herself over Easter. And there was no lack of feasting in every single church from Easter Sunday to Low Sunday as a result of that preparation by Brigit.

A woman from Fid Éoin who was a believer gave her a cow on that Easter Day. There were two of them driving the cow, namely the woman and her daughter. They were not able however to drive their cow … They had lost their calf as they were coming through the wood. They besought Brigit then. That prayer availed them; their cow leads the way before them to the settlement where Brigit was. ‘This is what we must do’, said Brigit to her maidens, ‘for this is the first offering made to us since occupying this hermitage, let it be taken to the bishop who blessed the veil on our head.’ ‘It is of little benefit to him’, said the maidens, ‘the cow without the calf.’ ‘That is of no account’, said Brigit. ‘The little calf will come to meet its mother so that it will be together they will reach the enclosure.’ It was done thus as she said.

On the same Easter Sunday, there came to her a certain leper from whom his limbs were falling, to ask for a cow. ‘For God’s sake, Brigit, give me a cow.’ ‘Grant me a respite’, said Brigit. ‘I would not grant you’, said he, ‘even the respite of a single day.’ ‘My son, let us await the hand of God’, said Brigit. ‘I will go off’, said the leper. ‘I will get a cow in another stead although I obtain it not from you.’ ‘…’, said Brigit, ‘and if we were to pray to God for the removal of your leprosy, would you like that?’, ‘No’, said he, ‘I obtain more this way than when I shall be clean.’ ‘It is better’, said Brigit, ‘… and you shall take a blessing [and] shall be cleansed.’ ‘All right then’, said he, ‘for I am sorely afflicted.’ ‘How will this man be cleansed?’, said Brigit to her maidens. ‘Not hard, O nun. Let your blessing be put on a mug of water, and let the leper be washed with it afterwards.’ It was done thus and he was completely cured. ‘I shall not go’, said the leper, ‘from the cup which has healed me — I shall be your servant and woodman.’ Thus it was done.

On the following day, Monday, Mel came to Brigit to preach and say Mass for her between the two Easters. A cow had been brought to her on that day also and it was given to Mel the bishop, the other cow having been taken. Ague assails one of Brigit’s maidens and she was given Communion. ‘Is there anything you might desire?’, said Brigit. ‘There is’, said she. ‘If I do not get some fresh milk, I shall die at once.’ Brigit calls a maiden and said: ‘Bring me my own mug, out of which I drink, full of water. Bring it without anyone seeing it.’ It was brought to her then, and she blessed it so that it became warm new milk, and the maiden was immediately completely cured when she tasted of it. So that those are the two miracles simultaneously, i.e. the changing of water to milk and the cure of the maiden.

On the following day, Tuesday, there was a good man nearby who was related to Brigit. He had been a full year ailing. ‘Take for me today’, said he, ‘the best cow in my byre to Brigit, and let her pray to God for me, to see if I shall be cured.’ The cow was brought, and Brigit said to those who brought it: ‘Take it immediately to Mel.’ They brought it back to their house and exchanged it for another cow unknown to their sick man. That was related to Brigit, who was angry at the deceit practised on her. ‘Between a short time from now and the morning’, said Brigit, ‘wolves shall eat the good cow which was given into my possession and which was not brought to you’, said she to Mel, ‘and they shall eat seven oxen in addition to it.’ That was related then to the sick man. ‘Go’, said he, ‘take to her seven oxen of choice of the byre.’ It was done thus. ‘Thanks be to God’, said Brigit. ‘Let them be taken to Mel to his church. He has been preaching and saying Mass for us these seven days between the two Easters; a cow each day to him for his labour, it is not greater than what he has given; and take a blessing with all eight, a blessing on him from whom they were brought’, said Brigit. When she said that he was healed immediately.

During the time between the two Easters Brigit suffered greatly from a headache. ‘That does not matter’, said Mel. ‘When we go to visit our first settlement in Tethbae, Brigit and her maidens will go with us. There is a wonderful physician in Mide, namely Áed mac Bricc. He will heal you.’ It was then she healed two paralytic virgins of the Fothairt.

Then two blind Britons with a young leper of the sept of Eocchaid came and pray with importunity to be healed. Brigit said to them: ‘Wait a while.’ But they said, ‘You have healed the infirm of your own people and you neglect the healing of foreigners. But at least heal our boy who is of your people.’ And by this the blind are made to see and the leper is cleansed.

Low Sunday approached. ‘I do not think it fortunate now’, said Brigit to her maidens, ‘not to have ale on Low Sunday for the bishop who will preach and say Mass.’ As soon as she said that, two maidens went to the water to bring in water and they had a large churn for the purpose, and Brigit was not aware of this. When they came back again, Brigit saw them there. ‘Thanks be to God’, said Brigit. ‘God has given us beer for our bishop.’ The nuns became frightened then. ‘May God help us. O maiden.’ ‘Whatever foolish thing I said, I have not said anything evil, O nuns.’ ‘The water which was brought inside, because you have blessed it, God did what you desired and immediately it was changed into ale with the smell of wine from it, and better ale was never set to brew in the [whole] world.’ The one churn was sufficient [for them] with their guests and the bishop.

On the Monday after Low Sunday Brigit went in her chariot and her maidens along with her and the two bishops and Mel and Melchú into the plain of Mide to a physician, and that they might go afterwards into the plain of Tethbae to visit a foundation which Mel and Melchú had there. On Tuesday at nightfall they turn aside to the house of a certain Leinsterman of the Uí Brolaig. He received them and out of respect and kindness he entertained the holy Brigit and the bishops. That good man and his wife complained. The wife said: ‘All the children I have given birth to have died, except two daughters and they are dumb since the day of their birth.’ She goes to Áth Firgoirt. The holy Brigit falls in the middle of the ford, the horses being frightened for some unknown reason, and the saint’s head was dashed against a stone and was injured on top, and it richly stained the waters with the blood which was shed. The holy Brigit said to one of the two dumb girls: ‘Pour the water mixed with blood about your neck in the name of God.’ And she did so and said: ‘You have healed me. I give thanks to God’. ‘Call you sister’, said Brigit to the girl who had been healed. ‘Come here, sister’, said she. ‘I shall come indeed’, said her companion, ‘and though I go I have already been healed. I bowed down in the track of the chariot and I was cured.’ ‘Go home’, said Brigit to the girl, ‘and ye shall again bring forth as many male children as have died on you.’ They were delighted at that. And that memorable stone often heals many. Any head with a disease of the head which is placed on it returns from it cured. It was then they met the learned leech, Áed mac Bricc.’ said the bishop, ‘the head of the holy maiden.’ He touched it and with these words addresses the virgin: ‘The vein of your head, O virgin, has been touched by a physician who is much better than I am.’

They go to Tethbae, to the first settlements of the bishops, namely Ardagh. The king of Tethbae was feasting nearby. A churl in the king’s house had done a terrible thing. He let fall a valuable goblet belonging to the king, so that it smashed to pieces against the table in front of the king. The vessel was a wonderful one, it was one of the rare treasures of the king. He seized the wretch then, and there was nothing for him but death. One of the two bishops came to beseech the king. ‘Neither shall I give him to anybody’, said the king, ‘nor shall I give him in exchange for any compensation, but he shall be put to death.’ ‘Let me have from you’, said the bishop, ‘the broken vessel.’ ‘You shall have that’, said the king. The bishop then brought it in his arms to Brigit, relating everything to her. ‘Pray to the Lord for us that the vessel may be made whole.’ She did so and restored it and gave it to the bishop. The bishop comes on the following day with his goblet to the king and [says]: ‘If your goblet should come back to you make whole’, said the bishop, ‘would the captive be released?’ ‘Not only that, but whatever gifts he should desire, I would give him.’ The bishop shows him the vessel and speaks these words to the king: ‘It is not I who performed this miracle, but holy Brigit’.

When Brigit’s fame had resounded throughout Tethbae, there was a certain pious virgin in Tethbae from whom a message was sent in order that Brigit might go and speak to her, namely Bríg daughter of Coimloch. Brigit went and Bríg herself arose to wash her feet. There was a pious woman ailing at that time. While they were washing Brigit’s feet, that sick person who was in the house sent a maiden to bring her out of the tub some of the water which was put over Brigit’s feet. It was brought to her then and she put it about her face and she was completely cured at once; and after being ailing for a year, she was the only servant that night. When their dishes were put in front of them, Brigit began to watch her dishes intently. ‘May it be fitting for us’, said Bríg, ‘O holy maiden, what do you perceive on your dish?’, ‘I see Satan sitting on the dish in front of me’, said Brigit. ‘If it is possible’, said Bríg, ‘I should like to see him.’ ‘It is possible indeed’, said Brigit, ‘provided that the sign of the cross goes over your eyes first; for anyone who sees the devil and does not bless himself first or …, will go mad.’ Bríg blesses herself then and sees that fellow. His appearance seemed ugly to her. ‘Ask, O Brigit’, said Bríg, ‘why has he come.’ ‘Grant an answer to men’, said Brigit. ‘No, O Brigit’, said Satan, ‘you are not entitled to it, for it is not to harm you that I have come.’ ‘Answer me then’, said Bríg, ‘what in particular has brought on to this dish?’ The demon replied: ‘I dwell here always with a certain virgin, with whom excessive sloth has given me a place.’ And Bríg said, ‘Let her be called.’ When she who was called came: ‘Sain her eyes’, said Bríg, ‘so that she may see him whom she has nourished in her own bosom.’ Her eyes having been sained, she beholds the awful monster. Brigit says to the maiden, now terrified with fear and trembling: ‘Behold you see him whom you have cherished for many years and seasons’. ‘O holy maiden,’ said Bríg, ‘that he may never enter this house again.’ ‘He shall not enter this house’, said Brigit, ‘till the day of doom.’ They partake of their food and return thanks to God.

Once she was hurrying on the bank of the Inny. There were many apples and sweet sloes in that church. A certain nun gave her a small gift in a basket of bark. When she brought [it] into the house, lepers came at once into the middle of the house to beg of her. ‘Take’, said she, ‘yonder apples’, Then she who had presented the apples [said]: ‘I did not give the gift to lepers.’ Brigit was displeased and said: ‘You act wrongly in prohibiting gifts to the servants of God; therefore, your trees shall never bear any fruit.’ And the donor, on going out, sees that all at once her garden bore no fruit, while shortly before it had abundant fruits. And it remains barren for ever, except for foliage.

Another virgin brought her apples and sweet sloes in large quantities. She gave [them] immediately to some lepers who were begging. ‘She who brought it will be sound’, said Brigit. ‘O nun, bless me and my garden.’ ‘May God indeed bless’, said Brigit, ‘that big tree yonder which I see in your garden; may there be sweet apples on it, and sweet sloes as to one third; and that twofold fruit shall not be lacking from it and its offshoots.’ And thus, it was done. As the nun went into her garden she saw the alder tree with its fruit, and sweet sloes on it as to one third.

In a certain place, namely Aicheth Fir Leth, two lepers followed Brigit. Great jealousy [of each other] took hold of them. They began to quarrel, but their hands and feet grew stiff. Seeing this, Brigit said: ‘Do penance’. They did so. Not only did she release them, but she healed them of their leprosy.

It was then that two virgins came to Brigit that she might go with them to consecrate their foundation and house along with them. Induae and Indiu were their names. On the way, they met a youth [who had come] to speak to the nuns with whom Brigit was going. ‘I have come to you’, said he, ‘from this ill person, that a chariot might be brought to him, so that he might die in the same enclosure with you.’ ‘We have no chariot’, said the nuns. ‘Let my chariot be brought to him’, said Brigit. That is what was done then. They were waiting till matins, until the sick man came. Lepers come to them afterwards in the morning. ‘O Brigit’, said they, ‘give us your chariot, for the sake of Christ.’ ‘Take [it]’, said Brigit, ‘[but] grant us a respite, O ye clients of God, so that we may bring the sick man first of all to our house which is quite near us.’ ‘We will not grant’, said they, ‘even the respite of a single hour, unless our chariot is being taken from us anyway.’ ‘Take [it] anyway’, said Brigit. ‘What shall we do’, said the nuns, ‘with our sick man?’ ‘Not hard’, said Brigit. ‘Let him come with us on foot.’ That is what was done then; he was completely cured on the spot.

It was then that she washed the feet of the nuns of Cúl Fobair, and healed four of them while washing them, namely a paralytic one, a blind one, a leper and a possessed one.

It was then that she healed the dumb paralytic at the house of Mac Odráin. It happened that Brigit and the dumb boy were left alone. Some destitute people having come and desired a drink, the holy Brigit looked for the key of the kitchen and did not find it. Being ignorant of the boy’s affliction, she addresses him thus: ‘Where is the key?’, And by this the dumb paralytic boy speaks and ministers.

Shortly afterwards at the beginning of summer: ‘Verily’, said Mel and Melchú to Brigit, ‘it has been related to us that Patrick is coming from the south of Ireland into Mag mBreg. We will go to speak to him. Will you go?’ ‘I will’, said Brigit, ‘so that I may see him and speak to him, and that he may bless me.’ As they set out, a certain cleric with a great amount of chattels and a following pursues them on the way, to ask [them] to accompany him into Mag mBreg. ‘It is a matter of urgency for us’, said Mel, ‘that our cleric may not escape us.’ ‘Let me find this out from you’, said Brigit, ‘the place in which we will meet in Mag mBreg, and I will wait for this pitiable gathering.’ Brigit waited afterwards for the migratory band. ‘There are twenty maidens with me [coming] along the road’, said Brigit, ‘give them some of the burdens.’ The wretched ones say: ‘Not so let it be done, for you have conferred a greater boon on us, since in your company the road is safe for us’. ‘Are there not two carts [coming] along the road?’, said Brigit. ‘Why is it not they which carry the loads?’ For she had not looked to see what was in them. Since Brigit entered religion, she never looked aside but only straight ahead. ‘There is a brother of mine’, said the cleric, ‘in one of the carts, who has been paralysed for fourteen years. There is a sister of mine in the other who is blind.’ ‘That is a pity’, said Brigit. They came that night to a certain stream, called the Manae. They all ate that night save only Brigit. On the morrow, she healed the two sick people who were along with her, and the loads were put into the carts; and they returned thanks to God.

It was then she healed the household of a plebean on the edge of the sea. Thus, it was done. A certain man was working in a cow-pasture, of whom the saint asked why he was working alone. He said: ‘All my family is ill.’ Hearing this, she blessed some water and immediately healed twelve sick members of the man’s family.

They come then to Tailtiu. Patrick was there. They were debating an obscure question there, namely a certain woman came to return a son to a cleric of Patrick’s household. Brón was the cleric’s name. ‘How has this been make out?’, said everyone. ‘Not hard’, said the woman. ‘I had come to Brón to have the veil blessed on my head and to offer my virginity to God. This is what my cleric did, he debauched me, so that I have borne him a son.’ As they were debating, Brigit came towards the assembly. Then Mel said to Patrick: ‘The holy maiden Brigit is approaching the assembly, and she will find out for you by the greatness of her grace and the proximity of her miracles whether this is true or false; for there is nothing in heaven or earth which she might request of Christ, which would be refused her. This then is what should be done in this case’, said Mel. ‘She should be called apart out of the assembly about this question, for she will not perform miracles in the presence of holy Patrick.’ Brigit came then. The host rises up before her. She is summoned apart out of the assembly immediately to address the woman, and the clerics excepting Patrick accompany her. ‘Whose yonder child?’, said Brigit to the woman. ‘Brón’s’, said the woman. ‘That is not true’, said Brigit. Brigit made the sign of the cross over her face, so that her head and tongue swelled up. Patrick comes to them then in that great assembly-place. Brigit addresses the child in the presence of the people of the assembly, though it had not yet begun to speak. ‘Who is your father’, said Brigit. The infant replied: ‘Brón the bishop is not my father but a certain low and ill-shaped man who is sitting in the outermost part of the assembly; my mother is a liar.’ They all return thanks to God, and cry out that the guilty one be burned. But Brigit refuses, saying: ‘Let this woman do penance.’ This was done, and the head and tongue lost their swelling. The people rejoiced, the bishop was liberated, and Brigit was glorified.

At the end of the day everybody went apart out of the assembly for hospitality. There was a good man living on the bank of the river called Seir. He sent his slave to the assembly to call Brigit, saying to his household: ‘The holy maiden who performed the wonderful miracle in the assembly-place today, I want her to consecrate my house tonight.’ He welcomed her. ‘Let water be put on our hands’, said her maidens to Brigit, ‘here is our food.’ ‘It is of no use now’, said Brigit. ‘For the Lord has shown me that this is a heathen home, with the one exception only of the slave who summoned us. On that account, I shall not eat now.’ The good man finds this out, namely that Brigit was fasting until he should be baptized. ‘I have said indeed’, said he, ‘that Patrick and his household would not baptize me. For your sake, however, I will believe’, [said he] to Brigit. ‘I do not mind provided that you be baptized’, said Brigit. ‘There is not a man in orders with me. Let someone go from us to Patrick, so that a bishop or priest may come to baptize this man.’ Brón came and baptized the ma with all his household at sunrise. They eat at midday. They return thanks. They come to holy Patrick. Patrick said: ‘You should not go about without a priest. Your charioteer should always be a priest.’ And that was observed by Brigit’s abbesses up to recent times.

After that she healed the old peasant woman who was placed in the shadow of her chariot at Cell Shuird in the south of Brega.

She healed the possessed man … who had gone round the borders. He was brought to Brigit afterwards. Having seen her, he was cured.

Brigit went afterwards to Cell Lasre. Lassar welcomed her. There was a single milch ewe there which had been milked, and it was killed for Brigit. As they were [there] at the end of the ay, they saw Patrick coming towards the stead. ‘May God help us, O Brigit’, said Lassar. ‘Give us your advice.’ Brigit replied: ‘How much have you?’, She said, ‘There is no food except twelve loaves, a little milk which you have blessed and a single lamb which has been prepared for you’. This is what [they do]: They all go into her refectory, both Patrick and Brigit, and they were all satisfied. And Lassar gave her her church, and Brigit is venerated there.

She remained the next day in Cell Lasre. A certain man of Kells by origin (?), whom his wife hated, came to Brigit for help. Brigit blessed some water. He took it with him and, his wife having been sprinkled [therewith], she straightaway loved him passionately.

A certain pious virgin sent to Brigit, in order that Brigit might go to visit her. Fine was her name. From her Cell Fhine was named. She went and remained there. One day wind and rain, thunder and lightning set in. ‘Which of you, O maidens, will go today with our sheep into this terrible storm?’, All the maidens were equally reluctant. Brigit answered: ‘I love very much to pasture sheep.’ ‘I do not want you to go’, said Fine. ‘Let my will be done’, said Brigit. She went then and chanted a verse while going:

Grant me a clear day
for Thou art a dear friend, a kingly youth;
for the sake of Thy mother, loving Mary,
ward off rain, ward off wind.

My king will do [it] for me,
Rain will not fall till the night,
On account of Brigit today,
Who is going here to the herding.

She stilled the rain and the wind.

On the Life of St. Brigit (Leabhar Breac)

(Translated by Whitley Stokes)

Hi sunt, etc. These are the folk that follow the unpolluted Lamb, whatsoever way He may wend.

John, Son of Zebedee, Jesus’ bosom-fosterling, heir of the Virgin, he it is that wrote these words, and that left them in the Church Christian in memory of the reward and guerdon which God hath given to the third grade of the Church, namely, to the Virgins, that is, the following of the unpolluted Lamb.

Inde Johannes, etc. Now this is the parallel part of the declaration by John, as far as where he previously said in his Gospel (sic) Nemo potest, etc. There cometh not to any one on earth to make unto the Lord meet praise or fitting quire-song, save only of a surety one of the all-fullness of either Church, who hath been brought up in chastity and in virginity, and hath been redeemed with the price of Christ’s blood.

Virgines enim sunt. For those are the virgins assuredly. So, on the track of these words John saith Hi sunt, etc. Nihil enim prodest, etc. It profiteth not any one to have the flesh a virgin if he be corrupt in mind. Virginitas enim, etc. Hoc est enim in Evangelio, etc. For this is in the Gospel, that these are the virgins that have not oil in their vessels, namely, the virgins that do not keep (to themselves) the approbation of the Lord, but (make) boasting before every one.

Haec est falsa castitas, etc. Now Patriarchs fulfilled the testament of virginity in prefiguration of Christ. And apostles and disciples of Jesus Christ son of the living God, fulfilled it also, the martyrs and anchorites of the Lord, the saints and holy virgins of the world besides, even as the holy, venerable virgin fulfilled it, she that hath a festival and commemoration on the occasion of this season and this time, to wit sancta virgo dei Brigida, for then it is that the Christians celebrate the feast and festal day of this holy Brigit, to wit, the Kalends of February as to the day of the solar month.

Here then is related in the churches of the Christians somewhat of her miracles and marvels, and of her birth according to flesh.

Brigit (was the) daugther of Dubthach, son of Demre (or Dreimne), son of Bresal, son of Den, son of Conla, son of Artair(?), son of Art Corb, son of Cairpe the Champion, son of Cormac, son of Oengus the Dumb, son of Eochaid Find Fuathnart, son of Fedlimid the Lawgiver, etc.

Now, that Dubthach son of Demre bought a bondmaid, named Broicsech, daughter of Dallbrónach of Conchobair in the south of Bregia. Dubthach united himself in wedlock to her, and she became preganant by him. Thereafter Dubthach’s consort grew jealous of the bondmaid (Brechtnat Blaithbec was the name of Dubhtach’s wife) and the queen said, ‘unless thou sellest this bondmaid in far-off lands, I will demand my dowry of thee, and I will go from thee.’

Dubthach did not at all desire to sell the bondmaid.

Dubthach went, and his bondmaid along with him, in a chariot, past the house of a certain wizard. When the wizard heard the noise of the chariot, this he said: ‘See, O gillie, who is in the chariot, for this is the noise of a chariot under a king.’ Said the gille, ‘Dubthach is therein.’ Then the wizard went to meet the chariot, and he asked whose (was) the woman who was biding in the chariot. Said Dubthach, ‘That is a bondmaid of mine,’ quoth he. Maithgen was the wizard’s name, and from him Ross Maithgen is named. The wizard asked by whom the bondmaid was preganant. ‘By Dubthach,’ says the bondmaid. Said the wizard, ‘Marvellous will be the offspring, the like of her will not be in (all) the lands.’

Said Dubthach, ‘My consort did not allow me not to sell this bondmaid.’

Said the wizard through his gift of prophecy, ‘Thy wife’s seed shall serve this bondmaid’s seed, for the bondmaid will bring forth a daughter, noble, revered, before the men of the earth. As sun shineth among stars, (so) will shine the maiden’s deeds and merits.’

Dubthach and the bondmaid rejoiced thereat, (and) Dubthach said, ‘Since I have (already) sons, I should like to have a daughter.’

Then Dubthach went (back) to his house and his bondmaid with him. The wife however was still jealous of the bondmaid.

Great was the honour in which God held this girl. For two bishops of the Britons came to her from Alba to prophesy of her and to sanctify her, to wit, Bishop Mél and Melchu nomina eorum. So Dubthach gave them a welcome and the bondmaid served them and tended them. Now Dubthach’s consort was mournful thereat, and Bishop Mél asked her the cause of her sadness. Said the wife, ‘Because Dubthach distinguisheth his bondmaid from me.’ Said Bishop Mél, ‘Thus shall it be as thou sayest, for thy seed shall serve the seed of the bondmaid, but with her seed shall be profitable unto thy seed.’ She was angry with him. So, the bishop asked her, ‘How many sons hast thou?’ Said the wife, ‘Six sons.’ Dixit Bishop Mél, ‘Thou shalt bear the seventh son, and he will be the worst of them, and the other sons will be bad unless the bondmaid’s seed ennobles them, and thou thyself shalt be accursed because of the wrong which thou doest to the bondmaid.’

After those words, there came to Dubthach’s house, out of the border of Hui-Maiccuais, another wizard who had been gathering treasures. Now when the wizard knew that the bondmaid was the cause of the anger of Dubthach’s wife, he said, ‘Wilt thou sell the bondmaid?’ ‘I will sell,’ saith Dubthach. Quoth the bishops, ‘Sell the bondmaid, but sell not the child that is in her womb.’ Thus did Dubthach.

The wizard went forth and the bondmaid with him. The wizard with his bondmaid arrived at his house.

A certain poet came out of the province of Conaille to the house of the wizard aforesaid in order to buy a slave or a bondmaid.

The wizard sold him the bondmaid, but sold him not the offspring. Then it came to pass that the wizard made a great feast, and bade the king of Conaille to the feast, and it was then the time for the king’s wife to bear a child. There was a prophet along with the king, and a friend of the king’s asked him what hour would be lucky for the queen to bring forth the royal offspring. Dixit propheta, ‘That the child that would be brought forth on the morrow at sunrise would overtop every birth in Ireland.’ Now the queen’s travail came on before that hour, and she brought forth a dead son. Then the poet asked the prophet ‘What hour would be lucky for the the bondmaid to bring forth?’ The prophet said that the child that would be brought forth on the morrow at sunrise, and neither within the house nor without, shall surpass every child in Ireland.

Now on the morrow, at sunrise, when the bondmaid was going with a vessel of milk in her hand, and when she put one foot over the threshold of the house inside and the other foot outside, then did she bring forth the girl, to wit, Saint Brigit.

The maid-servants washed the girl with the milk that was in her mother’s hand. Now that was in accord with the merits of Saint Brigit, to wit, with the brightness and sheen of her chastity.

On a Wednesday and on the eighth of the lunar month was Brigit born in Fothart Murthemni. Still, to the south-east of the church is the flagstone where Brigit was born, and the girl was taken straightway after her birth to the queen’s dead son, and when Brigit’s breath came to him he swiftly arose out of death.

Then the wizard and the bondmaid with her daughter went into the province of Connaught: her mother (was) of Connaught, her father out of Munster, her abode with the Connaughtmen.

On a certain day, the bondmaid went to her island, and covered up her daughter in her house. Certain neighbours saw the house wherein the girl was all ablaze, so that a flame of fire was made of it from earth to heaven. But when they went to rescue the house, the fire appeared not, and this they said, that the girl was full of the grace of the Holy Spirit.

One day the wizard went with his bondmaid to visit the cattle. The cow-dung(?) that lay before the girl was seen ablaze. But when the wizard and the bondmaid stretched down their hands to it, the fire appeared not.

Once upon a time when the wizard was sleeping, he saw three clerics in white garments, to wit, three angels of heaven, and they poured oil on St. Brigit’s head, and they completed the order of baptism. And the thrid cleric said to the wizard ‘This shall be the name of this holy maiden Sancta Brigita.’ The wizard arose, and told what he had beheld.

Now this holy virgin, namely Brigit, was nourished with food and like to her those of her age besides, and she rejected the guidance of the wizard and used to give it back. The wizard meditated on the girl, and it seemed to him that it was because of the impurity and the corruption of his food. Then he entrusted a white red-eared cow to give milk to Brigit, and he enjoined a faithful woman to milk the cow. The virgin took her fill of that.

That holy virign was reared till she was a handmaiden, and everything to which her hand was set used to increase and reverence God. Every store of food which she saw and served used to grow. She bettered the sheep: she tended the blind: she fed the poor.

Brigit was minded to go and watch over the fatherland. And the wizard sent messengers to Dubthach, that he might come for his daughter. The messengers declared unto Dubthach the maiden’s miracles and many wonders. Then Dubthach came, and the wizard makes him welcome, and gave him his daughter free.

Then they went to their country, Dubthach and his daughter Brigit, in the province of Offaly; and there did Brigit work a wonderous miracle, to wit, her fostermother was in weakness of disease, and the fostermother sent the holy Birgit and another maiden with her to the house of a certain man named Boethchú, to ask him for a draught of ale. He refused Brigit. Then Brigit filled a vessel out of a certain well, and blessed it, and (the water) was turned into the taste of ale, and she gave it to her fostermother, who straightway became whole thereby. Now when they went to drink the banquet not a drop threof was found.

This (was another) of Brigit’s miracles: while she was herding Dubthach’s swine, there came two robbers and carried off two boars of the herd. They fared over the plain, and Dubthach met them and bound on them the eric (mulct) of his swine. Said Dubthach to Brigit, ‘Is herding of the swine good, my girl?’ saith he. Dixit Brigit to Dubthach, ‘Count thou the swine.’ Dubthach counted the swine, and not one of them was wanting.

Guests, then came to Dubthach. Dubthach sundered a gammon of bacon into five pieces, and left them with Brigit to be boiled. And a miserable, greedy hound came into the house to Brigit. Brigit out of pity gave him the fifth piece. When the hound had eaten the piece, Brigit gave him another piece to him. Then Dubthach came and said to Brigit: ‘Hast thou boiled the bacon, and do all the portions remain?’ ‘Count them,’ saith Brigit. Dubthach counted them, and none of them was wanting. The guests declared unto Dubthach what Brigit had done. ‘Abundant,’ saith Dubthach, ‘are the miracles of that maiden.’ Now the guests ate not the food, for they were unworth (thereof), but it was dealt out to the poor and to the needy of the Lord.

Once upon a time a certain faithful woman asked Dubthach that Brigit might go with her into the plain of the Liffey, for a congregation of the synod of Leinster was held there. And it was revealed in a vision to a certain holy man who was in the assembly, that Mary the Virgin was coming thereto, and it was told him that she would not be (accompanied) by a man in the assembly. On the morrow came the woman to the assembly, and Brigit along with her. And he that had seen the vision said, ‘This is the Mary that I beheld!’ saith he to Brigit. The holy Brigit blessed all the hosts under the name and honour of Mary. Wherefore Brigit was (called) the Mary of the Gael thenceforward.

On a time it came into Brigit’s mind, through the grace of the Holy Ghost, to go and see her mother who was in bondage. So, she asked her father’s leave, and he gave it not. Nevertheless, she went without permssion from Dubthach. Glad was her mother when she arrived. Toil-worn and sickly was the mother and she (Brigit) …… for her mother, and took to bettering the dairy. The first churning that Brigit had she divided the fruit thereof into twelve shares in honour of the twelve apostles of the Creator, and she set the thirteenth portion so that it was greater than every (other) portion in honour of Jesus Christ, and she gave them all then to the poor of the Lord. Now the wizard’s herdsman marvelled at the ordering that Brigit gave the butter. Then said Brigit: ‘Christ with his twelve apostles preached to the men of the world. In His name it is, that I feed full the poor, for Christ is in the person of every faithful poor man.’

The charioteer (that is the herdsman) went to the wizard’s house, and the wizard and his wife asked him ‘hath the virgin well cared for the dairy?’ And the charioteer (i.e., the herdsman) said ‘I am thankful anyhow, and the calves are fat’ – for he durst not carp at Brigit in her absence. The charioteer took with him a hamper, eight fists in height. Said the charioteer to Brigit: ‘The wizard will come with his wife to fill this hamper with the butter of the dairy.’ ‘They are welcome,’ saith Brigit. The wizard and his consort came to the dairy, and beheld the calf’s fat. And Brigit made them welcome and brought food. Then said the wizard’s wife to Brigit: ‘We have come to know whether that which hath been entrusted to thee hath profited. Of butter, what hast thou?’ She had none in readiness, except the making of one churning and a half making, and she first brought the half. The wizard’s wife laughed thereat and said: ‘This quantity of butter,’ says she, ‘is good to fill the big hamper that I have!’ ‘Fill your hamper’ saith Brigit, ‘and God will put butter into it.’ So, she kept going still into her kitchen and carrying out of it a half making at every journey, for God did not wish to deprieve her of honour, so in that wise the hamper was filled. And this is what she repeated on going into her kitchen –

O God, O my Prince
Who canst do all these things,
Bless, O God (a cry unforbidden)
With thy right hand this kitchen!

May Mary’s Son, my Friend, come
To bless my kitchen!
The Prince of the world to the border,
May we have abundance with Him!

The wizard and his consort venerated the Lord because of the miracle which they beheld; wherefore then said the wizard to Brigit: ‘The butter and the kine that thou hast milked, I offer them to thee. Thou shalt not abide in bondage to me, but serve thou the Lord.’ Brigit answered him and said: ‘Take thou the kine and give me my mother’s freedom.’ Said the wizard: ‘Not only shall thy mother be freed, (but) the kine shall be given to thee, and whatsoever thou shalt say (that) will I do.’ Then Brigit dealt out the kine unto the poor and the needy of God. The wizard was baptized and was faithful, and accompanied Brigit from that time forth.

Then came Brigit, and her mother with her, to her father’s house. Thereafter Dubthach and his consort were minded to sell the holy Brigit into bondage; for Dubthach liked not his cattle and his wealth to be dealt out to the poor, and that is what Brigit used to do. So Dubthach fared in his chariot, and Brigit along with him. Said Dubthach to Brigit: ‘Not for honour or reverence to thee art thou carried in a chariot, but to take thee to sell thee and to grind the quern for Dunlang MacEnda, King of Leinster.’ When they came to the King’s fortress, Dubthach went in to the King and Brigit remained in her chariot at the fortress door. Dubthach had left his sword in his chariot near Brigit. A leper came to Brigit to ask for alms. She gave him Dubthach’s sword.

Dixit Dubthach to the King: ‘Wilt thou buy a bondmaid, namely, my daughter?’ says he. Dixit Dulang: ‘Why sellest thou thine own daughter?’ Dixit Dubthach: ‘She stayeth not from selling my wealth and giving it to the poor.’ Dixit the King: ‘Let the maiden come into the fortress.’ Dubthach went for Brigit and was enraged against her, because she had given his sword to the poor man. When Brigit came into the King’s presence, the King said to her: ‘Since it is thy father’s wealth that thou takest, much more, if I buy thee, wilt thou take my wealth and my cattle and give them to the poor?’ Dixit Brigit: ‘The Son of the virgin knoweth if I had thy might with (all) Leinster, and with all thy wealth I would give (them) to the Lord of the Elements.’ Said the King to Dubthach: ‘Thou art not fit on either hand to bargain about this maiden, for her merit is higher before God than before men.’ And the King gave Dubthach for her an ivory-hilted sword, et sic liberata est sancta virgo Brigita captivitate.

Shortly after that came a certain man of good kin unto Dubthach to ask for his daughter (in marriage). Dubthach and his sons were willing, but Brigit refused. Said a brother of her brethren named Beccán unto her: ‘Idle is the fair eye that is in thy head not be on a pillow near a husband.’ ‘The Son of the Virign knoweth,’ says Brigit, ‘it is not lively for us if it brings harm upon us.’ Then Brigit put her finger under her eye, and drew it out of her head until it was on her cheek, and she said: ‘Lo, here for thee is thy delightful eye, O Beccán!’ Then his eye burst forthwith. When Dubthach and her brethern beheld that, they promised that she should never be told to go unto a husband. Then she put her palm to her eye and it was quite whole at once. But Beccán’s eye was not whole till his death.

Said Dubthach to Brigit: ‘O daughter,’ says he, ‘put a veil on thy head. If thou hast dedicated thy virginity to God, I will not snatch thee from Him.’ ‘Deo gratias,’ says Brigit.

Brigit, and certain virgins with her, went to Bishop Mél, in Telcha Mide, to take the veil. Glad was he thereat. For humbleness Brigit staid, so that she might be the last to whom the veil should be given. A fiery pillar arose from her head to the ridgepole of the church. Bishop Mél asked: ‘What virgin is there?’ Answered MacCaille: ‘That is Brigit,’ saith he. ‘Come thou, O holy Brigit,’ saith Bishop Mél, ‘that the veil may be sained on thy head before other virgins.’

It came to pass then, through the grace of the Holy Ghost, that the form of ordaining a bishop was read over Brigit. MacCaille said that ‘The order of a bishop should not be (conferred) on a woman.’ Dixit Bishop Mél: ‘No power have I in this matter, inasmuch as by God hath been given unto her this honour beyond every woman.’ Hence, it is that the men of Ireland give the honour of bishop to Brigit’s successor.

In the eighth (day) of the lunar month(?) was she born. On the eighteenth did she take the veil on her head. On the twenty-eighth did she go to heaven. Together with eight virgins was Brigit consecrated. According to the number of the eight beatitudes of the gospel did she fulfill (her course). Still remaineth the altar’s leg that lay in Brigit’s hand though the three other legs were burnt.

This was one of Brigit’s miracles. When the solemnity of Easter drew nigh, Brigit set up, shortly before Maunday-Thursday, in a certain place near unto Bishop Mél. Brigit desired, through (her) charity, to brew ale for the many churches that were around her, and it was not usual to brew ale at that time. Brigit possessed only one measure of malt, and Brigit’s family had no vessels save two troughs. They made a tub of one of the two vessels, and they filled the other vessel with ale, and the virgins kept taking the ale from Brigit to the churches, and still the vessel before Brigit remained full. And thus, the produce of one measure of malt, through Brigit’s blessing, supplied (?) seven churches of Fir Telach for Maundy-Thursday and for the eight days of Easter.

When the solemnity of Easter was fulfilled, Brigit asked her maidens whether they had the leavings of the Easter ale. Replied the virigns: ‘God will give food,’ say they. Then two maidens came in with a tub full of water. ‘The Virgin’s Son knoweth,’ says Brigit, ‘that there is good (ale) there.’ She thought that it was ale. Quicker than speech, as she said that, the water was turned into choice ale forthwith.

Brigit went to a certain church in the land of Teffia to celebrate Easter, when on Maunday-Thursday Brigit took to washing the feet of the old men and the feeble folk who were in the church. Four of the sick people there, were a consumptive man, a madman, a blind man, and a leper. Brigit washed the feet of the four, and they were straightway healed from every disease that was on them.

Once Brigit was in a house as a guest, and all went out save a stripling of fourteen years. He had never spoken, nor moved foot or hand, and Brigit knew not that he was thus. So then came guests into the house to Brigit. Said Brigit to the stripling: ‘Attend on the guests.’ ‘I will do so,’ saith the stripling. He got up at once and did the service to the guests, and he was quite whole thenceforward.

Then there came to pass a meeting of the men of Ireland in Tailtin, in the place where Patrick abode, with a synod of Ireland’s clerics around him. Now Brigit and Bishop Mél went to the meeting, and a certain woman (also) went thither with a babe on her arm, and she said that the babe was by Bishop Brón. The Bishop, however, denied that. Brigit asked the woman by whom had she conceived the child, and told her not to utter a lie. And the woman answered: ‘It is by Bishop Brón.’ Then a swelling straightway filled her tongue, so that she was unable to speak. Brigit made the sign of the cross over the infant’s mouth and asked it: ‘Who is thy father?’ The infant answered and said ‘A wretched man who is in the outskirts of the assembly, that is my father,’ saith he. So in that wise Bishop Brón was saved through the grace of Brigit.

Brigit went to converse with Patrick in Mag Lemne while he was preaching the gospel. And Brigit fell asleep at the preaching. Dixit Patrick: ‘Wherefore hast thou slept?’ Brigit bent her knees thrice and said: ‘I saw a vision,’ quoth she. Dixit Patrick: ‘Tell us the vision.’ ‘I saw,’ quoth she, ‘four ploughs in the south-east, and they ploughed the whole island, and before the sowing was finished the harvest grew up, and clear well-springs and shining streams came out of the furrows, and white garments were round the sowers and ploughmen. I beheld four other ploughs in the north, and they ploughed the island athwart, and before the harvest came again, the oats which they had sown grew up at once and ripened, and black streams came out of the furrows and black garments were on the sowers and on the ploughmen. And I was sorrowful thereat,’ quoth Brigit.

Dixit Patrick: ‘Be not in sadness, for good is that which thou beheldest. The first four ploughs which thou beheldest, those are I and thou. We sow the four books of the gospel with seed of faith and confession. The harvest which appeared to thee, that is the perfect faith of those men-folk. The four other ploughs, those are the false teachers and the liars, and they will overturn the teachings that we sow, and those we shall not uplift. But we, I and thou, shall then be in the presence of the Creator.’

Then Brigit went to Dunlaing to ask him to forfeit to her father the sword which he had given to him while he was in the door-way of the fortress. Then a slave of the slaves of the King came to speak with Brigit and said to her: ‘If thou wouldst save me from servitude wherein I am, I would become a christian and I would serve thee thyself.’ Brigit said: ‘I will ask that of the King.’ So, Brigit went into the fortress and asked her two boons of the King – the forfeiture of the sword to Dubthach, and his freedom for the slave. Said Brigit to the King: ‘If thou desirest excellent children and a kingdom for thy sons and Heaven for thyself, give me the two boons that I ask.’ Said the King to Brigit: ‘The kingdom of Heaven, as I see it not, and as no one knows what thing it is, I seek not, and a kingdom for my sons I seek not, for I should not myself be extant, and let each work in his time. But give me length of life in my kingdom and victory always over the Huí Néill, for there is often warfare between us. And give me victory in the first battle, so that I may be trustful in the other fights.’ And this was fulfilled in the battle of Lochar, (which he fought) against the Huí Néill.

Once upon a time the King of Leinster came unto Brigit to listen to preaching and celebration at Easter-day. After the ending of the form of celebration, the King fared forth on his way and Brigit went to refection. Lommán, Brigit’s leper, said he would eat nothing until the armour of the King of Leinster were given to him – both spears and sword and shield that he might move to and fro thereunder. A messenger went from Brigit after the King. From mid-day to evening was the King astray and he attained not even a thousand paces, so the armour was given by him, and bestowed on the leper.

Once upon a time Bishop Ercc and Brigit were in the land of Leinster. She said to Bishop Ercc: ‘There is at present a battle between thy tribe and its neighbours.’ Dixit a student of Bishop Ercc’s family: ‘We think not,’ saith he, ‘that that is true.’ Brigit sained the student’s eyes. Said the student: ‘I see my brothers a-slaughtering now.’ Then the student repented greatly.

Once upon a time a certain leper came to Brigit to ask for a cow. Dixit Brigit to him: ‘Which wouldst thou prefer, to carry off a cow or to be healed of the leprosy?’ The leper said, that he would rather be healed of his leprosy than have the kingdom of all the world, for ‘every sound man is a king,’ saith he. Then Brigit made prayer to God and the leper was healed and served Brigit afterwards.

Now, when Brigit’s fame in miracles and marvels had travelled throughout all Ireland, there came unto Brigit for their healing two blind men from Britain, and a little leper boy with them, and they put trust in Bishop Mél to get them healed. Said Brigit: ‘Let them stay outside just now till mass is over.’ Said the Britons (for those people are hasty), ‘Thou healedst folk of thy own race yesterday, though thou healest not us to-day.’ Brigit made prayer and the three were healed at once.

Brigit went afterwards with her virgins to Ardachad of Bishop Mél. The king of Teffia was at a feast near them. There was a vessel covered with many gems in the king’s hand. And a certain careless man took it out of his hand, and it fell and broke into pieces. That man was seized by the king. Bishop Mél went to ask for him, but nothing could be got from the king save his death. However, Bishop Mél asked that the broken vessel might be given to him by the king, and then he had it and took it with him to the house wherein was Brigit. And Brigit made prayer to the Lord, and the vessel was restored in a form that was better than before, and then it was taken to the king, and the captive was loosed. And Bishop Mél said: ‘Not for me hath God wrought this miracle, but for Brigit.’

Once upon a time Brigit went to watch over a certain virgin, namely, Brigit, the daughter of Congaile, who used to work many miracles. And when Brigit and her virgins were at dinner, Brigit paused in the middle of the meal, and she said to a certain virgin: ‘Make thou Christ’s cross over thy face and over thine eyes that thou mayest see what I see.’ So, then the virgin beheld Satan beside the table with his head down and his feet up, his smoke and his flame out of his gullet and out of his nostrils. Said Brigit to the demon that he should answer her:

‘I cannot, O nun, be without conversing with thee, for thou keepest God’s commandments and thou art compassionate to God’s poor and to His family.’

‘Tell us,’ saith Brigit, ‘why thou art hurtful in thy deeds to the human race?’

Said the demon: ‘That the race may not attain unto Paradise.’

Said Brigit to the demon: ‘Wherefore hast thou come to us among our nuns?’

‘A certain pious virgin is here,’ saith the demon, ‘and in her company, am I.’

Said Brigit to the virgin: ‘Put Christ’s cross over thine eyes.’ And the virgin beheld at once the hideous monster there, and great fear seized the virgin when she beheld the demon.

‘Wherefore shunnest thou,’ said Brigit, ‘the fosterling whom thou hast been cherishing (?) for long seasons?’

Then the virgin repented, and she was healed of the devil of gluttony and lust that had dwelt in her company.

Once upon a time Brigit went over to Teffia, and there were great hosts along with her. There were two lepers behind them, who quarelled on the road. The hand of him that first raised his hand withers, and then the hand of the other leper withered. Thereafter they repented and Brigit cured them of their leprosy.

Once upon a time Brigit with her virgins, was at Armagh, and two went by her bearing a tub of water. They came to Brigit to be blessed, and the tub fell behind them and went back over back from the door of the Rath as far as Loch Lapan. And it brake not, and not a drop fell thereout. It was well known to every one that Brigit’s blessing had caused this, and Patrick said: ‘Deal ye the water throughout Armagh and Airthir.’ So, it was dealt, and it cured every disease and every ailment that was in the land.

Brigit went into the province of Fir Ross to loosen a captive who was in manuwith the King of Ross. Said Brigit: ‘Wilt thou set that captive free for me?’ The King replied: ‘Though thou shouldst give me the realm of the men of Breg, I would not give him to thee. But go not with a refusal,’ saith the King. ‘For one night thou shalt have the right to guard his life for him.’ Then Brigit appeared at the close of day to the captive and said to him: ‘When the chain shall be opened for thee repeat this hymn, Nunc populus, and turn to thy right hand and flee.’ Thus it is done, and the captive flees at the word of Brigit.

Brigit one day came over Sliab Breg. There was a madman on the mountain who used to be harrying the companies. Great fear seized the virgins who were near Brigit, when they saw the madman. Said Brigit to the demoniac: ‘Since thou hast gone there, preach the word of God to us.’ ‘I cannot,’ he saith, ‘be ungentle to thee, for thou are merciful to the Lord’s family, to wit, to the poor and to the wretched.’ So then said the madman: ‘Reverence the Lord, O nun, and every one will reverence thee, love the Lord, and every one will love thee, fear the Lord and every one will fear thee!’ Then the madman went from them and did no hurt to them.

Brigit was one journeying in Mag Laigen, and she saw running past her a student, namely Ninnid the scholar.

‘What art thou doing, O Sage!’ saith Brigit, ‘and whither art thou wending (so) quickly?’

‘To heaven,’ saith the scholar.

‘The son of the Virgin knoweth,’ said Brigit, ‘that I would fain fare with thee!’

Dixit the scholar: ‘O nun,’ saith he, ‘hinder me not from my road, or, if thou hinderest, beseech the Lord with me that the journey to heaven may be happy, and I will beseech God with thee that it may be easy for thee and that thou mayst bring many thousands with thee to heaven.’

Brigit repeated a Paternoster with him, and he was pious thenceforward; and Brigit said that neither gallows nor punishment would be for him, and he it is that afterwards administered communion and sacrifice to Brigit.

Brigit went to Bishop Ibair that he may mark out her city for her. So, they came thereafter to the place where Kildare is to-day. That was the season and the time that Ailill son of Dunlaing, with a hundred horse-loads of peeled rods, chanced to be going through the ground of Kildare. Two girls came from Brigit to ask for some of the rods, and they got a refusal. Forthwith all the horses were struck down under their loads against the ground. Stakes and wattles were taken from them, and they arose not until Ailill son of Dunlaing had offered unto Brigit those hundred horse-loads; and thereout was built Saint Brigit’s house in Kildare.

Then said Brigit— … my house. Let the kingship of Leinster for ever be From Ailill son of Dunlaing.

On a time came two lepers unto Brigit to ask for alms. Nought else was in the kitchen save a single cow. So Brigit gave the single cow to the lepers. One of the two lepers gave thanks unto God for the cow. But the other leper was unthankful, for he was haughty.

‘I alone,’ saith he, ‘have been sat at nought with a cow! Till to-day,’ saith he, ‘O ye nuns, I have never been counted among Culdees and amongst the poor and feeble, and I should not be (treated) like them with a single cow.’

Said Brigit to the lowly leper: ‘Stay thou here to see whether God will put anything into the kitchen, and let that haughty leper fare forth with his cow.’ Then came a certain heathen having a cow for Brigit. So, Brigit gave that cow to the lowly leper. And when the haughty leper went on his way he was unable to drive his cow alone, so came back again to Brigit and to his comrade, and was reviling and blaming Brigit. ‘Not for God’s sake,’ saith he, ‘bestowedst thou thine offering, but for mischief and oppressiveness thou gavest to me.’

Thereafter the two lepers come to the Barrow. The river riseth against them. Through Brigit’s blessing the lowly leper escapes with his cow. But the haughty leper fell in the stream, and his cow after him, and was drowned.

Once upon a time the Queen of Cremthan, son of Ennae Cennselach, that is, the queen of Leinster, came and brought a chain of silver to Brigit as an offering. The semblance of a human shape was at one of its ends, and an apple of silver on the other end. Brigit gave it to her virgins, they stored it up without her knowledge, for greatly used Brigit to take her wealth and give it to the poor. Nevertheless, a leper came to Brigit, and without her virgins’ knowledge, she went to the chain and gave it to him. When the virgins knew this, they said, with much angry bitterness and wrath, ‘Little good have we from thy compassion to every one,’ say they, ‘and we ourselves in need of food and raiment.’ ‘Ye are sinning,’ saith Brigit: ‘Go ye into the church: the place wherein I make prayer, there will ye find your chain.’ They went at Brigit’s word. But, though it had been given to the poor man, the virgins found their chain therein.

Once upon a time Brigit beheld a man with salt on his back. ‘What is that on thy back?’ saith Brigit: ‘Stones,’ saith the man. ‘They shall be stones then,’ saith Brigit, and of the salt stones were made. The same man again cometh to (or past) Brigit. ‘What is that on thy back?’ saith Brigit: ‘Salt,’ saith the man. ‘It shall be salt then,’ saith Brigit. Salt was made again thereof through Brigit’s word.

On a time came two lepers unto Brigit to be healed. Said Brigit to one of the lepers: ‘Wash thou the other.’ Thus, was it done, and he was quite sound forthwith. Said Brigit to the sound leper: ‘Bathe and wash thy comrade even as he did service unto thee.’ ‘Besides the time we have [already] come together,’ says he, ‘we will never come together, for it is not fair for thee, O nun, (to expect) me, a sound man with fresh limbs and fresh clean raiment, to wash that loathsome leper there, with his livid limbs falling out of him.’ However, Brigit herself washed the poor, lowly leper. The haughty leper who had been washen first, then spake, ‘Meseems,’ saith he, ‘that sparks of fire are breaking through my skin.’ Swifter than speech he was straightway smitten with leprosy from the crown of his head to his soles, because of his disobedience to Brigit.

Another time as Brigit was going to receive the sacrament from the bishop there was shewn to her a he-goat’s head in the mass-chalice. Brigit refused the chalice. ‘Why,’ saith the ecclesiatic, ‘dost thou refuse it?’ ‘Not hard to say,’ saith Brigit, ‘this is why I refuse: the head of a he-goat is shewn unto me in the chalice.’. The bishop called the gillie who brought the portable altar ‘Make thy confessions, O gillie,’ saith the bishop. ‘This very morning,’ saith the gillie, ‘I went to the goat-house, and took thereout a fat he-goat, and his flesh I ate.’ The gillie did penance and repented. Brigit thereafter went to the sacrament, and saw not the semblance.

Once upon a time came seven bishops to Brigit, and she had nought to give them after milking the cows thrice. So, the cows were milked again the third time, and it was greater than any milking.

Once upon a time a certain nun of Brigit’s family took a longing for salt. Brigit made prayer, and the stone before her she turned into salt, and then the nun was cured.

Once upon a time a shepherd of Brigit’s family was cutting firewood. It came to pass that he killed a pet fox of the King of Leinster’s. The shepherd was seized by the King. Brigit ordered a wild fox to come out of the wood. So, he came and was playing and sporting for the hosts and the King at Brigit’s order. But when the fox had finished his feats he went safe back through the wood, with the hosts of Leinster behind him, both foot and horse and hound.

(This) was (one) of Brigit’s miracles. She had a great band of reapers a-reaping. A rain-storm poured on the plain of Liffey, but, through Brigit’s prayer, not a drop fell on her field.

(This) was (one) of Brigit’s miracles. She blessed the table-faced man, so that his two eyes were whole.

(This) was (one) of Brigit’s miracles. Robbers stole her oxen. The river Liffey rose against them. The oxen came home on the morrow with the robbers’ clothes on their horns.

(This) was (one) of Brigit’s miracles. When she came to the widow Lassair on Mag Coel, and Lassair killed her cow’s calf for Brigit and burnt the beam of her loom thereunder, God so wrought for Brigit that the beam was whole on the morrow and the calf was biding along with its mother.

Once upon a time Brenainn came from the west of Ireland to Brigit, to the plain of Liffey. For he wondered at the fame that Brigit had in miracles and marvels. Brigit came from her sheep to welcome Brenainn. As Brigit entered the house she put her wet cloak on the rays of the sun, and they supported it like pot-hooks. Brenainn told his gillie to put his cloak on the same rays, and the gillie put it on them, but it fell from them twice. Brenainn himself put it, the third time, with anger and wrath, and the cloak staid upon them.

Each of them confessed to the other. Said Brenainn: ‘Not usual is it for me to go over seven ridges without (giving) my mind to God.’ Said Brigit: ‘Since I first gave my mind to God, I never took it from Him at all.’

While Brigit was herding sheep, there came a thief unto her and stole seven wethers from her, after having first besought her (for them). Nevertheless, when the flock was counted the wethers were found again (therein) through Brigit’s prayer.

A certain man of Brigit’s family once made (some) mead for the King of Leinster. When the King came to consume it, not a drop thereof was found, for Brigit had given all the mead to the poor. Brigit at once rose up to protect the host, and blessed the vessels, and they were at once full of choice mead. For every thing which Brigit used to ask of the Lord used to given to her at once. For this was her desire: to feed the poor, to repel every hardship, to be gentle to every misery.

Many miracles and marvels in that wise the Lord wrought for Saint Brigit. Such is their number that no one could relate them unless her own spirit, or an angel of God, should come from heaven to relate them.

Now there never hath been any one more bashful or more modest than that holy virgin. She never washed her hands, or her feet, or her head, amongst men. She never looked into a male person’s face. She never spoke without blushing. She was abstinent, innocent, liberal, patient. She was joyous in God’s commandments, steadfast, lowly, forgiving, charitable. She was a conscrated vessel for keeping Christ’s body. She was a temple of God. Her heart and her mind were a throne of rest for the Holy Ghost. Towards God she was simple: towards the wretched she was compassionate: in miracles she was splendid. Therefore, her type among created things is the Dove among birds, the Vine among trees, the Sun above stars.

This is the father of this holy virgin – the Heavenly Father. This is her son – Jesus Christ. This is her fosterer – the Holy Ghost: and thence it is that this holy virgin wrought these great innumerable marvels.

She is that helpeth every one who is in straits and in danger. She it is that abateth the pestilences. She it is that quelleth the wave-voice and the wrath of the great sea. This is the prophesied woman of Christ. She is the Queen of the South. She is the Mary of the Gael.

Now when Brigit came to the ending-days, after founding churches and churchbuildings in plenty, after miracles and wondrous deeds in number (like) sand of sea or stars of heaven, after charity and mercy, she received communion and sacrifice from Ninnid the Pure-handed, when he had returned from Rome of Latium, and sent her spirit thereafter to heaven. But her remains and her relics are on earth with great honour and with primacy and pre-eminence with miracles and marvels. Her soul is like the sun in the heavenly City among quires of angels and archangels, in union with cherubim and seraphim, in union with Mary’s Son, to wit, in the union with all the Holy Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Ghost.

I beseech the Lord’s mercy, through Saint Brigit’s intercession. May we all attain that union in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

SBG St Brigid. The identification of S. Brigid with the fire goddess showed itself in the maintenance of a perpetual fire at Kildare near her church. Giraldus Cambrensis thus describes it: ‘ As in the time of S. Brigid twenty nuns were here engaged in the Lord’s warfare, she herself being the twentieth, after her glorious departure, nineteen have always formed the society, the number having never been increased. Each of them has the care of the fire for a single night, the last nun, having heaped wood upon the fire, says, Brigid, take charge of your own fire; for this night belongs to you.’ She then leaves the fire, and in the morning it is found that the fire has not gone out, and that the usual amount of fuel has been consumed. This fire is surrounded by a hedge, made of stakes and brushwood, and forming a circle, within which no male can enter; and if any one should presume to do so, he will not escape divine vengeance. Moreover, it is only lawful for women to blow the fire, and they must use for the purpose bellows, and not their own breath. This was an Irish counterpart of the College of the Vestal Virgins at Rome keeping alive the sacred fire of Hestia; and no reasonable doubt can exist that it was a pagan survival of the worship of Brigid the fire goddess. This would seem to have struck Henry of London, archbishop of Dublin, for in 1220 he ordered the fire to be extinguished.

525 – 549. Saint David, Arthur, Battle of Camlan.

525 to 549

525. Annals of Ulster.

John, 51st Pope of the Roman Church, lived two years in the see of Peter. He came to Constantinople, and when on his return he had reached Ravenna, Theodoric the Arian king subjected him to imprisonment and put him and his companions to death. His body was removed from Ravenna and interred in the basilica of St Peter, after two years, nine months and seventeen days.

525. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twenty-second year of Muircheartach. Saint Brighit, virgin, Abbess of Cill Dara, died. It was to her Cill Dara was first granted, and by her it was founded. Brighit was she who never turned her mind or attention from the Lord for the space of one hour, but was constantly meditating and thinking of him in her heart and mind, as is evident in her own Life, and in the Life of St. Brenainn, Bishop of Cluain Fearta. She spent her time diligently serving the Lord, performing wonders and miracles, healing every disease and every malady, as her Life relates, until she resigned her spirit to heaven, the first day of the month of February; and her body was interred at Dun, in the same tomb with Patrick, with honour and veneration. Ailill, Bishop of Armagh, who was of the Ui Breasail, died.

SBG St David. S. David, (born .495-500)

David was sent at a suitable age to be instructed at Yr Henllwyn or Vetus Rubus, ” the Old Bush,” the same place as TvLwyn, over which now Paulinus was abbot. The place is known by a variety of names, and is confounded with Glyn Rhosyn, the Alun Vale where is now the Cathedral, and to which David subsequently moved the college and abandoned the old monastic site, when its ruins acquired the name of ” the Old Church.” 4 It is frequently mentioned in the Lives of the Irish Saints as the monastery of Rosnat, with, sometimes the alias Alba. Rosnat stands for Rhosnant, a name convert- ible with Vallis Rosina or Glyn Rhosyn; and Rhosan or Rhoson is still the name of a farm in the district.

On the slope of Cam Llidi, above Forth Mawr and the chapel of -S. Patrick, stood ” the Old Bush,” probably of thorns, where the stone monastery was erected, as tradition said, by Patrick, and then it was whitewashed and acquired the name of Alba Domus, or Ty Gwyn. Patrick had placed over it his fellow-worker Mancen or Maucan, and purposed, we may well suppose, that it should become A nursery of missionaries for Ireland. 1 No doubt this Ultima Thule of South Wales was chosen on account of its accessibility from Ireland.

But Mancen had passed away, and the White House was ruled by Paulinus, ” a disciple of Germanus, a bishop, who in a certain island led a life agreeable to God.”

“And David grew up full of grace and lovely to Be looked at. And he learned there the rudirnents, the psalms, the lessons of the whole year, and the Mass and Communion (sinaxiri); and there his fellow disciples saw a dove with a golden beak playing about his lips, teaching him, and singing the hymns of God.”

Educated as a child by Paulinus at Ty Gwyn.

After the period spent in his training David started as a founder himself.” He founded twelve monasteries to the praise of God. First going to Glastonbury, he erected a church there, and then he went to Bath (in the Welsh Life Yr Enaint Twymyn, ‘ the Hot Bath ‘), and there by blessing a deadly water he rendered it salutary for the washing of bodies, and communicated to it perpetual heat.” Bath hot springs, it need hardly be said, had existed in Roman times, and were in resort long before David was born.

“And he went to Croulan and Repetun, and afterwards to Colguan (Colvan, Collan), and to Glascum,and he had with him a double-headed altar (altare anceps). Then he founded the monastery of Leominster, and built a church at Raglan in Gwent, and founded a monastery in Gower, at a place called Llangyfelach, in which he afterwards placed the altar sent by Pepiau . . . also Boducat and Maitiun (Maitrun, Nailtrum), two Saints in Kidwelly, gave him their hands. These places having been founded according to custom, and vessels of canonical order placed in them, and a rule of cenobial use (habitus), he went to the place whence he had formerly departed, and returned to the Old Bush.” Obtains the abbacy of the Old Bush and Henllan. c. 526

526. Cronicum Scotorum.

Birth of Caeman Brec.

Felix IV (III) Pope 526-530

526. Annals of Ulster.

The falling asleep of St Brigit in the 70th year of her age. Ailill of the Uí Bresail, bishop of Ard Macha, rested.

526. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twenty third year of Muircheartach. It was to predict the death of Muircheartach that Cairneach said:

I am fearful of the woman around whom many storms shall move, For the man who shall be burned in fire, on the side of Cleiteach wine shall drown.

That is, by Sin, daughter of Sighe, Muircheartach was killed, in revenge of her father, whom he had slain.

The battle of Eibhlinne by Muircheartach mac Earca; the battle of Magh Ailbhe; the battle of Almhain; the battle of Ceann Eich; the plundering of the Cliachs; and the battle of Aidhne against the Connaughtmen; of which battles Ceannfaeladh said:

The battle of Ceann Eich, the battle of Almhain. It was an illustrious famous period, The devastation of the Cliachs, the battle of Aidhne, And the battle of Magh Ailbhe. Cairell, son of Muireadhach Muindearg, King of Ulidia, died. Oilill, son of Dunlaing, King of Leinster, died.

527. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Cerdic and Cynric fought with the Britons in the place that is called Cerdic’s-ley.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

Eight years after, they (Cerdic and Cynric) renew the war against the Britons.

SBG St Finnian.

At this time probably he revisited Wales, and arrived to settle a controversy between S. David and Gildas, as to which should be master in Menevia. The headstrong Gildas desired to turn David out of his patrimony. By the judgment of Finnian David remained, and Gildas had to quit.

SBG St David

Gildas attempts to wrest the abbacy from him c. 527. What probably took place was that Paulinus retired, and Dewi, as of the founder’s kin, succeeded him. Then Gildas appeared on the scene, about the year 527. He was in quest of recruits for his monastery at Ruys, and finding the Old Bush monastery without a head other than Dewi, who claimed it by virtue of his being of the seed of the founder, but who was still young, he cannot have been much over twenty-seven. Gildas, with characteristic overbearing sought to turn him out and to seize on the government of the Domus- Alba for himself, and either make it his head establishment, or, more probably, a feeder and daughter-house to his great settlement in Armorica. Finnian of Clonard was called in to interfere, when Cadoc declined to be mixed up in the matter, and Finnian pronounced in favour of David. He could hardly do other. Cynyr, if we maytrust the lolo MSS., had given all his possessions to the Church, and it would be against all Celtic ideas of justice to dispossess the grandson for the sake of a stranger.

But David did leave his monastery for a while, having placed his uncle Guistlianus in charge of it. Menevia is a promontory thrust forth into the sea, and walled off from the rest of the world by the Pressilly Mountains. It was not a place where he could collect about him many disciples. He must needs have feeders elsewhere, in more populous districts. Accordingly, he departed. Whether it was now or at a subsequent time that he established some of his many churches in South Wales we do not know.

Visits Domnonia and makes foundations there.

527. Procopius

Afterwards, although some few of them remained at peace with the Romans, as will be told by me in the following narrative, all the rest revolted for the following reason. The Eruli, displaying their beastly and fanatical character against their own “rex,” one Ochus by name, suddenly killed the man for no good reason at all, laying against him no other charge than that they wished to be without a king thereafter. And yet even before this, while their king did have the title, he had practically no advantage over any private citizen whomsoever. But all claimed the right to sit with him and eat with him, and whoever wished insulted him without restraint; for no men in the world are less bound by convention or more unstable than the Eruli. Now when the evil deed had been accomplished, they were immediately repentant. For they said that they were not able to live without a ruler and without a general; so, after much deliberation it seemed to them best in every way to summon one of their royal family from the island of Thule. And the reason for this I shall now explain.

But among the barbarians who are settled in Thule, one nation only, who are called the Scrithiphini, live a kind of life akin to that of the beasts. For they neither wear garments of cloth nor do they walk with shoes on their feet, nor do they drink wine nor derive anything edible from the earth. For they neither till the land themselves, nor do their women work it for them, but the women regularly join the men in hunting, which is their only pursuit. For the forests, which are exceedingly large, produce for them a great abundance of wild beasts and other animals, as do also the mountains which rise there. And they feed exclusively upon the flesh of the wild beasts slain by them, and clothe themselves in their skins, and since they have neither flax nor any implement with which to sew, they fasten these skins together by the sinews of the animals, and in this way manage to cover the whole body. And indeed, not even their infants are nursed in the same way as among the rest of mankind. For the children of the Scrithiphini do not feed upon the milk of women nor do they touch their mother’s breast, but they are nourished upon the marrow of the animals killed in the hunt, and upon this alone. Now as soon as a woman gives birth to a child, she throws it into a skin and straightway hangs it to a tree, and after putting marrow into its mouth she immediately sets out with her husband for the customary hunt. For they do everything in common and likewise engage in this pursuit together. So much for the daily life of these barbarians.

But all the other inhabitants of Thule, practically speaking, do not differ very much from the rest of men, but they reverence in great numbers gods and demons both of the heavens and of the air, of the earth and of the sea, and sundry other demons which are said to be in the waters of springs and rivers. And they incessantly offer up all kinds of sacrifices, and make oblations to the dead, but the noblest of sacrifices, in their eyes, is the first human being whom they have taken captive in war; for they sacrifice him to Ares, whom they regard as the greatest god. And the man er in which they offer up the captive is not by sacrificing him on an altar only, but also by hanging him to a tree, or throwing him among thorns, or killing him by some of the other most cruel forms of death. Thus, then, do the inhabitants of Thule live. And one of their most numerous nations is the Gauti, and it was next to them that the incoming Eruli settled at the time in question.

527. Annals of Ulster.

Birth of Cainnech of Achad Bó. Death of Illann son of Dúnlang son of Énnae Nia son of Bresal Bélach. In the 197th year after the foundation of the regal city i.e. Constantinople, the emperor Justin on the Kalends of April appointed as his successor Justinian, his nephew by his sister, who had been previously designated ‘Most Noble’ by him. Justin, however, departed this life on the fourth month following, in the ninth year and second month of his reign. Repose of St Ailbe.

527. Annals of the Four Masters.

After Muircheartach, son of Muireadhach, son of Eoghan, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, had been twenty-four years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he was burned in the house of Cleiteach, over the Boyne, on the night of Samhain the first of November, after being drowned in wine. Sin composed this quatrain:

. I am Taetan, the woman who killed the chief of Niall; Gannadhaigh is my name, in every place and road.

Ceanfaeladh said:

The king Mac Earca returns to the side of the Ui Neill; Blood reached the girdles in each plain; the exterior territories were enriched;

Seven times he brought nine chariots, and long shall it be remembered.

He bore away the hostages of the Ui Neill, with the hostages of the plain of Munster.

527. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Justin, who reigned eight years, and Justinian becomes emperor. (Ed, of Byzantium)

528.. Repose of Ailbe of Imlech Ibuir.

SBG St Cadoc.

A man of the name of Ligessauc (Llyngesog) Lawhir, son of Eliman, had killed three soldiers of Arthur, and then fled for refuge to Cadoc, who kept him in sanctuary for seven years, and Arthur only accidentally found out where the man was, and reclaimed him. It was an unprecedented thing for sanctuary to have been granted for so long; properly, the saint or chief who gave sanctuary was bound at once to compound for the crime, and not keep the criminal in concealment.

Arthur was exceedingJy angry at what he regarded as a dishonourable act, and he marched to the banks of the Usk and demanded that the case should be gone into formally. Cadoc at once got SS. David, Teilo and Dochu or Oudoceus, to act for him, and to them he joined Cynidr and Maidoc or Aidan, and the discussion was conducted across the muddy river, in shouts. At last it was settled by the judges that Arthur should receive three good oxen for each of his men who had been slain. Arthur consented, with the proviso that they should be cattle partly red and partly white. When the nine cattle had been got together, the next difficulty was, how they were to be delivered over; this had to be argued, and the judges decided that Cadoc’s men should drive them to the middle of the ford over the Usk, when Arthur’s men would receive them. Thus, peace was made, and Arthur then granted, or the compiler of the Cartulary pretended that he had granted, to Cadoc thenceforth the extraordinary privilege of sanctuary for seven years, seven months, and as many days. The story is probably an invention to establish this claim.

In the quarrel with Maelgwn Cadoc was not to blame. Maelgwn had sent his receivers of tribute into Gwynllywg, and, finding that Cadoc’s steward had a pretty daughter, they carried her off. Thereupon the men of the neighbourhood assembled, pursued the ravishers, killed some and wounded others, and recovered the girl. Maelgwn was furious, and marched to the frontiers of Gwynllywg to lay it waste with fire and sword. The inhabitants in alarm sent word to Cadoc, who at once went to Maelgwn and represented to him the matter in its true light, and succeeded in pacifying him.

During the life of Maelgwn, that prince took care not to offend Cadoc, and he laid strict injunctions on his son Rhun, when he was pillaging in South Wales, not to meddle with the possessions of the Abbot of Llancarfan.

However, one day when Rhun was on a plundering foray, and was in his tent playing dice with some eunuchs, some of his men went to a dairy on the possessions of Cadoc, and being thirsty asked for milk. The dairyman refused, and the men, highly incensed, set fire to the barn. The wind carried the smoke to where Rhun was, and he inquired what was burning. When told, he sent for Cadoc and apologized for what had been done, assured him it was against his express orders, and to make compensation gave him his sword, shield and spear.

Rhain, son of Brychan, king of Brycheiniog,” plundered and laid waste ” the province of Gwynllywg to the sea. Thereupon the men of Gwynllywg rose in a body, pursued the marauder and defeated him in one battle after another and captured him, but dared not put him to death, because he was of the kin of Cadoc, whose mother was Gwladys, sister of this ruffian. Cadoc, hearing of the straits Rhain was in, went to him, and obtained his liberation.

SBG St Finan.

Finan was son of Cairbre and Lassara. His parents seem to have been Christians, for he was baptised and sent to S. Colman of Dromore for instruction. Dromore is about eighteen miles south of Carrickfergus in the old Dalaradian territory, and was founded as a school and monastery by S. Colman, about the year 514.

One day whilst with him Finan had been naughty, and Colman took a whip to thrash the boy. But as he held the instrument of chastisement aloft his heart failed him, and he laid it aside. “It isof no use,” said he; “I can’t thrash you. You must go to another master, who will be stricter and sterner than myself.”

So, the boy was sent to Ninnio at Candida Casa or Whitern, who at the time had a ship on the coast, about to return to Alba. With him he remained many years.

It was a double monastery, in which not young men only, but girls as well received education, and scandals occurred.

Finan was a handsome young fellow, with long fair hair, on ac- count of which he was called Finnbar, and with so sweet and angelic a countenance, that, as we have seen, Colman was disarmed when he took the whip to his back. And now his good looks won the heart of the daughter of a Scotic king, who had been sent to school at Whitern. There can be little doubt who this was, though not named in the Life. This was Drustic, daughter of Drust, who ruled from 523 to 528. She was an inflammable young lady.

She became so infatuated with Finan that she fell sick, as he would not pay regard to her advances, and fainted away in the presence of her father. Finan was present. He recalled her to her senses by telling her plainly that he had other ambitions than to become son-in-law to King Drust. Drust sent his daughter back to Whitern, where she soon forgot Finan, and fell in love with another Irish pupil, named Rioc; and she bribed Finan by a promise of a copy of all Mancen’s MS. books to act as her go-between. Finan behaved treacherously, for what reason we do not know; and he contrived a secret meeting in the dark between the damsel and another Irishman, named Talmach, in place of Rioc. The result was a great scandal. Drustic, by Talmach, became the mother of St. Lonan.

Mancen, or Ninnio, got wind of this little affair, and was highly incensed. It brought his establishment into disrepute; so, he told a boy to take a hatchet, hide behind the oratory, and hew at Finan as he came at early dawn to Mattins. The boy agreed, but by some mistake Mancen preceded the pupil, and the lad struck at him and felled him. Happily, the blow was not mortal. He was saved by crying out, and the boy recognized his voice and did not hew again.

After this scandalous affair, it was clearly impossible for Finan to remain any longer at Whitern, and he departed on pilgrimage to Rome. John of Tynemouth hushes up the cause of his departure, and attributes it to his thirst for knowledge, which he desired to quaff at the fountain head. He remained seven years in Rome, and was ordained preist there.

528. Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of Tuathal Maelgarbh, son of Cormac Caech, son of Cairbre, son of Niall, in the sovereignty of Ireland. The battle of Luachair Mor between the two Invers, which is called the battle of Ailbhe, in Breagh, by Tuathal Maelgarbh, against the Cianachta of Meath.

528. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Cenn-eich and the battle of Ath-Sighe gained over the Lagenians. Muircertach Mac Earca was the victor.

The Annals of Ulster.

Felix, bishop of the Roman Church, sat 4 years, 9 months and 14 days. The 17 days and two months of John, and the 13 days of Felix make up the fourth year; and he was interred in the basilica of St Peter the Apostle. The battle of Cenn Eich and the battle of Áth Sige won over the Laigin. Muirchertach Mac Erca was victor. Or here, the falling asleep of Brigit according to the Book of the Monks.

529. Birth of Caemán Brec. Benedict the monk became distinguished.

529.Annals of Inisfallen.

The finding of the body of Antony the monk, and its translation to Alexandria.

530. The battle of Áth Sige [gained] by Muirchertach against the Laigin, and the battle of Cenn Eich [gained] by Mac Erce. Birth of Colmán, son of Léníne.

SBG St Cyndeyrn son of Cyngar.

To him, rather than to S. Kentigern, is dedicated the church of Llangyndeyrn, Carmarthenshire. A late (faked) document has him to be Cyndeyrn, son of Gwrtheyrn Gwrtheneu, or Vortigern, and adds that he lies buried here.

(Ed. I was married in this church.)

SBG St Iltyd.

Iltyd quitted Arthur, and attached himself to Poulentus, of Glamorgan. One day he was out with a party of the retainers of Paul, when they rudely demanded food of S. Cadoc, which, after some demur, he gave them twenty wheaten loaves, a barrel of ale, and a pig, which they toasted for their dinner. Illtyd had strayed from the party, and was not privy to their violence. Misfortune befell the fowlers, for they were engulfed into a morass.

Illtyd was so thankful for his preservation from being smothered in the festering slime that he went to Cadoc and asked his direction. Cadoc advised him to assume the clerical tonsure and abandon the military profession, and he resolved on following this recommendation.

Illtyd, accordingly, withdrew from the service of Paul of Penychen, and went, ” accompanied by his wife and attendants,” to the banks of the Nadauan, i.e., the Dawon or Thaw, in South Glamorgan, ” and it being summer-time, he constructed a covering of reeds, that it might not rain upon their beds; and while their horses were depastured in the meadows, they slept the night away, their eyes being heavy.”

During the night, Illtyd brooded over what had been advised by Cadoc, and a dream served to confirm his resolution. He had shrunk from speaking to his wife of his change of purpose, but now he determined to speak out. At dawn, he roused her from sleep, and told her to leave the hut and look after the horses. ” She departed naked, with dishevelled hair, that she might see after them.” The wind was high in the raw early morning, and the unhappy woman’s hair was blown about. Presently she returned with the information that the horses had not strayed, and, shivering with cold, she attempted to get into bed again. But, to her disgust, Illtyd roughly told her to remain where she was; he threw her garments to her, and bade her dress and be gone. The poor woman clothed herself and sat down, sobbing, at his side. He announced to her his intention of quitting her for ever;

He departed for the Hodnant, having made up his mind to settle there, he went to S. Dubricius, and before him he was shaved and assumed the monastic habit. Then he returned to Hodnant, and erected a church of stone and surrounded the whole with a quadrangular ditch. Here he lived an ascetic life, bathing every morning in cold water, and rising to prayers in the midst of the night.

Illtyd’ s congregation grew rapidly, and at one time numbered three thousand ” saints ” Illtyd was made abbot of Llantwit by S. Dubricius, Meirchion, King of Glamorgan, confirmed Illtyd in his holding of the Hodnant valley as his own, and granted that he should make of it a school.

” He cultivated the land, he sowed and reaped, and lived by his labour. He had labouring men to till the soil in the fields. Seed multiplied, and toil met with abundant reward. He had a hundred in his family, as many workmen and clerics, and poor, a hundred of whom he fed daily at his board.

“He had as scholars, Paul (of Leon), Gildas and David. He was the first great Teacher of Saints in Wales.

The property of Illtyd increased largely, and he was ordained priest. The nearby city of Bovium had banked out the Severn tides from the rich alluvial lands along the coast. But the sea-wall had given way: it had been neglected and left unrepaired, so that the high tides overflowed. Illtyd employed his pupils and workmen in restoring the banks with stone and clay.

In the meantime, his poor deserted wife, Trynihid, had been living in involuntary widowhood, in a little retreat, where she spent her time in good works. She prayed constantly, she was found blameless and lived devoutly, comforting innumerable widows and poor nuns in their vocation.” At length an irresistible longing came over her to see her husband again; and, leaving her retreat, she sought him out. On reaching Llantwit, she saw a man working in the fields, lean, and with a dirty face, and, going up to him, recognized Illtyd. In her delight at meet ing him once more she spoke and endeavoured to engage him in conversation; but he turned his back on her, and refused to speak. He denied her the common kindness of a hospitable lodging, and she went away sorrowful, “looking as pale as if she had suffered from a fever.” And they never met again.

He learned that a famine was afflicting his native Armorica, as there was abundance of corn in his granaries Illtyd ordered vessels to be laden with as much as could be gathered together, and sailed for Brittany.

530. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Cerdic and Cynric took the isle of Wight, and slew many men in Carisbrook.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

After three years, they took the Isle of Wight, the situation of which we have mentioned above: but they did not kill many of the Britons.

530. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Ebhlinn gained by Muircertach Mac Earca, and the battle of Magh Ailbhe, over the Lagenians; and the battle of Aidhne over the men of Connacht; and the battle of Almhain and battle of Cenn-eich over the Lagenians; and the plunder of the Cliachs—all in one year, of which Cendfaeladh sang:—

The battle of Cenn-eich; the battle of Almhain;—

It was an illustrious, famous period;—

The devastation of the Cliachs; the battle of Aidhne;

And the battle of Magh Ailbhe.

Boniface II Pope 530-532 Opposed by Dioscorus Antipope

530 Annals of Ulster.

The body of Anthony the monk was discovered by divine revelation, and is brought to Alexandria and buried in the church of St John the Baptist.

531. Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Éblenn.

531. Cronicum Scotorum.

Muircertach Mac Earca immersed in a vat of wine, and burnt and mortally wounded, on the night of Samhain, on the summit of Cleitech, over the Boyne, as was said by Saint Cairnech:—

I am fearful of the woman

Round whom many storms shall move;

For the man who shall be burned

On the side of Cleitech, wine shall drown.

Sín is the woman that killed thee,

O, Mac Earca, as I perceive;

Numerous will her names be here—

She will set one astray.

Not beloved is the woman

Whose name is Sín;

As for the King, fire shall burn him,

In the house of Cleitech wine shall drown him.

The King, Mac Erca, returns

To the side of the Ui Néill;

Blood reaches girdles in the plain;

Territories increase afar.

Seven times he fights nine battles,

And long shall it be remembered;

He carried off the hostages of the Ui Neill,

With the hostages of the plain of Mumhan.

Sín said, recounting her names:—

Osnadh, Esnadh, Sín without blemish,

Gaeth garbh, and Gemadhaigh,

Ochsadh, Iachtadh—saying without falsehood—

These are my names in every way.

Ailbhe, of Imlech Ibhair, quievit.

531. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fourth year of Tuathal. The battle of Claenloch, in Cinel Aedh, by Goibhneann, chief of Ui Fiachrach Aidhne, where Maine, son of Cearbhall, was killed, in defending the hostages of Ui Maine of Connaught.

532 Annals of Ulster.

In this year Dionysius composed the Paschal Cycles, commencing from the year 520 of the Incarnation of the Lord, which is the 246th of Diocletian.

532. Cronicum Scotorum.

Tuathal Maelgarbh reigned eleven years. Dormitatio of Saint Mochta, disciple of Patrick, on the 16th of the Kalends of September, as he wrote in his epistle, Mochta, a sinner, Presbyter, disciple of Saint Patrick, sends greeting in the Lord.

John II Pope 533-535

533. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Luachair-mór edir-da-Inbher gained by Tuathal Maelgarbh over the Ciannachta.

533. Annals of Ulster.

Three battles(?) fought this year… one at Lecan Lias (?). Felix was buried in the basilica of St Peter the apostle. The battle of Éblenn won by Muirchertach; and the battle of Mag Ailbe won against the Laigin, and the battle of Aidne against the Connachta, and the battle of Almuin, and the battle of Cenn Eich against the Laigin, and the ravaging of Clíu in one year. The battle of Áth Sige. Muirchertach Mac Erca was victor.

534. Annals of the Four Masters.

The seventh year of Tuathal. Saint Mochta, Bishop of Lughmhagh, disciple of St. Patrick, resigned his spirit to heaven on the nineteenth day of August. It was of him the following testimony was given:

1. The teeth of Mochta of good morals,

for three hundred years, lasting the rigour!

Were without emitting an erring word out from them,

without admitting a morsel of obsonium inside them.

2. Three score psalm-singing seniors,

his household of regal course,

Without tilling, reaping, or threshing,

without any work but reading.

3. A man of three score, a man of three hundred,

blessed be God, how old the teeth!

Not more has the youth under valour!

How lasting the ancient teeth!

534. Cronicum Scotorum.

Ailill, Abbot of Ardmacha, quievit.

534. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year died Cerdic, the first king of the West- Saxons. Cynric his son succeeded to the government, and reigned afterwards twenty-six winters. And they gave to their two nephews, Stuff and Wihtgar, the whole of the Isle of Wight.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

Four years after, Cerdic with his son Cenric gives up the Isle of Wight into the hands of tlveir two cousins Stuf and Wihtgar. Jn the course of the same year Cerdic died, and Cenric his son began to reign after him, and he reigned twenty-seven years.

534.Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Luachair [gained] against Tuathal Mael Garb.

535. The battle of Finnabair [gained] against the Uí Néill, by the corpse of Illann, who lived 120 [years].

St Agapetus 1 Pope 535-636

535. Cronicum Scotorum.

Birth of Baeithin, foster-son of Colum Cille.

535. Annals of Ulster.

The drowning of Muirchertach Mac Erca i.e. Muirchertach son of Muiredach son of Eógan son of Niall Naígiallach in a vat full of wine on the hilltop of Cleitech above Bóinn. Repose of Ailbe of Imlech Ibuir. Boniface, bishop of Rome, sat 2 years and 26 days, and was buried in the basilica of St Peter the Apostle.

The falling alseep of Mochta, disciple of Patrick, on the 13th of the Kalends of September. Thus he himself wrote in his epistle: ‘Mauchteus, a sinner, priest, disciple of St Patrick, sends greetings in the Lord’.

The battle of Luachair Mór between the two estuaries, won by Tuathal Maelgarb son of Cormac Caech son of Cairpre son of Niall Naígiallach, over the Ciannacht.

The battle of Éblenn won by Muirchertach Mac Erca over the Laigin, as some say.

535. Annals of the Four Masters.

The eighth year of Tuathal. The church of Doire Calgaigh was founded by Colum Cille, the place having been granted to him by his own tribe, i.e. the race of Conall Gulban, son of Niall. Cormac, son of Ailill, King of Leinster, died. Oilill, Bishop of Armagh, died. He was also of the Ui Breasail.

SBG St Finnian.

Finnian next made an incursion into the territory of the Hy Dun-laing, where he was well received by Cairbre Dubh, who was king of Leinster for eleven years, and died in 546.

One day early Finnian went outside the enclosure of his monastery. and found a boy lying asleep under the bank. Some robbers had been making a raid during the night, and had taken the lad with them: but he was too tired to proceed, and they had abandoned him. So, after creeping to the bank, he fell asleep. Finnian hastily procured a pair of shears and clipped his hair. The boy started to his feet, and rubbing his eyes asked what he was about.

” I saw that there was the making of a monk in you,” replied Finnian” Who knows? Perhaps you may rise to be abbot after me.”

Then Finnian went to Cluain-Eraird, now Clonard, and on seeing the place, exclaimed: “This shall be my rest for ever Here will I dwell, for I have a delight therein; ” and he drove a wild boar away that had its lair there, and sat down.

As he sat a druid named Fracan came up, and entered into conversation with him.

Finnian asked the druid whence he derived his wisdom, from above from below.

“Test me, and find out,” replied Fracan.

” Then,” said Finnian, ” tell me, do you see the place of my resurrection? “

” In heaven, surely,” replied the druid.

” Try again,” said Finnian, and stood up.

Then the druid, laughing, said: ” Now indeed I see the place of your rising. It is where you sat.”

” You have hit it,” said Finnian. ” There shall I be buried and rise again.”

On this spot Finnian founded his celebrated school and monastery, and pupils streamed to him from every quarter. It was said to have contained during his life as many as three thousand scholars. This was the largest and most important college in Ireland at the time.

St Silverious Pope 536-537

536. Annals of Ulster.

Thus far Marcellinus brought down his chronicle. Mercurius, also called John, a Roman by birth, sat two years, 4 months and 6 days as bishop of the Roman Church, and was buried in the basilica of St Peter the Apostle. Failure of bread. Ailill, bishop of Ard Macha, died. He also was of the Uí Breasail. Or here, the drowning of Muirchertach Mac Erca, according to others.

536. Procopius.

The Vandal War.

And in Italy during these same times the following events took place. Belisarius was sent against Theodatus and the Gothic nation by the Emperor Justinian, and sailing to Sicily he secured this island with no trouble. And the manner in which this was done will be told in the following pages, when the history leads me to the narration of the events in Italy. For it has not seemed to me out of order first to record all the events which happened in Libya and after that to turn to the portion of the history touching Italy and the Goths. During this winter Belisarius remained in Syracuse and Solomon in Carthage. And it came about during this year that a most dread portent took place. For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during this whole year, and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear nor such as it is accustomed to shed. And from the time when this thing happened men were free neither from war nor pestilence nor any other thing leading to death. And it was the time when Justinian was in the tenth year of his reign. [536-537 A.D.]

537. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Sliab Éiblinne. (Tuathal Maelgarb reigned eleven years. Or here, the falling asleep of St Mochta, disciple of Patrick.)

537. Procopius.

The Sibyl does not invariably mention events in their order, much less construct a well-arranged narrative, but after uttering some verse or other concerning the troubles in Libya she leaps straightway to the land of Persia, thence proceeds to mention the Romans, and then transfers the narrative to the Assyrians. And again, while uttering prophecies about the Romans, she foretells the misfortunes of the Britons. For this reason, it is impossible for any man soever to comprehend the oracles of the Sibyl before the event, and it is only time itself, after the event has already come to pass and the words can be tested by experience, that can show itself an accurate interpreter of her sayings.

Now the barbarians (Goths beseiging Rome) straightway began to despair of winning the war and were considering how they might withdraw from Rome. They accordingly sent three envoys to Rome. And the barbarians said: “That everything which we have said is true no one of you can be unaware. But in order that we may not seem to be contentious, we give up to you Sicily, great as it is and of such wealth, seeing that without it you cannot possess Libya in security.”

And Belisarius replied: “And we on our side permit the Goths to have the whole of Britain, which is much larger than Sicily and was subject to the Romans in early times. For it is only fair to make an equal return to those who first do a good deed or perform a kindness.”

The barbarians: “Well, then, if we should make you a proposal concerning Campania also, or about Naples itself, will you listen to it?”

Belisarius: “No, for we are not empowered to administer the emperor’s affairs in a way which is not in accord with his wish.”

537. Annales Cambriae.

The battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut fell: and there was plague in Britain and Ireland.

Gerald of Wales.

From “Liber de Principis instructione” c.1193
The memory of Arthur, that most renowned King of the Britons, will endure for ever. In his own day, he was a munificent patron of the famous Abbey at Glastonbury, giving many donations to the monks and always supporting them strongly, and he is highly praised in their records. More than any other place of worship in his kingdom he loved the Church of the Blessed Mary, Mother of God, in Glastonbury, and he fostered its interests with much greater loving care than that of any of the others. When he went out to fight, he had a full-length portrait of the Blessed Virgin painted on the front of his shield, so that in the heat of battle he could always gaze upon Her; and whenever he was about to make contact with the enemy he would kiss Her feet with great devoutness.
In our own lifetime Arthur’s body was discovered at Glastonbury, although the legends had always encouraged us to believe that there was something otherworldly about his ending, that he had resisted death and had been spirited away to some far-distant spot. The body was hidden deep in the earth in a hollowed-out oak bole and between two stone pyramids which had been set up long ago in the churchyard there. They carried it into the church with every mark of honour and buried it decently there in a marble tomb. It had been provided with most unusual indications which were, indeed, little short of miraculous, for beneath it, and not on top, as would be the custom nowadays, there was a stone slab, with a leaden cross attached to its under side. I have seen this cross myself and I have traced the lettering which was cut into it on the side turned towards the stone, instead of being on the outer side and immediately visible.
The inscription read as follows:

HERE IN THE ISLE OF AVALON LIES BURIED THE RENOWNED KING ARTHUR, WITH GUINEVERE, HIS SECOND WIFE

There are many remarkable deductions to be made from this discovery. Arthur obviously had two wives, and the second one was buried with him. Her bones were found with those of her husband, but they were separate from his. Two thirds of the coffin, the part towards the top end, held the husband’s bones, and the other section, at his feet, contained those of his wife. A tress of woman’s hair, blond, and still fresh and bright in colour, was found in the coffin. One of the monks snatched it up and it immediately disintegrated into dust.
There had been some indications in the Abbey records that the body would be discovered on this spot, and another clue was provided by lettering carved on the pyramids, but this had been almost completely erased by the passage of the years. The holy monks and other religious had seen visions and revelations. However, it was Henry II, King of England, who had told the monks that, according to a story which he had heard from some old British soothsayer, they would find Arthur’s body buried at least sixteen feet in the ground, not in a stone coffin but in a hollowed-out oak bole. It had been sunk as deep as that, and carefully concealed, so that it could never be discovered by the Saxons, whom Arthur had attacked relentlessly as long as he lived and whom, indeed, he had almost wiped out, but who occupied the island [of Britain] after his death.
That was why the inscription, which was eventually to reveal the truth, had been cut into the inside of the cross and turned inwards towards the stone. For many a long year this inscription was to keep the secret of what the coffin contained, but eventually, when time and circumstance were both opportune the lettering revealed what it had so long concealed.
What is now known as Glastonbury used, in ancient times, to he called the Isle of Avalon. It is virtually an island, for it is completely surrounded by marshlands. In Welsh, it is called ‘Ynys Avallon’, which means the Island of Apples and this fruit used to grow there in great abundance. After the Battle of Camlann, a noblewoman called Morgan, who was the ruler and patroness of these parts as well as being a close blood-relation of King Arthur, carried him off to the island, now known as Glastonbury, so that his wounds could be cared for. Years ago, the district had also been called ‘Ynys Gutrin’ in Welsh, that is the Island of Glass, and from these words the invading Saxons later coined the place-name ‘Glastingebury.’ The word ‘glass’ in their language means ‘vitrum’ in Latin, and bury’ means ‘castrum’ or ‘civitas’.
You must know that the bones of Arthur’s body which were discovered there were so big that, in them, the poet’s words seem to be fulfilled:

All men will exclaim at the size of the bones they’ve exhumed (Virgil, “Georgics,” I.497)

The Abbot showed me one of the shin-bones. He held it upright on the ground against the foot of the tallest man he could find, and it now stretched a good three inches above the man’s knee. The skull was so large and capacious that it seemed a veritable prodigy of nature, for the space between the eyebrows and the eye-sockets was as broad as the palm of a man’s hand. Ten or more wounds could clearly be seen, but they had all mended except one. This was larger than the others and it had made an immense gash. Apparently, it was this wound which had caused Arthur’s death.

Gerald of Wales.
From “Speculum Ecclesiae,” c.1216

In our own lifetime, when Henry II was reigning in England, strenuous efforts were made in Glastonbury Abbey to locate what must have once been the splendid tomb of Arthur. It was the King himself who put them on to this, and Abbot Henry, who was later elected Bishop of Worcester, gave them every encouragement.

With immense difficulty, Arthur’s body was eventually dug up in the churchyard dedicated by Saint Dunstan. It lay between two tall pyramids with inscriptions on them, which pyramids had been erected many years before in memory of Arthur. The body was reduced to dust, but it was lifted up into the fresh air from the depths of the grave and carried with the bones to a more seemly place of burial. In the same grave, there was found a tress of woman’s hair, blond and lovely to look at, plaited and coiled with consummate skill, and belonging, no doubt, to Arthur’s wife, who was buried there with her husband.

The moment that [he saw], this lock of hair, [one of the monks], who was standing there in the crowd, jumped down into the deep grave in an attempt to snatch hold of it before any of the others. It was a pretty shameless thing to do and it showed little reverence for the dead. This monk, then, of whom I have told you, a silly, rash and impudent fellow, who had come to gawp at what was going on, dropped down into the hole, which was a sort of symbol of the Abyss from which none of us can escape. He was determined to seize hold of this tress of woman’s hair before anyone else could do so and to touch it with his hand. This was a fair indication of his wanton thoughts, for female hair is a snare for the feeble-minded, although those with any strength of purpose can resist it.

Hair is considered to be imperishable, in that it has no fleshy content and no humidity of its own, but as he held it in his hand after picking it up and stood gazing at it in rapture, it immediately disintegrated into fine powder. All those who were watching were astounded by what had happened. By some sort of miracle, not to say. . ., it just disappeared, as if suddenly changed back into atoms, for it could never have been uncoiled and examined closely. . .this showed that it was even more perishable than most things, proving that all physical beauty is a transitory thing for us to stare at with our vacant eyes or to grope for in our lustful moments, empty and availing nothing. As the philosopher says: ‘Physical beauty is short-lived, it disappears so soon’ it fades more quickly than the flowers in springtime.
Many tales are told and many legends have been invented about King Arthur and his mysterious ending. In their stupidity, the British people maintain that he is still alive. Now that the truth is known, I have taken the trouble to add a few more details in this present chapter. The fairy-tales have been snuffed out, and the true and indubitable facts are made known, so that what really happened must be made crystal clear to all and separated from the myths which have accumulated on the subject.
After the Battle of Camlann. . .killed his uncle. . .Arthur: the sequel was that the body of Arthur, who had been mortally wounded, was carried off by a certain noble matron, called Morgan, who was his cousin, to the Isle of Avalon, which is now known as Glastonbury. Under Morgan’s supervision the corpse was buried in the churchyard there. As a result, the credulous Britons and their bards invented the legend that a fantastic sorceress called Morgan had removed Arthur’s body to the Isle of Avalon, so that she might cure his wounds there. According to them, once he has recovered from his wounds this strong and all-powerful King will return to rule over the Britons in the normal way. The result of all this is that they really expect him to come back, just as the Jews, led astray by even greater stupidity, misfortune and misplaced faith, really expect their Messiah to return.
It is worth noting. . .just as, indeed. . .placed by all, as. . .are called islands and are known to be situated in salt water, that is to say in the sea. It is called Avalon, either from the Welsh word ‘aval’, which means apple, because appletrees and apples are very common there, or from the name of a certain Vallo who used to rule over the area long ago. In remote times, the place used to be called ‘Ynys Gutrin’ in the Welsh language, that is the Island of Glass, no doubt from the glassy colour of the river which flows round it in the marshland. As a result, the Saxons who occupied the area later on called it ‘Glastonia’ in their language, for in Saxon or English ‘glass’ corresponds to the Latin word ‘vitrum’. From what I have said, you can see why it was called first ‘the Isle of Avalon’ and then ‘Glastonia’. It is also clear how this fantastic sorceress came to be adopted by the story-tellers.

It is worthy of note that the Abbot called. . .also from the letters inscribed on it, although they had been almost obliterated long ago by the passing of the years, and he had the aforesaid King Henry to provide the main evidence.
The King had told the Abbot on a number of occasions that he had learnt from the historical accounts of the Britons and from their bards that Arthur had been buried in the churchyard there between two pyramids which had been erected subsequently, very deep in the ground for fear lest the Saxons, who had striven to occupy the whole island after his death, might ravage the dead body in their evil lust for vengeance. Arthur had attacked them on a great number of occasions and had expelled them from the Island of Britain, but his dastardly nephew Mordred had called them back again to fight against him. To avoid such a frightful contingency, to a large stone slab, found in the tomb by those who were digging it up, some seven feet. . .a leaden cross had been fixed, not on top of the stone, but underneath it, bearing this inscription:

HERE IN THE ISLE OF AVALON LIES BURIED THE RENOWNED KING ARTHUR, WITH GUINEVERE, HIS SECOND WIFE

They prised this cross away from the stone, and Abbot Henry, about whom I have told you, showed it to me. I examined it closely and I read the inscription. The cross had been attached to the under side of the stone and, to make it even less easy to find, the surface with the lettering had been turned towards the stone. One can only wonder at the industry and the extraordinary prudence of the men of that period, who were determined to protect at all costs and for all time the body of this great man, their leader and the ruler of this area, from the possibility of sudden desecration. At the same time they ensured that at some moment in the future, when the troubles were over, the evidence of the lettering cut into the cross might be discovered as an indication of what they had done.
. . .it had indicated, so Arthur’s body was discovered, not in a stone sarcophagus, carved out of rock or of Parian marble, as would have been seemly for so famous a King, but in wood, in an oak bole hollowed out for this purpose and buried deep in the earth, sixteen feet or more down, for the burial of so great a Prince, hurried, no doubt, rather than performed with due pomp and ceremony, as this period of pressing disturbance made only too necessary.

When the body was discovered from the indications provided by King Henry, the Abbot whom I have named had a splendid marble tomb built for it, as was only proper, for so distinguished a ruler of the area, who, moreover, had shown more favour to this church than to any other in his kingdom, and had endowed it with wide and extensive lands. By the judgement of God, which is always just and which in this case was certainly not unjustified, who rewards all good deeds not only in Heaven above but on this earth and in our terrestrial Iife. . .,
church. . .others of his kingdom. . .the genuine [remains] and the body. . .of Arthur to be buried in a seemly fashion. . .and gloriously. . .and. . .inhumed.

Margam Abbey Chronicle

At Glastonbury the bones of the most famous Arthur, once King of Greater Britain, were found, hidden in a certain very ancient coffin. Two pyramids had been erected about them, in which certain letters were carved, but they could not be read because they were cut in a barbarous style and worn away. The bones were found on this occasion.

While they were digging a certain plot between the pyramids, in order to bury a certain monk who had begged and prayed the convent to be buried here, they found a certain coffin in which they saw a woman’s bones with the hair still intact. When this was removed, they found another coffin below the first, containing a man’s bones. This also being removed, they found a third below the first two, on which a lead cross was placed, on which was inscribed, “Here lies the famous king Arthur, buried in the isle of Avalon.” For that place was once surrounded by marshes, and is called the isle of Avalon, that is “the isle of apples.” For aval means, in British, an apple.

On opening the aforesaid coffin, they found the bones of the said prince, sturdy enough and large, which the monks transferred with suitable honour and much pomp into a marble tomb in their church. The first tomb was said to be that of Guinevere, wife of the same Arthur; the second, that of Mordred, his nephew; the third, that of the aforesaid prince.

Ralph of Coggeshall.

Chronicon Anglicanum,

Anno 1191: This year were found at Glastonbury the bones of the most renowned Arthur, formerly King of Britain, buried in a very ancient coffin, about which two ancient pyramids had been built: on the sides of these was in inscription, illegible on account of the rudeness of the script and its worn condition. The bones were discovered as follows: as they were digging up this ground to bury a monk who had urgently desired in his lifetime to be interred there, they discovered a certain coffin, on which a leaden cross had been placed, bearing the inscription,

Here lies the famous King Arturius, buried in the Isle of Avalon.

For this place, which is surrounded by marshes, was formerly called the Isle of Avalon, that is, the isle of apples.

SBG St Cwyllog.

She was the wife of Medrod, the traitorous nephew of King Arthur, she embraced a religious life after her husband’s death.

SBG St Cynwyl.

Cynwyl Sant is mentioned in the Arthurian romance of Culhwch and Olwen 6 as ” the third man that escaped from the Battle of Camlan, and he was the last who parted from Arthur, on Hengroen his horse,” the other two being Morfran ab Tegid and Sandde Bryd Angel.

William of Malmesbury,

Chronicle of the Kings of England.

At that time [ca. 1087 A.D.], in the province of Wales, called Ros, was found the sepulcher of Walwin, the noble nephew of Arthur; he reigned, a most renowned knight, in that part of Britain which is still named Walwerth; but was driven from his kingdom by the brother and nephew of Hengist (of whome I have spoken in my first book,) though not without first making them pay dearly for his expulsion. He deservedly shared, with his uncle, the praise of retarding for many years the calamity of his falling country. The sepulcher of Arthur is no where to be seen, whence ancient ballads fable that he is still to come. But the tomb of the other, as I have suggested, was found in the time of king William, on the seacoast, fourteen feet long; there, as some relate, he was wounded by his enemies, and suffered shipwreck; others say he was killed by his subjects at a public entertainment. The truth consequently is doubtful; though neither of these men was inferior to the reputation they have acquired.

Vigilius Pope 537-555

537. Annals of the Four Masters.

The tenth year of Tuathal. St. Lughaidh, Bishop of Connor, died. The battle of Sligeach by Fearghus and Domhnall, the two sons of Muircheartach mac Earca; by Ainmire, son of Sedna; and Ainnidh, son of Duach, against Eoghan Bel, King of Connaught. They routed the forces before them, and Eoghan Bel was slain, of which was said:

1. The battle of the Ui Fiachrach

was fought with fury of edged weapons against Bel,

The kine of the enemy roared with the javelins,

the battle was spread out at Crinder.

2. The Sligeach bore to the great sea

the blood of men with their flesh,

They carried many trophies across Eabha,

together with the head of Eoghan Bel.

537.Annals of Inisfallen.

Failure of bread …

538.. Birth of Gregory.

538. Annals of the Four Masters

After Tuathal Maelgarbh, son of Cormac Caech, son of Cairbre, son of Niall, had been eleven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he was slain, at Greallach Eillte, by Maelmor, son of Airgeadan, who was the tutor of Diarmaid mac Cearbhaill; and Maelmor fell in revenge of it thereof immediately, of which was said:

The fate of Maelmor was not slow;

it was not a just deed he accomplished,

The killing of the mighty Tuathal;

he himself fell for it.

538. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year the sun was eclipsed, fourteen days before the calends of March, from before morning until nine.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle. When he (Cenric) had reigned four years, the sun was eclipsed from the first hour of the day to the third.

538. Annals of Ulster.

Agapitus, a Roman by birth, sat 11 months and 8 days as bishop of the Roman Church, and was buried in the basilica of St Peter the Apostle. The 26 days of Boniface, and the 4 months and 6 days of Mercurius, and the 11 months and 8 days of Agapitus, make up a year, 4 months and 10 days. The battle of Claenloch, in which Maine son of Cerball fell. Death of Comgall son of Domangart in the 35th year of his reign.

538. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Claenloch, in which Maine, son of Cerbhall, was slain, defending the hostages of the Ui Maine of Connacht. Goibhnenn son of Conall, King of Ui Fiacrach Aidhne, was the victor.

SBG St Dredenau.

Beside the Blavet, in the parish of S. Geran (Geraint) in Morbihan (Brittany)is a flamboyant chapel, erected in honour of two princes, brotherswho, according to tradition, were slain by an ambitious uncle, who flung their bodies into a marsh, where they were guarded by a white sow, till devout people came and buried them. Locally they are called Les Saints Dredenau. It is possible, that these princes were the sons of Modred, who were murdered in or about 538, by Constantine of Cornwall, and that Gildas may have set up this chapel as a martyrinm in their honour, as Gildas extended his influence up the Blavet, from Castennec, and indeed has a chapel in a neighbouring parish.

SBG St Finan.

He remained seven years in Rome, and was ordained priest there.

A curious incident happened whilst there. He was preaching in one of the Roman churches, when, probably his strong Irish accent and his bad Latin, so offended the audience that the orchestra was set to bray him down with trumpets. But Finan would not be silenced; he raised his voice and roared out his homily, drowning all the instruments that were sounded to silence him.

Two years after his ordination as priest he returned to Ireland, carrying with him relics, a marble altar stone, and three round jewels, such as had not been seen in Ireland before. But above all he brought back with him S. Jerome’s version of the Gospels and of the Pentateuch. This is the probable explanation of the words in the Felire of Ongus, by the scholiast, to the effect that he was the first who brought the Gospel to Ireland, as weU as the Law of Moses. He now founded the monastery of Maghbile, or Moville, in County Down, about the year 540.

539. Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of Diarmaid, son of Fearghus Ceirrbheoil, in the sovereignty of Ireland. The decapitation of Abacuc at the fair of Tailltin, through the miracles of God and Ciaran; that is, a false oath he took upon the hand of Ciaran, so that a gangrene took him in his neck (i.e. St. Ciaran put his hand upon his neck), so that it cut off his head.

539. Annals of Ulster.

Failure of bread. The battle of Luachair. Tuathal Maelgarb son of Cormac Caech son of Cairpre son of Niall Naígiallach was victor as some state. Silverius, a Roman by birth, sat 1 year, 2 months and 11 days; he died a confessor.

539.Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Clochar.

540. The battle of Claenloch, wherein Maine, son of Cerball, fell.

540 Annals of Ulster.

Birth of Gregory. At Rome Vigilius, a Roman by birth, sat 17 years, 6 months and 22 days as bishop of the Roman Church. He died at Syracuse and was buried on the Via Salaria.

540. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year the sun was eclipsed on the twelfth day before the calends of July; and the stars showed themselves full nigh half an hour over nine.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

Again, two years after, the sun was eclipsed for half-an-hour after the third hour, so that the stars were everywhere visible in the sky.

540 Cronicum Scotorum.

Birth of Pope Gregory.

SBG St Kyndeyrn.

At Glasgow Saint Kentigern remained for some time. The king of that region, Strathclyde, together with the other Christians there, requested Kentigern to become their bishop, although at the time he was aged only five and twenty. He consented, and a bishop was summoned from Ireland to consecrate him.

Or perhaps he went to Rome?

Kentigern now made a visitation of his diocese, and found that, although the country had been nominally Christianized, the bulk of the population was pagan. Moreover, Morken, the king, was not cordial, when he saw with what energy the new bishop prosecuted his work, and he sneered at his vehemence, and came to an open rupture when, a flood occurring, a rick of corn was carried down the Clyde from the royal estate, and having stranded by Kentigern’s monastic settlement, the Saint made no scruple in appropriating it.

SBG St Meurig.

King of Morganwg, repeatedly grants land to S. Teilo and the church of Llandaff. and retired to lead a hermit’s life at Tintern, where he fell fighting against the Saxons. He founded Llandaff not, as is pretended, as a monastery for S. Dubricius, but for Teilo. And the manner in which he dedicated it is described. He carried the Gospels on his back, and, with theclerks going before carrying crosses, he paced round the territory thus made over to the Church. He was not what can be considered a saintly character, for after having solemnly sworn with one Cynvetu over the relics of the saints to keep peace together, Meurig treacherously slew Cynvetu. There- upon Oudoceus summoned the great abbots of Llancarfan, Llantwit, and Llandough, and excommunicated the king, and at the same time placed an interdict on the land. This last statement is certainly false. They also solemnly cursed the king. ” May his days be few, and let his children be orphans, and his wife a widow.”

The king remained excommunicate for two years and more, and then bought his absolution by making over to Llandaff four vills. At this time he was an old man, for among the witnesses is his grandson Morgan.

St Chad Gospel Fragments

It is shown here that Gelhi, the son of Arihtiud, bought this Gospel from Cingal, and gave him for it his best horse; and that for the benefit of his soul he offered this Gospel to God, and on the altar of St. Teilo. Gelli son of Arihtiud Cincenn son of Griffith.

Tudvwlch, the son of Liwid and son-in-law of Tudri, arose to claim the land of Telich, which was in the possession of Elcu, the son of Gelhi, and the tribe of Judgored : he complained long about it : at last they dispossess the son-in-law of Tudri of his right : the nobles said to one another ‘let us make peace’ : Elcu gave afterwards a horse, three cows, three newly calved cows, provided only there be no hostility between them from this reconciliation thenceforth till the day of doom : Tudvwlch and his people will require aftewards no title for ever and ever. Witness Teilo, etc. Whoever observes it will be blessed, whoever breaks it will be cursed.

541. Cronicum Scotorum.

A great mortality which is called Belefeth, in which Mobhi Clairinech, whose name is Bercan, ‘prorectano poetae’, perished.

541. Annals of the Four Masters.

The third year of Diarmaid. St. Ailbhe, Arch Bishop of Imleach Iubhair, died on the twelfth day of September.

541.Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of king Comgall, son of Domangart.

542.. The battle of Tortu [gained] by the Laigin, in which Mac Erce fell.

542. Cronicum Scotorum.

Ailbhe, of Senchua Ua nAililla, quievit.

542. Annals of Ulster.

Death of Comgall son of Domangart. Ailbe rests.

SBG St David.

That David returns to Menevia and removes his monastery from the Old Bush to Dumnonia seems pretty certain, and it is possible that it was at this time. His aunt, S. Gwen, was married to Selyf the king, who resided where is now Callington between the Lynher and Tamar. He may have visited them to extract some donations from them. A series of churches dedicated to him possibly marks his course through Devon, Thelbridge, Exeter, and Ashprington. In Cornwall, he is patron of Davidstow or Dewstowe.

On his return to the Old Bush he found Guistlianus – still there. David had come to the conclusion that the site was undesirable. He said to him: ” From this place scarce one in a hundred will go to the Kingdom of God. I know another spot whence few will go to hell; for every one who shall be buried in that cemetery in sound faith will obtain mercy.”

Whether Guistlian were convinced and persuaded to abandon the Old Bush, we are not told. The old site was now given up, and David and his disciples Aidan, Teilo and Ismael, with other unnamed disciples migrated to the new locality. This was Glyn Rhosyn, in the valley of the Hodnant)

They settled there in the evening, and lighted a fire. Some way off a prong of igneous rock stands up, commanding the Alun valley. This prong had its summit walled about and formed into a strong- hold. It goes by the name of Clegyr Fwya (the Rock of Boia), and it takes its name from an Irish freebooter who had settled there, and who terrorized the neighbourhood.

In the morning, he saw the smoke of David’s fire rising from the meadow by the river in the ravine. His wife, a veritable shrew, ascended the rock on which Boia was standing, and as he seemed to be indifferent, she goaded him to interference, bade him go to the spot, and expel those who had thus taken possession. Boia went, but David easily pacified him, and the Irish freebooter consented that he should have and hold the patch of sheltered ground in the valley bottom. Boia’s wife was highly incensed when she found how complaisant her husband had been, and when she further learned that the settlers were monks, who had migrated from ‘ r the Old Bush,” she was the more resolved to rid the neighbourhood of them.

Accordingly, she sent her maids to bathe in the stream close to where the saints were. Some of the monks complained to David that this was an intolerable nuisance, and was likely to continue, and, if repeated every day, would render the place unendurable. But David bade them disregard the immodest girls, who would soon tire of their bathing if no notice were taken of them.

As Boia refused to be egged on to molest the monks, and as if we may credit the account of the incident in the Life of S. Teilo he was even so won over .as to consent to be baptized, the wife resolved on having recourse to her gods, the Siddi, or underground divinities, and to propitiate them with a sacrifice.

She invited her step-daughter, named Dunawd, one warm day, to descend into the hazel-brake in Glyn Alun to pick nuts, and where, she intimated, she could examine her head. When the girl laid her head in the step-mother’s lap, the wretched woman shore off her hair. This was tantamount to adoption; and then, with a knife, she cut the girl’s throat, and poured out her innocent blood to the gods.

This did not avail, and the woman, frightened lest Boia should punish her for the murder of his daughter, ran away, and what became her is not recorded. She probably purposed absenting herself till her husband’s resentment had abated; but circumstances occurred that made a return impossible. During the ensuing night Lisci (Leschi), son of Paucairt, another Irish pirate, entered the little port that now bears his name, stole in the dark up the crag, and finding the entrance to the fort unguarded, burst in with his men, and slew Boia in his bed.

The Life of S. David says that fire fell from heaven and consumed the castle. This is a figurative way of saying that Lisci, after having pillaged the stronghold, set fire to the wattled huts within the walls. Dunawd, daughter of Boia, would seem to have been regarded as a martyr, although unbaptized. Rhygyfarch says: “A clear fountain arose in the place where her blood flowed to the ground, which abundantly cured many diseases of mankind, which place David was now able to proceed with the construction of his monastery. It was probably of stone, as no timber of any size grows in the neighbourhood. Gwestlan seems now to have joined his kinsman, for he is credited with having called forth a miraculous spring, as did also Teilo. ” And cripples, and blind, and diseased persons have obtained cures from these two fountains.”

At what time David was summoned to undertake the organization of the Church in the southern portion of Demetia, we do not know. Urien Rheged had expelled the Goidels from Gower, and the district between the Tawe and the Towy, and it was when they were cleared out that David went there and founded churches. His presence in these parts we know of through the Life of S. Aidan or Maidoc, and from the fact of there being churches there bearing his name.

543. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Tortu i.e. won by the Laigin, in which Mac Erca son of Ailill Molt fell. The battle of Slicech, in which Eógan Bél, king of Connacht, fell. Forgus and Domnall, two sons of Mac Erca, were victors, and Ainmire son of Sétna and Ninnid son of Sétna.

543. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Tortan gained by the Lagenians, in which fell Mac Erca (from whom are the Fir Cera), son of Ailill Molt, son of Dathi.

The battle of Sligech, in which Eoghan Bel, King of Connacht, was slain.

Fergus and Domhnall, two sons of Mac Erca; and Ainmire, son of Senna; and Nindigh, son of Duach, were the victors:—

The battle of Ui Fiachrach is fought,

With the fury of edged weapons, against Bel;

The enemy’s kine roar at lances;

The battle is spread out at Crinder.

The Sligech bears to the great sea

The blood of men, with their flesh;

Trophies are carried across Ebha,

With the head of Eoghan Bel.

Lughaidh, Bishop of Condere, quievit.

543. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fifth year of Diarmaid.

There was an extraordinary universal plague through the world, which swept away the noblest third part of the human race.

543.Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Sliab Éiblinne.

544. The first mortality, which is called bléfed, in which Mo-Bí Chlárainech fell asleep.

544. Annals of the Four Master.s

The sixth year of Diarmaid. St. Mobhi Claraineach, i.e. Berchan of Glais Naidhen, on the brink of the Liffey, on the north side, died on the second day of the month of October. The battle of Cuil Conaire, in Ceara, was fought by Fearghus and Domhnall, two sons of Muircheartach mac Earca, against Ailill Inbhanda, King of Connaught, and Aedh Fortamhail; and Ailill and Aedh were slain.

544. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year died Wihtgar; and men buried him at Carisbrook.

544 Annales Cambriae

The sleep of Ciaran.

544. Cronicum Scotorum.

Tuathal Maelgarbh, son of Cormac Caech, son of Coirpre, son of Niall, King of Temhair, died from a wound inflicted by Maelmor Ua Machí, who also was forthwith slain himself. Hence is said “the feat of Maelmor”.

Quies of Mac Cuilind, and of Odhran from Letracha.

The decapitation of Ambacuc at the Fair of Taillten, through the power of Saint Ciaran, viz.:— a false oath he swore by the Saint’s hand, so that a gangrene settled on his neck. Seven years he remained alive with the Monks.

Ciaran the Great, son of the Carpenter, quievit in the 33rd year of his age; in the seventh month, also, after he began to build Cluain-muc-Nois.

Beoid was the name of Ciaran’s father, and Darerca the name of his mother, as he himself said: —

Darerca was my mother;

She was not an evil woman;

Beoid, the carpenter, was my father;

He was of the Latharna Molt.

Diarmaid Mac Cerbhaill begins to reign. Maelmor was a son of Diarmaid’s mother.

545. Cronicum Scotorum.

Tigernach, Bishop of Cluain-eois, quievit.

SBG St David.

David attends the Council of Llanddewi Brefi …… c. 545

David devoted himself wholly to prayer, study, and to the train- ing of his disciples. Of, these he had some who became distinguished, He also received visits from many Irish Saints as they passed through on their way to the Continent, or on their return from it. Such were S. Scuthin of Sliab Mairge, S. Barri or Finbar of Cork, and S. Senan of Iniscathy, with whom he made a contract of brotherhood. Cybi also visited him on his way to Ireland, and Constantine, the Cornish king, is said to have gone for a while to the Menevian monastery after his conversion. That David’s visitors were not always agreeable may well be suspected. An Irish Saint came there. He was of good birth, and of saintly attainments, and David offered him a cordial welcome, and detailed a boy to wait upon him during his stay. The holy man was exacting and peppery, and tried the lad’s patience, so that one day, under provocation, the lad muttered some impertinent remark behind his back. The fiery Irishman turned and knocked him down; and his fist was so heavy that the boy died of concussion of the brain two days after. David was highly and justly incensed. The Irish Saint endeavoured to exculpate himself by alleging the provocation offered. Finally, a compromise was patched up. He undertook thenceforth to assume the dead lad’s name, so that some of his merits might reflect on the murdered youth. Thenceforth he was known as Laicinn, or, with the affectionate prefix given to the boy, Mo-lacca. By this he is known, what his baptismal appellation was is not recorded.

Domnoc, or Modomnoc, another Irishman, was for a long time with David. He cultivated flowers in the monastic garden, and attended to the bees. When about to return to his native land, as he mounted the boat at Forth Mawr, the bees swarmed and settled on the boat. So Modomnoc took the swarm with him to the Emerald Isle, and it is said that these were the first bees introduced into Ireland. Later on, Molacca, by fair means or foul, got hold of this hive and carried it off to his own monastery, which thenceforth received the name of Lann Beachaire, or “The Church of the Bees.” This Modomnoc was brother of S. Domangart, and son of Saran, fourth in descent from Niall of the Nine Hostages. He died at the close of the sixth century. That all in David’s monastery was not “sweetness and light ” may be inferred from the fact of his steward attempting to murder David’s favourite disciple Aidan, and from the cellarer trying to poison David himself. The Penitential Code of David shows that much wild blood was to be found in his and other monastic settlements of the period. Severe penalties had to be adjudged in cases of drunkenness, murder, and attempted murder, and other gross crimes. Kissing a girl had to be expiated by three days’ penance. But we shall have more to say on the Penitential Code later.

Except when compelled by unavoidable necessity, David kept aloof from all temporal concerns. He did not attend the Synod of Llanddewi Brefi when convened by Dyfrig. As no agreement could be arrived at relative to matters in dispute, Paulinus, with whom David had studied, advised that he should be sent for, and Dyfrig .and Deiniol went in quest of him, and insisted on his attending the Council. On his arrival, David found the Synod gathered in a very incommodious place, the old Roman station of Loventium, and by his advice it was removed a little distance to Llanddewi Brefi, where was a mound, upon which the speakers could stand and be heard by those whom they desired to address. Such, we may take it, is the meaning of the legend which represents David having mounted a heap of clothes, whereupon the earth swelled under it into a mount.

Rhygyfarch and Giraldus both misrepresent the Council as one convened for the suppression of the Pelagian heresy. But it was really called together to enact canons of discipline for the clergy and laity. The canons have been preserved in a MS. in the Biblio- theque Nationale at Paris.

A second Council was held later, the Synod of Victory, in 569, according to the Annales Cambrice, but, as we have shown in dealing with S. Cadoc, the date of the Council of Brefi must be put before the outbreak of the Yellow Plague, probably in 544 or 545.

Outbreak of the Yellow Plague. Goes to Brittany with Teilo, and settles

SBG St Dubricius.

Dubricius was present at the Synod of Llanddewi Brefi; and it was he and Deiniol who induced David to attend it.

SBG St Melor.

According to the pedigree of the princes of Cornouaille, in Armorica, lan-Reith, a noble Briton, migrated to that peninsula, and established himself in Cornu-Gallia. He was succeeded by his son Daniel, and Daniel by his son Budoc I. Budoc died, according to De la Borderie’s reckoning, about 530. According to the Life of S. Melor he left two sons, Meliau and Rivold. But it seems that there must have been three, of whom one was named Budoc, who, however, did not immediately succeed his father, but had to fly for his life to South Wales, as there was a struggle between contending factions, and the Cartularies of Quimper and Landevenec give Grallo Plain and Concar Choevoc as princes between Budoc I and Budoc II. Meliau, perhaps, had his residence at Plounevez-Porzay, near Quimper, during his father’s life, as tradition asserts, and as the church there claims him Meliau took to himself a wife from Domnonia, named Aurilia, daughter of Judoc, whom the biographer apparently confounds with the Count of Domnonia who lived in 640, but who was a petty chief of the same name. Rivold, Meliau’s brother, did not get a share of the father’s principality, or if he did, desired more, and, in a colloquy with Meliau, treacherously stabbed him, and seized on his domain and rule. Meliau is accounted a martyr, and receives a cult on October. Meliau fell about 537, leaving an only son Melor (Melior). Rivold seized on the lad, and would have put him to death but for the inter- vention of some of the chiefs. He therefore contented himself with cutting off his right hand and left foot, so as to incapacitate him from becoming a pretender to the throne, as, according to Celtic usage, no one with a bodily defect was eligible.

The affection of the attendants for the young prince led them to a silver hand and brazen foot fitted to the stumps, and, so says the legend, Divine power was manifested, in that the boy was able to employ these metal members as though they were flesh and bone. For precaution, the boy was sent to Quimper, and placed in the monastary founded by S. Corentine.

One day, Melor and other boys were nutting and his comrades made their little piles of hazel nuts, and Melor, received them into his silver hand. Moreover, when he returned home, to the amazement of the good folk in the street, they saw his silver hand passed through the grating of the door, as he cast away the nut-shells he had broken to get at the kernels.

One day he was playing with a toy catapult, and shot his bolt, which came down on a stone and penetrated it. When he withdrew the bolt a spring gushed forth, and the spring is shown to this day at Meilars, near Pont-Croix, in Finistere, west of Quimper. The tidings of these wonders having reached Rivold, he sent for Cerialtan, the foster-father of Melor, and promised him that if he would make away with the lad, he would give him as much land as he could see from the top of Mount Coc.

Cerialtan ‘s greed was excited, and he confided the proposal to his wife. She was horror-struck, and resolved on saving the boy. Whilst her husband was absent, she fled with Melor to Domnonia, and took refuge with the regent Conmore, whose wife was a daughter of Budoc, and therefore aunt to Melor. They found shelter in the Castellum Bocciduum, which De la Borderie conjectures to have been Beuzit, west of Lanmeur, where considerable remains of a caer may still be seen. Rivold was incensed, but he did not dare to complain to the powerful and masterful regent. He therefore urged Cerialtan to use guile, entice the boy away, and cut off his head.

Cerialtan, accordingly, went to Beuzit, and took with him his son Justan, who had been a play-fellow of Melor, and to whom he was attached. The treacherous foster-father persuaded the prince of his good intentions. Melor and Justan were placed to sleep in one bed.

During the night Cerialtan stole into the room, and murdered the prince as he slept. Then, rousing Justan, he fled with him; but as. they were leaving the castle, by climbing over the wall, Justan’s foot caught, and he fell and was killed. Cerialtan, however, pushed on till he reached a place called Kerlean, near Carhaix, when exhausted and parched with thirst, he halted, and putting down the head of Melor, which he carried off with him, he exclaimed, ” Confounded be! I have lost my son, and now am myself perishing for water.” Thereupon the dead head spoke; ” Cerialtan, drive thy staff into the soil, and water will spring up.” Much astonished, the murderer complied; whereupon a spring boiled up; more than that, the staff took root, threw out branches, and in time became a great tree. On reaching the residence of Rivold, Cerialtan delivered up the head, and demanded the price of his crime. The prince thereupon put out the eyes of the murderer, led him to the top of Mount Coc, and bade him take as much land as he could see. Such is the legend in its complete form. The date of his death was about 544, when he was aged fourteen.

The document known as the Tramlatio S. Maglorii informs us that, on account of the ravages of the Northmen, the body of S. Melor, was translated from Lanmeur, between 875 and 878, to Lehon; but between 910 and 913 the relics were carried thence, probably when Mathuedoi and a large number of Bretons fled to the protection of Edward the Elder and Athelstan, and the body of S. Melor was taken to Amesbury, in Wiltshire. The abbey church of Amesbury is dedicated to SS. Mary and Melor.

SBG St Oudoceus.

The Life of S. Oudoceus informs us that Budic was the son of a certain Cybrdan, who had been expelled from his principality of Cornugallia, and he ” came with his fleet to the region of Demetia (Dyfed) in the time of Aircol Lawhir, who was King thereof.” Budic, who must have been young when he fled to Dyfed, married there Anauved, daughter of Ensic, and sister of S. Teilo, and by her had two sons, Ismael and Tyfai, who both entered religion. Ismael became a disciple of S. David, and Tyfai, having been accidentally killed, is esteemed a martyr. Whilst Budic resided in Dyfed, deputies from Cornubia arrived to announce to him that the usurping king was dead and that the people were ready to welcome him. Budic collected vessels and embarked, with his family of retainers and doubtless a number of Welsh adventurers who hoped to get something in the new. land. Where Budic landed we do not know. The date of his arrival was about the year 545. Soon after Anauved became a mother again, of a son who was named Oudoceus.

SBG St Samson.

There was a Samson, son of Caw, who is stated to have had a church dedicated to him at York. That this Samson, if he ever lived, was at York is doubtful in the extreme. He was probably not Archbishop of York at this time.

More certain dates are-

Samson born, circa 485, put as pupil to Illtyd c. 490, ordained priest c. 515, converts his father and becomes Abbot of Ynys Pyr. c. 516, goes to Ireland c. 518, returns and retreats into a desert c. 520, is consecrated Bishop and made Abbot of Llantwit c. 522, quits Llantwit and crosses into Cornwall c. 525, receives news of the death of S. Illtyd c. 537 meets S. Petroo at Padstow, c. 543 quits Cornwall and settles at Dol c. 544, S. Teilo flying from the Yellow Plague visits him 547 Samson goes to Paris for the first time c. 553 Defeat and death of Conmoe 555.

545. Annals of the Four Masters.

The seventh year of Diarmaid. St. Ailbhe, of Seanchu Ua nOiliolla, died.

545. Annals of Ulster.

Tuathal Maelgarb was killed, i.e. in Grellach Allta by Mael Mórda, and Diarmait son of Cerball succeeded him. Kalends of January first feria, second of the moon. The first mortality called bléfed, in which Mo-Bí Clárainech died. Death of Comgall son of Domangart, as some say. Diarmait son of Fergus Cerrbél son of Conall of Cremthann son of Niall Naígiallach began to reign, according to the book of Cuanu. Or here, the birth of Gregory according to others.

545.Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Clochar Aithinne.

546.. The battle of Sligech and the battle of Tortu.

SBG St Cynydd (Keneth)

One day, nine robbers who infested the district, said to one another, ” There is a holy man here who instructs all, and is very good-natured; let us see what can be got from him.”

So, they visited Keneth, and he hospitably entertained them. Now the men had left their spears outside, and Keneth’s servant, coveting one, stole it, and when the robber asked for his lance, swore that he had not seen it. ” Bring out the bosom-shaped bell, and I will take oath on that.” When the man had so forsworn himself he went mad, and ran away to Menevia, ” where, at the time, David had his seat,” and there inhabited remote localities, living like a wild beast, till the hair of his body completely clothed him. At the end of seven years, Keneth prayed for his restoration, and the man returned to his service a sincere penitent.

Now it fell out that Morgan, prince of Glamorgan, came on a raid and swept together much plunder in the region where was Keneth. The hermit thereupon sent his servant with the woman- breasted bell to demand a share of the spoil. He met with a refusal and abuse. Then the plunderers began to quarrel among themselves over the division of the spoil, came to blows, and many were killed. Morgan, attributing this disaster to the offence given to Keneth and disregard of the sanctity of his bell, went to him and offered compensation. He took him up a height and bade him accept as much ground as he desired. Keneth selected a certain amount up. It fell out that David, Teilo and Padarn were on their way, summoning the abbots and bishops of Wales to the Council of Llanddewi Brefi, and were hospitably received by Keneth. David requested him to attend the synod.

” Observe my leg, I am a cripple, how can I go ? ” answered Keneth. Then David prayed, and Keneth’s contracted leg was relaxed, so that he could walk as any other man. This did not please Keneth, and he prayed, and at once up went his limb as before and the calf once again adhered to his thigh. Consequently, he did not attend the Council of Brefi.

SBG St Cadoc.

On the return of Cadoc to Britain, he learned that during his absence the Synod of Llanddewi Brefi had been held. This had assembled, not as Rhygyfarch pretends to condemn the last remains of the Pelagian heresy, but to pass penitential canons. The date of the synod cannot be fixed with any certainty. The Synod of Victory met, according to the Annales Cambriae in 569, and it has been supposed that the Council of Llanddewi Brefi took place shortly before. But the words of Rhygyfarch are: ” Deinde succedente temporum serie alia colligitur synodus, cui nomen Victoriae.” This implies a lapse of some time between the two gatherings. We are disposed to hold that the Council of Llanddewi was held before the outbreak of the Yellow Plague, perhaps in 545 or 546.

When Cadoc arrived at Llancarfan, the monks were afraid to tell him of the assembly, and deputed Finnian to do so. Cadoc was furious at such a meeting having been held without his being consulted and invited to be present. And his resentment was specially directed against David, for the leading part he had taken in it. In his wrath he proceeded to ” fast against ” David; he was only induced to desist when it was shown him, probably by Finnian, though the legend says it was by an angel, that his conduct was contrary to the principles of Christian charity. In 547 broke out the Yellow Plague, and a panic fell on clerics and laity alike in Demetia. All who could fled across the sea to Armorica.

SBG St Cadrod.

Carrawd or Cadrod, of Calchfynydd, was a son of Cynwyd Cynwydion, of the line of Coel Godebog, and the brother of Clydno Eiddyn, Cynan Genhir, and Cynfelyn Drwsgl. They were all disciples of S. Cadoc at Llancarfan. Cadrod was the husband of Gwrygon Goddheu, daughter of Brychan, or Gwrgon. He was lord of Calchfynydd, which is identified with Dunstable. He is designated ” Earl of Dunstable and Lord of Hampshire ” Or Kelso in Roxburghshire.

546. Annals of the Four Masters.

The eighth year of Diarmaid. The battle of Cuilne, in which many of the Corcoiche were slain through the prayers of St. Ida, of Cluain Creadhail.Fothadh, son of Conall, died. Cairbre, son of Cormac, King of Leinster, died.

546. Annals of Ulster.

Daire Coluim Cille was founded.

SBG St Dirinig or Dirynig.

He is said to be the patron of a church in Caer Efrog, or York, where he was slain by the pagan Saxons. Among the ” Sayings of the Wise ” occurs the following: Hast thou heard the saying of Dirynig, The wise, distinguished warrior? ” God will provide good for the lonely.” (Digawn Duw da i unig.)

547. Annals of the Four Masters.

The ninth year of Diarmaid. The King of Ulidia, Eochaidh, son of Connla, son of Caelbhadh, son of Crunn Badhrai, died. The chief of Teathbha, Crimhthann, son of Brian, died. St. Dubhthach, Abbot of Ard Macha Armagh, died. He was of the race of Colla Uais.

547. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Slicech in which fell Eógan Bél, i.e. king of Connacht; and Domnall and Forgus, two sons of Muirchertach Mac Erca, and Ainmire son of Sétna son of Fergus son of Conall of Gulbu son of Niall Naígiallach, were victors.

547. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Ida began his reign; from whom first arose the royal kindred of the Northumbrians. Ida was the son of Eoppa, Eoppa of Esa, Esa of Ingwy, Ingwy of Angenwit, Angenwit of Alloc, Alloc of Bennoc, Bennoc of Brand, Brand of Balday, Balday of Woden. Woden of Fritholaf, Fritholaf of Frithowulf, Frithowulf of Finn, Finn of Godolph, Godolph of Geata. Ida reigned twelve years. He built Bamburgh-Castle, which was first surrounded with a hedge, and afterwards with a wall.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

In the seventh year after this, Ida began to reign over the province of Northumberland, whose family derive their kingly title and nobility from Woden.

547. Annales Cambriae.

The great death [ie plague] in which Maelgwn, king of Gwynedd died. Thus they say ‘The long sleep of Maelgwn in the court of Rhos’. Then was the yellow plague.

Liber Hymnorum.

Colman mac Ui Cluasaig, a scholar from Cork, made this hymn to save himself from the Yellow Plague that occurred in the time of the sons of Aed Slane. For there were many people in Ireland at that time, and their multitude was such that they got only thrice nine ridges for each man in Ireland, viz, nine of bog, and nine of grass-land and nine of forest, so that the nobles of Irelands men fasted along with the sons of Aed Slane, and with Fechin of Fore, and with Aileran, and with Manchan of Liath and many others, to get the population reduced, for there had come a scarcity of food owing to their numbers; and therefore the Yellow Plague was inflicted on them, so that there died of it in that year the sons of Aed Slane and the elders we have mentioned.

It was Colman who composed it all, but others say that he composed only two quatrains of it, and the school the rest of it, viz, each man of them a half-quatrain. It was composed in Cork, in the time of the two sons of Aed Slane, viz. Blaithmac and Diarmait. Now the cause of its composition was this. A great pestilence was sent upon Ireland s men, viz, the Buide Connaill; it ransacked all Ireland, and left alive only every third man in Ireland; and so it was to protect them and also his school that Colman composed this hymn against that pestilence. And it befel him to be composing it just at the time when he began a journey to a certain island of Irelands sea outside.

547. The Death of Maelgwn Gwynedd.

Maelgwn betook himself to Ros church seated near his court, in a nook of ground, on all sides saving one environed with the sea, and therefore easy of all roads to be guarded and kept fromteh company of people: therefore he shut himself so that he could not see or be seen of anybody (save those which did attend upon him), causing a diligent watch should be kept, lest any should come near the place, and when he had remained there a good while, he one day looked through a chink in the church door, and was presently infeced with the air, so that he soon afterwards died, and when his men thought it time to serve him with necessaries, he lay silent, that they thought he was fast asleep, but when they had staid very long, in expectation of his awaking, one of htem said that his silence was too long to be one of sleep, and they went to his bed and found him dead thereon, whereupon grew the proverb which with us is yet in use, when one sleepeth beyond measure or is dead we say ‘Hir hun Faelgwn yn eglwys Ros’, that is to say, the long sleep of Maelgwn in the Church of Rhos, being so long that he never awakened… Maelgwn’s body is said to be interred in Ynys Seiriol.

546 The Annals of Clonmacnoise.

The was a great mortality wich was called Irish Blefeth, of which Disease Clarineagh ats Berchann, who is supposed to be called in English Merlyn (Merlin) dyed. Ailve Seanchwa o’Naillealla dyed.

547.Annals of Inisfallen.

In this year Cluain Moccu Nóis was founded: that is, Nós, swineherd of the king of Connachta, from whom Cluain Moccu Nóis is named.

548. Death of Mael at the hands of another person named Mael. Repose of Ciaran, son of the wright. Mael Odur [died] the same day.

548. Annals of Ulster.

Dubthach or Duach, of the seed of Colla Uais, abbot of Ard Macha, rested. Cluain Moccu Nóis was founded. (The battle of Tortu won by the Laigin in which Mac Erca son of Ailill Molt fell. Or here, the battle of Slicech).

548. Annals of the Four Masters.

The tenth year of Diarmaid. St. Ciaran, son of the artificer, Abbot of Cluain Mic Nois, died on the ninth day of September. Thirty-three years was the length of his life. St. Tighearnach, Bishop of Cluain Eois, died on the 4th of April.

St. Mac Tail of Cill Cuilinn (i.e. Eoghan, son of Corcran), died on the eleventh day of the month of June. St. Colum, son of Crimhthann, died.St. Sincheall the elder, son of Ceanannan, Abbot of Cill Achaidh Dromafoda, died on the twenty sixth day of March. Thirty and three hundred years was the length of his life. St. Odhran, of Leitrioch Odhrain, died on the second day of the month of October. St. Finnen, Abbot of Cluain Eraird, tutor of the saints of Ireland, died. St. Colam, of Inis Cealtra, died. Of the mortality which was called the Cron Chonaill,— and that was the first Buidhe Chonaill,—these saints died, except Ciaran and Tighearnach. The death of Eochaidh, son of Connlo, King of Ulidia, from whom are the Ui Eathach Uladh.—Tighernach.

SBG St Finnian.

In 547 the terrible Yellow Plague broke out in Wales and was carried to Ireland, where it caused many deaths,

Finnian, notwithstanding his age, was attacked by it, and was carried off in 548, according to the Four Masters ;

His disciple, Columba of Tir-da-Glas, ministered to Finnian in his last hours, and then himself succumbed to the disorder. Finnian died on December 12, and Columba on December 13. The Irish Life says: “As Paul died in Rome for the sake of the Christian people, lest they should all perish in the pains and punishments of hell, evenso Finnian died at Clonard for the sake of the people of the Gael, that they might not all perish of the Yellow Plague.”

The passage is somewhat obscure, but it seems to imply that the death of Finnian was accepted as an atonement for the people, and the plague was stayed.

549. Annals of Ulster.

The falling asleep of the son of the wright, i.e. Ciarán, in the 33rd year of his age or in the 7th after he had begun to build Cluain Moccu Nóis. Tigernach of Cluain Eóis rested. A great mortality in which these rested: Finnia moccu Telduib, Colam, descendant of Crimthann, Mac Táil of Cell Cuilinn, Sinchell son of Cenannán, abbot of Cell Achaid Druimfhata, and Colum of Inis Celtra. Or, in this year Tuathal Maelgarb, king of Temair, perished in Grellach Eilte, being killed by Mael Mór, descendant of Mac Í. The latter was killed immediately after, hence the saying, ‘the murderous feat of Máel Mórda’.

549. Annals of Inisfallen.

The [beginning of the] reign of Diarmait, son of Cerball, in the 31st year of his age.

Poems Referring to Urien of Reged

RED BOOK OF HERGEST XI.

I. I WAS formerly fair of limb, I was eloquent in speech:
What is not wonderful will be extolled
The men of Argoed have ever supported me.

II. I was formerly fair of limb, I was bold,
I was admitted into the congress-house
Of Powys, the paradise of the Cymry.

III. I was formerly fair of limb, I was comely;
Throbbing was concomitant with my spear:
My back (now) curved was first in vigour–I am heavy, I am wretched.

IV. Wooden crook! is it not the time of harvest,
When the fern is brown, and the reeds are yellow?
Have I not once disliked what I now love!

V. Wooden crook! is not this winter,
When men are noisy over the beverage?
Is not my bedside void of greeting visits!

VI. Wooden crook! is it not the spring,
When the cuckoos are brownish, when the foam is bright?
I am destitute of a maiden’s love.

VII. Wooden crook! is it not the beginning of summer,
Are not the furrows brown, are not the corn-blades curled?
It is refreshing to me to look at thy beak!

VIII. Wooden crook! thou contented branch
That supportest a mourning old man!
Llywarch of pleasant talk!

IX. Wooden crook! thou hardy branch
That bearest with me–God protect thee!
Thou art justly called the tree of wandering.

X. Wooden crook! be thou steady,
So that thou mayest support me the better–
Am not I Llywarch known to many far away?

XI. Surely old age is uniting itself with me,
From my hair to my teeth,
And the glowing eyeball which the young ones loved!

XII. Surely old age is uniting itself with me,
From my hair to my teeth,
And the glowing eyeball which the women loved!

XIII. The wind grinningly blusters out, white is the skirt of the wood,
Lively is the stag, there is no moisture on the hill;
Feeble is the aged, slowly he moves!

XIV. This leaf, is it not driven by the wind?
Woe to it as to its fate!
It is old, this year was it born.

XV. What I loved when a youth are hateful to me now:
A stranger’s daughter, and a gray steed.
Am not I for them unmeet?

XVI. The four most hateful things to me through life,
Have met together with one accord:
Cough and old age, sickness and grief.

XVII. I am old, I am lonely, I am decrepit and cold,
After the sumptuous bed of honour:
I am wretched, I am triply bent!

XVIII. I am triply bent and old, I am fickly bold,
I am rash, I am outrageous:
Those that loved me, love me not.

XIX. Young maidens love me not, I am visited by none,
I cannot move about–
Ah! death, that he does not seek me!

XX. I am sought by neither sleep nor gladness;
After the slaughter of Llawr and Gwen,
I am outrageous and loathsome, I am old.

XXI. Wretched was the fate decreed to Llywarch
On the night he was born;
Long pain without being delivered of his load of trouble.

XXII. Array not thyself after waiting; let not thy mind be vexed;
Sharp is the gale, and bleak the spring!
Accuse me not, my mother–I am thy son!

XXIII. Do I not recognise by my Awen,
My descent, sway, and kindred:
Three themes of the harmonious Awen?

XXIV. Sharp is my spear, furious in the onset;
I will prepare to watch the ford;
Support against falling may God grant me.

XXV. Shouldst thou run away, I will weep for thee;
Shouldst thou be slain, I shall mourn thee:
Lose not the countenance of the men of conflict.

XXVI. I will not lose thy countenance, prone to warfare,
From the time that the hero puts on harness for the course;
I will hear the pang ere I quit the spot.

XXVII. Gliding is the wave along the beach;
I perceive that the design of that battle will be frustrated,
It is usual for the talkative to run away.

XXVIII. Of that which concerns me I will speak;
There is breaking of spears about the place where I am;
I will not say but that I may retreat.

XXIX. Soft is the bog, the cliff is hard,
Before the hart’s hoof the edge of the bank breaks,
A promise not fulfilled is none at all.

XXX. The streams will divide around the wall of the Caer,
And I will prognosticate–
A shield with a fractured front before I skulk.

XXXI. The horn given to thee by Urien,
With the wreath of gold around its rim,
Blow in it, if thou art in danger.

XXXII. For the terror of death from the base men of Lloegyr
I will. not tarnish my honour;
I will not dispraise maidens.

XXXIII. Whilst I was of the age of yonder youth,
That wears the golden spurs,
I was active in thrusting the spear.

XXXIV. Truly thy young man is faithful,
Thou art alive, and thy witness is slain,
The old man that is now feeble was not so in his youth.

XXXV. Gwen, by the Llawen, watched last night,
And success did not fail him:
The battle progressed on the green embankment.

XXXVI. Gwen, by the Llawen, watched last night,
With the shield on the shoulder;
As he was my son, he did not retreat.

XXXVII. Gwen with the lowering look, troubled is my mind,
Thy death greatly provokes my wrath–
It is not kindred (only) that will speak of thee!

XXXVIII. Gwen with thigh of wide opening watched last night
On the border of the ford of Morlas;
And as he was my son, he did not retreat.

XXXIX. Gwen, I knew thy inherent disposition;
In the assault like the eagle at fall of rivers thou wert;
If I were fortunate thou wouldst have escaped.

XL. Let the face of the ground be turned up, let the assailants be covered,
When chiefs repair to the toil of war;
Gwen, woe to him that is over old, for thee he is indignant.

XLI. Let the face of the ground be turned up, and the plain be covered,
When the opposing spears are lifted up.
Gwen, woe to him that is over old, that he should have lost thee.

XLII. My son was a man, splendid was his fame;
And he was the nephew of Urien;
On the ford of Morlas, Gwen was slain.

XLIII. The shrine of the fierce overbearing foe,
That vanquished the circularly compact army of Lloegr;
The grave of Gwen, the son of Llywarch Hen, is this!

XLIV. Four-and-twenty sons have been to me,
Wearing the golden chain, leaders of armies;
Gwen was the best of them.

XLV. Four-and-twenty sons have been to me,
Wearing the golden chain, leaders of battle;
Gwen was the best son of his father.

XLVI. Four-and-twenty sons to me have been,
Wearing the golden chain, leading princes;
Compared with Gwen they were but striplings.

XLVII. Four-and-twenty sons were in the family of Llywarch,
Of brave men fall of the wrath of war;
Their march was a rush, immense their fame.

XLVIII. Four-and-twenty were my sons complete;
My flesh they have caused to wither;
It is well that my budget of misfortune is come!

XLIX When Pyll was slain, gashing was the wound;
And the blood on the hair seemed horrible;
And on both banks of the Ffraw there was violence.

L. A room might be formed for the wings of shields,
Which would hold one standing upright,
That were broken in the grasp of Pyll.

LI. The chosen man amongst my sons,
When each assaulted the foe,
Was fair Pyll, impetuous as a fire through a chimney.

LII. Gracefully he placed his thigh over the saddle.
Of his horse, on the near and far side–
Pyll, impetuous as the fire through a chimney.

LIII. He was gentle, with a hand eager for battle;
He was second to no treasure;
He was a bulwark on the course–
Fair Pyll! fearful is his covering of separation.

LIV. When he stood at the door of his tent,
On the dark-gray steed,
At the sight, the wife of Pyll would recognise a hero.

LV. There was fractured before Pyll a strong skull;
Seldom would the silent coward be concealed from him;
The weak is satisfied without anything.

LVI. Fair Pyll, widely spread his fame:
Am. I not invigorated since thou hast existed
As my son, and joyful to have known thee?

LVII. The best three men under heaven
That guarded their habitation,
Pyll, and Selyv, and Sandev.

LVIII. A shield I gave to Pyll;
Before he slept was it not perforated?
To promise it carelessly was to depreciate it.

LIX. Should Cymry come, and the predatory host of Lloegr,
And many from distant parts,
Pyll would show them conduct.

LX. Nor Pyll nor Madawg would be long lived,
If they preserved the custom.
Would they surrender? they would not surrender! they would never ask for truce!

LXI. Behold here the grave of a faultless one and warlike;
With the Bards his fame went, where would not have gone,
Pyll, if longer he had continued?

LXII. Maen, and Madawg, and Medel, valiant men,
And brothers not refractory,
Selyv, Heilyn, Llawr, and Lliver.

LXIII. The grave of Gwell is in Rhiw Velen;
The grave of Sawyl in Llangollen;
Llawr protects the pass of Llorien,

LXIV. The grave of Rhudd, is it not covered with sods?
The earth of Ammarch does not conceal
The grave of Llyngedwy, the son of Llywarch.

LXV. Far from hence is Aber Llyw,
Farther are the two Cyvedliws:
Talan, thou hast repaid my tears to-day.

LXVI. I have drunk wine from the goblet;
He would rush forward against the lance-bearer;
Like the wings of the dawn were the gleamings of the spear of Duawg.

LXVII. I have repented of the time that I entreated
That thou shouldst not have thy choice;
It would have been generous to have life prolonged a month.

LXVIII. I know the voice of distress:
When he descended into the congress-house,
Chief of men, a goblet of wine he deserved.

XXXVII. RED BOOK OF HERGEST XVII.

I HAVE freely greeted, I will freely greet, the familiar greeter of
Urien Reged. May he diffuse his joy abroad!
Gold and silver, how great their consumption and destruction.
(Even) before they could come between the hands of the scatterer!
Ieuav caused loss and sorrow for horses daily;
Ceneu his brother, dilatory in the conflict, was not skilful;
Urien made retaliation for the dishonour
Of Cynin the active, ignominious was their execution.
About Aerven, all uncovered precipice, there will come an army.
Selev has been captured; he was incensed for what was to come.
It will fare worse with the free and the bond on their account,
Blades will be reddened, through proud words for the fruit of their trees.
The four men will maintain the place of four hundred,
With the deepest water. I would bless the corrupt in the enclosure on their account;
And whoever obtains it, may he be blessed for ever!
There will befall a loss from confiding in the claimant;
And hands without thumbs, and blades on the flesh, and a poor muster.
Puerile age will not be harmonious in the distraction.
There will be no fellowship, nor confidence in any toward others.
A dragon from Gwynedd of precipitous lands and gentle towns,
To the Lloegrians will go, when the report of him will spread abroad.
Stonework will be broken, with terrible destruction, in the encounter;
And more will be lost than spared of the Gwyndodians.
From mutual counselling, there will be means of deliverance by sea and land.
There will arise from concealment a man that will be a blessing to the Gwyndodians;
And the Brythyon, though a remnant, will be victorious over the ungentle multitude.
There will come a time when song will not be cherished, nor will it be elaborate;
The ruler will love wealth, and one sister will be bearish to another.
Killing and drowning from Eleri as far as Chwilvynydd,
A conquering and unmerciful one will triumph;
Small will be his army in returning from the (action of) Wednesday.
A bear from the south, will arise, meet
The Lloegrians, and kill vast numbers of Powysians.
The affair of Cors Vochno, he that will escape from it will be fortunate;
There will be twelve women, and no wonder, for one man.
The age of youth will fare unbecomingly worse;
After the tumultuous extermination, a bearded man in a hundred will not be a warrior.
Urien of Reged, generous he is, and will be,
And has been since Adam.
He, proud in the hall, has the most wide-spreading sword
Among the thirteen kings of the North.
Do I know his name–Aneurin the poet with the flowing song,
I, being Taliesin, from the borders of the lake of Geirionnyidd?
May I not, when old,
Support my sore necessity,
If I praise not Urien.

Amen.

XXXIX. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXXII.

URIEN of the cultivated plain,
The most generous man of baptism,
Abundance has been given
To the men of earth.
As it has been gathered,
It has been scattered.
Joyful the bards of baptism
Whilst thy life continues.
There is greater joy
For the high-famed, and liberal of praise.
It is greater glory,
That Urien and his children should exist.
And he especially
The supreme Guledig.
In a distant city,
A principal pilgrim,
The Lloegrians know him,
When they converse.
Death they had,
And frequent vexation,
Burning their homesteads,
And drawing their coverings.
And loss,
And great incomprehension,
Without obtaining deliverance
From Urien Reged.
The protector of Reged,
The praise of Ior, the anchor of the country.
My inclination is on thee,
Of every hearing.
Heavy thy spear-throwing,
When the battle is heard,
When they resort to battle,
A smarting is made.
Fire in houses before day,
Before the sovereign of the cultivated plain,
The most fair cultivated plain,
And its most generous men.
The Angles are accustomed to be without homage
From most valiant king.
A most valiant progeny,
Thine is the best.
Of those who have been, or will be,
There is not thy match.
When he is looked upon,
Very great is the terror.
It is usual to look for him,
For an active king.
Around him a modest demeanour,
And the varied multitude,
The splendid prince of the North,
The choicest of princes.
And when I fail in age,
In the sore necessity of death,
May I not be smiling,
If I praise not Urien.

XL. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXXIII.

IN rest,
A song I kept.
Respect and plenty
And mead I possessed.
I possessed mead.
His triumph,
And fair lands,
A great wonder.
And gold and hour,
And hour and treasure,
And plenty
And esteem.
And giving a desire,
A desire of giving it,
To encourage me.
He slays, he plagues,
He cherishes, he honours,
He honours, he cherishes,
He slays before him.
Presence was given
To the bards of the world.
Ever certainly
To thee they say
According to thy will.
God hath caused to thee
The shoulder of kings
Against despicable fear.
Incitement of battle
The protection of a country.
The country protected
Battle of incitement
Usual about thee
The tumult of capering,
The capering of tumult
And drinking of ale.
Ale for the drinking,
And a fair homestead,
And beautiful clothing,
To me has been extended.
The lofty Llwyvenydd,
And requests open.
In one dwell
Great and little.
Taliessin’s song
Thou comfortest it.
Thou art the best
Of those that have heard
His vehement animosities.
I also will praise
Thy deeds,
And until I fail in old age,
In the sore necessity of death,
May I not be smiling
If I praise not Urien.

XLI. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXXIV.

IN one year
One that provides
Wine and bounty and mead,
And manliness without enmity,
And a musician excelling,
With a swarm of spears about him.
With ribbands at their heads,
And their fair appearances.
Every one went from his presence,
They came into the conflict,
And his horse under him.
Purposing the affair of Mynaw.
And more harmony,
Advantage flowing about his hand.
Eight score of one colour
Of calves and cows.
Milch cows and oxen.
And every fair need.
I should not be joyful
If Urien were slain.
He is dear before he went.
A Saxon shivering, trembling,
With hair white-washed,
And a bier his destiny,
With a bloody face.
For the blood of men a little protected.
And a man of the intrenchment persevering,
Whose wife is a widow.
Mine is the wine of the prince,
Mine is the wine of frequent parties,
My chance, my aid, my head.
Since the rising up will not cause
A striking fronting one another.
Porter, listen.
What is the noise: is it the earth that quakes?
Or is it the sea that swells?
Whitened, clinging together, against the infantry.
If there is a cry on the hill,
Is it not Urien that terrifies?
If there is a cry in the valley,
Is it not Urien that pierces?
If there is a cry in the mountain,
Is it not Urien that conquers?
If there is a cry on the slope,
Is it not Urien that wounds?
If there is a sigh on the dyke,
Is it not Urien that is active?
A cry of a journey over the plain,
A cry in every meandering vale.
Nor will one sneeze or two
Protect from death.
He would not be on famine
With spoils surrounding him.
Over-querulous, trailing, of a blue tint.
Like death was his spear,
Killing his enemy.
And until I fail in old age,
In the sore necessity of death,
May I not be smiling,
If I praise not Urien.

XLII. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXXVI.

EXTOL the career of the kings of Reged.
Was I not an expense to thee, though I am thine?
They brandished the blade of battle, and spears of battle,
Men brandished under the round shield; lights
White gulls trampled.
It was not fell fought. A false king is not good.
The Guledig will prepare himself against contusions.
He will not drive the business of those that seek him.
We shall have a nimble horseman, of Gwirion’s fame,
A leader of fair promise, wise as Don.
Until Ulph came with violence on his enemies.
Until Urien came in the day to Aeron.
He was not an agressor, there appeared not
The uplifted front of Urien before Powys.
Was not easily treated the heat of the compact elf the tribes,
Hyveidd and Gododin and the lion prince.
Bold in patience, and journey of joint summons.
Without pollution he drew blood in his veins.
(He) that saw Llwyvenydd humbly will tremble,
A conspicuous banner in the second place,
A battle in the ford of Alclud, a battle at the Inver.
The battle of Cellawr Brewyn. The battle of Hireurur.
A battle in the underwood of Cadleu, a battle in Aberioed.
He interposes with the steel loud (and) great.
The battle of Cludvein, the, affair of the head of the wood.
A tribe attracted of dogs to a plentitude of blood.
To destroy supreme felicity is the aim
Of the Angles, a hostile crew.
Ruddy-stained from the conflict with Ulph at the ford.
Better is born the Guledig, forward was born his lord,
Prydain’s chief proprietor, harmonious his lord.
He bare not clothes, either blue or gray,
Or red or green; he will not honour the ground.
He placed not his thigh over Moel Maelaur,
On horses of the speckled race of Mor Greidiawl.
Summer until winter, and gently in hand,
On ford, and course exercising them.
And a guest under songs and exalting one’s-self,
And until the end of the world was perceived the band.
They arrange, they sweep about chainless for an image,
Uncowardly about lights did I not mangle?
I strove against the fall of spears on shoulders.
Shield in hand, Godeu. and Reged protecting;
Did I not see a man folding cattle?
A serpent of enchantment, a comely trampler of the ground.
Do I not know a war wherein he was lost,
And how much I lose by his perishing?
I shall not be extremely angry to possess mead-liquor.
From the heroic Hyveidd, of hospitable course.
Wit not I that was permitted (to have) shelter of the battle.
My kings were broken off from cheerful graces,
Shelter of the country good to the oppressed.
And until I fail in age,
In the sore necessity of death,
May I not be smiling,
If I praise not Urien.

XLIII. THE SATISFACTION OF URIEN. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXIX.

THE lion will be most implacable;
I will not deplore him.
Urien I will approach,
To him I will sing.
When will come my surety,
I shall obtain admission.
Of the very best part,
Under the flow of melody,
It concerns me not much,
The everlasting lineage which I see.
I will not go to them, I will not be with them.
I will not address the North
And the kings of the plain.
Though there should be for many
That I should see a mutual pledging.
I have no need of affection:
Urien will not refuse me
The lands of Llwyvenydd.
Mine is their wealth,
Mine are the festivals,
Mine is the produce,
Mine are the metals,
And its rich productions.
Mead out of buffalo-horns
And good in abundance,
From the best prince,
The most generous that has been heard of.
The chiefs of every language
To thee are all captive.
For thee there will be lamentation when thy death is certain.
Though I should have preferred him
After being benefited, I would grow old.
There was not one that I loved better,
(Of those) that I knew before.
At times I see
The amount of what I shall have.
Except to God supreme,
I will not renounce
Thy royal sons,
The most generous of men,
Their spears shall resound
In the land of their enemies.
And until I fail in old age,
In the sore necessity of death,
May I not be smiling,
If I praise not Urien.

XLIV. THE SPOILS OF TALIESSIN, A SONG TO URIEN. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXVII.

IN manliness, he will greet my trouble,
Should I be bled, I should evidently get better;
Truly I saw. no one before, who saw not in me
Every indisposition, he will cultivate his business.
I saw a feeding about a lion for plants,
I saw leaves of luxuriant growth.
I saw a branch with equal blossoms.
Did I not see a prince? most liberal his customs,
I saw the ruler of Catraeth beyond the plains
Be my oak the gleaming spirit of the Cymry.
The value of my cry great will be its advantage to degrees.
The chief of men, shield of warriors.
The extensive booty of the ashen shaft is my fair Awen.
A shield before a prince, bright his smile,
Heroic, aspiring, the most heroic is Urien.
A merchant will not oppose me. Tumultuous
The slothful one, brightly shines the blue of the enamelled covering; prolific and highly exalted
Everyone; a step without skill on the side of the watery fronts of the Mordei.
A chief excessively active to us he will come of thy will.
Active the yellow-gray one in the hall.
Full of people. A protector in Aerou.
Great his energy, his poets, and his musicians,
Very fierce is Ial against his enemies.
May great strength of men be connected with Brython.
Like the wheeling of a fiery meteor over the earth.
Like a wave that governs Llwyvenydd.
Like the harmonious ode of Gwen and Gweithen,
Like Mor the greatly courteous is Urien.
In his early career an intrepid hero.
He is such a ruler of kings as Dyawr,
He is one (i.e. unequalled) as a chaser of the swift horses of the multitude.
In the beginning of May in Powys, in battle array,
He is one, coming when he visits his people.
Eagle of the land, extensive thy glance.
I would have requested an active courser
Of vigorous trot, the price of the spoil of Taliessin.
One is the violent course on the bottom and the summit,
One is the gift of a baron to a lord.
One is the herd of stags in their flight,
One is the wolf not covetous of broom,
One is the country where a son is born,
And of one form and one sound is the battle-place of warriors.
Of one sound they will evilly yoke
And Ceneu and Nudd Hael, and an extensive country under him.
And if I obtain for myself a smile,
He will make the bards ever joyful,
Before that I could wish dead the sons of Gwyden,
May the happy country of Urien be filled with blood.

XLV. RED BOOK OF HERGEST XII.

I. LET the furious Unhwch lead me on
To the front of the mutual conflict–
‘Tis better to be killed than parley on terms.

II. Let the furious Unhwch lead me on–
It was said in the Pass of Llech,
“Dunawd the son of Pabo will not lurk.”

III. Let the furious Unhwch lead me on–
Like the sullen agitation of the sea was the war-expanding tumult.
Of Urien with the ardent grasp.

IV. The eagle of Gal, Unhwch, bold and generous,
Wrathful in war, sure of conquest,
Was Urien with the ardent grasp.

V. The eagle of Gal, Unhwch,
The possessor of the energetic soul . . .
The cell of the sea of smooth inlets with green surface.

VI. A head I bear by my side,
That has been an assaulter between two hosts–
The magnanimous son of Cynvarch was its possessor.

VII. A head I bear by my side,
The head of Urien, the mild leader of his army–
And, on his white bosom, the sable raven is perched.

VIII, A head I bear in my shirt,
The head of Urien who governed a court in mildness–
And, on his white bosom, the sable raven gluts.

IX. A head I bear in my hand,
He that was a soaring eagle, whose like will not be had,
His princely breast is assailed by the devourer.

X. A head I bear by the side of my thigh,
That was the shield of his country,
That was a wheel in battle,
That was a ready sword in his country’s battles.

XI. A head I bear on my sword:
Better his being alive than that he should go to the grave;
He was a castle for old age.

XII. A head I bear from the bordering land of Penawg,
Wide extended was his warfare:
Urien the eloquent, whose, fame went far.

XIII. A head I bear on my shoulder,
That would not bring on me disgrace–
Woo to my hand that my lord is slain.

XIV. A head I bear on my arm,
He that overcame the land of Bryneich–
But after being a hero, now on the hearse.

XV. A head I bear in the grasp of my hand,
Of a chief that mildly governed a country;
The head, the most powerful pillar of Prydain.

XVI. A head I bear that supported me,
Is there any known but he welcomed?
Woe my hand, gone is be that sustained me.

XVII. A head I bear from the Riw,
With his lips foaming with blood–
Woe to Reged from this day!

XVIII. My arm has not flagged; my bosom is greatly troubled;
Ah! my heart, is it not broken?
A head I bear that was my support.

XIX. The delicate white corpse will be covered to-day,
Under earth and stones:
Woe my hand, that the father of Owain is slain!

XX. The delicate white corpse will be covered to-day,
Amidst earth and oak:
Woe my hand, that my cousin is slain!

XXI. The delicate white corpse will be covered to-night;
Under stones let it be left:
Woe my hand, what a step has fate decreed me!

XXII. The delicate white corpse will be covered to-night
Amidst earth and green sods:
Woe my hand, that the son of Cynvarch is slain!

XXIII. The delicate white corpse will be covered to-day
Under the greensward and a tumulus:
Woe my hand, that my lord is slain!

XXIV. The delicate white corpse will be covered to-day,
Under earth and sand:
Woe my hand, the step that is decreed to me!

XXV. The delicate white corpse will be covered to-day
Under earth and nettles:
Woe my hand, that such a step could have happened to me!

XXVI. The delicate white corpse will be covered to-day
Under earth and blue stones:
Woe my hand, the step that has befallen me!

XXVII. A master-feat of the world the brother has been in pursuit of;
For the horns of the buffalo, for a festive goblet
He was the depredator with the hounds in the covert of Reged!

XXVIII. A master-feat of the world the brother has eagerly sought,
For the equivocal horn of the buffalo;
He was the chaser with the hounds with the men of Reged.

XXIX. Eurdyl will be joyless this night,
And multitudes (will be so) besides:
In Aber Lleu has Urien been slain.

XXX. Eurdyl will be sorrowful from the tribulation of this night,
And from the fate that is to me befallen;
That her brother should be slain at Aber Lleu.

XXXI. On Friday I saw great anxiety
Among the hosts of Baptism,
Like a swarm without a hive, bold in despair.

XXXII. Were there not given to me by Run, greatly fond of war,
A hundred swarms and a hundred shields?
But one swarm was better far than all.

XXXIII. Were there not given to me by Run, the famous chief,
A cantrev, and a hundred oxen?
But one gift was better far than those.

XXXIV. In the lifetime of Run, the peaceless ranger,
The unjust will wallow in dangers;
May there be irons on the steeds of rapine.

XXXV. The extreme I know of my trouble:
Is what all will hear in every season of warfare;
No one can charge me with anything.

XXXVI. Dunawd, the leading horseman, would drive onward,
Intent upon making a corpse,
Against the onset of Owain.

XXXVII. Dunawd, the chief of the age, would drive onward,
Intent upon making battle,
Against the conflict of Pasgen.

XXXVIII. Gwallawg, the horseman of tumult, would drive onward,
Intent upon trying the sharpest edge,
Against the conflict of Elphin.

XXXIX. Bran, the son of Mellyrn, would drive onward,
Collecting men to burn my ovens:
A wolf that looked grimly by the banks of Abers.

XL. Morgant and his men would drive onward,
Collecting a host to burn my lands:
He was a mouse that scratched against a rock.

XLI. I pushed onward when Elgno was slain;
The blade which Pyll brandished would gleam terribly,
If tents were pitched in his country.

XLII. A second time I saw, after a conflict,
A golden shield on the shoulder of Urien;
A second to him there was Elgno Hen.

XLIII. Upon the resolution there came a failing
From the dread of a furious horseman:
Will there be another compared with Urien?

XLIV. Decapitated is my lord, his opponents are powerful:
Warriors will not love his enemies:
Many sovereigns has he consumed.

XLV. The ardent disposition of Urien! it is sadness to me:
There is commotion in every region.
In pursuit of Llovan Llawdivro.

XLVI. Gentle gate! thou art heard afar;
There is scarcely another deserving praise,
Since Urien is no more.

XLVII. Many a hunting-dog and fine grown hawk
Have been trained on its flow,
Before Erlleon became desolate.

XLVIII. This hearth, deserted by the shout of war,
More congenial on its floor would have been
The mead, and loquacious drinkers.

XLIX. This hearth, will not nettles cover it?
While its defender lived,
More congenial to it were those who made requests.

L. This hearth, will it not be covered by the greensward?
In the lifetime of Owain and Elphin,
Its cauldron boiled the prey.

LI. This hearth, will it not be covered with musty fingers?
More congenial around its viand would have been
The gashing sword of the dauntless.

LII. This hearth, will not the slender brambles cover it?
Burning wood used to be on it,
Which Reged was accustomed to give.

LIII. This hearth, will not thorns cover it?
More congenial on it would have been the mixed group
Of Owain’s social retinue.

LIV. This hearth, will it not be covered over by the ants?
More accustomed it was to bright torches,
And harmless festivities.

LV. This hearth, will it not be covered with dock-leaves?
More congenial on its floor would have been
The mead, and loquacious drinkers.

LVI. This hearth, will it not be turned up by the swine?
More congenial to it would have been
The joy of men, and the circling horns of banquet.

LVII. This hearth, will it not be scratched up by the fowl?
Want would not approach it
In the lifetime of Owain and Urien.

LVIII. This buttress, and that one there,
More congenial around them would have been
The joy of a host, and the tread of a minstrel.

XLVII. THE AFFAIR OF ARGOED LLWYFAIN. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXXV.

IN the morning of Saturday there was a great battle,
From when the sun rose until it gained its height.
Flamdwyn hastened in four hosts
Godeu and Reged to overwhelm.
They extended from Argoed to Arvynyd.
They retained not life during one day.
Flamdwyn called out again, of great impetuosity,
Will they give hostages? are they ready?
Owen answered, Let the gashing appear,
They will not give, they are not, they are not ready.
And Ceneu, son of Coel, would be an irritated lion
Before he would give a hostage to any one.
Urien called out again, the lord of the cultivated region,
If there be a meeting for kindred,
Let us raise a banner above the mountain,
And advance our persons over the border.
And let us raise our spears over the heads of men,
And rush upon Flamdwyn in his army,
And slaughter with him and his followers.
And because of the affair of Argoed Llwyfain,
There was many a corpse.
The ravens were red from the warring of men.
And the common people hurried with the tidings.
And I will divine the year that I am not increasing.
And until I fail in old age,
In the sore necessity of death,
May I not be smiling,
If I praise not Urien.

XLVIII. THE DEATH-SONG OF OWAIN. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XLIV.

THE soul of Owain son of Urien. May its Lord consider its need.
The chief of Reged, the heavy sward conceals him. His knowledge was not shallow.
A low cell (contains) the renowned protector of bards, the wings of dawn were the flowing of his lances.
For there will not be found a match for the chief of the glittering west.
The reaper of the tenacious foes. The offspring of his father and grandfather.
When Flamdwyn killed Owain, there was not one greater than he sleeping.
A wide number of Lloegyr went to sleep with light in their eyes.
And those that fled not instantly were beyond necessity.
Owain valiantly chastised them, like a pack (of wolves) pursuing sheep.
10 A worthy man, upon his many-coloured trappings, he would give horses to those that asked.
While he hoarded hard money, it was not shared for his soul.
The soul of Owain, son of Urien.

SONG TO ALE. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XX.

THE qualities shall be extolled
Of the man that. chained the. wind.
When his powers come,
Extremely noisy the elements;
For ever will thy impulse be,
Thou dost pervade
The tide of darkness and day.
The day, there will be a shelter to me,
The night, it will be rested.
Softness is praised.
From a great Guledig.
The great God caused
The sun of summer, and its excessive heat;
And he caused
The abundance of the wood and field.
He is the powerful cause of the stream,
Flowing abundantly.
He is the powerful cause of every kindness;
God redeemed me
And before they come,
The people of the world to the one hill,
They will not be able to do the least,
Without the power of the King.
He shall steep it in the Llyn,
Until it shall sprout.
He shall steep it another time
Until it is sodden.
Not for a long time will be finished
What the elements produce.
Let his vessels be washed,
Let his wort be clear.
And when there shall be an exciter of song,
Let it be brought from the cell,
Let it be brought before kings.
In splendid festivals.
Will not oppose every two
The honey that made it.
God’s departure in me,
As long as the world is in being,
The mildest is the Trinity.
The provocative of the drunkard is drunkenness.
The fishes might show
The capacity of the lodgments
Of the gravel of the salt sea,
Before it overwhelms the strand.
The gravel of the salt sea
Below the sand
Will conceal me from the privileged one.
Myself he will deliver.
No one will be satisfied,
Without the power of the Trinity.

II.

Qualities they will honour
In the boundary of Garant.
The mighty ones, without desire, from the reeking
Marsh will remove,
When the string of harmony resounds,
Or the shades of night approach,
The hidden retreat from day.
Do the skilful in song know
Where the powerful artist is concealed?
That will give me a robe
From the gate when he ascends.
When the chief leads, in winter,
What melody is commenced together.
In choosing loud fame,
With haste the fortunate will run,
He will awake the sleeper.
He will merit Carawg
Of the many-citied Cymry,
The father of Caradawg;
The sound of the Meneivians,
The sound of Mynawg of Mona.
The great terrible perjured
Gwentians, long-haired.
On account of Caer Wyrangon.
Who will pay the precious reward?
Is it Maelgwn from Mona?
Or shall it come from Aeron?
Or Coel or Canawon?
Or Gwrweddw or his sons?
His enemies shall not exult
From the hostages of Ynyr.
To him will resort the minstrels
The star of magnificent stars,
Have I not disarmed the mystery?
In Mordei Uffin,
In the seas of Gododin,
He is a sharer of varied words,
The raven of the morning divining.
I am an aged exile,
I am of joyful talents,
And the stroke of malice.
Mine, the praising of Urien,
Of splendid purity of life.
Very keen his conduct of hosts,
The ruddy-reaping of the steep.
Ruddyn formed them,
At the battle in Harddnenwys,
It was Ynyr that broke them to pieces.
A hundred festivals holding
A hundred friends be defended.
I saw mighty men,
Who hastened to the shout of war;
I saw blood on the ground
From the assault of swords.
They tinged with blue the wings of the dawn;
They threw off the spears.
Three hundred festivals complete of the renowned
Ynyr, on the earth indeed there will be redness.

TRIADS REFERRING TO URIEN

Three ruddy-speared bards of the Island of Prydain. Tristvardd bard of Urien; and Dygynelw bard of Owen; and Mainferdic, bard of Cadwallawn, son of Catfan; and they were sons of Morgant

Three ruddy-speared bards of the Island of Prydain. Tristvardd bard of Urien; and Dygynelw bard of Owen; and Mainferdic, bard of Cadwallawn, son of Catfan; and they were sons of Morgant.

Three arrogant ones of the Island of Prydain. Sawyl penuchel; and Pasgen son of Uryen; and Run son of Einiaun.

Three atrocious assassinations of the Island of Prydain. Eidyn son of Einygan, who slew Aneiryn Gwawdrud, the supreme of bards; and Llawgat Trumbargawt, who slew Afaon son of Taliessin; and Llovan Llawdino, who slew Urien son of Kynvarch.

Three bull-princes of the Island of Prydain. Elmwr son of Cadeir; and Cynhafal son of Argat; and Afaon son of Taliessin. Three sons of bards were these.

Three Fair Princes of the Island of Britain:
Owain son of Urien, Rhun son of Maelgwn, Rhufawn the Radiant son of Dewrarth Wledig

Three Bull-Chieftains of the Island of Britain:
Adaon son of Taliesin, and Cynhafal son of Argad, and Elinwy son of Cadegr.

Three Battle-Leaders of the Island of Britain:
Selyf son of Cynan Garrwyn, and Urien son of Cynfarch, and Afaon son of Taliesin. This is why they were called battle-leaders: because they avenged their wrongs from their graves.

Three Fettered War-Bands of the Islands of Britain:
The War-Band of Cadwallawn Long-Arm, who each one put the fetters of their horses on their (own) feet, when fighting with Serygei the Irishman at the Irishmens’ Rocks in Môn; And the second, the War-Band of Rhiwallawn son of Urien when fighting with the Saxons; And the third, the War-Band of Belyn of Llyn when fighting with Edwin at Bryn Edwin in Rhos.

Three Red-Speared Bards of the Island of Britain:
Dygynnelw, bard of Owain son of Urien, and Arouan Bard Selen son of Cynan, and Afan Ferddig, bard of Cadwallawn son of Cadfan.

550 – 559. Gildas.

550 to 559

How Maelgwn Became King

After the taking of the crown and sceptre of London from the nation of the Cymry, and their expulsion from Lloegyr, they instituted an enquiry to see who of them should be supreme king. The place they appointed was on the Maelgwn sand at Aber Dyvi; and thereto came the men of Gwynedd, the men of Powys, the men of South Wales, of Reinwg of Morganwg, and of d Seisyllwg. And there Maeldav the elder, the son of Ynhwch Unachen, chief of Moel Esgidion in Meirionydd, placed a chair composed of waxed wings under Maelgwn; so, when the tide flowed, no one was able to remain, excepting Maelgwn, because of his chair. And by that means Maelgwn became supreme king, with Aberfraw for his principal court; and the earl of Mathraval, and the earl of Dinevwr, and the earl of Caerllion subject to him; and his word paramount over all; and his law paramount, and he not bound to observe their law. And it was on account of Maeldav the elder, that Penardd acquired its privilege, and to be the eldest chansellor-ship.

Caradoc of Llancarfan.

The Life of St Gildas

Crossing the Channel, he spent seven years most successfully in further studies in Gaul. At the end of the seventh year he returned to Great Britain with a great mass of books of all kinds. As the reputation of this highly distinguished stranger spread, scholars poured in to him from all sides. From him they heard the science of the Seven Disciplines most subtly explained, by which doctrine students change into teachers, under the teacher’s honour.

Gildas the sage

The piety of this wisest of teachers was praised and extolled by all the people of Britain so much, because no one was or could be found to equal him in excellence of character. He fasted like St Anthony the Hermit. When he prayed, this most religious man wore a goatskin. Anything he was given, he immediately spent on the poor. He refrained from the sweetness of milk or honey, and hated meat. He preferred fresh-water vegetables. He used to eat barley bread mixed with ash, and drank spring water every day. The bath-house, a favourite resort of his people, he would not enter. His face looked thin and drawn, like someone suffering from a serious fever. He used to go and stand stock still in the river, at midnight, for the time it took him to say the Lord’s Prayer three times. This done, he used to return to his prayer hut, and there kneel and pray to the Divine Majesty until daybreak. He slept moderately, lying on a rock and wearing only one garment. He ate without reaching fullness, satisfied only with sharing the heavenly reward, for heavenly rewards were all his desire.

Gildas the preacher

He taught people to discount, and warned them to despise, transitory things. He was the most renowned preacher throughout the three kingdoms of Britain. Kings feared him as one they ought to fear, and obeyed him, when they heard from him preaching that they could accept. Every Sunday he used to preach in a church by the seaside, which was in the Pepidiauc region. This was in the time of King Trifinus. Once a vast crowd of the common people came to hear him, and when he began his sermon, his voice held in the words of his preaching. The crowd were amazed at this strange retention. When St Gildas realised what was happening, he told everyone standing there to leave the building, so that he could find out whether one of them was preventing him from preaching the word of God. But even after they had all gone, he was unable to preach. Next, he asked whether anyone, man or woman, was hiding in the church. Nonnital, who was pregnant with the child who was to be St David, said: “I, Nonnital, am here, between the wall and the door. I didn’t want to be in the crowd.” On hearing this, Gildas told her to leave, and when she had gone he called the people back. They came when he called, to hear the preaching of the Gospel. When the sermon was over, he asked the angel of the Lord about this matter, namely why he had started to preach and couldn’t finish. The angel gave him a revelation such as this: “A holy woman called Nonnita is staying in this church. She is about to have a son with immense grace. It is he who kept you from preaching; he held back your words with divine power. The boy who is to come will be born with greater grace. No one in your part of the country will be his equal. I shall leave this region to him. He will grow quickly and flourish from age to age. For a messenger, an angel of the Lord, declared to me his true destiny.”

Gildas in Ireland

That is why Gildas, the most holy preacher, crossed to Ireland, where he converted countless people to the catholic faith.

King Arthur

St Gildas was a contemporary of King Arthur, king of all Great Britain. He loved him dearly and always longed to obey him. His twenty-three brothers, however, resisted this rebel king, refusing to submit to his lordship, and often putting him to flight and driving him out from glade and battlefield. Hueil, the elder brother, who was a constant fighter and very famous soldier, would not obey any king, even Arthur. He used to harry him, provoking the greatest anger between them. He used often to come from Scotland, burning and plundering, and returning with glory and victory. So, the King of all Britain, hearing that the great-hearted youth had done such things, and was doing the like, pursued the most victorious youth, who was, according to the talk and hopes of the local inhabitants, going to be an excellent king. After a hostile pursuit they met in battle, and Arthur killed the young brigand on the island of Minau. After that slaughter Arthur returned, happy to have killed his bravest foe. Gildas, the historian of Britain, was still in Ireland at the time, directing studies and preaching in the city of Armagh. He heard of his brother’s death at the hands of King Arthur. He grieved at the news, weeping and groaning, as loving brother for loving brother; he prayed for his brother’s soul every day, and prayed also for Arthur, carrying out the apostolic command which says: Pray for your persecutors; do good to those who hate you.

Gerald of Wales.

In process of time, the Britons, recovering their long-lost population and knowledge of the use of arms, re-acquired their high and ancient character. Let the different areas be therefore marked, and the historical accounts will accord. With regard to Gildas, who inveighs so bitterly against his own nation, the Britons affirm that, highly irritated at the death of his brother, the prince of Albania, whom King Arthur had slain, he wrote these invectives, and upon the same occasion threw into the sea many excellent books, in which he had described the actions of Arthur, and the celebrated deeds of his countrymen; from which cause it arises, that no authentic account of so great a prince is any where to be found.

SBG St Huail.

Huail is called Cuillus in the Life of Gildas, by the Monk of Rhuis. He was son of Caw ab Geraint ab Erbin, known as Caw of Prydyn. He was obliged to fly with the rest of his family from the North, owing to the incursions and devastations of the Picts and Scots, and was well received by Maelgwn Gwynedd.he may have accompanied Gildas, his brother, to Brittany, he soon wearied of the life of an anchorite and returned to Britain.

In the lolo MSS. 2 he is said to have been a saint of Llancarfan, Huail/was so imprudent as to court a lady of Arthur was enamoured. The King’s suspicions having been aroused, he armed himself secretly, and resolved on observing the movements of his rival. Having watched him going to the lady’s house, some angry words passed between them, and they fought. a sharp combat, Huail got the better of Arthur, and wounded him in the thigh, whereupon the combat ceased, and they were recon-ciled, but with the proviso that Huail should never mention the matter, under penalty of losing his head.

Arthur retired to his palace, which was then at Caerwys, in Flintshire, to be cured of his wound. He recovered, but ever after limped a little.

A short time after his recovery, Arthur fell in love with a lady at Ruthin, in Denbighshire, and, in order the more frequently to enjoy her society, he disguised himself in female attire. One day he was dancing with this lady, thus disguised, when Huail happened to see him. He recognized him by the lameness, and said, ” This dancing might do very well but for the thigh.” Arthur overheard the remark. He withdrew from the dance, and in a fury ordered Huail to be be- headed on a stone called Maen Huail, still standing in S. Peter’s Square, Ruthin.

There was some other cause for disagreement, according to the story of Culhwch and Olwen in the Mabinogion. Huail had stabbed his nephew Gwydre, son of Gwenabwy his sister and of Llwydeu, ” and hatred was between Huail and Arthur because of the wound.” In the same story, it is said that ” he never yet made a request at the hand of any lord.”

The Rhuis author of the Life of Gildas says that ” Cuillus, a very active man of war, after his father’s death, succeeded him on the throne.” The author of the other Life, supposed to be Caradog of Llancarfan, says “Huail, the elder brother, an active warrior and most distinguished soldier, submitted to no king, not even to Arthur. He used to harass the latter, and to provoke the greatest anger between them both. He would often swoop down from Scotland, set up conflagrations, and carry off spoils with victory and renown. In consequence, the King of all Britain, on hearing that the high-spirited youth had done such things and was doing similar things, pursued the victorious and excellent youth, who, as the inhabitants used to assert and hope, was destined to become king. In the hostile pursuit and council of war held in the island of Minau (Man), he killed the young plunderer. After that murder the victorious Arthur returned, rejoicing greatly that he had overcome his bravest enemy. Gildas, the historian of the Britons, who was staying in Ireland directing studies and preaching in the city of Armagh, heard that his brother had been slain by Arthur. He was grieved at hearing the news, wept with lamentation, as a dear brother for a dear brother.” Gildas at once hastened to Wales, full of resentment and desirous of revenge. “When King Arthur and the chief bishops and abbots of all Britain heard of the arrival of Gildas the Wise, large numbers from among the clergy and people gathered together to reconcile Arthur for the above-mentioned murder.” Arthur was obliged to pay bloodmoney, after which Gildas gave him the Kiss of Peace.

Apparently, the Prince Huail was a vulgar marauder, who richly deserved his fate. Arthur was perfectly justified in executing him for his depredations.

SBG St Columba.

This Saint was a native of Leinster; his father was King Ninnidh, of the race of Crimthan. He was educated by S. Colman atClonkeen in Louth, in his earliest youth, and then passed through the hands of S. Finnian of Clonard, where he was a companion of S. Columba of lona. Thence he started for Rome and Tours, to visit the tombs of the Apostles and of S. Martin. On his way home, he tarried some time in Britain, where he converted a king and all his house. The writer of his Life says that Columba preached to the Saxons,

Columba was returning to Ireland been before 550

On leaving his settlement in Britain, Columba returned to Ireland, where his brother Coirpre gave him a site; there Columba estab- lished a monastery, and placed his disciple Cronan in charge of it.

When S. Finnian of Clonard was dying. In 552. he sent for Columba, who gave him the last Communion.

SBG St Maglorius.

Maglorius was a native of Britain, son of Umbrafel and Afrella. He became a disciple, like Samson, of Illtyd. He was ordained deacon by S. Samson. When Samson crossed into Armorica, Maglorius accompanied him, Samson may have been instituted Metropolitan of all Brittany by Childebert. Maglorius did not want to be Bishop after him.

Loescon, a British settler, occupied Sark, and invited Maglorius to establish himself there, and gave up to him half the island. However, trouble soon arose between Loescon and Maglorius and his monks. He complained that they took more than their share of the fishing and birds and their eggs. After vain attempts to come to a settlement, Loescon, in spite of the angry protests of his wife, gave up the entire islet to Maglorius, who immediately established thereon an important monastery.

From Sark, Maglorius visited Jersey, where he destroyed a dragon, and was rewarded with a grant of land in that island. But he was not to remain peacefully on the rock of Sark; a fleet of Saxons came there and attempted to land and plunder the monastery. Maglorius encouraged the natives and his monks to resist, and they drove off the pirates, who lost many lives in the attempt.

In the year 585 there was famine, and the monks on Sark had exhausted their store of grain, and were in some trouble what to do for bread. Eggs they had and fish, but needed the staff of life. One day some little boys in the monastery asked Maglorius to allow them to go down to the beach and play there, where their noise might not disturb the monks. Maglorius consented, and the children went to the port called le Creux. There they found an old boat, got into it, cast it loose, and thought to row about till tired and then return. But the current was too strong for them, and they were carried out to sea. The boys were in a dire fright. Happily, the tide was running inland and they were carried to the coast of the mainland, where they told their story, and also mentioned the dearth of corn in the island. \Yhen the King of Domnonia heard of this, he sent for them, and was amused at hearing their adventure. He at once ordered a ship to be laden with corn and sent to Sark to relieve the necessities of the monks. The date of the death of Maglorius is not given, but it must have taken place about 586.

SBG St Tenoi.

There are three daughters of Lleuddun Luyddog, the Leudonus who gave name to the provincia of Leudonia, i.e. Lothian. The two first would appear, owing to similarity of names, to have become confounded, for in Scottish hagiography the mother of Kentigern is called Tenew, Thenew, and Taneu, among other forms, which one would be more inclined to equate with Tenoi than Denyw. Her church in Glasgow was once popularly known as S. Theneukes Kirk, which has been corrupted into S. Enoch’s.

Lleuddun, was father also of Medrod, who rebelled against his uncle, King Arthur. S. Winefred, leaving Holy well, entered the convent under Theonia,

SBG St Constantine.

Constantine (Cystennin) was king of Domnonia, comprising Devon and Cornwall, in the sixth century. He was the son of Cador or Cado, Duke of Cornwall. He was unmercifully attacked by Gildas as ” the tyrannical whelp of the unclean lioness of Domnonia, Gildas wrote before 547, probably in 540. Consequently, Constantine was then king. The Cambrian Annals give 589 as the date of the conversion of Constantine. The Annals of Tighernach give 588, those of Ulster 587, but as the Ulster Annals are a year behind the true computation, this yields 588.

Gildas.

BRITAIN has kings, but they are tyrants; she has judges, but unrighteous ones; generally engaged in plunder and rapine, but always preying on the innocent; whenever they exert themselves to avenge or protect, it is sure to be in favour of robbers and criminals; they have an abundance of wives, yet are they addicted to fornication and adultery; they are ever ready to take oaths, and as often perjure themselves; they make a vow and almost immediately act falsely; they make war, but their wars are against their countrymen, and are unjust ones; they rigorously prosecute thieves throughout their country, but those who sit at table with them are robbers, and they not only cherish but reward them; they give alms plentifully, but in contrast to this is a whole pile of crimes which they have committed; they sit on the seat of justice, but rarely seek for the rule of right judgment; they despise the innocent and the humble, but seize every occasion of exalting to the utmost the bloody-minded; the proud, murderers, the combined and adulterers, enemies of God, who ought to be utterly destroyed and their names forgotten.

They have many prisoners in their gaols, loaded with chains, but this is done in treachery rather than in just punishment for crimes; and when they have stood before the altar, swearing by the name of God, they go away and think no more of the holy altar than if it were a mere heap of dirty stones.

Of this horrid abomination, Constantine, the tyrannical whelp of the unclean lioness of Damnonia, is not ignorant.

This same year, after taking a dreadful oath (whereby he bound himself first before God, by a solemn protestation, and then called all the saints, and Mother of God, to witness, that he would not contrive any deceit against his countrymen), he nevertheless, in the habit of a holy abbat amid the sacred altars, did with sword and javelin, as if with teeth, wound and tear, even in the bosoms of their temporal mother, and of the church their spiritual mother, two royal youths, with their two attendants, whose arms, although not eased in armour, were yet boldly used, and, stretched out towards God and his altar, will hang up at the gates of thy city, O Christ, the venerable ensigns of their faith and patience; and when he had done it, the cloaks, red with coagulated blood, did touch the place of the heavenly sacrifice. And not one worthy act could he boast of previous to this cruel deed; for many years before he had stained himself with the abomination of many adulteries, having put away his wife contrary to the command of Christ, the teacher of the world, who hath said: “What God hath joined together, let not man separate,” and again: “Husbands, love your wives.” For he had planted in the ground of his heart (an unfruitful soil for any good seed) a bitter scion of incredulity and folly, taken from the vine of Sodom, which being watered with his vulgar and domestic impieties, like poisonous showers, and afterwards audaciously springing up to the offence of God, brought forth into the world the sin of horrible murder and sacrilege; and not yet discharged from the entangling nets of his former offences, he added new wickedness to the former.

Go to now, I reprove thee as present, whom I know as yet to be in this life extant. Why standest thou astonished, O thou butcher of shine own soul? Why cost thou wilfully kindle against thyself the eternal fires of hell? Why cost thou, in place of enemies, desperately stab thyself with shine own sword, with shine own javelin? Cannot those same poisonous cups of offences yet satisfy thy stomach? I look back (I beseech thee) and come to Christ (for thou labourest, and art pressed down to the earth with this huge burden), and he himself, as he said, will give thee rest. Come to him who wisheth not the death of a sinner, but that he should be rather converted and live. Unloose (according to the prophet) the bands of thy neck, O thou son of Sion. Return (I pray thee), although from the far remote regions of sins, unto the most holy Father, who, for his son that will despise the filthy food of swine, and fear a death of cruel famine, and so come back to him again, hath with great joy been accustomed to kill his fatted calf, and bring forth for the wanderer, the first robe and royal ring, and then taking as it were a taste of the heavenly hope, thou shalt perceive how sweet our Lord is. For if thou cost contemn these, be thou assured, thou shalt almost instantly be tossed and tormented in the inevitable and dark floods of endless fire.

What cost thou also, thou lion’s whelp (as the prophet saith), Aurelius Conanus? Art not thou as the former (if not far more foul) to thy utter destruction, swallowed up in the filthiness of horrible murders, fornications, and adulteries, as by an overwhelming flood of the sea? Hast not thou by hating, as a deadly serpent, the peace of thy country, and thirsting unjustly after civil wars and frequent spoil, shut the gates of heavenly peace and repose against thine own soul? Being now left alone as a withering tree in the midst of a field, remember (I beseech thee) the vain and idle fancies of thy parents and brethren, together with the untimely death that befell them in the prime of their youth; and shalt thou, for thy religious deserts, be reserved out of all thy family to live a hundred years, or to attain to the age of a Methusalem? No, surely, but unless (as the psalmist saith) thou shalt be speedily converted unto our Lord, that King will shortly brandish his sword against thee, who hath said by his prophet, “I will kill, and I will cause to live; I will strike, and I will heal; and there is no one who can deliver out of my hand.” Be thou therefore shaken out of thy filthy dust, and with all thy heart converted to Him who hath created thee, that “when his wrath shall shortly burn out, thou mayst be blessed by fixing thy hopes on him.” But if otherwise, eternal pains will be heaped up for thee, where thou shalt be ever tormented and never consumed in the cruel jaws of hell.

Thou also, who like to the spotted leopard, art diverse in manners and in mischief, whose head now is growing grey, who art seated on a throne full of deceits, and from the bottom even to the top art stained with murder and adulteries, thou naughty son of a good king, like Manasses sprung from Ezechiah, Vortipore, thou foolish tyrant of the Demetians, why art thou so stiff? What! do not such violent gulfs of sin (which thou dost swallow up like pleasant wine, nay rather which swallow thee up), as yet satisfy thee, especially since the end of thy life is daily now approaching? Why cost thou heavily clog thy miserable soul with the sin of lust, which is fouler than any other, by putting away thy wife, and after her honourable death, by the base practices of thy shameless daughter? Waste not (I beseech thee) the residue of thy life in offending God, because as yet an acceptable time and day of salvation shines on the faces of the penitent, wherein thou mayest take care that thy flight may not be in the winter, or on the sabbath day. “Turn away (according to the psalmist) from evil, and do good, seek peace and ensue it,” because the eyes of our Lord will be cast upon thee, when thou doest righteousness, and his ears will be then open unto thy prayers, and he will not destroy thy memory out of the land of the living; thou shalt cry, and he will hear thee, and out of thy tribulations deliver thee; for Christ cloth never despise a heart that is contrite and humbled with fear of him. Otherwise, the worm of thy torture shall not die, and the fire of thy burning shall never be extinguished.

And thou too, Cuneglasse, why art thou fallen into the filth of thy former naughtiness, yea, since the very first spring of thy tender youth, thou bear, thou rider and ruler of many, and guider of the chariot which is the receptacle of the bear, thou contemner of God, and vilifier of his order, thou tawny butcher, as in the Latin tongue thy name signifies. Why dost thou raise so great a war as well against men as also against God himself, against men, yea, thy own countrymen, with thy deadly weapons, and against God with thine infinite offences? Why, besides thine other innumerable backslidings, having thrown out of doors thy wife, dost thou, in the lust, or rather stupidity of thy mind, against the apostle’s express prohibition, denouncing that no adulterers can be partakers of the kingdom of heaven, esteem her detestable sister, who had vowed unto God the everlasting contineney, as the very dower (in the language of the poet) of the celestial nymphs? Why cost thou provoke with thy frequent injuries the lamentations and sighs of saints, by thy means corporally afflicted, which will in time to come, like a fierce lioness, break thy bones in pieces? Desist, I beseech thee (as the prophet saith) from wrath, and leave off thy deadly fury, which thou breathest out against heaven and earth, against God and his flock, and which in time wil1 be thy own torment; rather with altered mind obtain the prayers of those who possess a power of binding over this world, when in this world they bind the guilty, and of loosing when they lose the penitent. Be not (as the apostle saith) proudly wise, nor hope thou in the uncertainty of riches, but in God who giveth thee many things abundantly, and by the amendment of thy manners purchase unto thyself a good foundation for hereafter, and seek to enter into that real and true state of existence which will be not transitory but everlasting. Otherwise, thou shalt know and see, yea, in this very world, how bad and bitter a thing it is for thee to leave the Lord thy God, and not have his fear before shine eyes, and in the next, how thou shalt be burned in the foul encompassing flames of endless fire, nor yet by any manner of means shalt ever die. For the souls of the sinful are as eternal in perpetual fire, as the souls of the just in perpetual joy and gladness.

And likewise, O thou dragon of the island, who hast deprived many tyrants, as well of their kingdoms as of their lives, and though the last-mentioned in my writing, the first in mischief, exceeding many in power, and also in malice, more liberal than others in giving, more licentious in sinning, strong in arms, but stronger in working thine own soul’s destruction, Maglocune, why art thou (as if soaked in the wine of the Sodomitical grape) foolishly rolling in that black pool of shine offences? Why dost thou wilfully heap like a mountain, upon thy kingly shoulders, such a load of sins? Why dost thou show thyself unto the King of kings who hath made thee as well in kingdom as in stature of body higher than almost all the other chiefs of Britain) not better likewise in virtues than the rest; but on the contrary for thy sins much worse? Listen then awhile and hear patiently the following enumeration of thy deeds, wherein I will not touch any domestic and light offences (if yet any of them are light) but only those open ones which are spread far and wide in the knowledge of all men. Didst not thou, in the very beginning of thy youth, terribly oppress with sword, spear, and fire, the king shine uncle, together with his courageous bands of soldiers, whose countenances in battle were not unlike those of young lions? Not regarding the words of the prophet, who says, “The blood-thirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days,” and even if the sequel of thy sins were not such as ensued, yet what retribution couldst thou expect for this offence only at the hands of the just Judge, who hath said by his prophet: “Woe be to thee who spoilest, and shalt not thou thyself be spoiled? and thou who killest, shalt not thyself be killed? and when thou shalt make an end of thy spoiling, then shalt thou thyself fall.”

But when the imagination of thy violent rule had succeeded according to thy wishes, and thou west urged by a desire to return into the right way, night and day the consciousness of thy crimes afflicted thee, whilst thou didst ruminate on the Lord’s ritual and the ordinances of the monks, and then publish to the world and vow thyself before God a monk with no intention to be unfaithful, as thou didst say, having burst through those toils in which such great beasts as thyself were used to become entangled, whether it were love of rule, of gold, or silver, or, what is stronger still, the fancies of thy own heart. And didst thou not, as a dove which cleaves the yielding air with its pinions, and by its rapid turns escapes the furious hawk, safely return to the cells where the saints repose, as a most certain place of refuge? Oh, how great a joy should it have been to our mother church, if the enemy of all mankind had not lamentably pulled thee, as it were, out of her bosom! Oh, what an abundant flame of heavenly hope would have been kindled in the hearts of desperate sinners, hadst thou remained in thy blessed estate! Oh, what great rewards in the kingdom of Christ would have been laid up for thy soul against the day of judgment, if that crafty wolf had not caught thee, who of a wolf wast now become a lamb (not much against thine own will) out of the fold of our Lord, and made thee of a lamb, a wolf like unto himself, again? Oh, how great a joy would the preservation of thy salvation have been to God the Father of all saints had not the devil, the father of all castaways, as an eagle of monstrous wings and claws, carried I thee captive away against all right and reason, to the unhappy band of his children? And to be short, thy conversion to righteousness gave as great joy to heaven and earth, as now thy detestable return, like a dog to his vomit, breedeth grief and lamentation: which being done, “the members which should have been busily employed, as the armour of justice for the Lord, are now become the armour of iniquity for sin and the devil;” for now thou dost not listen to the praises of God sweetly sounded forth by the pleasant voices of Christ’s soldiers, nor the instruments of ecclesiastical melody, but thy own praises (which are nothing) rung out after the fashion of the giddy rout of Bacchus by the mouths of thy villainous followers, accompanied with lies and malice, to the utter destruction of the neighbours, so that the vessel prepared for the service of God, is now turned to a vessel of dirt, and what was once reputed worthy of heavenly honour, is now cast as it deserves into the bottomless pit of hell.

Yet neither is thy sensual mind (which is overcome by the excess of thy follies) at all checked in its course with committing so many sins, but hot and prone (like a young colt that coveteth every pleasant pasture) runneth headlong forward, with irrecoverable fury, through the intended fields of crime, continually increasing the number of its transgressions. For the former marriage of thy first wife (although after thy violated vow of religion she was not lawfully thine, but only by right of the time she was with thee), was now despised by thee, and another woman, the wife of a man then living, and he no stranger, but thy own: brother’s son, enjoyed thy affections. Upon which occasion that stiff neck of thine (already laden with sins) is now burdened with two monstrous murders, the one of thy aforesaid nephew, the other, of her who once was thy wedded wife: and thou art now from low to lower, and from bad to worse, bowed, bent, and sunk down into the lowest depth of sacrilege. Afterwards, also didst thou publicly marry the widow by whose deceit and suggestion such a heavy weight of offences was undergone, and take her, lawfully, as the flattering tongues of thy parasites with false words pronounced it, but as we say, most wickedly, to be thine own in wedlock. And therefore, what holy man is there, who, moved with the narration of such a history, would not presently break out into weeping and lamentations? What priest (whose heart lieth open unto God) would not instantly, upon hearing this, exclaim with anguish in the language of the prophet: “Who shall give water to my head, and to my eyes a fountain of tears, and I will day and night bewail those of my people, who are slaughtered.” For full little (alas!) hast thou with thine ears listened to that reprehension of the prophet speaking in this wise: “Woe be unto you, O wicked men, who have left the law of the most holy God, and if ye shall be born, your portion shall be to malediction, and if ye die, to malediction shall be your portion, all things that are from the earth, to the earth shall be converted again, so shall the wicked from malediction pass to perdition:” if they return not unto our Lord, listening to this admonition: “Son, thou hast offended; add no further offence thereunto, but rather pray for the forgiveness of the former.” And again, “Be not slow to be converted unto our Lord, neither put off the same from day to day, for his wrath doth come suddenly.” Because, as the Scripture saith, “When the king heareth the unjust word, all under his dominion become wicked.” And, the just king (according to the prophet) raiseth up his region. But warnings truly are not wanting to thee, since thou hast had for thy instructor the most eloquent master of almost all Britain. Take heed, thereof, lest that which Solomon noteth, befall thee, which is, “Even as he who stirreth up a sleeping man out of his heavy sleep, so is that person who declareth wisdom unto a fool, for in the end of his speech will he say. What hast thou first spoken? Wash thine heart (as it is written) from malice, O Jerusalem, that thou mayest be saved.” Despise not (I beseech thee) the unspeakable mercy of God, calling by his prophet the wicked in this way from their offences: “I will on a sudden speak to the nation, and to the kingdom, that I may root out, and disperse, and destroy, and overthrow.” As for the sinner, he doth in this wise exhort him vehemently to repent. “And if the same people shall repent from their offence, I will also repent of the evil which I have said that I would do unto them.” And again, “Who will give them such a heart, that they may hear me, and keep my commandments, and that it may be well with them all the days of their lives.” And also in the Canticle of Deuteronomy, “A people without counsel and prudence, I wish they would be wise, and understand, and foresee the last of all, how one pursueth a thousand and two put to flight ten thousand.” And again, our Lord in the gospel, “Come unto me, all ye who do labour and are burdened, and I will make you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart, and ye shall find repose for your souls.” For if thou turn a deaf ear to these admonitions, contemn the prophets, and despise Christ, and make no account of us, humble though we be, so long as with sincere piety and purity of mind we bear in mind that saying of the prophet, that we may not be found, “Dumb dogs, not able to bark;” (however I for my part may not be of that singular fortitude in the spirit and virtue of our Lord, as to declare, “To the house of Jacob their sins, and the house of Israel their offences;”) and so long as we shall remember that of Solomon, “He who says that the wicked are just, shall be accursed among the people, and odious to nations, for they who reprove them shall have better hopes.” And again, “Respect, not with reverence thy neighbour in his ruin, nor forbear to speak in time of salvation.” And as long also as we forget not this, “Root out those who are led to death, and forbear not to redeem them who are murdered;” because, as the same prophet says, “Riches shall not profit in the day of wrath, but justice delivereth from death.” And, “If the just indeed be hardly saved, where shall the wicked and sinner appear? If as I said, thou scorn us, who obey these texts, the dark flood of hell shall without doubt eternally drown thee in that deadly whirlpool, and those terrible streams of fire that shall ever torment and never consume thee, and then shall the confession of thy pains and sorrow for thy sins be altogether too late and unprofitable to one, who now in this accepted time and day of salvation deferreth his conversion to a more righteous way of life.

About 550. Procopius.

In this island of Brittia the men of old built a long wall, cutting off a large part of it, and the air and the soil and everything else is different on the two sides of it. For to the east of the wall there is healthy air, changing with the seasons, moderately warm in summer and cold in winter, and many men dwell there, living in the same way as other men, and the trees are rich in fruit which ripens at the appropriate season and the crops flourish as well as any others and the land seems to boast of its abundance of water. But on the other side everything is the opposite of this, so that it is impossible for a man to live there for half an hour, but the viper and innumerable snakes and all kinds of other wild beasts occupy the place as their own; and strangest of all, the natives say that if a man crosses the wall and goes to the other side, he forthwith dies, unable to bear the pestilential nature of the air there, and likewise death meets and overtakes wild beasts that go there. Now since I have reached this point in my account, I must relate a rather fabulous story, which did not seem at all trustworthy to me… (here follows an account of how the souls of the dead were ferried to Brittia from villages on the coast of Europe)

(Ed. The above is from ALF Rivet & Collin Smith, The Place Names of Roman Britain. The following may be the missing passage and is from an anonymous page on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittia )

“I must relate a rather fabulous story, which did not seem at all trustworthy to me. They imagine that the souls of the dead are transported to that island. On the coast of the continent they dwell under Frankish sovereignty, but hitherto exempt from all taxation, fishers and farmers, whose duty it is to ferry the souls over. This duty they take in turn. Those to whom it falls on any night, go to bed at dusk; at midnight, they hear a knocking at their door, and muffled voices calling. Immediately they rise, go to the shore, and there see empty boats, not their own but strange ones, they go on board and seize the oars. When the boat is under way, they perceive that she is laden choke-full, with her gunwhales hardly a finger’s breadth above water. Yet they see no one, and in an hour’s time they touch land, which one of their own craft would take a day and a night to do. Arrived at Brittia, the boat speedily unloads, and becomes so light that she only dips her keel in the wave. Neither on the voyage nor at landing do they see any one, but they hear a voice loudly asking each one his name and country. Women that have crossed give their husbands’ names.”

Sixth Century Stephanus of Byzantium

Aebudae, five islands of Pretannike as Marcian states in his Periplus. The ethnic is Aebudaeus.

Albion, a Prettanic island, Marcian in his Periplus of it. The ethnic is Albionus.

Brettia, an island in the Adriatic, contains the river Brettion. The Greeks call it Elaphoussa, but some call it Brettanis. The ethnic is Brettianus.

There are also Brettanides islands in the ocean, whose ethnic is Brettani.

Dionysius Periegetes omits one -t- when he says, “the cold flood of ocean flows where dwell the Bretani”. And others spell them with a P-, Pretanides islands, as Marcian and Ptolomy.

Briges, a Thracian people, Herodutus in his seventh book says, “The Phrygians, as the Macedonians say, are called Briges”. And Trojan Brigia, that is Phrygia, is from Brigos, dwelling in Macedonia. Herodian, (the grammarian, not the historian) in his first book on the declension of nouns, says they are Brigantes, for nouns terminating in -gas decline isosyllabically only when they are proper names (not ethnic): I say this of the name Brigas. There is a Brettanic people, the…….(lacuna).

Thule, a large island in the ocean towards the Hyperborean regions, where the sun makes the summer days 20 equinoctial hours long, the night four, and the opposite in winter. The ethnic is Thulaeus, or equally Thulites.

Ierne, an island on the edge of the world towards the west. The ethnic is Iernaeus, like Lernaeus.

Ivernia, a Pretanic island, the lesser of the two. The ethnic is Iverniates.

Kassitera, an island in the ocean, near India, as Dionysius in his Bassarica; from which comes tin.

Lindonion, a city of Brettania: Marcian in his Periplus. The ethnic is Lindoninus.

Pretanike, an island like a continent, next to Gaul. The inhabitants are called Pretani.

551. Cronicum Scotorum.

A great mortality i.e. the Crom Conaill, in which these saints rested i.e. Finnian i.e. of Cluain Iraird moccu Teldub and Colam son of Crimthann, Colam of Inis Celtra, Sinchell son of Cenannán abbot of Cell Achaid Druimfhata, and Mac Táil of Cell Cuilinn who is called Eógan son of Corcrán.

SBG St David.

Outbreak of the Yellow Plague. Goes to Brittany with S Teilo, and settles in Leon and makes foundations there .c 547, was in Leon when the Yellow Pestilence raged in Britain, 547-550 ; We consider it not unlikely that it was during this period that S. Non died.

This residence in Leon may have misled Giraldus into supposing that David was at one time in Caerleon, and so have given rise to the preposterous fable that he had been archbishop there.

If it be allowed that David was in Leon at this time, then his return to Menevia would be about 551. He was engaged for some years in founding churches throughout South Wales.

551. Annals of the Four Masters.

The thirteenth year of Diarmaid. St. Neasan, the leper, died. Feargna, son of Aenghus, King of Ulidia, was slain in the battle of Druim Cleithe, by Deman, son of Caireall, and by the Ui Eathach Arda.

551. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of Dáuíd of Farannán, son of Guaire descendant of Farannán, bishop of Ard Macha and legate of all Ireland.

551. Annals of Inisfallen.

The Crom Connaill, i.e., a great plague.

552.. Repose of Finnián of Cluain Iraird; and Colum of Tír dá Glas rested.

552 Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Cuilen in which the Corco Óche of Mumu perished through the prayers of Ita of Cluain Credail. Death of Fothad son of Conall.

552. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fourteenth year of Diarmaid. The church of Bennchar was founded by Comhgall of Beannchar. The feast of Teamhair was made by the King of Ireland, Diarmaid, son of Fearghus Ceirbheoil. The killing of Colman Mor, son of Diarmaid, in his chariot, by Dubhshlat Ua Treana, one of the Cruithni.

552. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Cynric fought with the Britons on the spot that is called Sarum, and put them to flight. Cerdic was the father of Cynric, Cerdic was the son of Elesa, Elesa of Esla, Esla of Gewis, Gewis of Wye, Wye of Frewin, Frewin of Frithgar, Frithgar of Brand, Brand of Balday, Balday of Woden. In this year Ethelbert, the son of Ermenric, was born, who on the two and thirtieth year of his reign received the rite of baptism, the first of all the kings in Britain.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

Five years after, Cenric fought against the Britons near the town of Scarburh [Salisbury?], and, having routed them, slew a large number.

553. Annals of Ulster.

Death of Eochu son of Conlaed i.e. king of Ulaid, in whom the Uí Echach Ulad originate; and death of Béc son of Deiche. Death of Crimthann son of Brion. I have found this in the Book of Cuanu: The relics of Patrick were placed sixty years after his death in a shrine by Colum Cille. Three splendid halidoms were found in the burial-place: his goblet, the Angel’s Gospel, and the Bell of the Testament. This is how the angel distributed the halidoms: the goblet to Dún, the Bell of the Testament to Ard Macha, and the Angel’s Gospel to Colum Cille himself. The reason it is called the Angel’s Gospel is that Colum Cille received it from the hand of the angel. Or here, the repose of Dáuíd; bishop of Ard Macha and legate.

553. Cronicum Scotorum.

Death of Eochu son of Conlaed king of Ulaid from whom are descended the Uí Echach Ulad. Death of Béc son of Dé, a prophet.

Birth of MoLua moccu Óchae. A pestilence called the samthrosc.

553. Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Cuilen gained by the Corcu Oche through the prayer of Íte.

SBG St Kyndeyrn.

Shortly after this Morken died, but his successors were still more hostile to Kentigern, and he, believing that a conspiracy had been formed to murder him, fled to Wales. The account in the Red Book of S. Asaph makes Kentigern escape from Morken. On his way south, he halted at Carleolum (or Carlisle), and there learned that paganism still lingered in the mountainous parts near. He turned aside, and did good mission work. At the headquarters where he preached, he planted a cross, and the place is now called Crosthwaite.

Then he resumed his journey, and going out of his way, collected a harvest of souls. At length, he arrived in Menevia, and remained some time with S. David.

His fame having reached Cathwallanus in North Wales, that prince invited him to his dominions.

Kentigern travelled with a great body of monks and military men. Cadwallon bade him select any place he liked for his settlement. One day Kentigern saw a wild boar pawing and tearing up the turf with his tusks near the river Elwy, and he resolved on fixing his abode there.

All went on smoothly for a while, but when Maelgwn succeeded to his father, troubles began. Maelgwn did not relish having so large a colony planted in his territory, and made difficulties. Joscelyn calls the king” quidam regulus nomine Melconde Galganu,” but there can be no question that Maelgwn is intended. The account of the monastery, which is given with detail, is interesting, but we do not know to what an extent it was coloured by Joscelyn. Kentigern ‘s foundation attracted great numbers of all ranks and ages, and it was filled with 965 monks. These he divided into three bands; 300 who were illiterate were deputed to take care of the cattle and till the fields ; 300 were set apart to perform household duties within the monastery ; the remaining 365 were devoted to the sacred offices, which were continued without intermission, day and night. He may have paid a visit to Rome.

SBG St Samson.

Samson goes to Paris for the first time c. 553

554.Annals of Inisfallen.

Justinian dies. Justin reigned.

554. Annals of the Four Masters.

The sixteenth year of Diarmaid.

St. Cathub, son of Fearghus, Abbot of Achadh Cinn, died on the 6th of April. One hundred and fifty years was the length of his life. The last feast of Teamhair was made by Diarmaid, King of Ireland. Curnan, son of Aedh, son of Eochaidh Tirmcharna, i. e. the son of the King of Connaught, was put to death by Diarmaid, son of Cearbhall, in violation of the guarantee and protection of Colum Cille, having been forcibly torn from his hands, which was the cause of the battle of Cul Dreimhne.

554. Annals of Ulster.

Birth of Lugaid moccu Óchae. A pestilence i.e. leprosy called the sámthrosc.

555. Annals of the Four Masters.

The seventeenth year of Diarmaid. The battle of Cul Dreimhne was gained against Diarmaid, son of Cearbhall, by Fearghus and Domhnall, the two sons of Muircheartach, son of Earca; by Ainmire, son of Sedna; and by Ainnidh, son of Duach; and by Aedh, son of Eochaidh Tirmcharna, King of Connaught. It was in revenge of the killing of Curnan, son of Aedh, son of Eochaidh Tirmcharna, while under the protection of Colum Cille, the Clanna Neill of the North and the Connaughtmen gave this battle of Cul Dreimhne to King Diarmaid; and also on account of the false sentence which Diarmaid passed against Colum Cille about a book of Finnen, which Colum had transcribed without the knowledge of Finnen, when they left it to award of Diarmaid, who pronounced the celebrated decision, ‘To every cow belongs its calf,’ &c. Colum Cille said:

O God, wilt thou not drive off the fog,

[gap: extent: 1 line]

which envelopes our number,

The host which has deprived us of our livelihood,

The host which proceeds around the carns!

He is a son of storm who betrays us.

My Druid, he will not refuse me,

is the Son of God, and may he side with me;

How grandly he bears his course,

the steed of Baedan before the host;

Power by Baedan of the yellow hair

will be borne from Ireland on him the steed.

Fraechan, son of Teniusan, was he who made the Erbhe Druadh for Diarmaid. Tuathan, son of Dimman, son of Saran, son of Cormac, son of Eoghan, was he who placed the Erbhe Druadh over his head. Three thousand was the number that fell of Diarmaid’s people. One man only fell on the other side, Mag Laim was his name, for it was he that passed beyond the Erbhe Druadh.

SBG St Brendan.

In 555, Brendan founded Clonfert. It was the year of the battle of Cuildreihmne, in which Aedh of Connaught fought and defeated Diarmid Mac Cearbhall.

555. Annals of Ulster.

Cathub son of Fergus, bishop of Achad Cinn, died. Colmán Mór son of Diarmait Derg son of Fergus Cerrbél son of Conall of Cremthann son of Niall Naígiallach—whom Dub Sloit killed. The church of Bennchor was founded.

555. Cronicum Scotorum.

Cathub son of Fergus, bishop of Achad Chinn, rested in the 150th year of his age. Pope Vigilius rested.

SBG St Geraint.

St Teilo takes a stone sarcophagus from Brittany to Cornwall for the sick King Geriant of Cornwall

556. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Cynric and Ceawlin fought with the Britons at Beranbury.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

The same, four years afterwards, fought witli Ceawlin against the Britons, near a place called Berin-byrig [Banbury ?]

555. Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Cathbad, i.e. a noble bishop of Leth Cuinn.

556. Nistan the leper died.

556. Annals of Ulster.

Pelagius, a Roman, by birth, sat 11 years and 18 days. He was buried in the basilica of St Peter the Apostle. A great mortality this year, i.e. in chron Chonaill (in buide Chonaill).

Pelagius 1 Pope 556-561

556. Annals of the Four Master.s

The eighteenth year of Diarmaid. The battle of Cuil Uinnsenn, in Teathbha, was fought against Diarmaid, by Aedh, son of Breanainn, chief of Teathbha; and Diarmaid was routed from the field of battle.

557. Annals of the Four Masters.

The nineteenth year of Diarmaid. St. Bec, son of De, a celebrated prophet, died. Colum Cille went to Scotland, where he afterwards founded a church, which was named from him. St. Aedhan O’Fiachrach died.

The battle of Moin Doire Lothair was gained over the Cruithnigh, by the Ui Neill of the North, i. e. by the Cinel Conaill and Cinel Eoghain, wherein fell seven chieftains of the Cruithnigh, together with Aedh Breac; and it was on this occasion that the Lee and Carn Eolairg were forfeited to the Clanna Neill of the North. Ceannfaeladh composed the following:

Sharp weapons were strewn, men were strewn,

in Moin Mor Doire Lothair,

Because of a partition not just;

the seven kings of the Cruithni, with Aedh Breac, were in the slaughter.

The battle of all the Cruithne was fought,

and Elne was burned.

The battle of Gabbra Liffe was fought,

and the battle of Cul Dreimhne.

They bore away hostages after conflict,

thence westwards towards Cnuas Nuach,

Fearghus, Domhnall, Ainmire,

and Nainnidh, son of Duach.

The two sons of Mac Earca

returned to the same battle,

And the king, Ainmire,

returned into the possessions of his father Seadna.

557. Cronicum Scotorum.

The killing of Fergna son of Ibdach, king of Ulaid, in the battle of Druim Cleithe, by Demán son of Cairell and the Uí Echach of Ard. Nessán the leper rested.

557. Annals of Ulster.

Kalends of January second feria, fourteenth of the moon. Death of Fergna or Fiacha descendant of Ibdach, king of Ulaid.

557. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Fergna, king of Ulaid.

558. The church of Bennchor was founded.

558. Annals of Ulster.

The killing of Colmán Mór, son of Diarmait, by Dub Sloit. The Feast of Temair held by Diarmait son of Cerball; and the flight before Máelchá’s son; and the death of Gabrán son of Domangart. Brénainn founded a church in Cluain Ferta. (Death of Eochu son of Conlaed, king of Ulaid. Death of the prophet Béc son of Dé).

558. Annales Cambriae.

The death of Gabrán, son of Dungart.

SBG St Lluan.

Her name occurs in the later documents as Lleian, was a daughter of Brychan Brycheiniog. 2 She became the wife of Gafran abDyfnwal Hen, who died in 558, by whom she was the mother of the celebrated Aidan mac Gabran of the Irish annals, known to Welsh tradition as Aeddan Fradog, or the Treacherous. Aidan was made King of the Dalriad Scots of Argyle by S. Columba in 574, being the first independent King of the Scots. He was an enterprising and aggressive king, for we find him making an expedition to the Orkneys in 579 an d to Man in 582. He died in 606. In the Welsh Triads 3 he is branded as one of ” the Three Arrant Traitors of the Isle of Britain,” because he deserted his own countrymen and went over to the Saxons. The others were Gwrgi Garwlwyd and Medrod (Mordred); and the three were the cause, it is said, of the Welsh losing the sovereignty of the Isle.

SBG St Gafran.

Gafran was in reality the father of Aeddan, and not his son. Aeddan was the celebrated king of Scotch Dalriada, known in the Irish annals as Aidan mac Gabran, who died in 606. Gafran died, according to the Annales Cambriae, in 558. Legend has woven itself around him. In the Triads he is the head of a retinue designated one of the ” Three Faithful Retinues (Diwair Deulu) of the Isle of Britain.” The references to them in the two earliest series are rather ambiguous; they showed their faithfulness, ” when the utter loss took place ; ” ” when the utter loss took place they went to (or, into the) sea for their lord.” In the third and latest series, the incident is described as one of the “Three Utter Losses of the Isle of Britain.” Gafran and his men “went to sea in search of Gwerddonau Lli’on (the Green Isles of the Ocean), and were never afterwards heard of”. They numbered 2,100.

Where are the sons of Gavran ? where his tribe,

The faithful? following their beloved chief,

They the Green Islands of the Ocean sought;

Nor human tongue hath told, nor human ear,

Since from the silver shores they went their way,

Hath heard their fortunes.

558. Cronicum Scotorum.

The killing of Colmán Mór son of Diarmait, in his own chariot, by Dub Sloit hu Trena. The church of Bennchor was founded.

Brénainn founded the church of Cluain Ferta. Since Mac Ua Eltai possessed it— Brenainn, with all his perfections— If not the better, not the worse therefor. From that time to this has Cluain Ferta been.

Brénainn went up in the air in his chariot.

558. Annals of the Four Masters.

After Diarmaid, the son of Fearghus Cerrbheoil, had been twenty years in sovereignty over Ireland, he was slain by Aedh Dubh, son of Suibhne, King of Dal Araidhe, at Rath Beag, in Magh Line. His head was brought to Cluain Mic Nois, and interred there, and his body was interred at Connor. In this year was taken the Mermaid, i.e. Liban, the daughter of Eochaidh, son of Muireadh, on the strand of Ollarbha, in the net of Beoan, son of Inli, the fisherman of Comhgall of Beannchair.

559. Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of the two sons of Muircheartach, son of Muireadhach, in the kingdom of Ireland, i.e. Domhnall and Fearghus.

The battle of Gabhra Liffe, and the battle of Dumha Aichir, by Domhnall and Fearghus, against the Leinstermen, of which was said:

1. The battle of Gabhra and the battle of Dumha Achair,

Illustrious men fell in both, Colgu and his father.

2. The battle of Gabhra was not a battle with the loss of a man or two hundred;

There fell twenty from Faelan, from Ailill twenty times twenty.

559. Annals of Ulster.

The church of Bennchor was founded.

559. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Colmán Mór, son of Diarmait.

560 – 579. Ceawlin, Columba.

560 – 579

560. Annals of Inisfallen.

The Festival of Temuir [celebrated] by Diarmait, son of Cerball.

560 Annals of Ulster.

The Feast of Temair held by Diarmait son of Cerball; and the death of Gabrán son of Domangart. The migration before Máelchú’s son i.e. king Bruide. The battle of Cúil Dreimne.

560. Annals of the Four Masters.

The second year of Domhnall and Fearghus. Daimhin Damhairgitr, i.e. Cairbre, died. From him are the Airghialla.

560. Cronicum Scotorum.

The last feast i.e. of Temair held by Diarmait son of Cerball.

The death of Gabrán son of Domangart, king of Alba.

The flight of the Scots before Bruide son of Máelchú, king of the Cruithin.

The killing of Curnán, son of Aed son of Eochu, king of Connacht, by Diarmait son of Cerball when under the protection of Colum Cille, and this is why the battle of Cúl Dremne was fought.

560. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Ceawlin undertook the government of the West-Saxons; and Ella, on the death of Ida, that of the Northumbrians; each of whom reigned thirty winters. Ella was the son of Iff, Iff of Usfrey, Usfrey of Wilgis, Wilgis of Westerfalcon, Westerfalcon of Seafowl, Seafowl of Sebbald, Sebbald of Sigeat, Sigeat of Swaddy, Swaddy of Seagirt, Seagar of Waddy, Waddy of Woden, Woden of Frithowulf. This year Ethelbert came to the kingdom of the Cantuarians, and held it fifty-three winters. In his days the holy Pope Gregory sent us baptism. That was in the two and thirtieth year of his reign. And Columba, the mass-priest, came to the Picts, and converted them to the belief of Christ. They are the dwellers by the northern moors. And their king gave him the island of Hii, consisting of five hides, as they say, where Columba built a monastary. There he was abbot two and thirty winters; and there he died, when he was seventy-seven years old. The place his successors yet have. The Southern Picts were long before baptized by Bishop Ninnia, who was taught at Rome. His church or monastery is at Hwiterne, hallowed in the name of St. Martin, where he resteth with many holy men. Now, therefore, shall there be ever in Hii an abbot, and no bishop; and to him shall be subject all the bishops of the Scots; because Columba was an abbot — no bishop.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

At the end of about four years, Ceawlin began to reign over the western part of Britain, which is now commonly called Wessex. Moreover, Ella the Iffing is sent to the race of Northumbria, whose ancestry extends up to the highest, namely to Woden.

XXXVIII. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XXXI.

THE men of Catraeth arose with the dawn,
About the Guledig, of work a profitable merchant.
This Urien, without mockery is his regret.
He sustains the sovereignty and its demands.
Warlike, the grandeur of a perfect prince of baptism.
The men of Prydain hurtful in battle array,
At Gwenystrad, continuously offerers of battle.
Protected neither the field nor woods
The people with shelter, when tribulation comes.
Like the wave loud roaring over the beach,
I saw valiant men in battle array,
And after the morning, battle-mangled flesh.
I saw a tumult of three limits slain,
A shout active in front was heard.
In defending Gwenystrad was seen
A mound and slanting ground obstructing.
In the pass of the ford I saw men gory-tinted,
Dropping their arms before the pallid miserable ones.
They join in peace as they were losers.
Hand on the cross they wail on the gravel bank of Garanwynyon.
The tribes revel over the rising wave.
The billows protect the hair of their captures.
I saw men of splendid progress
With blood that clotted on the garments,
Toiling energetically and incessantly in battle.
The covering battle, where there was no flight, when contrived.
The ruler of Reged, I am astonished at what was dared.
I saw a brow covered with rage on Urien,
When he furiously attacked his foes at the white stone
Of Galystem. His rage was a blade;
The bucklered men were sustained in need.
May a desire of battle come on Euirwyn.
And until I fail in old age,

560. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Garbán, son of Domongart. Death of Cairlán, son of Aed son of Echaid.

561. In which the battle of Cúl Dreimne is what is to be recorded, and in which Ainmire, son of Sétna, and Ainnedid son of Fergus, and Domnall were victors. Diarmait, however, was put to flight; and on this day Cluain Ferta Brénainn was founded at the order of an angel.

561. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Cúil Dreimne i.e. in vengeance won over Diarmait son of Cerball. Forgus and Domnall two sons of Mac Erca and Ainmire son of Setna and Nainnid son of Daui, and Aed son of Eochu Tirmcharna, king of Connacht, were victors through the prayers of Colum Cille, saying:

1. O God!

Why dost thou not ward off the mist,

That we might reckon the number

Of the host which has taken judgment from us.

2. A host that marches around a Cairn,

And a son of storm that betray us;

My druid—he will not refuse me—is

The Son of God; with us He will act.

3. How grandly he bears his course—

Baedan’s steed—before the host;

Good for Baedan of the yellow hair

He will win his renown on him.

Fraechán son of Tenusan made the druidic ‘fence’ for Diarmait son of Cerball, Tuatán son of Dimán son of Sarán son of Cormac son of Eógan cast the druidic ‘fence’ over them. Maglaine leaped over it and he alone was killed.

561. Annals of the Four Masters.

After Domhnall and Fearghus, the two sons of Muircheartach, son of Muireadhach, son of Eoghan, son of Niall, had been three years in the sovereignty of Ireland, they both died.

561. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Cúil Dreimne, in which 3000 fell, won over Diarmait son of Cerball. Forgus and Domnall, two sons of Mac Erca, i. e. two sons of Muirchertach son of Muiredach son of Eógan son of Niall, and Ainmire son of Sétna, and Nainnid son of Daui, were victors, with Aed son of Eochu Tirmcharna, king of Connacht. They prevailed through the prayers of Colum Cille. The battle of Cúil Dreimne. It was Fraechán, son of Teimnén, who made the druidic ‘fence’ for Diarmait. Tuatán son of Dimán son of Sárán son of Cormac son of Eógan cast the druidic ‘fence’ over them. Maglaine leaped over it and he alone was killed. The battle of Cúil Uinsen.

562. Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of Eochaidh, son of Domhnall, son of Muircheartach, and of Baedan, son of Muircheartach, son of Muireadhach, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

562. Annals of Inisfallen.

The end of the cycle of Victorius. The battle of Cúil Uinsenn in Tethba [gained] by Aed,son of Brénainn, against Diarmait, son of Cerball. Justin, who reigned eleven years, dies. Tiberius becomes emperor.

562. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Cúil Uinsen in Tethba won over Diarmait son of Cerball by Aed son of Brénainn. Diarmait took flight. The battle of Móin Daire Lothair.

562. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Cúil Uinsen in Tethba won over Diarmait son of Cerball by Aed son of Brénainn, king of Tethba, in which Diarmait took flight.

John III Pope 561-574

562. Annales Cambriae.

Columba went to Britain.

563. Cronicum Scotorum.

The voyage of Colum Cille to the Island of Í in the 42nd year of his age. The battle of Móin Daire Lothair won over the Cruithin by the Uí Néill of the North, in which fell seven kings of the Cruithin including Aed Brec. Baetán son of Cenn with two branches of the Cruithin fight it against the Cruithin, and Cenél nEógain and Cenél Conaill fought it for hire, for the Lee and Ard Eolarg. Of this Cennfaelad sang:

Weapons press forward, men press forward

In the great bog of Daire Lothair,

A cause of strife discomfited,

Around the king of Cruithin, Aed Brecc.

The battle of all the Cruithin is fought,

They burn Eilne;

The battle of Gabar Liphi is fought,

And the battle of Cúil Dreimne.

Hostages are taken way after conflict,

Away west, with a (human harvest),

The two sons of Mac Erca return

To join in the same battle;

And the King, Ainmire,

Returns into the possessions of Senna.

Aedán grandson of Fiachra dies. Molaisi of Daiminis rested.

563. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Móin Daire Lothair won over the Cruithin by the Uí Néill of the North. Baetán son of Cenn with two branches of the Cruithin(?) fight it against the Cruithin. Cenél nEógain and Cenél Conaill were hired, being given the Lee and Ard Eolarg as recompense.

Weapons press forward, men press forward

In the great bog of Daire Lothair,

A cause of strife discomfited

Around the king of the Cruithin, Aed Brecc.

The battle of all the Cruithin is fought,

They burn Eilne;

The battle of Gabar Liphi is fought,

And the battle of Cúil Dreimne.

Hostages are taken away after conflict,

Away west, with a human harvest(?)

By Forgus, Domnall. Ainmire,

And Nainnid son of Daui.

Mac Erca’s two sons returned

In the same manner;

The king Ainmire came back

With the possessions of Sétna.

Splendidly moves

Baetán’s steed upon the host;

Well satisfied is Baetán of the yellow hair,

It will carry its little load(?) upon it.

Aedán son of Fiachra dies. The killing of Colmán Mór son of Diarmait. The voyage of Colum Cille to the island of Í in the 42nd year of his age.

563. Annals of the Four Masters.

St. Molaisi, Abbot of Daimhinis, died on the twelfth of September. After Eochaidh and Baedan had been two years in the sovereignty of Ireland, they were slain by Cronan, chief of Cianachta Glinne Gemhin.

563. Annals of Inisfallen.

Colum Cille in exile. His first night in Alba was during Pentecost.

564. Death of Diarmait, son of Cerball, whom Aed Dub slew in Ráith Bec. Death of Daimín, son of …

564. Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of Ainmire, son of Sedna, son of Fearghus Ceannfhoda, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

564. Annals of Ulster.

A great wind-storm occurred. Death of Laisre from Daiminis. Or, in this year Brénainn founded the church of Cluain Ferta.

565. Annals of Ulster.

The slaying of Diarmait son of Cerball i.e. by Aed Dub son of Suibne; and the two sons of Mac Erca, Forgus and Domnall, succeeded him. Repose of Brénainn of Biror, as some say. The battle of Gabair Liphi, and the death of Daimíne Daim Airgit. Kalends of January sixth feria, twenty-fourth of the moon.

565. Annales Cambriae.

The voyage of Gildas to Ireland.

SBG St David.

Invited by Ainmire to Ireland. Sends a form of Mass and pupils to Ireland, perhaps founded there the church of Naas, 565

In 565 Ainmire mounted the throne as High King of Ireland. He was desirous of restoring religion in the island, as paganism was again raising its head, and there was a slackening of the Faith. He invited Gildas, David, and Cadoc to come to him and revive the flagging Christianity of the people. Gildas certainly went in response, but whether David did more than send a form of the Mass and some of his best pupils to engage in the work, we are unable to say. The Church of Naas, in Kildare, however, regards him as its patron, and presumably its founder. Near it are the remains of an ancient structure called by the people the Castle of S. David. It is now converted into a rectory.

Caradoc of Llancarfan. The Life of St Gildas.

Meanwhile Saint Gildas the venerable historian came to Britain bring with him a very sweet and lovely bell, which he had vowed to offer as a present to the Bishop of the Church of Rome. He stayed one night honourably received by the venerable Abbot Cadocus in Carbana Valley (Llancarfan). The Abbot pointed out the bell to him, and was allowed to handle it. Once he had handled it, he offered to buy it at a high price. the owner refused to sell.
The arrival of Gildas the Wise came to the ears of King Arthur and the leaders of all Britain, bishops and abbots. Countless of the clergy and people came together to reconcile Arthur after the aforementioned murder. Gildas, who had heard the report of his brother’s murder, did as he had done when he first heard, and when his enemy asked pardon showed friendship to him, kissed him, and, as they kissed, gave him his blessing in the kindliest spirit. This done, King Arthur with grief and tears accepted the penance laid down by the bishops who stood by, and to the best of his ability amended his ways to the end of his life.
Then the peaceloving catholic Gildas, that exceptional man, travelled to Rome and offered the aforesaid bell to the Bishop of the Roman Church. But when the Bishop took and shook it, it gave out no sound. On seeing this, he said: “O man beloved by God and men, reveal to me what happened about this gift on your journey here.” So Gildas revealed that the most holy Cadoc, Abbot of the church at Nancarba, had wanted to buy the bell, but that he had refused to sell what he had vowed to give to St Peter the Apostle. The Pope hearing this said: “I know the venerable Abbot Cadoc. He has visited Rome seven times, and Jerusalem three times, after great dangers and constant labour. I grant you permission to give him what he wants, if he comes again. The miracle we have just witnessed destines him to have the bell.” The Pope blessed the bell, and Gildas took it and returned home with it. He gave it to Saint Cadoc freely. Once it was in the Abbot’s hands, it immediately rang when it was struck, to the wonder of all. From that time, it remained as a refuge for all who carried it, throughout Gwalia, and whoever swore a false oath upon it was either deprived of the use of his tongue, or, if he was a criminal, immediately confessed his crime.

Cadoc, Abbot of the church of Carbana, asked the learned Gildas to take charge of the students’ studies for one year. He did as he was asked, and was a very useful director. He took no pay from the scholars except the prayers of scholars and clergy. He himself wrote out the work of the four Evangelists, and the book, bound in gold and silver, still remains in the church of St Cadoc to the glory of God, of its most holy scribe, and of the Gospels. The people of Wales hold that book most valuable in swearing their oaths, and they do not dare open it to look at, nor do they make treaties of peace and friendship among enemies unless that book is specially set there among them.

When the scholars went for their holidays at the end of the year, Abbot Cadoc and the excellent teacher Gildas by mutual agreement went to two islands, Ronech and Echin. Cadoc took the island nearer Wales, and Gildas that adjacent to England. They didn’t want to be hindered from their church duties by the comings and goings of people, and so could find no better plan than to leave the Valley of Carbana and move to a secret island. Gildas established an oratory in honour of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, and near it his bedroom. He did not, however, have his bed in this room, but placed under a high rock, where he used to lie awake until midnight praying upon the rock to Almighty God. Then he used to go to the church. He was terribly cold, but the cold was sweet and bearable to him because of God. He caught little fishes in a net, and took eggs from birds’ nests; that was food enough for him to live on. The two men used to visit each other. Their stay in this manner lasted seven years.

The supreme Creator, seeing that his dear servant lacked a reliable water supply, besides raindrops that fell on the rocks and were caught in rock pools, caused a stream to flow from the high rock, which flowed, and flows, and will remain without any interruption. While Gildas continued thus to concentrate on fasting and prayers, there came pirates from the Orcadian Islands. They were a great trial to him. They captured the servants who attended him and carried away all the furniture in his dwelling. This was such a blow that he could no longer remain there, so he left the island, took a small boat and sailed to Glastonia where he arrived in great distress. Malvas was at that time King of Somerset. Such a man was worthy to be received, and the Abbot of Glastonia received him. He taught his brothers and various lay people, sowing the seed that must be sowed, of heavenly teaching. There he wrote the History of the Kings of Britain. Glastonbury, i.e. City of Glass, which takes its name from the word glass, is a city originally named in the British language.

And so it was besieged by the tyrant Arthur with an immense host on account of his wife Guinevere, who had been ravished and carried off by the aforesaid wicked king. She had been taken to Glastonia for safety; the place was impregnable because of the protection given by reeds, river and marsh. The rebellious king had searched for his queen throughout the course of a year. Finally, he heard where she was staying. At once he mustered an army of all Cornubia and Dibnenia; war between the enemies was prepared.
Seeing this, the Abbot of Glastonia, accompanied by his clergy and Gildas the Wise, walked between the battle lines and peaceably advised King Malvas to restore the queen he had seized. And so, as was right and proper, she was restored in peace and goodwill. After these transactions, the two kings bestowed much land on the Abbot. They came to visit the Church of Saint Mary and to pray, and the Abbot confirmed their dear brotherhood for the peace that was made, and the benefits and had been granted and even more for those that would be granted in the future. The kings went away at peace with each other, and promising to obey reverently the venerable Abbot of Glastonia and never to violate that most holy place nor even those places that lie near it.

565. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Columba the presbyter came from the Scots among the Britons, to instruct the Picts, and he built a monastery in the island of Hii.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle

Five years afterwards, Christ’s servant Columba came from Scotia [Ireland] to Britain, to preach the word of God to the Picts.

Bede.

CHAP. IV.

When the nation of the Picts received the faith of Christ. [565 A.D.]

IN the year of our Lord 565, when Justin, the younger, the successor of Justinian, obtained the government of the Roman empire, there came into Britain from Ireland a famous priest and abbot, marked as a monk by habit and manner of life, whose name was Columba, to preach the word of God to the provinces of the northern Picts, who are separated from the southern parts belonging to that nation by steep and rugged mountains. For the southern Picts, who dwell on this side of those mountains, had, it is said, long before forsaken the errors of idolatry, and received the true faith by the preaching of Bishop Ninias, a most reverend and holy man of the British nation, who had been regularly instructed at Rome in the faith and mysteries of the truth; whose episcopal see, named after St. Martin the bishop, and famous for a church dedicated to him (wherein Ninias himself and many other saints rest in the body), is now in the possession of the English nation. The place belongs to the province of the Bernicians, and is commonly called the White House, because he there built a church of stone, which was not usual among the Britons.

Columba came into Britain in the ninth year of the reign of Bridius, who was the son of Meilochon, and the powerful king of the Pictish nation, and he converted that nation to the faith of Christ, by his preaching and example. Wherefore he also received of them the gift of the aforesaid island whereon to found a monastery. It is not a large island, but contains about five families, according to the English computation; his successors hold it to this day; he was also buried therein, having died at the age of seventy-seven, about thirty-two years after he came into Britain to preach. Before he crossed over into Britain, he had built a famous monastery in Ireland, which, from the great number of oaks, is in the Scottish tongue called Dearmach—The Field of Oaks. From both these monasteries, many others had their beginning through his disciples, both in Britain and Ireland; but the island monastery where his body lies, has the pre-eminence among them all.

That island has for its ruler an abbot, who is a priest, to whose jurisdiction all the province, and even the bishops, contrary to the usual method, are bound to be subject, according to the example of their first teacher, who was not a bishop, but a priest and monk; of whose life and discourses some records are said to be preserved by his disciples. But whatsoever he was himself, this we know for certain concerning him, that he left successors renowned for their continence, their love of God, and observance of monastic rules. It is true they employed doubtful cycles in fixing the time of the great festival, as having none to bring them the synodal decrees for the observance of Easter, by reason of their being so far away from the rest of the world; but they earnestly practiced such works of piety and chastity as they could learn from the Prophets, the Gospels and the Apostolic writings. This manner of keeping Easter continued among them no little time, to wit, for the space of 150 years, till the year of our Lord 715.

But then the most reverend and holy father and priest, Egbert, of the English nation, who had long lived in banishment in Ireland for the sake of Christ, and was most learned in the Scriptures, and renowned for long perfection of life, came among them, corrected their error, and led them to observe the true and canonical day of Easter; which, nevertheless, they did not always keep on the fourteenth of the moon with the Jews, as some imagined, but on Sunday, although not in the proper week.For, as Christians, they knew that the Resurrection of our Lord, which happened on the first day of the week, was always to be celebrated on the first day of the week; but being rude and barbarous, they had not learned when that same first day after the Sabbath, which is now called the Lord’s day, should come. But because they had not failed in the grace of fervent charity, they were accounted worthy to receive the full knowledge of this matter also, according to the promise of the Apostle, “And if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.” Of which we shall speak more fully hereafter in its proper place.

565. Cronicum Scotorum.

The slaying of Diarmait son of Cerball at Ráith Bec i.e. by Aed Dub son of Suibne Araide, i.e. king of Ulaid, and his head was brought to Cluain moccu Nóis and buried there and his body was buried in Coindire; and the two sons of mac Erca, Forgus and Domnall, succeeded him. In this year the muirgeilt was captured, i.e. Lí Ban daughter of Eochu son of Muiredhach on the strand of Ollobra in the net of Baedán son of Innle, i.e. the fisherman of Comgall of Bennchor. Repose of Brénainn of Biror, as some say.

565. Annals of the Four Masters.

The second year of Ainmire. Deman, son of Cairell, King of Ulidia, son of Muireadhach Muindearg, was killed by the shepherds of Boirenn. A sea fleet was brought by Colman Beg, son of Diarmaid, son of Fearghus Cerrbheoil, and by Conall, son of Comhgall, chief of Dal Riada, to Sol and Ile, and they carried off many spoils from them.

565. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Domnall, son of Mac Erce, who reigned one year, and fell at the hand of the Laigin in the battle of Gabair Liphi; but the Laigin fled.

566. Birth of Lugaid, son of Caelub.

566. Annals of the Four Masters.

After Ainmire, son of Sedna, was three years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he was slain by Fearghus, son of Nellin, of which was said: Feimhin, while he was king, was not a place without bravery. To day dark red its aspect, being set on fire by Ainmire, son of Seadna.

566. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Gabair Liphi against the Laigin. Forgus and Domnall were victors. The death of Domnall son of Muirchertach mac Erca, to whom succeeded Ainmire son of Sétna. The death of Daimine son of Cairpre Damargait.

566. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Gabair Liphi. Forgus and Domnall were victors. Also, the death of Domnall son of Muirchertach Mac Erca, to whom succeeded Ainmire son of Sétna. Justin the Younger reigned 11 years, as Bede states.

567. John, a Roman by birth, sat 12 years, 11 months and 26 days, and was buried in the basilica of St Peter the Apostle. An expedition into Iardoman.

567. Annals of the Four Masters.

After Baedan, son of Ninnidh, son of Fearghus Ceannfhoda, had been one year in the sovereignty of Ireland, he was slain at Leim An Eich, in a battle, by the two Comains; i.e. Comain, son of Colman Beg, son of Cearbhall, and Comain, son of Libren, son of Illadhan, son of Cearbhall. It was at the instance of Colman Beg they perpetrated this deed.

567. Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of bishop Gildas.

568. A battle in Ard Tómáin by Colmán Bec, son of Ailill, son of Comgall.

568. Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of Aedh, son of Ainmire, over Ireland. Fearghus, son of Nellin, was slain by Aedh, son of Ainmire, in revenge of his father.

568. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Ceawlin, and Cutha the brother of Ceawlin, fought with Ethelbert, and pursued him into Kent. And they slew two aldermen at Wimbledon, Oslake and Cnebba.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

Three years after his coming, Ceawlin and Cutha stirred up a civil war against Ethelbert, and having defeated him, pursued him into Kent, and slew his two chiefs, Oslaf and Cnebba, in Wubbandune.

568. Annals of Ulster.

An expedition into Iardoman by Colmán Bec son of Diarmait, and by Conall son of Comgall. Kalends of January third feria, twenty-seventh of the moon.

568. Cronicum Scotorum.

The killing of Demán son of Cairell by the shepherds of Barrinne {Bairenn?} The slaying of Ainmire son of Sétna, by Fergus son of Néilléne, of which was said:

Femhen, when he was king. Was not an ignoble place;

To-day, crimson is its aspect. From Ainmire, son of Senna.

569. Annals of the Four Masters.

The second year of Aedh. St. Oenna Mac Ua Laighisi, Abbot of Cluain Mic Nois, died. St. Ite, virgin, of Cluain Cread Hail, died on the 15th of January. She was also called Mide.

569. Annales Cambriae.

The Synod of Victory was held between the Britons

SBG St David.

David attends the Synod of Lucus Victorias. 569

569. Annals of Ulster.

The slaying of Ainmire son of Sétna by Fergus son of Néilléne.

569. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Ainmire, son of Sétna, and of Baetán, son of Eochu

570. Repose of Aenu, abbot of Cluain Moccu Nóis. Repose of Íte of Cluain, i.e. the fostermother of Jesus Christ and of Brénainn, i.e., of Cluain Ferta.

570. Annals of the Four Master.s

The third year of Aedh. St. Maeineann, Bishop of Cluain Fearta Breanainn Clonfert, died on the first of March.

570. Annales Cambriae.

Gildas wisest of Britons died.

570. Annals of Ulster.

Gildas died. The killing of Fergus son of Néilléne. Aenu, abbot of Cluain Moccu Nóis, and Ite of Cluain Credail, fell asleep. Aedán of the Uí Fhiachrach died.

Caradoc of Llancarfan.

The Life of St Gildas

The most religious Gildas, gaining permission from the Abbot, clergy and people of Glastonia, desired once again to take up the life of a hermit by the river bank close to Glastonia. He was able to carry out his wish. He built there a church in honour of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, in which he fasted and prayed unceasingly, dressed in goatskin, giving a blameless example of good living and religion. Holy men from distant parts of Britain came to visit him, a man who deserved such visits. He gave them counsel, and as they returned home they would recall his encouragement and advice with exultation.

In the end Gildas fell ill. His illness grew worse, and he called the Abbot of Glastonia to him. He begged him, with much piety, that when he had ended his life’s course his body should be taken to Glastonia Abbey, which he loved dearly. The Abbot gave his word. Gildas asked worthy men to carry out his wishes. While the Abbot grieved and wept copiously because of what he had heard, the most holy Gildas, very ill, died. Many people witnessed the fragrant angelic splendour around the body, the angels forming an escort for his soul. After a tearful commendation had been made, the frail body was carried by fellow monks to the abbey, and with great grief and due honour was buried in the middle of the pavement of St Mary’s church. His soul went to its rest, and rests now. It will rest eternally in heavenly rest. Amen.

Note: Ynisgutrin was the ancient name of Glastonia, and that is how it is still known by native Britons. Ynis in the British language means island. Gutrin means glass. But after the arrival of the Angles and the expulsion of the Britons (i.e. the Welsh), the name Glastonbury was substituted for the original: glas = glass. beria=city. Glastiberia=City of Glass.

570. Cronicum Scotorum.

The killing of Fergus son of Néilléne by Aed son of Ainmire. Oenu moccu Láigsi, abbot of Cluain moccu Nóis, i.e. the son of Eógan of the Laigis, having held his abbacy for 36 years, rested.

571. Cronicum Scotorum.

Íte of Cluain Credail rested.

571. Annals of Ulster.

From the death of Patrick 100 years. Or this year the repose of Mo-Laise of Daiminis.

SBG St Aidan Bishop of Ferns.

At an early age Aed ab Gildas was committed to S. David at Cilmuine, for instruction. An anecdote is told of his early submission to orders. One day he neglected to bring indoors the book in which he had been studying, and rain came on. David was very angry at the prospect of the book being injured, and ordered Aed as punishment to prostrate himself on the sand of the shore, probably at Forth Mawr. Then he forgot all about him, till some time later, when he noticed his absence, and asked where the boy was. His pupils reminded him of the penance he had imposed on Aed, and David at once sent for him, but only just in time to save him from being covered by the rising tide.

When the Irish settlers were expelled from the portion of Pembroke- shire and Carmarthenshire that lies between Milford Haven and the mouth of the Towy. S. David seems to have been invited to make religious settlements there, and he took with him his disciple Aidan, who was still young.

While Aidan was in these parts, and Cadoc was with him, an invasion took place — the biographer says of Saxons — but it is more probable that it was of Irish, endeavouring to recover the lands from which they had been expelled, though it is possible enough that Saxon pirates may have assisted them. Aidan and Cadoc gathered their countrymen together, and surrounded the enemy, who were encamped in a valley, rolled down stones upon them, and exterminated them to the last man. There is a chapel of S. Cadoc in the parish of Llawhaden.

571. Annals of the Four Masters.

St. Breanainn, Abbot of Birra, died on the twenty ninth day of November.The battle of Tola, by Fiachna, son of Baedan, son of Cairell, against the people of Osraighe and Eile; and they were defeated. Tola is the name of a plain situated between Cluain Fearta Molua and Saighir.

The battle of Feimhin, by Cairbre, son of Creamhthann, King of Munster, against Colman Beg, son of Diarmaid; and Colman was defeated.

571. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Cuthulf fought with the Britons at Bedford, and took four towns, Lenbury, Aylesbury, Benson, and Ensham. And this same year he died.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

After three years, Cuthulf fought against the Britons at Bedanford [Bedford], and took four royal cities, namely Liganburh [Lenbury], Eglesburh [Aylesbury], Bensingtun [Benson], and Ignesham [Eynsham].

571. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of two descendants of Muirchertach, namely, Baetán, son of Mac Erce, and Eochaid, son of Domnall, son of Mac Erce.

572. The battle of Tala.

572. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fifth year of Aedh. The battle of Doete, which is called Bealach Feadha, by Aedh, son of Ainmire, against the men of Meath, where fell Colman Beg, son of Diarmaid. Conall, son of Comhgall, King of Dal Riada, died. It was he that granted Hy Iona to Colum Cille.

572. Annals of Ulster.

The slaying of two descendants of Muiredach i.e. Baetán son of Muirchertach and Echaid son of Domnall son of Muirchertach Mac Erca, in the third year of their reign. Crónán son of Tigernach, king of the Ciannachta of Glenn Geimin, was their slayer. Maenu, bishop of Cluain Ferta Brénainn, rested. Death of Demán son of Cairell. (Or this year the slaying of Diarmait son of Cerball. In this year the ‘sea-wanderer’ was caught. Repose of Brénainn of Biror, as some say.)

572. Cronicum Scotorum.

Maenu, bishop of Cluain Ferta Brénainn, rested. The slaying of two descendants of Muiredach i.e. Baetán son of Muirchertach and Echaid Finn son of Domnall, in the third year of their reign. Crónán son of Tigernach, king of the Ciannachta, was their slayer.

572. Synodus Bracarensis secunda.

On www.benedictus.mgh.de/quellen/chga/chga_058t.htm

573. Annals of the Four Masters.

The sixth year of Aedh. Breanainn, son of Brian, chief of Teathbha Teffia, died.

573. Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Feimen, in which Colmán Bec, son of Diarmait, was slain by the Munstermen. Hence are Cennach and Loch Cenn in Mag Feimin, from the heads of those who were killed in the strife. Cairpre, son of Feidlimid son of Aengus, won the battle. Loch Sílenn was the name of that lake at first. Hence Patrick said: Loch Sílenn. Alas for him who drinks it with his food! Cairpre has filled it with heads. So that it is gore to its bottom.

Brénainn of Birra rested in Christ. Crónán moccu Lugdach rested.

573. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Feimen won by Cormac son of Crimthann, king of Mumu, in which Colmán Bec son of Diarmait was defeated; but he escaped. Brénainn of Biror died. The battle of Tola and Fertola i.e. the names of plains between Eile and Osraige and between Cluain Ferta MoLua and Saighir. Fiachra son of Baetán was victor. Death in the sixteenth year of his reign of Conall son of Comgall, king of Dál Riata who granted the island of Ia to Colum Cille.

573. Annales Cambriae.

The battle of Arfderydd between the sons of Eliffer and Gwenddolau son of Ceidio; in which battle Gwenddolau fell;

Merlinwent mad.

573. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Feimen, in which Colmán Bec the son of Diarmait was defeated; but he escaped. (Or here, the battle of Gabair Liphe won over the Laigin. Or in this year, the death of Domnall son of Muirchertach Mac Erca, to whom succeeded Ainmire son of Sétna.)

SBG St Kyndeyrn.

Meanwhile, in Strathclyde great changes had taken place. These will be best understood by a quotation from Skene’s Celtic Scotland? which we will give after a few prefatory remarks.

There were, at this time, four British kings in Strathclyde; and the Saxons had invaded and occupied the Lothians. With these the Britons were engaged in war. North of Strathclyde was the Scotic colony of Dalriada, comprising Argyll, engaged in thrusting back the Picts. But the Pict still held the present counties of Wigtown and Kircudbright. The four British kings were Urien, Rhydderch Hael, Gwenddoleu and Morcant. These four had combined against Hussa, son of Ida of Bernicia, who began to reign in 567.

But there were elements of discord at work among these princes, which brought them at last into internecine conflict. Rhydderch belonged to the party of the Britons which had been most affected by Roman civilization, and claimed to have among them descendants of the Roman colonists, and of the soldiery set to guard the Wall connecting the Clyde and the Firth of Forth.

The other party, headed by Gwenddoleu and Morcant had not been influenced in the same way, and represented the pure Celtic element, with its tribal organization unmodified!

“Dissensions broke out among the Britons, who formed two parties, arising from other grounds besides those of supposed descent. The existence in the country of a pagan people like the Angles, and the extent to which they had subjected the natives, exercised a great influence over those who were not subject to their power. The Picts, who were either subjected by them or in close alliance with them, were more immediately under their influence, and seem to a great extent to have apostatized from the Christianity introduced among them by S. Ninian, and a great part of the British population in the south fell back upon a half paganism, fostered by their bards, who recalled the old traditions of the race before they had been Christianized under the Roman dominion. There was thus a Christian and what may be called a pagan party. The so-called Romans mainly belonged to the former, and Riderchen or Rhydderch was at their head. The latter embraced the native Britons, whose leaders traced their descent from Coil Hen, or the Aged, and their head was Gwendolew.

“These dissensions now broke into open rupture, and a great battle is recorded to have taken place between them in the year 573, which was to decide who was to have the mastery. It was termed the battle of Ardderyd, and the scene of it was at Arthuret, situated on a raised platform on the west side of the river Esk, about eight miles north of Carlisle. . . Here this great battle was fought, the centre of a group of Welsh traditions.”

It resulted in the defeat of the Pagan party, the death on the field No sooner was Rhydderch successful, than he resolved on the recall of Kentigern.

Finding Christianity almost trampled out in his dominions. he despatched messengers to Gwynedd to summon Kentigern to resume his work among the Cumbrian Britons. The saint would willingly have remained at Llanelwy, but he felt that duty called him north. Accordingly, after having appointed S. Asaph to succeed him as abbot and bishop, accompanied by 665 monks and clerics, he departed, leaving the church by the north door, which was ever afterwards kept shut, save on the feast of S. Asaph.

SBG St Rhydderch Hael.

Rhydderch Hael, or the Munificent, has his pedigree traced back to Macsen Wledig, or Maximus the Usurper, and his wife Elen, daughter of Eudaf. Their son Ednyfed was father of Dyfnwal Hen (Dumngual), who was father of Cedig (Clinoch), father of Tuathal Tuath Claidh (Tutagual Tutclut), who married Ethni Wyddeles, an Irish woman, and by her became the father of Rhydderch Hen or Hael, who was born and brought up in Ireland, where also he had been baptized.

Rhydderch and Urien headed the Christian party among the Northern Cymry of the Kingdom of Cumbria or Strathclyde, composed of those who retained traditions from the Roman occupation, and Gwenddoleu and Morcant (or Morken), at the head of the reactionary and pagan party.

In the great battle of Arderydd (573) the latter were completely defeated. Thereupon Rhydderch, having established himself at Dumbarton, recalled S. Kentigern from Wales, whither he had fled from the persecution of Morcant. Kentigern returned at the head of six hundred and sixty-five monks and clerics, none too many for the work before them of rechristianizing all Cumbria. Rhydderch and his people, Joscelyn tells us, went to meet Kentigern and his party when they heard that they were nearing the borders of Cumbria.

Then an assembly was convened, and Kentigern announced the truth to all who were gathered together. Rhydderch made a somewhat abject submission of himself to the bishop. Casting off his royal garments, on bended knees, and with joined hands, he did homage to him, and delivered over to him lordship and principality over all his kingdom, he himself to take a second place after Kentigern.

Rhydderch’s queen was named Langweth or Languoreth, who carried on an intrigue with a young and handsome soldier, and in a fit of amorous imprudence, she one day presented him with a gold ring from her finger, that had been given to her by her husband.

Some time after this, Rhydderch was out hunting, and the young man who attended him and he distanced the escort, and becoming tired and hot, lay down for a nap beside the river Clyde.

The young man was soon asleep, with his arm stretched out, and then the king observed his wife’s ring on the finger. His first impulse was to kill the man, but he controlled himself, and lightly drew off the ring and threw it into the Clyde. When the youth awoke he did not notice his loss. On his return to the palace Rhydderch vented his wrath on the queen, charged her with being an adulteress, and threatened, unless the ring were produced, that he would openly proclaim her and thrust her from her place at his side.

Langweth, in great alarm, sent to S. Kentigern, and informed him of the circumstances.

Then the saint bade the messenger of the queen take a hook and fish in the Clyde, and bring him his first capture. Presently the man had a bite, and drew out a salmon, which, when cut open, had the lost ring in its stomach.

This was at once taken to Langweth, who rushed into the presence of Rhydderch with it, and showed it to him in the presence of his whole court.

The king then fell to abject apologies, went down on his knees to her, entreated her pardon, and bade her impose upon him any penance up to death, she might devise as a punishment for having falsely accused her. She graciously forgave him, ” and so the king and the queen and the betrayer were all recalled to favour and mutual love.”

One day a harper from Ireland appeared at the court of King Rhydderch, and played before the king on “tympanum and harp” on the feast days of Christmas. And at the Epiphany the king ordered that the man should be rewarded. The bard scornfully rejected the presents; gold and silver, fine raiment and horses, he said that he had in plenty at home; what he demanded was a bowl of ripe blackberries. Rhydderch had recourse to S. Kentigern, who reminded the king that one day, when out hunting, he had thrown away his cloak over a growth of brambles, and that possibly enough, this might have protected the fruit from the frost, as the king had not thought of recovering his mantle. Search was made, and under it were found sufficient blackberries to fill a bowl, which was accordingly given to the bard. This latter had threatened, unless they were produced, to lampoon the king and make him ridiculous as far as his word went.

Queen Langweth had been barren, but by the prayers of the holy bishop she conceived and bare a son, whom Kentigern baptized, and to whom he gave the name of Constantine. Rhydderch was also in close communication and friendship with S. Columba, from whom he received the assurance that he would no meet death at the hands of his enemies but would die peacefully on his own pillow, which took place in 601 or 612, and he was succeeded by his son Constantine.

SBG St Melangell.

Melangell was either a daughter or grand-daughter of Tudwal Tudclud, of the race of Maxen Wledig. her father’s name being variously written Cyfelch, Cyfwlch, Cynwalch, and Ricwlff; but they agree in giving her mother’s name as Ethni Wyddeles. Tudwal was father also of Rhydderch Hael, who won the battle of Arderydd in 573. Melangell would, most probably, be his niece.

Her legend relates that she was the daughter of King lowchel of Ireland, who desired to marry her to a certain Irish nobleman; but she had vowed celibacy. She fled from her father’s dominions, and secreted herself among the hills of Pennant (called after her Pennant Melangell), in Montgomeryshire, within the principality of Powys, where she lived for fifteen years without seeing the face of man, ” serving God and the spotless Virgin.” One day in the year 604, as we are told, Brochwel Ysgythrog, prince of Powys, being a-hare-hunting, pursued his game till he came to a great thicket, within which he was amazed to find a virgin of surpassing beauty engaged in deep devotion, with the hare he had been pursuing under the folds of her garments, boldly facing the hounds. He shouted to them, ” Catch her, little dogs, catch her! ” But the more he urged them on the further the retired, howling.

In answer to Brochwel’s questioning she told him her history.

” Because,” said he, ” it hath pleased the supreme and almighty God, for thy merits, to give safety to this little wild hare, I give and present unto thee these my lands for the service of God, to be a perpetual asylum, refuge, and defence, in honour of thy name ‘assigning to her the spot as a sanctuary for ever. Here she spent thirty-seven years of her life in solitude, and the hares had become so tame that they ” were in a state of familiarity about her every day throughout her long life.” She gathered aroundher a convent of virgins, with herself as head,

574. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Tola and Fertola in the territories of the Cruithin. Death in the sixteenth year of his reign of Conall son of Comgall who granted the island of Ia to Colum Cille. Or thus: the battle of Tola and Fertola i.e. the name of plains between Éile and Osraige, and between Cluain Ferta Mo-Lua and Saighir. Fiachra son of Baetán was victor.

574. Annales Cambriae.

The sleep (ie death) of Brendan of Birr.

574. Annals of the Four Masters.

The seventh year of Aedh. The killing of Aedh, son of Eochaidh Tirmcharna, by the Ui Briuin.

574. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Conall, son of Comgall. He reigned sixteen years.

575. Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Luimnech.

575. Annals of Ulster.

The great convention of Druim Ceat at which were present Colum Cille and Aed son of Ainmire.

Benedict 1 Pope 575-579

576. Annals of the Four Masters.

The ninth year of Aedh. St. Brenainn, Abbot of Cluain Ferta Brenainn Clonfert, died on the 16th of May. He died at Eanach Duin, and his body was interred at Cluain Ferta Brenainn. Colman, son of Cairbre, King of Leinster, died at Sliabh Mairge.

576. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Teloch in Cenn Tíre. A spark of leprosy and an unheard-of abundance of nuts. In which fell Dúnchadh son of Conall son of Comgall and many others of the followers of Gabrán’s sons fell. Death of Brénainn son of Brión.

Or here, the slaying of Ainmire son of Sétna. Of this was said:

Feimen, when there was a king,

Was no abode lacking in valour;

Today its aspect is crimson

In the hands of Ainmire son of Sétna.

576. Cronicum Scotorum.

Death of Brénainn son of Brión.

576.Annals of Inisfallen.

A plentiful crop of nuts. People afflicted with smallpox.

577. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Teloch. Beginning of the reign of Tiberius Constantinus, who reigned 7 years. Repose of Brénainn of Cluain Ferta. The killing of Aed son of Eochu Tirmcharna alias Timrim, son of Fergus son of Muiredach Mael son of Eógan Sreb son of Daui Galach son of Brion son of Eochu Muigmedón, by the Uí Briúin. The first expedition of the Ulaid to Man(?). Or here, the killing of Fergus son of Néilline; and Aenu, abbot of Cluain Moccu Nóis, Íte of Cluain Credail, and Gildas died.

577. Cronicum Scotorum.

Repose of Brénnain of Cluain Ferta. The killing of Aed son of Eochu Tirmcharna by the Uí Briúin. The first expedition to the Ulaid to (Man).

Manaman Mack Clere.

Be it remembrid that one Manaman Mack Clere, a paynim (pagan), was the first inhabito’ of the ysle of Man, who by his Necromancy kept the same, that when he was assaylid or invaded be wold rayse such mystes by land and sea that no man might well fynde owte the ysland, and he would make one of his men seeme to be in nombe’ a hundred. And was never wont to charge his subjectes with other service, saving onely, that on Midsomer even, they shuld all bring gruene rushes some to a place called Wragfeld, and, some other to a place called Man. The which Mananam was after conquerid by St. Patryke of Irelande who slew all of that ysle which forsooke not their sorcery, and christenid the rest. Which ysland was the governid by Irishmen untill one Orry sonne to the kinge of Denmarke invaded and conquerid the same, who was the first that called himself kinge of Man,

577. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Cuthwin and Ceawlin fought with the Britons, and slew three kings, Commail, and Condida, and Farinmail, on the spot that is called Derham, and took from them three cities, Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

After the lapse of six years, Cuthwin and Ceawlin fight against the Britons, and slay three of their kings Comail. Condidan, and Farinmeail, at a place called Deorhamme [Derham?] ; and they took three of their most distinguished cities, Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath.

SBG St Cyngar / Cungar.

Cyngar of Congresbury in Somerset, Great grandson of Constantine the Blessed of Cornwall. The period of his grandson would be about 590. What drove Cyngar from Somersetshire was probably the gathering strength of the Saxons in that district after the battle of Deorham in 577. Congresbury is on the Yeo, with extensive marshes stretching to the west to the Bristol Channel, and completely open to attack from the side of Bath, which had fallen into the hands of the Saxons in the same year. This would be the true explanation of Cyngar flying to Morganwg, and not a sudden desire for solitude, as represented by the biographer.

The site on which he settled in Morganwg is said to have been Llandaff, formerly Llangenys, but this is difficult to reconcile with other accounts. It is more probably Llandough-juxta-Cardiff, variously Cyngar next comes under our notice in the Life of S. Cybi, as an old man. Cybi was his nephew. When Cybi was obliged to leave the south of Wales, he went to Ireland and took his uncle with him.

Cyngar was then so aged that he was unable to eat solid food, and Cybi bought a cow for him, when he settled with S. Enda in Aran, that his uncle might have milk for his food.

This occasioned a quarrel with one of the clerics on Aran, as has already been related in the account of S. Cybi. This Saint, taking his uncle with him, left Ireland and crossed into Carnarvon, and settled for a while in the promontory of Lleyn, 1 but afterwards moved into Anglesey, where he founded a ” Bangor ” at Caer Gybi.

In Anglesey Cyngar is esteemed a founder, at Llangefni, but at his advanced age he cannot have done more than settle into a cell.

He does not seem to have remained long there. Whether he had to leave owing to the unpleasantness caused by the publication of the letter of Gildas, his nephew, with its attack on Maelgwn, or whether it was due to mere restlessness, we do not know, but he is said to have started on pilgrimage for Jerusalem. According to the Vita he died at Jerusalem, and the body was brought back to Congresbury.

In 711 King Ina re-established Cyngar’s Abbey in Somersetshire, but dedicated it to the Holy Trinity. A British see of Congresbury, transferred in 767 or later to Wells, by Daniel, the last British bishop, is mentioned on doubtful evidence.

SBG St Dubricius.

In 577 occurred the disastrous battle of Deorham,

A charter of the time of Bishop Berthguin, says -“Be it known, that great tribulations and devastations took place in the time of Telpald and Ithail, kings of Britain, and this was due to the heathen Saxon race, and it was mainly on the confines of Britain and Anglia [towards Hereford], and it was so extensive that the whole borderland of Britain was almost destroyed, and much beyond the confines on both sides of Anglia and Britain, and mainly about the river Wye, on account of wars and frequent daily and nightly incursions, on one side and on the other. After a while, peace having been established, the land was restored by force and vigour (to its rightful owners); but it was swept bare and unoccupied, with men few and far between.”

SBG St Eldad or Aldate.

Eldad was bishop at Caer Loew, or Gloucester, after having been trained in the college of S. Illtyd. He had as brothers SS. Meven and Ustig. Eldad was slaughtered, in 577, by” the pagan Saxons. His brother Meven escaped, and after founding a church in Cornwall, took refuge in Brittany, where he established a monastery that became renowned in the Middle Ages as the Abbey of S. Meen.

577. Annals of the Four Masters.

The tenth year of Aedh. St. Ethchen, Bishop of Cluain Foda Baetain Abha, died on the 11th of February. St. Caireach Deargain, virgin, of Cluain Boireann, died on the 9th of February. Feidhlimidh Finn, Abbot of Ard Macha, died.

578. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of bishop Eitchen of Cluain Fata Baetáin. The return of the Ulaid from Man(?). Feidlimid Finn, abbot of Ard Macha, rested.

578. Cronicum Scotorum.

Repose of bishop Eitchen of Cluain Fata Baetáin Aba. The return of the Ulaid to Emain. Repose of bishop Finnian moccu Fiatach. Cairech Dergán rested.

578.Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Brénainn of Cluain Ferta in the 94th year of his age. Death of Aed son of Echaid, king of Connachta, who granted Enach Dúin to Brénainn. The battle of Loch dá Éces.

579. The first expedition(?) of the Ulaid.

Pelagius II Pope 579-590

579. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twelfth year of Aedh. The battle of Druim Mic Earca, was gained by Aedh, son of Ainmire, over the Cinel Eogain, where was slain Colga, son of Domhnall, son of Muircheartach, son of Muireadhach.

579. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of bishop Finnian moccu Fiatach. Benedict, a Roman by birth, sat 4 years, 1 month and 29 days, and was buried in the basilica of St Peter the Apostle. The killing of Áed son of Giun(?), and the death of Bruidge, king of Uí Fhailge.

580 – 599. Saint Augustine.

580 – 599

580. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Druim Meic Erce in which Colgú son of Domnall son of Muirchertach fell. Aed son of Ainmire was victor.

580. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Cairpre, king of Caisel. Repose of Finnián of Mag Bile. The battle of Colgu, son of Domnall, son of Mac Erce, and of Baetán, son of Cairell, in which they fell. Aed, son of Ainmire, was victor.

580. Annals of the Four Masters.

The thirteenth year of Aedh. Fearghus Scannal, King of Munster, was slain.

580. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Druim Meic Erce in which Colgu son of Domnall son of Muirchertach son of Muiredach grandson of Eógan fell. Aed son of Ainmire emerged victor. The expedition to Innsi Orc by Aedán son of Gabrán. Cennalath, king of the Picts, dies.

580. Annales Cambriae.

Gwrgi and Peredur sons of Elifert died.

SBG St Peredur.

Peredur and brother of Gwrgi., the sons of Elifer Gosgorddfawr, belonged to North Britain, and met their death there as men of war, in 580. Peredur as a character is partly historical and partly mythical. He seems to have been the original of the Perceval of Romance.

SBG St Oudoceus.

No sooner, was Budic dead, than Macliau entered Cornubia and expelled Tewdrjg, who remained for long a wanderer. However, he did not lose courage, and in 577, having collected a body of followers, he swooped down on the Bishop, killed him and his son James, and recovered possession of Cornubia. We do not know the date of the death of Teilo; accordingly, not that of Oudoceus’s succession to the abbacy and bishopric; but he can hardly have been under thirty-five when elected into the room of his uncle. That would be in 580. He does not seem to have revisited Brittany. His brother Tewdrig was prince then in Cornubia, and Oudoceus may have thought it inadvisable to appear in his territories, lest Tewdrig, who was his junior by a few years, should misunderstand his purpose in returning, and have his throat cut. But doubtless he sent some of Teilo’s disciples to the foundations made by that saint in Armorica, to see to their wel- fare and maintenance in good discipline. He had, moreover, plenty to occupy him in Wales. He was particularly interested in assuring his hold over Penally and Llandeilo Fawr. We are informed that he visited them and met with an unpleasant experience on his way back.

He had gone there, relic-hunting. Returning from a visit to S. David’s, with some relics, he went to Llandeilo Fawr, where he collected ” relics, of the disciples of S. Teilo his maternal uncle, and these he placed in a suitable coffer. “From Llandeilo Fawr he went on to Penallt in Cydweli, his family bearing the relics reverently, the holy cross going before, and singing psalms.” Then certain men rushed down on them from the rocks shouting, “Shall these clerics get away, laden with gold and silver, and, with so to speak, the treasure of Saints Dewi and Teilo? Let us catch them, and enrich ourselves with the great store of gold arid silver metal.”

The legend as a matter of course makes the men become rigid and blind, till restored by the prayer of S. Oudoceus.Another story told of S. Oudoceus is, that, when he was thirsty one day, passing some women who were washing butter, he asked for a draught of water. They answered, laughing, that they had no vessel, from which he could drink. Then he took a pat of butter, moulded it into the shape of a bell, filled it at the spring, and drank out of it. And, lo! it was converted into a golden bell; and so it remained in the Church of Llandaff till it was melted up by the Commissioners of Henry VIII.

Einion, King of Glywysing (roughly, modern Glamorganshire), was hunting one day, and the stag took refuge under the cloak of S. Oudoceus. The saint seized the occasion to beg the prince to make him a grant of that bit of land, on the Wye, now represented by the parish of Llandogo, which the stag had encompassed in the day’s hunt. The possessions of the abbey of Teilo beyond the Towy created friction. Cadwgan, the king, determined to drive Oudoceus out of them, and Oudoceus, unable to resist by force of arms, cursed his territory, and from that time forth the jurisdiction over Penally, Llandeilo Fawr, and Llanddowror seems to have ceased, 1 though the biographer pretends that Cadwgan was brought to his knees and obliged to make restitution.

In the time of Oudoceus began the ravages of the Saxons in Gwent. In 577 the fatal battle of Deorham had cut off the Britons of Wales from those in Devon and Cornwall, and it had left the Severn Valley and those of the Wye and Usk open to be entered and ravaged at any time. The Hxviccas had settled in the rich land of Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, and as they stretched their limbs, they laid hold of ever more and more soil and wrenched it from the Britons. They crossed the Wye, laid Ewyas waste, and devastated the valleys of the Dore and of the Worm. A slice of what is now Herefordshire was lost to the British.

One day, when Oudoceus was wrapt in devotion, sobbing and crying, a monk ran to him with the announcement that some beams that had been cut for his buildings, and had been left where hewn, in the wood, were being carried off. Oudoceus jumped up, seized a hatchet, and ran off to the banks of the Wye to see after his beams, and found that the depredator was none other than Gildas the historian, who was just then spending some time in retreat on the Isle of Echni (the Flat Holm) in the Bristol Channel, and who wanted timber for his own buildings. Oudoceus shouted to him, as he rowed away with the beams, to come back and restore or apologize, but Gildas turned a deaf ear to entreaty and objurgation, and Oudoceus in a rage brought down his axe on a mass of stone hard by with such force as to split it, and the split remained as witness to the same till the time when the biographer wrote. Unhappily for him, the story is chronologically impossible. Gildas died in 570, and Oudoceus was not bishop till 580.

Meurig, the King of Morganwg, had committed murder. The case was gross, for he and Cynuetu, whom he slew, had come before Oudoceus and had sworn over relics to keep peace and friendship together. Very soon after, Meurig killed Cynuetu. Thereupon, Oudoceus called together the three abbots of most consequence in the district, Concen, Abbot of Llancarfan, Catgen, Abbot of Llantwit, and Sulgen, Abbot of Llandough, and hurled a curse upon the King and all his family, and cut off his land by interdict from Baptism and Communion, for the space of two years and more.

SBG St Padrig ab Alfryd.

Padrig founded Llanbadrig on the northern coast of Anglesey. There is a strange story in the Icelandic Landndma Boc of a certain Orlygr Hrappsson, who “had been fostered under Patrick the Bishop and the Saint in the Sudereys. He desired to go to Iceland, and he begged Patrick the Bishop to go with him. The Bishop gave him timber for building a church, which he was to take with him; also, a plenarium, an iron bell, and a gold penny; also consecrated earth to be laid under the main posts of the church, and to consider this as consecration, and he should dedicate it to S. Columcille.”

Orlygr first reached a bay which he named after his foster-father, Patrechsf jord, and finally settled near the mouth of the Faxa river. As this took place between 860 and 870, it is very obvious that the Patrick referred to was not the Apostle of Ireland; and as Padrig ab Alfryd belonged to the latter half of the sixth century, the foster-father of Orlygr cannot have been he.

Landnama-Book.

Helge Beolan, the son of Cetil Flat-neb, went to Iceland from the Southreys. He was with Ing-wolf the first winter, and took at his rede all Keel-ness between Mo-gils-river and Midge-dale-water. He dwelt at Temple. His sons were Battle-Hrapp and Ey-wind Shelty [Shetlander], father of Col-swegen, father of Ey-wind, who had to wife Thor-laug, Claeng’s daughter. Their daughter was Thor-gerd, mother of Thora, whom Thor-kell, the son of Osgar Cnaf, had to wife. Their son was Ag-mund, father of bishop John the saint [of Holar].

Aur-Lyg was the name of a son of Hrapp, the son of Beorn Buna. He was in fosterage with bishop Patrec, the saint in Southreys. A yearning came upon him to go to Iceland, and prayed bishop Patrec that he would give him an outfit. The bishop gave him timber for a church and asked him to take it with him, and a plenarium and an iron church-bell, and a gold penny, and consecrated earth to lav under the corner-posts instead of hallowing the church, and prelates: dedicate the church to Colum-cella [Columba o’ the Cells].

Then spake bishop Patrec: ‘Wheresoever thou turnest in to land, dwell only there where three fells can be seen from the sea and a frith running between each fell, and a dale in each fell. Thou shalt sail to the furthest [southernmost]; there shall be a shaw there, and further south under the fell thou shalt light on a clearing and three stones raised or set up there. Do thou raise thy church and homeste there.”

Aur-lyg put to sea, and in a second ship with him a man named Coll, his sworn brother. They kept company out. On board Aur-lyg’s ship was a man whose name was Thor-beorn Sparrow; another called Thor-beorn Talcni; the third, Thor-beorn Scuma. They were the sons of Bead-were Bladder-pate. But when they came where they might look out for the land, there arose a great storm against them, and drove them west about Iceland. Then Aur-lyg called upon bishop Patrec, his foster-father, to bring them ashore, and [vowed] that he would give the place a name after his name wherever he should first come ashore. And after that they were but a little while ere they got to land; and he brought his ship in to Aurlyg’s haven, and called the frith Patrec’s frith therefore. But as for Coll he called upon Thor or Thunder. They were parted in the storm, and he reached the place called Coils-wick, and there his ship was wrecked. His crew got to land some of them, and shall be told after.

And in the spring Aur-lyg fitted out his ship, and sailed away with all that he had; and when he came south off Faxes-mouth, he saw the fells that had been spoken of to him, and knewtfiefh”. And then the / iron bell fell overboard and sunk in the sea. But they sailed in along the frith, and went in to the land at the place that is now called Sand-wick on Keel-ness, and there lay the iron bell in the sea-weed.

Aur-lyg took up his abode at Esia-rock [Clay-rock], by the rede, of Helge Beolan his kinsman, and took land in settlement between Mo-gils-river and Os-wif’s becks. He built a church at Esia-rock, as was commanded him.

Help was the name of his wife. Their son was Wal-theow, who came to Iceland a full-grown man with Aur-lyg. Afterward Aur-lyg had to wife Is-gerd, daughter of Diarmaid Bresesson. Their son was Gar-mund, father of Hall-dora, whom Theost-wolf, the son of Beorn Gold-bearer, had to wife.

581. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Druim Meic Erca. The death of Baetán son of Cairell. The expedition to Innsi Orc.

581. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fourteenth year of Aedh. Aedh, son of Suibhne, chief of Maenmagh, died.

581. Cronicum Scotorum.

Baetán son of Cairell, king of Ulaid, died.

SBG St Kyndeyrn.

Rhydderch submitted his entire kingdom to Kentigern, to be its spiritual head. Kentigern assembled the people for a great conference at Hoddam in Dumfriesshire, near the Annan river, and the church of S. Mungo, near by. There was a mound, which the saint ascended, and whence he was able to address the people.

Although it was known that the King Rhydderch favoured Kentigern, there was a strongly opposed faction, which clung to old usages and beliefs.

One of the superstitions most strongly resisted by Kentigern was the disfiguring of the face and body, in honour of the heathen gods, with staining, probably with woad. As late as 785 it fell under ecclesiastical censure, and there are allusions to it in the Lives of the Irish saints as symbols or badges of demoniacal homage, in contradistinction to the tonsure, that marked those who became servants of the living God.

When Kentigern preached, he routed these dyed and disfigured adherents of paganism. After a thorough cleansing of his own diocese, Kentigern proceeded into Galway among the Picts. He erected churches and placed clerics in various parts of Alba, and even despatched some of his disciples to the Orkneys, to Norway, and to Iceland.

Whilst at Glasgow an event took place which has left its mark on the arms of the city. The queen, whose name was Langueth, having a young lover, gave him a ring, which had been a present of her husband. Rhydderch observed this on the man’s finger as the latter lay asleep, and drawing it off, cast it into the Clyde, and then demanded the ring of his wife. In her difficulty, she had recourse to S. Kentigern, who prayed, and, lo, a salmon was caught, that had the ring in its belly.

582. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fifteenth year of Aedh. Fearadhach, son of Duach, Lord of Osraighe, was slain by his own people.

582. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Fergna, son of Caibléne.

582. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Manu, in which Aedán son of Gabrán sun of Domangart was victor. Death of Fergna son of Caibléne.

583. Death of Feradach son of Daui, king of Osraige. Pelagius, a Roman by birth, sat 10 years, 2 months and 10 days. The battle of Manu won by Aedán. Death of Fergna son of Caibléne. Or this year, the repose of Brénainn of Cluain Ferta.

583. Cronicum Scotorum.

The killing of Fergus Scannal king of Mumu.

Repose of Fergus bishop of Druim Lethglaise, who built Cell Biain.

583. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Mauricius succeeded to the empire of the Romans.

(Ed. This refers to Maurice, Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire in Constantinople, not Rome.)

583. Annals of the Four Masters.

The sixteenth year of Aedh. St. Fearghus, Bishop of Druim Leathglaise, died on the 30th of March; and this was the Fearghus who founded Cill mBian.

583. Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Manu [gained] by Aedán, son of Gabrán.

584. Death of Bruide, son of Maelchú.

584. Annals of the Four Masters.

The seventeenth year of Aedh. St.Nathcheimhe, Abbot of Tir Da Ghlas, the brother of Caeimhghin, died on the first day of May.

584. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of Fergus, bishop of Druim Lethglaise, who founded Cell Biain. Mauritius reigned 21 years, as Bede and Isidore state. Death of Bruide son of Maelchú, king of the Picts, and death of Feradach son of Daui, king of Osraige. Or this year, the repose of Eitchen.

584. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Ceawlin and Cutha fought with the Britons on the spot that is called Fretherne. There Cutha was slain. And Ceawlin took many towns, as well as immense booty and wealth. He then retreated to his own people.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

After seven years, Ceawlin and Cutha fought against the Britons, at a place called Fethanleage [Frethern?] : there Cutha fell ; but Ceawlin reduced a multitude of cities, and took immense spoils.

584. Annales Cambriae.

Battle against the Isle of Man and the burial of Daniel of the Bangors.

585. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of Mac Nisi, abbot of Cluain Moccu Nóis, in the 17th year of his abbacy? Death of Aed son of Suibne, king of Maenmag.

585. Cronicum Scotorum.

Repose of Mac Nisi of the Ulaid, abbot of Cluain moccu Nóis.

585. Annals of the Four Masters.

The eighteenth year of Aedh. Breanainn, Lord of Teathbha Teffia, died. It was he that had, some time before, granted Dearmhagh to God and to Colum Cille. Baetan, son of Cairell, King of Ulidia, died.

585. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Feradach son of Dui, king of Osraige.

585. William of Malmesbury.

At the expiration of twenty-four years, he had for his successors his son Otha, and Otha’s son, Ermenric, who, in their manners resembled him, rather than their grandfather and great grandfather. To the times of both, the Chronicles assign fifty-three years; but whether they reigned singly or together, does not appear.

After them Ethelbert, the son of Ermenic, reigned fifty-three years according to the Chronicle; but fifty-six according to Bede. The reader must determine how this difference is to be accounted for; as I think it sufficient to have apprised him of it, I shall let the matter rest. In the infancy of his reign, he was such an object of contempt to the neighbouring kings that, defeated in two battles, he could scarcely defend his frontier; afterwards, however, when to his riper years he had added a more perfect knowledge of war, he quickly, by successive victories, subjugated every kingdom of the Angles, with the exception of the Northumbrians. And, in order to obtain foreign connections, he entered into affinity with the king of France, by marrying his daughter Bertha. And now by this connection with the Franks, the nation, hitherto savage and wedded to its own customs, began daily to divest itself of its rustic propensities and incline to gentler manners. To this was added the very exemplary life of bishop Luidhard, who had come over with the queen, by which, though silently, he allured the king to the knowledge of Christ our Lord. Hence it arose, that his mind, already softened, easily yielded to the preaching of the blessed Augustine; and he was the first of all his race who renounced the errors of paganism, that he might obscure, by the glory of his faith, those whom he surpassed in power. This, indeed, is spotless nobility; this, exalted virtue; to excel in worth those whom you exceed in rank. Besides, extending his care to posterity, he enacted laws, in his native tongue, in which he appointed rewards for the meritorious, and opposed severer restraint to the abandoned, leaving nothing doubtful for the future.

586.Annals of Inisfallen.

The grandsons of Crítán.

586 Annals of Ulster.

The killing of Baetán son of Ninnid son of Daui alias son of Fergus Cennfhata son of Conall of Gulbu, king of Temair, who reigned one year. Cuiméne Son of Colmán Bec son of Diaimait, and Cuiméne son of Librén son of Illand son of Cerball, killed him at the instigation of Colmán, i.e. at Léim ind Eich. Or this year, the battle of Druim Meic Erca.

586. Cronicum Scotorum.

The beginning of the reign of Aed son of Ainmire.

The killing of Baetán son of Ninnid son of Daui son of Conall Gulban, king of Temair. Cuini son of Colmán and Cumaine son of Librén son of Illadon son of Cerball killed him at the instigation of Colmán Bec at Léim ind Eich.

By Conall, as ’tis admitted. Was won the joyful battle;

A happy path, prosperous streams spread. Before Conall and Eoghan.

586. Annals of the Four Masters.

The nineteenth year of Aedh. St. Daigh, bishop, son of Cairell, died on the 18th of August. Feidhlimidh, son of Tighernach, King of Munster, died. The battle of Magh Ochtair was gained by Bran Dubh, son of Eochaidh, over the Ui Neill, at the hill over Cluain Conaire, to the south.

587. The twentieth year of Aedh. St. Caerlan, Bishop of Ard Macha, died on the twenty fourth day of March. St. Seanach, Bishop of Cluain Iraird, died.

587. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Belach Daithe in which Colmán Bec son of Diarmait fell. Aed son of Ainmire was victor. Daig son of Cairell rested.

587 Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Doaethe(?) in which Colmán Bec son of Diarmait fell. Aed son of Ainmire was victor. Daig son of Cairell died; and in this Librén son of Illand son of Cerball fell. Or here the death of Baetán son of Cairell, king of Ulaid.

587. Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Mac Nise, abbot of Cluain Moccu Nóis.

588.. Death of Baetán, son of Ninnid.

588. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of Cairlén, bishop of Ard Macha—the bishop of Ard Macha, i.e. Ciarlaech from the territory of the Uí Nialláin. Repose of Senach, bishop of Cluain Iraird. Death of the grandsons of Giun(?). The conversion of Constantine to the Lord; and a great snowfall; and the slaying of Áed Dub son of Suibne, in a ship.

588. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year died King Ella; and Ethelric reigned after him five years.

588. Cronicum Scotorum.

The slaying of Aed Dub son of Suibne Araide, who slew Diarmait son of Cerball. Repose of bishop Aed son of Brec. Repose of Aed son of Brénainn, king of Tethba. It is he that granted Dermag to Colum Cille. In the same year there occurred a very hot and dry summer. Dauid of Cell Muine died.

588. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twenty-first yer of Aedh. St. Aedh, son of Breac, Bishop of Cill Air, in Meath, on the 10th of November. Lughaidh, of Lis Mor, died.

589. The twenty second year of Aedh. St. Macnise, Abbot of Cluain Mic Nois for a period of sixteen years, died on the thirteenth of the month of June.

589. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of bishop Aed son of Brec. Aed son of Brénainn—i.e. it is he who granted Dermag to Colum Cille—king of Tethba, died. And in the same time there occurred a very hot and dry summer.

589. Annales Cambriae.

The conversion of Constantine to the Lord.

589.Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Daig, son of Cairell son of Colmán Bec, son of Diarmait. Repose of David of Cell Muine. Repose of Aed, son of Brec.

590. Great snow. The battle of Mag Óchtair [gained] over Mumu.

SBG St David

Dies 589

590. Cronicum Scotorum

Death of Feidlimid son of Tigernach, king of Mumu. The birth of Cuimine Fota.

St Gregory I The Great. Pope 590-604

590. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twenty third year of Aedh.

The battle of Eadan Mor was gained by Fiachna, son of Baedan, son of Cairell, son of Muireadhach Muindearg, over Gerthidhe, son of Ronan, Lord of Cianachta, of which was said:

On the other occasion, when the soldiers of Baedan shall go into Breagh,

The Cianachta shall be on the alert, they shall not be the next to the shot.

Seanchan, son of Colman Mor, was slain. St. Gregory of the Golden Mouth was appointed to the chair and successorship of Peter the Apostle, against his will.

590. Annals of Ulster.

Death of Feidlimid son of Tigernach, king of Mumu. The battle of Lethreid won by Aedán son of Gabrán. The battle of Mag Ochtair won by Brandub son of Eochu over the Uí Néill. Or this year, the repose of Fergus, bishop of Druim Lethglaise, who founded Cell Biain.

591. An eclipse of the sun, i.e. a dark morning. Or here, the repose of Mac Nisi, abbot of Cluain Moccu Nóis.

591. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twenty fourth year of Aedh. Aedh Cerr, son of Colman, son of Cairbre, King of Leinster, died.

591. Cronicum Scotorum.

An eclipse of the sun i.e. a dark morning.

Death of Lugaid of Les Mór.

591 Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year there was a great slaughter of Britons at Wanborough; Ceawlin was driven from his kingdom, and Ceolric reigned six years.

POEMS RELATING TO URIEN AND HIS SON OWEN. XLVI. BOOK OF TALIESSIN XVIII.

A rumour has come to met from Calchvynyd,
A disgrace in the south country, a praiseworthy pillage.
And he will give to a lion the fierceness of his baptism.
Full is his strath of joyful produce.
The people are satiated with warfare, the strangers are satiated,
A battle of encroachment, during the excessive heat of the country,
A wonder of Cymry that relate it.
Let the cattle of the son of Idno come to Dyved.
And let no one dare not to come.
To pay a hundred cows I will give one calf.
The slaughter of thy foes about thy country,
Like fire it heats a vapour where it happens to be.
When we made an expedition to the land of Gwydno,
There was a corpse delicately fair between the gravel and the pebbles on the bank.
When he returned in the autumn from the country of Clydesmen,
The cow did not low to her calf.
Will greet Mabon from another country,
A battle, when Owain defends the cattle of his country.
A battle in the ford of Alclud, a battle in the Gwen,
A battle, in conjunction of tumult to them.
A battle against Rodawys of snowy-white aspect,
Brandishing of spears and black, and bright sheets,
A battle on this side of the gleaming guiding heart of oak.
A shield in hand, the camp trembling,
Saw Mabon on the fair portion of Reidol.
Against the kine of Reged they engaged,
If they had wings they would have flown.
Against Mabon without corpses they would not go.
Meeting, they descend and commence the battle.
The country of Mabon is pierced with destructive slaughter.
When Owain descends for the kine of his father,
There broke out lime, and wax, and hawthorn.
Is it not fair prey for any one to take a bald cow?
Support each other against men with ruddy spears.
Against the four-way-spreading conflagration,
Against the mighty rising.
Against gore on flesh,
Against a dismal straining.
A rumour came to me,
From the bright lands of the South.
Splendid and liberal chiefs declare
That thou shalt not be addressed by vulgar ones.
About the ford of the boundary, about the alders his battle-places.
When was caused the battle of the king, sovereign, prince,
Very wild will the kine be before Mabon.
From the meeting of Gwrgun.
The resting-place of the corpses of some was in Run.
There was joy, there will be for ravens.
Loud the talk of men after
Battle. Escaped not the shield of Owain.
With notched shield an opposing in battle tumult,
Cattle would not run about without crimson faces.
Crimson were the kine of Bender, and great his grace,
Gore surrounding the top of his head.
And a white face conspicuous the gasping.
The golden saddle (was) drenched in gore, as to its appearance.
The Gwentians praise the booty, the booty was extended,
The booty in front of the eager battle of the eager strangers.
A booty of heads with forked branches. On the shields
Awfully the blades are falling about the head.
A battle in front of Owain, great, great his rage.
A fine day, they fell, men, defending (their) country.
There rested the extreme-impelling advantage of their father.

591.Annals of Inisfallen.

Great drought this year.

592. Fintan Corad, coarb of Brénainn, rested in Christ.

592. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twenty fifth year of Aedh.

Colum Cille, son of Feidhlimidh, apostle of Alba Scotland, head of the piety of the most part of Ireland and Alba, next after Patrick, died in his own church in Hy, in Alba, after the thirty fifth year of his pilgrimage, on Sunday night precisely, the 9th day of June. Seventy-seven years was his whole age when he resigned his spirit to heaven, as is said in this quatrain:

Three years without light

was Colum in his Duibh-regles;

He went to the angels from his body,

after seven years and seventy.

Dallan Forgaill composed this on the death of Colum Cille:

Like the cure of a physician without light,

like the separation of marrow from the bone,

Like a song to a harp without the ceis,

are we after being deprived of our noble.

Aedh Dubh, son of Suibhne, King of Ulidia, was slain by Fiachna, son of Baedan. It was by this Aedh Dubh Diarmaid Mac Cearbhaill had been slain.

592. Annals of Ulster.

Death of Lugaid of Les Mór. Birth of Cuiméne Fata. A dark morning. Beginning of the reign of Aed son of Ainmire.

592. Cronicum Scotorum.

Death of Óengus son of Amalgaid. Uatu son of Aed, king of Connacht, died. Gregory, a Roman by birth, whose father was Gordian, sat 13 years 6 months and 10 days in the time of Maurice, and was buried in the basilica of St. Peter the apostle in front of the sacristy.

The killing of Senchán, son of Colman Mór.

592. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Gregory succeeded to the papacy at Rome.

593 Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year died Ceawlin, and Cwichelm, and Cryda; and Ethelfrith succeeded to the kingdom of the Northumbrians. He was the son of Ethelric; Ethelric of Ida.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

In the eighth year there was a great slaughter on both sides, at a place called Wodnesbyrg [Wemborow?], so that Ceawlin was put to flight, and died at the end of one more year. After him, Cwichelm, Crida, and Ethelfrid, succeeded to the kingdom.

593. Annals of Ulster.

Death of Aengus son of Amalngaid. Gregory, a Roman by birth, whose father was Gordian, sat 13 years, 6 months, 10 days. He was Pope in the time of Mauricius the emperor, and Foccas—in the second year of the same Foccas; and he was buried in the basilica of St Peter the Apostle in front of the sacristy. Or this year, the battle of Belach Daithe, in which fall Colmán Bec son of Diarmait, from whom are descended Clann Cholmáin i.e. the Uí Mhaeil Shechlainn, etc. Áed son of Ainmire was victor.

593. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twenty sixth year of Aedh. Cumuscach, son of Aedh, son of Ainmire, was slain by Bran Dubh, son of Eochaidh, at Dun Bucat, as the Bishop St. Aedhan said:

I implore the powerful Lord, near Cill Rannairech,

It was he that took revenge of Comuscach, that slew Aedh mac Ainmirech.

The battle of Sliabh Cua, in Munster, was gained over the Munstermen by Fiachna, son of Baedan. Tibraide, son of Calgach, died.

593. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Feidlimid son of Tigernach, king of Caisel. Repose of Aed, grandson of Cathaír, from Birra.

594. Eclipse of the sun in the morning.

594. Annales Cambriae.

Aethelbert reigned in England.

594. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Gerrthide, king of Ciannachta. At Éudann Mór it was won. Fiachna son of Baetán—Fiachna son of Baetán son of Cairell son of Muiredach Muinderg—was victor.

594. Annals of the Four Masters.

After Aedh, son of Ainmire, son of Sedna, had been twenty-seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he was slain by Bran Dubh, son of Eochaidh, in the battle of Dun Bolg, in Leinster, after Aedh had

gone to exact the Borumha, and to avenge his son Comusgach upon them. Some nobles fell in this battle of Bealach Duin Bolg, together with Beg, son of Cuanach, Lord of Oirghialla. Of the death of Aedh was said:

At Buac, the wave buffets the brink,

News were heard, who, in weariness, slew Aedh, son of Ainmire.

The wife of Aedhi cecinit:

Three sides were dear, from which to change is affords no hope,

The side of Tailltin, the side of Teamhair, and the side of Aedh, son of Ainmire.

595. Cronicum Scotorum.

Repose of Colum Cille on the eve of Pentecost, the fifth of the Ides of June, in the 36th year of his pilgrimage, in the 76th year of his age, as is said:

Thirty years, without light, was Colum Cille in his Black Regles;

He went to angels from his body After seven years and seventy.

595. Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Dún Cocuiche. The slaying of Gerthide.

595. Annales Cambriae.

The death of Columba.

The death of king Dunod son of Pabo.

Augustine and Mellitus converted the English to Christ.

595. Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of Aedh Slaine, son of the son of Diarmaid, son of Fearghus Cerrbheoil, and of Colman Rimidh, in the sovereignty of Ireland Baeithin, son of Brenainn, Abbot of Ia Choluim Cille Iona, died on the 9th of June. Alithir, Abbot of Cluain Mic Nois, died.

595. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of Colum Cille on the fifth of the Ides of June in the 76th year of his age. Death of Eógan son of Gabrán. Or this year, the repose of bishop Áed son of Brecc, and of Aed son of Brénainn.

596. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Ráith in Druad. The battle of Ard Sendaim. The slaying of Aedán’s sons i.e. Bran and Domangart. The battle of Corann.

596. Annals of the Four Masters.

The second year of Aedh Slaine and of Colman. St. Sinche, virgin, of Cluain Leththeangadh, died on the ninth day of November. Suibhne, son of Colman Beg, Lord of Meath, was slain by Aedh Slaine, at Bridamh.

596. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Pope Gregory sent Augustine to Britain with very many monks, to preach the word of God to the English people.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

Of the coming of Augustine, who was sent by the blessed Pop Gregory. As Divine Providence, mercifully looking down upon all things from all eternity, is accustomed to rule them, not by necessity, but by its powerful superintendence, and remaining always immoveable in itself, and disposing the different elements by its word, and the human race to come to the knowledge of the truth by the death of his only begotten Son, by whose blood the four quarters of the world are redeemed, so now by his servant doth it dispel the darkness in the regions of the west.

Whilst therefore the blessed pope Gregory sat on the episcopal seat, and sowed the seeds of the gospel of Christ, there stood by him some men of unknown tongue and very comely to look on. The holy man admiring the beauty of their countenances, asked of them with earnestness from what country they came. The young men with downcast looks replied, that they were Angles. ” Are you Christians,” said the holy man, “or heathens?” “Certainly not Christians,” said they, ” for no one has yet opened our ears. “Then the holy man, lifting up his eyes, replied, “What man, when there are stones at hand, lays a foundation with reeds?” They answer, “No man of prudence.” “You have well said,” answered he; and he straightway took them into a room, where he instructed them in the divine oracles, and afterwards washed them with the baptism of Christ: and further he arranged with them, that he would go with them into their country. When the Romans heard of this they opposed his words, and were unwilling to allow their pastor to go so far from home. The blessed pope Gregory, therefore, seeing that the people were opposed to him, sent with the men aforesaid one of his disciples, who was well instructed in the divine oracles, by name Augustine, and with him a multitude of brethren.

When these men arrived, the English received the faith and erected temples, and our Saviour Jesus Christ exhibited innumerable miracles to his faithful followers through the prayers of the bishop, St. Augustine; at whose tomb, even to the present day, no small number of miracles are wrought, with the assistance of our Lord.

Bede.

CHAP. XXIII.

How the holy Pope Gregory sent Augustine, with other monks, to preach to the English nation, and encouraged them by a letter of exhortation, not to desist from their labour. [596 A. D.]

IN the year of our Lord 582, Maurice, the fifty-fourth from Augustus, ascended the throne, and reigned twenty-one years. In the tenth year of his reign, Gregory, a man eminent in learning and the conduct of affairs, was promoted to the Apostolic see of Rome, and presided over it thirteen years, six months and ten days. He, being moved by Divine inspiration, in the fourteenth year of the same emperor, and about the one hundred and fiftieth after the coming of the English into Britain, sent the servant of God, Augustine, and with him divers other monks, who feared the Lord, to preach the Word of God to the English nation. They, having in obedience to the pope’s commands, undertaken that work, when they had gone but a little way on their journey, were seized with craven terror, and began to think of returning home, rather than proceed to a barbarous, fierce, and unbelieving nation, to whose very language they were strangers; and by common consent they decided that this was the safer course. At once Augustine, who had been appointed to be consecrated bishop, if they should be received by the English, was sent back, that he might, by humble entreaty, obtain of the blessed Gregory, that they should not be compelled to undertake so dangerous, toilsome, and uncertain a journey. The pope, in reply, sent them a letter of exhortation, persuading them to set forth to the work of the Divine Word, and rely on the help of God. The purport of which letter was as follows:

“Gregory, the servant of the servants of God, to the servants of our Lord. Forasmuch as it had been better not to begin a good work, than to think of desisting from one which has been begun, it behoves you, my beloved sons, to fulfil with all diligence the good work, which, by the help of the Lord, you have undertaken. Let not, therefore, the toil of the journey, nor the tongues of evil-speaking men, discourage you; but with all earnestness and zeal perform, by God’s guidance, that which you have set about; being assured, that great labour is followed by the greater glory of an eternal reward. When Augustine, your Superior, returns, whom we also constitute your abbot, humbly obey him in all things; knowing, that whatsoever you shall do by his direction, will, in all respects, be profitable to your souls. Almighty God protect you with His grace, and grant that I may, in the heavenly country, see the fruits of your labour, inasmuch as, though I cannot labour with you, I shall partake in the joy of the reward, because I am willing to labour. God keep you in safety, my most beloved sons. Given the 23rd of July, in the fourteenth year of the reign of our most religious lord, Mauritius Tiberius Augustus, the thirteenth year after the consulship of our lord aforesaid, and the fourteenth indiction.”

596. Annals of Inisfallen.

The slaying of Senchán, son of Colmán Mór. Birth of Cuimíne, i.e. the Tall, son of Fiachna.

597. Repose of Colum Cille on Sunday night on the fifth of the Ides [9th] of June in the 35th year of his exile and in the 76th of his age. Repose of Gregory of Rome according to others.

597. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Sliab Cua in Mumu, in which Fiachna son of Baetán was victor. The killing of Cumascach son of Aed by Brandub son of Eochu in Dún Buchat. Death of Tipraite son of Calgach.

597. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year began Ceolwulf to reign over the West-Saxons; and he constantly fought and conquered, either with the Angles, or the Welsh, or the Picts, or the Scots. He was the son of Cutha, Cutha of Cynric, Cynric of Cerdic, Cerdic of Elesa, Elesa of Gewis, Gewis of Wye, Wye of Frewin, Frewin of Frithgar, Frithgar of Brand, Brand of Balday, and Balday of Woden. This year came Augustine and his companions to England.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

When the man aforesaid arrived, Ethelbert bore rule over Kent, and receiving the faith, submitted to be baptized with all his house. He was the first king among the English who received the word of Christ. Lastly Ethelbert was the son of Ermenric, whose grandfather was Ochta, who bore the prenomen of Eisc, from which the kings of Kent were afterwards named Esings, as the Romans from Romulus, the Cecropidse from Cecrops, and the Tuscans from Tuscus. For Eisc was the father of Hengist, who was the first consul and leader of the Angles out of Germany; whose father was Wihtgils, his grandfather Witta, his great-grandfather Wecta, his great-grandfather’s father Woden, who also was king of many nations, whom some of the pagans now still worship as a god. And the number of years that was completed from the incarnation of our Lord was four years less, than six hundred. (596)

At the end of one year, Ceolwulf began to reign over the Western English. His family was derived from Woden; and so great was his ferocity that he is said to have been always at war, either with his own nation or with the Britons, or the Picts or Scots.

597. Annals of the Four Masters.

The third year of Aedh and Colman.The sword blows of Bran Dubh in Breagh. Brenainn, son of Cairbre, son of Fechine, Lord of Ui Maine, died. The battle of Sleamhain, in Meath, was fought by Colman Rimidh against Conall Cu, son of Aedh, son of Ainmire; and Conall was defeated. The battle of Cuil Cael, by Fiachna, son of Baedan, against Fiachna, son of Deman; and the battle was gained against Fiachna, son of Deman. Uata, son of Aedh, son of Eochaidh Tirmcharna, King of Connaught, died. Eochaidh, son of Diarmaid, Bishop and Abbot of Ard Macha Armagh, died.

597. Annals of Ulster.

The killing of Cumascach son of Áed, by Brandub son of Eochu, in Dún Buchat. The battle of Sliab Cua in the territories of Mumu, in which Fiachna son of Baetán was victor. Death of Tipraite son of Calgach.

Bede.

CHAP. XXV.

How Augustine, coming into Britain, first preached in the Isle of Thanet to the King of Kent, and having obtained licence from him, went into Kent, in order to preach therein. [597 A. D.]

Augustine, thus strengthened by the encouragement of the blessed Father Gregory, returned to the work of the Word of God, with the servants of Christ who were with him, and arrived in Britain. The powerful Ethelbert was at that time king of Kent; he had extended his dominions as far as the boundary formed by the great river Humber, by which the Southern Saxons are divided from the Northern. On the east of Kent is the large Isle of Thanet, containing, according to the English way of reckoning, 600 families, divided from the mainland by the river Wantsum, which is about three furlongs in breadth, and which can be crossed only in two places; for at both ends it runs into the sea. On this island landed the servant of the Lord, Augustine, and his companions, being, as is reported, nearly forty men. They had obtained, by order of the blessed Pope Gregory, interpreters of the nation of the Franks, and sending to Ethelbert, signified that they were come from Rome, and brought a joyful message, which most undoubtedly assured to those that hearkened to it everlasting joys in heaven, and a kingdom that would never end, with the living and true God. The king hearing this, gave orders that they, should stay in the island where they had landed, and be furnished with necessaries, till he should consider what to do with them. For he had before heard of the Christian religion, having a Christian wife of the royal family of the Franks, called Bertha; whom he had received from her parents, upon condition that she should be permitted to preserve inviolate the rites of her religion with the Bishop Liudhard, who was sent with her to support her in the faith. Some days after, the king came into the island, and sitting in the open air, ordered Augustine and his companions to come and hold a conference with him. For he had taken precaution that they should not come to him in any house, lest, by so coming, according to an ancient superstition, if they practised any magical arts, they might impose upon him, and so get the better of him. But they came endued with Divine, not with magic power, bearing a silver cross for their banner, and the image of our Lord and Saviour painted on a board; and chanting litanies, they offered up their prayers to the Lord for the eternal salvation both of themselves and of those to whom and for whom they had come. When they had sat down, in obedience to the king’s commands, and preached to him and his attendants there present the Word of life, the king answered thus: “Your words and promises are fair, but because they are new to us, and of uncertain import, I cannot consent to them so far as to forsake that which I have so long observed with the whole English nation. But because you are come from far as strangers into my kingdom, and, as I conceive, are desirous to impart to us those things which you believe to be true, and most beneficial, we desire not to harm you, but will give you favourable entertainment, and take care to supply you with all things necessary to your sustenance; nor do we forbid you to preach and gain as many as you can to your religion.” Accordingly, he gave them an abode in the city of Canterbury, which was the metropolis of all his dominions, and, as he had promised, besides supplying them with sustenance, did not refuse them liberty to preach. It is told that, as they drew near to the city, after their manner, with the holy cross, and the image of our sovereign Lord and King, Jesus Christ, they sang in concert this litany: “We beseech thee, Lord, for Thy great mercy, that Thy wrath and anger be turned away from this city, and from Thy holy house, for we have sinned. Hallelujah.”

CHAP. XXVI.

How St. Augustine in Kent followed the doctrine and manner of life of the primitive Church, and settled his episcopal see in the royal city. [597 A. D.]

AS soon as they entered the dwelling-place assigned to them, they began to imitate the Apostolic manner of life in the primitive Church; applying themselves to constant prayer, watchings, and fastings; preaching the Word of life to as many as they could; despising all worldly things, as in nowise concerning them; receiving only their necessary food from those they taught; living themselves in all respects conformably to what they taught, and being always ready to suffer any adversity, and even to die for that truth which they preached. In brief, some believed and were baptized, admiring the simplicity of their blameless life, and the sweetness of their heavenly doctrine. There was on the east side of the city, a church dedicated of old to the honour of St. Martin, (Note: St. Martin was regarded with special reverence in Britain and Ireland. Possibly some of the earliest missionaries may have been his disciples, e.g., St. Ninian and, St. Patrick. The Roman church of St. Martin at Canterbury has been frequently altered and partly rebuilt, so that “small portions only of the Roman walls remain. Roman bricks are used as old materials in the parts rebuilt”) built whilst the Romans were still in the island, wherein the queen, who, as has been said before, was a Christian, was wont to pray. In this they also first began to come together, to chant the Psalms, to pray, to celebrate Mass, to preach, and to baptize, till when the king had been converted to the faith, they obtained greater liberty to preach everywhere and build or repair churches.

When he, among the rest, believed and was baptized, attracted by the pure life of these holy men and their gracious promises, the truth of which they established by many miracles, greater numbers began daily to flock together to hear the Word, and, forsaking their heathen rites, to have fellowship, through faith, in the unity of Christ’s Holy Church. It is told that the king, while he rejoiced at their conversion and their faith, yet compelled none to embrace Christianity, but only showed more affection to the believers, as to his fellow citizens in the kingdom of Heaven. For he had learned from those who had instructed him and guided him to salvation, that the service of Christ ought to be voluntary, not by compulsion. Nor was it long before he gave his teachers a settled residence suited to their degree in his metropolis of Canterbury, with such possessions of divers sorts as were necessary for them.

598. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of Baethéne, abbot of Ia. The killing alias the battle of Dún Bolg, in which fell Aed son of Ainmire, by Brandub son of Eochu, and Béc son of Cuanu, king of the Uí Meic Uais. Eochu, abbot of Ard Macha, rested. Beginning of the joint-reign of Colmán Rímid and Aed Sláine

Augustine came to England.

598. Annals of the Four Master.s

The fourth year of Aedh and Colman. St. Cainnech, Abbot of Achadh Bo, died on the 11th of October, after having been eighty-four years in this life. The battle of Eachros, in Muirisc, by Colman, chief of Cinel Cairbre, against Maelcothaigh, chief of Cinel Fiachrach, of Muirisc; and the battle was gained over Maelcothaigh.

598. Cronicum Scotorum.

Repose of Baethéne, abbot of Ia. The battle of Dún Bolg, won by Brandub son of Eochu with the Laigin, on the 4th of the Ides of January, in which fell Aed son of Ainmire by Brandub son of Eochu and Béc son of Cuanu, king of Airgialla, and other nobles; of this was said:

At Buach the wave dashes against the brink;

Accounts report, though abhorrent, that Aedh, son of Ainmire, was slain;

His wife said:

There were three beloved sides, of whose return there is no hope;

The side of Taillten, the side of Temhair, and the side of Aedh, son of Ainmire.

The beginning of the joint reign of Colmán Rímid and Aed Sláine. Ailither, abbot of Cluain moccu Nóis, rested: he was of the Múscraige.

The Saxons receive the faith.

598. Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Ráith in Druad and the battle of Ard Sendaim. The Uí Fhinn were put to flight. The Araid [were] victors.

599. The years from the Passion of the Lord were 572 in this year.

599 Annals of Ulster.

Ailither, abbot of Cluain Moccu Nóis, rests. Repose of Cainnech of Achad Bó, as Cuanu states.

SBG St Constantine.

Constantine, son of Rhydderch Hael, King of the Cumbrian Britons. He was born after the return of Kentigern to Strathclyde in 573. Of him we know very little; only what we are told in the Life of S. Kentigern by Joscelyn, which is this, the queen (of Rhydderch), Langueth by name, was sterile, but, by the benediction and intercession of S. Kentigern, she conceived and bore a son, whom the Saint baptized, and to whom he gave the name of Constantine. The boy grew up in favour with God and man, and after his father’s death succeeded to the sovereignty of the Northern Cymry, and was subject to the bishop, as was his father. And because God was with him, he succeeded in controlling all the barbarous neighbouring nations, without effusion of blood. And he excelled all the kings who had reigned before him in Cumbria in riches and glory and dignity, and, what was more considerable, in sanctity. Wherefore, illustrious in merits, finishing his course in prosperity, he was crowned with glory in heaven. Rhydderch is supposed to have died about 600, and we may put the date of the death of this Constantine as taking place about 630.

Bede

CHAP. XXVII.

How St. Augustine, being made a bishop, sent to acquaint Pope Gregory with what had been done in Britain, and asked and received replies, of which he stood in need. [597-601 A.D.]

IN the meantime, Augustine, the man of God, went to Aries, and, according to the orders received from the holy Father Gregory, was ordained archbishop of the English nation, by Aetherius, archbishop of that city. Then returning into Britain, he sent Laurentius the priest and Peter the monk to Rome, to acquaint Pope Gregory, that the English nation had received the faith of Christ, and that he was himself made their bishop.

St Gregory I The Great. Pope 590-604

603 The Gododin.

603 The Gododin

600? Annals of Ulster.

Repose of St Cainnech, and the battle of the Saxons in which Aedán was vanquished.

Bede

CHAP. XXXIV.

How Ethelfrid, king of the Northumbrians, having vanquished the nations of the Scots, expelled them from the territories of the English. [603 A. D.]

Ed. See the year 603 in the next chapter below.

603. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Aeden, king of the Scots, fought with the Dalreathians, and with Ethelfrith, king of the Northumbrians, at Theakstone; where he lost almost all his army. Theobald also, brother of Ethelfrith, with his whole armament, was slain. None of the Scottish kings durst afterwards bring an army against this nation. Hering, the son of Hussa, led the army thither.

SBG St Gwarthan. He was a warrior, and appears to have fallen in the battle of Catraeth. He is mentioned in the Gododin as “Guarchan, son of Dwywei, of. gallant bravery.” He and his brothers are there credited with having had a share in the establishing of Bangor Iscoed. Previously the three were “disciples” at Llancarfan, where Gwarthan was Cadoc’s periglawr or confessor, and it was Cadoc that sent them to “superintend” Bangor.

Aneurin.

This Is the Gododin. Aneurin Sang It

He was a man in mind, in years a youth,

And gallant in the din of war;

Fleet, thick-maned chargers

Were ridden by the illustrious hero;

A shield, light and broad,

Hung on the flank of his swift and slender steed;

His sword was blue and gleaming,

His spurs were of gold, his raiment was woollen.

It will not be my part

To speak of you reproachfully,

A more choice act of mine will be

To celebrate your praise in song;

You have gone to a bloody bier,

Sooner than to a nuptial feast;

You have become a meal for ravens,

Before you reached the front of conflict.

Alas, Owain! my beloved friend;

It is not meet that he should be devoured by ravens!

There is swelling sorrow in the plain,

Where fell in death the only son of Marro.

II.

Adorned with his wreath, leader of rustic warriors, whenever he came

By his troop unattended, before maidens would he serve the mead;

But the front of his shield would be pierced, if ever he heard

The shout of war; no quarter would he give to those whom he pursued;

Nor would he retreat from the combat until blood flowed;

And he cut down like rushes the men who would not yield.

The Gododin relates, that on the coast of Mordei,

Before the tents of Madog, when he returned,

But one man in a hundred with him came.

III.

Adorned with his wreath, the chief of toil, his country’s rod of power,

Darted like an eagle to our harbours, when allured

To the compact that had been formed; his ensign was beloved,

More nobly was his emblazoned resolution performed, for he retreated not,

With a shrinking mind, before the host of Gododin.

Manawyd, with confidence and strength you pressed upon the tumultuous fight,

Nor do you regard either spear or shield;

No habitation rich in dainties can be found,

That has been kept out of the reach of your warriors’ charge.

IV.

Adorned with a wreath was the leader, the wolf of the holme,

Amber beads in ringlets encircled his temples;

Precious was the amber, worth a banquet of wine.

He repelled the violence of men, as they glided along;

For Venedotia and the North would have come to his share,

By the advice of the son of Ysgyran,

The hero of the broken shield.

Adorned with his wreath was the leader, and armed in the noisy conflict;

Chief object of observation was the hero, and powerful in the gory field,

Chief fighter in the advanced division, in front of the hosts;

Five battalions fell before his blades;

Even of the men of Deivyr and Bryneich, uttering groans,

Twenty hundred perished in one short hour;

Sooner did he feed the wolf with his carcase, than go to the nuptial feast;

He sooner became the raven’s prey, than approached the altar;

He had not raised the spear ere his blood streamed to the ground;

This was the price of mead in the hall, amidst the throng;

Hyveidd Hir shall be celebrated whilst there remains a minstrel.

VI.

The heroes marched to Gododin, and Gognaw laughed,

But bitter were they in the battle, when they stood arranged according to their several banners;

Few were the years of peace which they had enjoyed;

The son of Botgad caused a throbbing by the energy of his hand;

They should have gone to churches to do penance,

The old and the young, the bold and the mighty;

The inevitable strife of death was about to pierce them.

VII.

The heroes marched to Gododin, Gwanar laughed,

As his jewelled army went down to the terrific toil.

You slayed them with blades, when there is not much chattering;

You, powerful supporter of the living law, produced the silence of death.

VIII.

The heroes marched to Cattraeth, loquacious was the host;

Blue mead was their liquor, and it proved their poison;

In marshalled array they cut through the engines of war;

And after the joyful cry, silence ensued!

They should have gone to churches to perform penance;

The inevitable strife of death was about to pierce them.

IX.

The heroes marched to Cattraeth, filled with mead and drunk,

Compact and vigorous; I should wrong them were I to neglect their fame;

Around the mighty, red, and murky blades,

Obstinately and fiercely the dogs of war would fight;

If I had judged you to be of the tribe of Bryneich,

Not the phantom of a man would I have left alive.

I lost a friend, myself being unhurt,

As he openly withstood the terror of the parental chief;

Magnanimously did he refuse the dowry of his father-in-law;

Such was the son of Cian from the stone of Gwyngwn.

The heroes marched to Cattraeth with the dawn;

Their peace was disturbed by those who feared them;

A hundred thousand with three hundred engaged in mutual overthrow;

Drenched in gore, they marked the fall of the lances;

The post of war was most manfully and with gallantry maintained,

Before the retinue of Mynyddawg the Courteous.

XI.

The heroes marched to Cattraeth with the dawn;

Feelingly did their relatives regret their absence;

Mead they drank, yellow, sweet, ensnaring;

That year is the point to which many a minstrel turns;

Redder were their swords than their plumes,

Their blades were white as lime, and into four parts were their helmets cloven,

Even those of the retinue of Mynyddawg the Courteous.

XII.

The heroes marched to Cattraeth with the day;

Was not the most celebrated of battles disgraced?

They put to death Gelorwydd

With blades. The gem of Baptism was thus widely taunted; –

“Better that you should, ere you join your kindred,

Have a gory unction and death far from your native homes,

At the hand of the host of Gododin, when the day arrives.”

Is not a hero’s power best when tempered with discretion?

XIII.

The hero marched to Cattraeth with the day;

Truly he quaffed the white mead on serene nights;

Miserable, though success had been predicted,

Proved his mission, which he undertook through soaring ambition;

There hastened not to Cattraeth

A chief, with such a magnificent design of enterprise

Blazoned on his standard;

Never was there such a host

From the fort of Eiddin,

That would scatter abroad the mounted ravagers.

Tudvwlch Hir, deprived of his land and towns,

Slaughtered the Saxons for seven days;

His valour should have protected him in freedom;

His memory is cherished by his fair associates;

When Tudvwlch arrived, the supporter of the land,

The post of the son of Kilydd became a plain of blood.

XIV.

The heroes marched to Cattraeth with the dawn,

But none of them received protection from their shields,

To blood they resorted, being assembled in gleaming armour;

In the van was, loud as thunder, the din of targets.

The envious, the fickle, and the base,

Would he tear and pierce with halberts;

From an elevated position he slew, with a blade,

In iron affliction, their steel-clad commander;

He subdued the Mordei that owed him homage;

Before Erthai even an army groaned.

XV.

The people will utter sighs; long has been their grief on account of the warriors’ absence;

There will be a dominion without a sovereign, and a smoking land.

The sons of Godebog, an upright clan,

Bore the furrower on a long bier.

Miserable was the fate, though just the necessity,

Decreed for Tudvwlch and Cyvwlch the Tall;

Together they drank the bright mead by the light of torches,

Though pleasant to the taste, it proved a lasting foe.

XVI.

Before, above the splendid fort of Eching he shewed a frowning aspect;

Whilst young and forward men composed his retinue;

Before, on the Bludwe, would the horn cheer his heart,

Making all the Mordei full of joy;

Before, his beverage would be braggett;

Before, he displayed the grandeur of gold and rich purple;

Before, pampered steeds would bear him safe away,

Even Gwarthlev, who deserved a comely name;

Before, the victorious chief would turn aside the ebbing tide;

His command was ever to go forward, loth was he to skulk.

XVII.

And now the early leader,

The sun, is about to ascend,

Sovereign of the revolving lights,

In the heaven of Britain’s isle.

Direful was the flight before the shaking

Of the shield of the pursuing victor;

Bright was the horn

In the hall of Eiddin;

With pomp was he bidden

To the feast of intoxicating mead;

He drank the beverage of wine,

At the meeting of reapers;

He drank transparent wine,

With a battle-daring purpose.

The reapers sang of war,

War with the shining wing;

The minstrels sang of war,

Of harnessed war,

Of winged war.

No shield was unexpanded

In the conflict of spears;

Of equal age they fell

In the struggle of battle.

Unshaken in the tumult,

Without dishonour did he retaliate on the foe;

Buried was whoever he willed,

Ere the grave of the gigantic Gwrveling

Itself became a green sward.

XVIII.

The complement of the surrounding country

Were, three forward chiefs of the Novantae;

Five battalions of five hundred men each;

Three levies of three hundred each;

Three hundred knights of battle

From Eiddin, arrayed in golden armour;

Three loricated hosts,

With three kings wearing the golden torques;

Three bold knights,

With three hundred of equal quality;

Three of the same order, mutually jealous,

Bitterly would they chase the foe,

Three dreadful in the toil;

They would kill a lion flat as lead.

There was in the war a collection of gold.

Three sovereigns of the people

Came from amongst the Brython,

Cynrig and Cynon

And Cynrain from Aeron,

To greet the ashen lances

Of the men who dropped from Deivyr.

Came there from the Brython,

A better man than Cynon,

Who proved a serpent to his sullen foes?

XIX.

I drank of the wine and the mead of the Mordei;

Great was the quantity of spears,

In the assembly of the warriors;

He was solemnising a banquet for the eagle.

When Cydywal hurried forth to battle, he raised

The shout with the green dawn, and dealt out tribulation,

And splintered shields about the ground he left,

And darts of awful tearing did he hew down;

In the battle, the foremost in the van he wounded.

The son of Syvno, the astronomer, knew,

That he who sold his life,

In the face of warning,

With sharpened blades would slaughter,

But would himself be slain by spears and crosses.

According to the compact, he meditated a convenient attack,

And would boast of a pile of carcases

Of gallant men of toil,

Whom in the upper part of Gwynedd he pierced.

XX.

I drank of the wine and the mead of the Mordei,

And because I drank, I fell by the edge of a gleaming sword,

Not without desiring a hero’s prowess;

And when all fell, You also fell.

Thus when the issue comes, it were well not to have sinned.

Present, in his thrusting course, showed a bold and mighty arm.

XXI.

The heroes who marched to Cattraeth were renowned,

Wine and mead out of golden goblets was their beverage,

That year was to them one of exalted solemnity,

Three hundred and sixty-three chieftains, wearing the golden torques;

Of those who hurried forth after the excess of revelling,

But three escaped by valour from the funeral fosse,

The two war-dogs of Aeron, and Cynon the dauntless,

And myself, from the spilling of blood, the reward of my candid song.

XXII.

My friend in real distress, we should have been by none disturbed,

Had not the white-bannered commander led forth his army;

We should not have been separated in the hall from the banquet of mead,

Had he not laid waste our convenient groves;

He crept into the martial field, he crept into our families.

The Gododin relates how that, after the fight in the fosse,

When we had no dwellings, none were more destitute.

XXIII.

Scattered, broken, motionless is the weapon,

That used to penetrate through the great horde, the numerous

horde of the Lloegrians.

Shields were strewn on the sea coast, shields in the battle of lances;

Men were reduced to ashes,

And women rendered widows,

Before his death.

O Graid, son of Hoewgi,

With thy spears

Did you cause an effusion of blood.

XXIV.

There was the hero, with both his shoulders covered,

By a variegated shield, and possessing the swiftness of a warlike steed;

There was a noise in the mount of slaughter, there was fire,

Impetuous were the lances, there was a sunny gleam,

There was food for ravens, the raven there did triumph,

And before he would let them go free,

With the morning dew, like the eagle in his glad course,

He scattered them on either side, and like a billow overwhelmed them in front.

The Bards of the world judge those to be men of valour,

Whose counsels are not divulged to slaves.

The spears in the hands of the warriors were causing devastation;

And ere was interred under the swan-white steed,

One who had been energetic in his commands,

His gore had thoroughly washed his armour:

Such was Buddvan, the son of Bleiddvan the Bold.

XXV.

It were wrong not to record his magnificent feat;

He would not leave an open gap, through cowardice;

The benefit of Britain’s minstrels never quitted his court

Upon the calends of January; according to his design,

His land should not be ploughed, though it might become wild;

He was a mighty dragon of indignant disposition;

A commander in the bloody field, after the feast of wine,

Was Gwenabwy the son of Gwen, in the strife of Cattraeth.

XXVI.

True it was, as the songs relate,

No one’s steeds overtook Marchleu;

The lances hurled by the commanding earl,

In his prancing career, strewed a thick path;

As he had been reared for slaughter by the aid of my mother,

Furious was the stroke of his sword whilst lending support to others;

Ashen shafts were scattered from the grasp of his hand,

Above the narrow summit of the solemn pile,

The place where one caused the smoke to ascend;

He would slaughter with the blade, whilst his arms were full of furze;

As when a reaping comes in the interval of fine weather,

Would Marchleu make the blood to flow.

XXVII.

Lower down was sent from the southern region,

One whose conduct resembled the flowing sea;

He was full of modesty and gentleness,

When allowed to quaff the mead:

But along the rampart to Offer, even to the point of Maddeu,

Enraged, he was glutted with carnage, and scattering, with desolation;

His sword resounded on the heads of mothers;

He was an ardent spirit, praise be to him, the son of Gwyddneu.

XXVIII.

Caredig, lovely is his fame;

He would protect and guard his ensign,

Gentle, lowly, calm, before the day arrived

When he the pomp of war should learn;

When comes the appointed time of the friend of song,

May he recognise his home in the heavenly region.

XXIX.

Ceredig, amiable leader,

A wrestler in the impetuous fight;

His golden shield dazzled the field of battle,

His lances, when darted, were shivered into splinters,

And the stroke of his sword was fierce and penetrating;

Like a hero would he maintain his post.

Before he received the affliction of earth, before the fatal blow,

He had fulfilled his duty in guarding his station.

May he find a complete reception

With the Trinity in perfect Unity.

XXX.

When Caradawg rushed into battle,

It was like the tearing onset of the woodland boar;

Bull of the army in the mangling fight,

He allured the wild dogs by the action of his hand;

My witnesses are Owain the son of Eulat,

And Gwrien, and Gwynn, and Gwriad;

But from Cattraeth, and its work of carnage,

From the hill of Hydwn, ere it was gained,

After the clear mead was put into his hand,

He saw no more the hill of his father.

XXXI.

The warriors marched with speed, together they bounded onward;

Short lived were they, – they had become drunk over the distilled mead.

The retinue of Mynyddawg, renowned in the hour of need;

Their life was the price of their banquet of mead.

Caradawg, and Madawg, Pyll, and Ieuan,

Gwgawn, and Gwiawn, Gwynn and Cynvan,

Peredur with steel arms, Gwawrddur, and Aeddan;

A defence were they in the tumult, though with shattered shields;

When they were slain, they also slaughtered;

Not one to his native home returned.

XXXII.

The heroes marched with speed, together were they regaled

That year over mead, and mighty was their design;

How sad to mention them, how doleful their commemoration!

Poison is the home to which they have returned, they are not as sons by mothers nursed;

How long our vexation, how long our regret,

For the brave warriors, whose native place was the feast of wine!

Gwlyget of Gododin, having partaken of the speech inspiring

Banquet of Mynyddawg, performed illustrious deeds,

And paid a price for the purchase of the battle of Cattraeth.

XXXIII.

The heroes went to Cattraeth in marshalled array, and with shout of war,

With powerful steeds, and dark brown harness, and with shields,

With uplifted javelins, and piercing lances,

With glittering mail, and with swords.

He excelled, and penetrated through the host,

Five battalions fell before his blade;

Rhuvawn Hir, – he gave gold to the altar,

And gifts and precious stones to the minstrel.

XXXIV.

No hall was ever made so eminently perfect,

So great, so magnificent for the slaughter;

Morien procured and spread the fire,

And would not say but that Cynon should see the corpse

Of one harnessed, armed with a pike, and of a wide spread fame;

His sword resounded on the summit occupied by the camp,

Nor was he moved aside in his course by a ponderous stone from the wall of the fort,

And never again will the son of Peithan be moved.

XXXV.

No hall was ever made so impregnable;

Had not Morien been like Caradawg,

The forward Mynawg, with his heavy armour, would not have escaped;

Enraged, he was fiercer than the son of Pherawg,

Stout his hand, and, mounted on his steed, he dealt out flames upon the retreating foe.

Terrible in the city was the cry of the timid multitude,

The van of the army of Gododin was scattered;

His buckler was winged with fire for the slaughter;

In the day of his wrath he was nimble – a destructive retaliator;

The dependants of Mynyddawg deserved their horns of mead.

XXXVI.

No hall was ever made so immoveable

As that of Cynon with the gentle breast, sovereign of the saints;

He sat no longer on his elevated throne,

Whom he pierced were not pierced again,

Keen was the point of his lance,

It perforated the enamelled armour, it penetrated through the troops;

Swift in the van were his horses, in front they tore along;

In the day of his anger blasting was his blade,

When Cynon rushed into battle with the green dawn.

XXXVII.

A grievous descent was made upon his native territory;

He suffered an encroachment – he fixed a limit;

His spear forcibly pushed the laughing chiefs of war;

Even as far as Ephyd reached the valour of the forward Elphin:

The furze was kindled by the ardent spirit, the bull of conflict.

XXXVIII.

A grievous descent was made upon his native territory,

The price of mead in the hall, and the feast of wine;

His blades were scattered about between the two hosts;

Illustrious was the knight in front of Gododin;

The furze was kindled by the ardent spirit, the bull of conflict.

XXXIX.

A grievous descent was made in front of the extended riches,

But the army turned aside, with trailing shields,

And those shields were shivered before the herd of the roaring Beli.

A dwarf from the bloody field hastened to the fence;

And on our side there came a hoary headed man, our chief counsellor,

Mounted on a prancing piebald steed, and wearing the golden chain.

The Boar proposed a compact in front of the course – the great plotter;

Right worthy was the shout of our refusal,

And we cried “Let heaven be our protection,

Let his compact be that he should be prostrated by the spear in battle,

Our warriors, in respect of their far-famed fosse,

Would not quarrel if a host were there to press the ground.”

XL.

For the piercing of the skilful and most learned man,

For the fair corpse which fell prostrate on the ground,

For the cutting of his hair from his head,

For Gwydien, the eagle of the air,

Did Gwyddwg bring protection to the field,

Resembling and honouring his master.

Morien of the blessed song, brought protection

To the ruined hall, and cleft the heads

Of the first in youth, in strength, and in old age.

Equal to three men, though a maid, was Bradwen;

Equal to twelve was Gwenabwy, the son of Gwen.

XLI.

For the piercing of the skilful and most learned woman,

Her servant bore a shield in the action,

And with energy his sword fell upon the heads of the foe;

In Lloegyr the churls cut their way before the chieftain.

He who grasps the mane of a wolf, without a club

In his hand, will have it gorgeously emblazoned on his robe.

In the engagement of wrath and carnage,

Bradwen perished, – she did not escape.

XLII.

Carcases of gold mailed warriors lay upon the city walls;

None of the houses or cities of Christians was any longer actively engaged in war;

But one feeble man, with his shouts, kept aloof The roving birds;

Truly Syll of Virein reports that there were more

That had chanced to come from Llwy,

From around the inlet of the flood;

He reports that there were more,

At the hour of mattins,

Than the morning breeze could well support.

XLIII.

When you, famous conqueror!

Were protecting the ear of corn in the uplands,

Deservedly were we said to run like marked men;

The entrance to Din Drei was not guarded,

There was a mountain with riches for those who should approach it,

And there was a city for the army that should venture to enter;

But Gwynwydd’s name was not heard where his person was not seen.

XLIV.

Though there be a hundred men in one house,

I know the cares of war,

The chief of the men must pay the contribution.

LXV.

I am not headstrong and petulant,

I will not avenge myself on him who drives me on,

I will not laugh in derision;

This particle shall go under foot.

My limbs are racked,

And I am loaded,

In the subterranean house;

An iron chain.

Passes over my two knees;

Yet of the mead and of the horn,

And of the host of Cattraeth,

I Aneurin will sing

What is known to Taliesin,

Who communicates to me his thoughts,

Or a strain of Gododin,

Before the dawn of bright day.

XLVI.

The chief exploit of the North did the hero accomplish,

Of a gentle breast, a more liberal lord could not be seen,

Earth does not support, nor has mother borne

Such an illustrious, powerful, steel clad warrior;

By the force of his gleaming sword he protected me,

From the cruel subterranean prison he brought me out,

From the chamber of death, from a hostile region;

Such was Ceneu, son of Llywarch, energetic and bold.

XLVII.

He would not bear the reproach of a congress,

Senyllt, with his vessels full of mead; –

His sword rang for deeds of violence,

He shouted and bounded with aid for the war,

And with his arm proved a comprehensive support,

Against the armies of Gododin and Bryneich.

Booths for the horses were prepared in the hall,

There was streaming gore, and dark brown harness,

And from his hand issued a thread of gleam;

Like a hunter shooting with the bow

Was Gwen; and the attacking parties mutually pushed each other,

Friend and foe by turns;

The warriors did not cut their way to flee,

But were the generous defenders of every region.

XLVIII.

To Llech Leucu, the land of Lleu, and Lleudvre,

To the course of Gododin,

And to the course of Ragno, close at hand,

Even that hand which directed the splendour of battle,

With the branch of Caerwys,

Before it was shattered

By the season of the storm, – by the storm of the season,

To form a rank against a hundred thousand men,

Coming from Dindovydd,

In the region of Dyvneint,

Deeply did they design,

Sharply did they pierce,

Wholly did they chant,

Even the army with the battered shields;

And before the bull of conflict,

The hostile van was broken.

XLIX.

The foes have in sorrow greatly trembled,

Since the battle of most active tumult,

At the border of Ban Carw;

Round the border of Ban Carw

The fingers of Brych were hurt by the shaft of a spear.

In defence of Pwyll, of Disteir and Distar,

In defence of Pwyll, of Rodri, and of Rhychwardd,

A stout bow was spent by Rhys in Rhiwdrech;

They that were not bold would not attain their purpose;

None escaped that was once overtaken and pierced.

Not meetly was his buckler pierced

Upon the flank of his steed;

Not meetly did he mount

His long legged, slender, grey charger;

Dark was his shaft, dark,

Darker was his saddle;

Thy hero is in a cell,

Gnawing the shoulder of a buck,

May his hand triumph,

But far be the shoulder of venison.

LI.

It is well that Adonwy came to the support of Gwen;

Bradwen abandoned the foaming brine,

And fought, slaughtered, and burned, though Morien

She did not surpass in martial deeds.

You did not regard the rear or the van

Of the towering, unhelmetted presence;

You did not observe the great swelling sea of knights,

That would mangle, and grant no shelter to the Saxons.

LII.

Gododin! in respect of you will I demand

The dales beyond the ridge of Drum Essyd;

The slave, greedy of wealth, cannot control himself;

By the counsel of thy son, let thy valour shine forth.

The place appointed for the conference

Was not mean, in front of Llanveithin;

From twilight to twilight he revelled;

Splendid and full was the purple of the pilgrim;

He killed the defenceless, the delight of the bulwark of toil,

His inseparable companion, whose voice was like that of Aneurin.

LIII.

Together arise the foremost fighting warriors,

And in a body march to Cattraeth, with noise and eager speed;

The effects of the mead in the hall, and of the beverage of wine.

Blades were scattered between the two armies

By an illustrious knight, in front of Gododin.

Furze was set on fire by the ardent spirit, the bull of battle.

LIV.

Together arise the expert warriors,

And the stranger, the man with the crimson robe, pursue;

The encampment is broken down by the gorgeous pilgrim,

Where the young deer were in full melody.

Amongst the spears of Brych you could see no rods;

With the base, the worthy can have no concord;

Morial in pursuit will not countenance their dishonourable deeds,

With his steel blade ready for the effusion of blood.

LV.

Together arise the associated warriors,

Strangers to the country, their deeds shall be proclaimed;

There was slaughtering with axes and blades,

And there was raising large cairns over the heroes of toil.

LVI.

The experienced warriors met together,

And all with one accord sallied forth;

Short were their lives, long is the grief of those who loved them;

Seven times their number of Lloegrians had they slain;

After the conflict, their wives raised a scream;

And many a mother has the tear on her eyelash.

LVII.

No hall was ever made so faultless;

Nor was there a lion so generous, a majestic lion on the path, so kind

As Cynon of the gentle breast, the most comely lord.

The fame of the city extends to the remotest parts;

It was the staying shelter of the army, the benefit of flowing melody.

Of those whom I have seen, or shall hereafter see

On earth, engaged in arms, the battle cry, and war, the most heroic was he,

Who slew the mounted ravagers with the keenest blade;

Like rushes did they fall before his hand.

O son of Clydno, of lasting fame! I will sing to you

A song of praise, without beginning, without end.

LVIII.

After the feast of wine and the banquet of mead,

Enriched with the first fruits of slaughter,

The mother of Spoliation,

Was the energetic Eidol;

He honoured the mount of the van,

In the presence of Victory.

The hovering ravens,

Ascend in the sky;

The foremost spearmen around him thicken,

Like a crop of green barley,

Without the semblance of a retreat.

Warriors in wonder shake their javelins,

With pouting and pallid lips,

Caused by the keenness of the destructive sword;

From the front of the banquet, deprived of sleep

They vigorously spring forth, upon the awaking

Of the mother of the Lance, the leader of the din.

LIX.

From the feast of wine and the banquet of mead, they marched

To the strife of mail-clad warriors;

I know no tale of slaughter which records

So complete a destruction.

Before Cattraeth loquacious was the host;

But of the retinue of Mynyddawg, greatly to be deplored,

Out of three hundred men, only one returned.

LX.

From the feast of wine and the banquet of mead, with speed they marched,

Men renowned in difficulty, prodigal of their lives;

In fairest order round the food they together feasted;

Wine and mead and tribute they enjoyed.

From the retinue of Mynyddawg ruin has come to me;

And I have lost my general and my true friends.

Of the regal army of three hundred men that hastened to Cattraeth,

Alas! none have returned, save one alone.

LXI.

Impetuous as a ball, in the combat of spears, was Present,

And on his horse, would he be found, when not at home;

Yet illusive was the aid which he brought against Gododin;

For though apart from the wine and mead he was unrestrained,

He perished on the course;

And red stained warriors ride

The steeds of the knight, who had been in the morning bold.

LXII.

Angor, you who scattered the brave,

And pierced the sullen like a serpent;

You trampled upon those who in strong mail are clad,

In front of the army;

Like an enraged bear, guarding and assaulting,

You trampled upon the furious,

In the day of capture,

In the dank entrenchment;

Like the mangling dwarf,

Who in his fury prepared

A banquet for the birds,

In the tumultuous fight.

Cywir are you named from your righteous (enwir) deed;

Leader, director, and bulwark (mur) of the course of battle

Is Merin; and fortunately (mad) were you, Madien, born.

LXIII.

It is incumbent to sing of the complete acquisition

Of the warriors, who at Cattraeth made a tumultuous rout,

With confusion and blood, and treading and trampling;

Men of toil were trampled because of the contribution of mead in the horn;

But the carnage of the combatants

Cannot be described even by the cup of bounty,

After the excitement of the battle is over,

Notwithstanding so much splendid eloquence.

LXIV.

It is incumbent to sing of so much renown,

The tumult of fire, of thunder, and tempest,

The glorious gallantry of the knight of conflict.

The ruddy reapers of war are thy desire,

You man of toil, but the worthless you beheaded;

The whole length of the land shall hear of you in battle;

With your shield upon your shoulder, you do incessantly cleave

With your blade, until blood flows like bright wine out of glass vessels;

As the contribution for mead you claimed gold;

Wine nourished was Gwaednerth, the son of Llywri.

LXV.

It is incumbent to sing of the gay and illustrious tribes,

That, after the fatal fight, filled the river Aeron;

Their grasp satisfied the hunger of the eagles of Clwyd,

And prepared food for the birds of prey.

Of those who went to Cattraeth, wearers of the golden chain,

Upon the message of Mynyddawg, sovereign of the people,

There came not honourably in behalf of the Brython,

To Gododin, a hero from afar who was better than Cynon.

LXVI.

It is incumbent to sing of so many men of skill,

Who in their halls once led a merry life:

Ambitious and bold, all round the world would Eidol seek for melody;

But notwithstanding gold, and fine steeds, and intoxicating mead,

Only one man of these, who loved the world, returned,

Cynddilig of Aeron, one of the Novantian heroes.

LXVII.

It is incumbent to sing of the gay and illustrious tribes,

That went upon the message of Mynyddawg, sovereign of the people,

And the daughter of Eudav the Tall, of a faultless gait,

Apparelled in her purple robes, thoroughly and truly splendid.

LXVIII.

The soldiers celebrated the praise of the Holy One,

And in their presence was kindled a fire that raged on high.

On Tuesday, they put on their dark-brown garments;

On Wednesday, they purified their enamelled armour;

On Thursday, their destruction was certain;

On Friday, was brought carnage all around;

On Saturday, their joint labour was useless;

On Sunday, their blades assumed a ruddy hue;

On Monday was seen a pool knee deep of blood.

The Gododin relates that after the toil,

Before the tents of Madog, when he returned,

Only one man in a hundred with him came.

LXIX.

At the early dawn of morn,

There was a battle at the fall of the river, in front of the course;

The pass and the knoll were pervaded with fire;

Like a boar did you lead to the mount;

The wealth of the hill, and the place,

And the dark brown hawks were stained with gore.

LXX.

Quickly rising, in a moment of time,

After kindling a fire at the confluence, in front of the fence,

After leading his men in close array,

In front of a hundred he pierces the foremost.

Sad it was that you should have made a pool of blood,

As if you but drank mead in the midst of laughter;

But it was brave of you to slay the little man,

With the fierce and impetuous stroke of the sword;

For like the unrestrained ocean had the foe put to death

A man, who would otherwise have been in rank his equal.

LXXI.

He fell headlong down the precipice,

And the bushes supported not his noble head;

It was a violation of privilege to kill him on the breach,

It was a primary law that Owain should ascend upon the course,

And extend before the onset the branch of peace,

And that he should pursue the study of meet and learned strains.

Excellent man, the assuager of tumult and battle,

Whose very grasp dreaded a sword,

And who bore in his hand an empty corslet.

O sovereign, dispense rewards

Out of his earthly shrine.

LXXII.

Eidol, with frigid blood and pale complexion,

Spreading carnage, when the maid was supreme in judgment;

Owner of horses and strong trappings,

And transparent shields,

Instantaneously makes an onset, – ascending and descending.

LXXIII.

The leader of war with eagerness conducts the battle,

Mallet of the land, he loved the mighty reapers;

Stout youth, the freshness of his form was stained with blood,

His accoutrements resounded, his chargers made a clang;

His cheeks are covered with armour,

And thus, image of death, he scatters desolation in the toil;

In the first onset, his lances penetrate the targets,

And a track of surrounding light is made by the aim of the darting of his spears.

LXXIV.

The saints exert their courage, for the destruction of thy retreat,

And the cellar, which contained, and where was brewed

The mead, that sweet ensnarer.

With the dawn does Gwrys make the battle clash;

Fair gift, – marshal of the Lloegrian tribes;

Penance he inflicts until repentance ensues;

May the dependants of Gwynedd hear of his renown;

With his ashen shaft, he pierces to the grave;

Pike of the conflict of Gwynedd,

Bull of the host, oppressor of the battle of princes;

Though you have kindled the land before you fall,

At the extreme boundary of Gododin will be your grave.

LXXV.

Involved in vapours was the man accustomed to armies,

High minded, bitter handed leader of the forces;

He was expert, and ardent, and stately,

Though at the social banquet he was not harsh.

They removed and possessed his valuable treasures,

And not the image of a thing for the benefit of the region was left.

LXXVI.

We are called! The sea and the borders are in conflict;

Spears are mutually darting, spears all equally destructive;

Impelled are sharp weapons of iron, gashing is the blade,

And with a clang the sock descends upon the pate;

A successful warrior was Fflamddwr against the enemy.

LXXVII.

He supported martial steeds and harness of war;

Drenched with gore, on the red-stained field of Cattraeth,

The foremost shaft in the host is held by the consumer of forts,

The brave dog of battle, upon the towering hill.

We are called to the gleaming post of assault,

By the beckoning hand of Heiddyn, the ironclad chief.

LXXVIII.

The sovereign, who is celebrated in the Gododin,

The sovereign, for whom our eye-lids weep,

From the raging flame of Eiddyn turned not aside;

He stationed men of firmness in command,

And the thick covering guard he placed in the van,

And vigorously he descended upon the scattered foe;

In that he had revelled, he likewise sustained the main weight;

Of the retinue of Mynyddawg, none escaped,

Save one man by slow steps, thoroughly weakened, and tottering every way.

LXXIX.

Having sustained a loss, Moried bore no shield,

But traversed the strand to set the ground on fire;

Firmly he grasped in his hand a blue blade,

And a shaft ponderous as the chief priest’s crozier;

He rode a grey stately headed charger,

And beneath his blade there was a dreadful fall of slaughter;

When overpowered he fled not from the battle, –

Even he who poured out to us the famous mead, that sweet ensnarer.

LXXX.

I beheld the array from the highland of Adowyn,

And the sacrifice brought down to the omen fire;

I saw what was usual, a continual running towards the town,

And the men of Nwython inflicting sharp wounds;

I saw warriors in complete order approaching with a shout,

And the head of Dyvnwal Vrych by ravens devoured.

LXXXI.

Blessed Conqueror, of temper mild, the strength of his people,

With his blue streamers displayed towards the sea-roving foes.

Brave is he on the waters, most numerous his host;

Manly his bosom, loud his shout in the charge of arms.

Usual was it for him to make a descent before nine armaments,

With propulsive strokes, in the face of blood and of the country.

I love thy victorious throne, which teemed with harmonious strains.

O Cynddilig of Aeron, you lion’s whelp.

LXXXII.

I could wish to have been the first to shed my blood in Cattraeth,

As the price of the mead and beverage of wine in the hall;

I could wish to have been hurt by the blade of the sword,

Ere he was slain on the green plain of Uphin.

I loved the son of renown, who sustained the bloody fight,

And made his sword descend upon the violent.

Can a tale of valour be related before Gododin?

In which the son of Ceidiaw has not his fame as a man of war?

LXXXIII.

Sad it is for me, after all our toil,

To suffer the pang of death through indiscretion;

And doubly grievous and sad for me to see

Our men falling headlong to the ground,

Breathing the lengthened sigh, and covered with reproaches.

After the strenuous warriors have extended their country’s bounds,

Rhuvawn and Gwgawn, Gwiawn and Gwlyged,

Men at their post most gallant, valiant in difficulties,

May their souls, now that their conflict is ended,

Be received into the heavenly region, the abode of tranquillity.

LXXXIV.

Tres repelled the foe through a pool of gore,

And slaughtered like a hero such as asked no quarter,

With a sling and a spear; – he flung off his glass goblet

Containing the mead, and in defence of his sovereignty overthrew an army;

His counsel always prevailed, and the multitude would not speak before him,

Whilst those that were cowards were not left alive,

Before the onset of his battle-axes, and his sharpened sword,

And where his blue banner was seen to wave.

LXXXV.

There was a reinforcement of troops,

A supply of penetrating weapons,

And a host of men in the vanguard,

Presenting a menacing front;

In the days of strenuous exertion,

In the eager conflict,

They displayed their valour.

After the intoxication,

When they drank the mead,

Not one was spared.

Though Gorwylam

Was awhile successful,

When the retort was made, it broke the charge

Of the horses and men, by fate decreed.

LXXXVI.

When the host of Pryder arrives,

I anxiously count the bands,

Eleven complete battalions;

There is now a precipitate flight

Along the road of lamentation.

Affectionately have I deplored,

Dearly have I loved,

The illustrious dweller of the wood,

And the men of Argoed,

Accustomed, in the open plain,

To marshal their troops.

For the benefit of the chiefs, the lord of the war

Laid upon rough boards,

Midst a deluge of grief,

The viands for the banquet,

Where they caroused together; – he conducted us to a bright fire,

And to a carpet of white and fresh hide.

LXXXVII.

Geraint, from the South, did raise a shout,

And on the white water was his buckler pierced.

Lord of the spear, a gentle lord!

The praise of mountain and sea

Will he render our youth, even you, Geraint, will render them,

Who have been a generous commander.

LXXXVIII.

Instantaneously is his fame wafted on high;

His anchors from the scene of action cannot be restrained.

Unflinching eagle of the forward heroes,

He bore the toil, and brilliant was his zeal;

The fleetest coursers he outstripped in war,

But was quite a lamb when the wine from the goblet flowed.

Ere he reached the grassy tomb, and his cheeks became pale in death,

He presided over the banquet of mead, and honoured it with the generous horn.

LXXXIX.

Ruin he brought upon every fair region,

And a fettering valour he displayed;

The front of his shield was pierced.

Caso Hir, when roused to anger,

Defended Rhuvoniawg.

A second time they challenged, and were crushed

By the warlike steeds with gory trappings.

His martial nobles formed a firm array,

And the field was reddened, when he was greatly affronted;

Severe in the conflict, with blades he slaughtered,

And sad news from the war he brought,

Which he wove into a song for the calends of January.

Adan, the son of Ervai, there did pierce,

Adan pierced the haughty boar;

Even he, who was like a dame, a virgin, and a hero.

And when the youth thus possessed the properties of a king,

He, stained with blood, brought deliverance to Gwynedd,

Ere the turf was laid upon the gentle face

Of the generous dead; but now undisturbed

In regard to fame and gain, he reposes in the grave,

Namely, Garthwys Hir, from the land of Rhuvoniawg.

XC.

The garment of Tinogad, which was of divers colours,

Made of the speckled skins of young wolves,

His jerks and starts and juggling motion,

I fain would lampoon, they were lampooned by his eight slaves.

When thy father went out to hunt,

With his pole upon his shoulder, and his provisions in his hand,

He would call to his dogs that were of equal size,

Catch it, catch it – seize it, seize it – bring it, bring it;

He would kill a fish in his coracle,

Even as a princely lion in his fury kills his prey;

When thy father climbed up the mountain,

He brought back the head of a roebuck, the head of a wild boar,

the head of a stag,

The head of a grey moor hen from the hill,

The head of a fish from the falls of the Derwent;

As many as thy father could reach with his flesh piercer,

Of wild boars, lions, and foxes,

It was certain death to them all, unless they proved too nimble.

XCI.

Were he to narrow my dominions through extortion,

The arrival of no enemy would prove to me more formidable.

The man has not been nursed who could be more festive in the hall

Than he, or steadier in the field of battle.

On the ford of Penclwyd Pennant were his steeds;

Far spread was his fame, compact was his armour;

And ere the long grass covered him beneath the sod,

He, the only son of Morarch, poured out the horns of mead.

XCII.

I saw the array from the highland of Adoen,

Carrying the sacrifice to the omen fire;

I saw the two, who from their station quickly and heavily fell;

By the commands of Nwython, greatly were they afflicted.

I saw the warriors, who had made the great breach, approaching with the dawn,

And the head of Dyvnwal Vrych by ravens devoured.

XCIII.

Gododin, in respect of you will I demand,

In the presence of a hundred that are named with deeds of valour,

And of Gwarthan the son of Dwywau, of gallant bravery,

Let Tre Essyd be ours in one entire dale.

Since the stabbing of the delight of the bulwark of battle,

Since Aneurin was under ground,

My voice has not been divorced from Gododin.

XCIV.

Echo speaks of the formidable and dragon-like weapons,

And of the fair game, which was played in front of the unclaimed course of Gododin.

Profusely did he bring a supply of wine into the tents, for the benefit of the natives,

In the season of the storm, as long as it trickled from the vessels,

And the army, a well nourished host, continued to drop in.

A splendid troop of warriors, successful against a hundred men,

Is led from Dindovydd in Dyvneint.

Before Doleu in battle, worn out were the shields, and battered the helmets.

XCV.

He brought ruin upon every fair region,

And a fettering valour he displayed;

The front of his shield was pierced;

Caso Hir, arrayed in pomp,

Protected Rhuvoniawg.

A second time were they wounded, and crushed

By his warlike steeds, and gore-stained were their coffins.

Always immoveable, always liberal of aid,

Would be his gallant nobles, when roused to anger.

Severe in the conflict, with blades he slaughtered;

And agonising news from the war he brought,

Which he wove into a hundred songs for the calends of January.

Adan the son of Urvei there did pierce,

Adan pierced the haughty boar,

Even he who was like Urien, a maid, and a hero.

And as the youth was thus endowed with the properties of a king,

Lord of Gwynedd, and of the blood of Cilydd, he proved our deliverer;

Ere the turf was laid upon the face of the generous dead,

Wisely did he seek the field, with praise and high sounding fame:

The grave of Gorthyn Hir is seen from the highlands of Rhuvoniawg.

XCVI.

On account of the piercing of the skilful and most learned man,

On account of the fair corpse, which fell prostrate upon the ground,

Thrice six officers judged the atrocious deed at the hour of mattins,

And Morien lifted up again his ancient lance,

And, roaring, stretched out death

Towards the warriors, the Gwyddyl, and the Prydyn;

Whilst towards the lovely, slender, blood-stained body of Gwen,

Sighed Gwenabwy, the only son of Gwen.

XCVII.

On account of the afflicting of the skilful and most learned man

Grievously and deeply, when he fell prostrate upon the ground,

The banner was pompously unfurled, and borne by a man in the flank;

A tumultuous scene was beheld in Eiddin, and on the battle field.

The grasp of his hand performed deeds of valour

Upon the Cynt, the Gwyddyl, and the Prydyn.

He who meddles with the mane of a wolf, without a club

In his hand, will have it gorgeously emblazoned on his robe.

Fain would I sing, – “would that Morien had not died.”

I sigh for Gwenabwy, the son of Gwen.

600 – 619. Ethelbert, Redwald

600 – 619

St Gregory I The Great. Pope 590-604

600. Cronicum Scotorum.

Repose of St. Cainnech of Achad. The slaying of Suibne son of Colmán Mór king of Mide by Aed Sláine in Brí Dam on the Suaine.

600. Annals of the Four Masters St. Comhgall, of Beannchair, abbot of Beannchair Uladh, died on the tenth day of the month of May, after having been thirty years, three months, and ten days, in the abbacy of Bangor. His age was ninety years. St. Colman, son of Leinin, died.

St. Laisren, abbot of Menadroichit, died. After Aedh Slaine, son of Diarmaid, and Colman Rimidh, son of Baedan, son of Muircheartach, son of Muireadhach, son of Eoghan, son of Niall, had been six years in the sovereignty of Ireland, Colman Rimidh was slain by Lochan Dilmana, and Aedh Slaine was slain by Conall Guithbhinn, son of Suibhne, son of Colman Mor, or Beg, son of Diarmaid, son of Cearthall, at Loch Semhedidhe. Aedh Gustan, the foster brother of Conall, and Baethghal Bile, wounded him. Of their deaths was said:

What is reign, what is law,

what is power over chieftains?

Behold, Colman Rimhidh the King!

Lochan Dilmana slew him!

It was not a wise counsel

for the youths of Tuath Tuirbhe!

Conall slew Aedh Slaine,

Aedh Slaine slew Suibhne.

Conall, son of Suibhne, slew Aedh Roin, chief of Ui Failghe, at Faithche Mic Mencnain, and Aedh Buidhe, chief of Ui Maine, on the same day on which Aedh Slaine was slain by him. To commemorate these events was said:

Great was the bloody condition

of all the Irish kings,—

Aedh Slaine of the valorous host,

Aedh Roin, and Aedh Buidhe.

Cui Gan Mathair, King of Munster, died. Conall Cu, son of Aedh, son of Ainmire, died.

600. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of St Cainnech, and the battle of the Saxons in which Aedán was vanquished. The slaying of Suibne son of Colmán Mór son of Diarmait Derg son of Fergus Cerrbél son of Conall of Cremthann son of Niall Naígiallach by Aed Sláine in Brí Dam in the Suaine, i.e. a stream. An earthquake in Bairche.

600. Annals of Inisfallen. The battle of Sliab Cua gained against Mumu by the Connachta. Death of the son of Cumuscach, i.e. the plundering of the poetic company by Brandub, son of Eochu.

601. Annals of Inisfallen.

The slaying of Aed, son of Ainmire, by the Laigin. Baethíne rested in Christ in the 66th year of his age.

601. Annals of Ulster.

An earthquake in Bairche. Death of Brénainn son of Cairpre son of Feichéne. Thus, I have found in the book of Cuanu: The battle of Slemain and the battle of Cúil Caíl; and the repose of Comgall, and the death of Uatu son of Aed happened this year. Or this year, the repose of Colum Cille on Sunday night.

601. Cronicum Scotorum.

The blows of Brandub in Brega. Death of Brénainn son of Cairpre son of Féichéne i.e. king of Uí Maine, from whom Ráith Brénainn in Mag Aí is named.

601. Annales Cambriae.

The synod of Urbs Legionis.

Gregory died in Christ and also bishop David of Moni Iudeorum.

601. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Pope Gregory sent the pall to Archbishop Augustine in Britain, with very many learned doctors to assist him; and Bishop Paulinus converted Edwin, king of the Northumbrians, to baptism.

TRIADS REFERRING TO EDWIN

Three Quests that were obtained from Powys:
The first of them is the fetching of Myngan from Meigen to Llansilin, by nine the next morning, to receive privileges from Cadwallawn the Blessed, after the slaying of Ieuaf and Griffri; The second is the fetching of Griffri to Bryn Griffri before the following morning, to attack Edwin; The third is the fetching of Hywel son of Ieuaf to Ceredigiawn from the Rock of Gwynedd to fight with (on the side of?) Ieuaf and Iago in that battle.

Three Fettered War-Bands of the Islands of Britain:
The War-Band of Cadwallawn Long-Arm, who each one put the fetters of their horses on their (own) feet, when fighting with Serygei the Irishman at the Irishmens’ Rocks in Môn; And the second, the War-Band of Rhiwallawn son of Urien when fighting with the Saxons; And the third, the War-Band of Belyn of Llyn when fighting with Edwin at Bryn Edwin in Rhos.

Three Lively Steeds of the Island of Britain:
Gwineu Gwdwc Hir [Chestnut Long-neck] horse of Cei, and Grei hourse of Edwin, and Llwyd [Grey] horse of Alfer son of Maelgwn.

Three Defilements of the Severn:
Cadwallawn when he went to the Action of Digoll, and the forces of Cymry with him; and Edwin on the other side, and the forces of Lloegr with him. And then the Severn was defiled from its source to its mouth; The second, the gift of Golydan from Einiawn son of Bedd, king of Cornwall; And the third, Calam the horse of Iddon son of Ner from Maelgwn…

601. Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of Aedh Uairidhnach, son of Domhnall Ilchealgach, son of Muircheartach, son of Muireadhach, son of Eoghan, in the sovereignty of Ireland.St. Laisren son of Feradhach, abbot of Ia Coluim Cille, died on the 16th of September.

The battle of Slaibhre was gained by the Ui Neill over Bran Dubh, son Eochaidh, King of Leinster; and Bran Dubh, i.e. son of Eochaidh, was killed by the Airchinneach of Senboithe Sine, and his own tribe, as is said:

Saran Soebhdhearc, a guide indeed. Airchinneach of Seanboith Sine,

Was he, it is no falsehood without bright judgment, who killed Bran Dubh, son of Eochaidh.

A certain Leinsterman said the following:

Were it in the time of the son of Eochaidh that the northern had come,

From the battle which they gained, they would have been long panic driven;

If in a pillared house were the son of Eochaidh, son of Muireadhach,

I would not bring my full sack to a church

Colman, son of Fearadhach, chief of Osraighe Ossory, died.

Bede.

CHAP. XXXII.

How Pope Gregory sent letters and gifts to King Ethelbert. [601 A.D.]

The same blessed Pope Gregory, at the same time, sent a letter to King Ethelbert, with many gifts of divers sorts; being desirous to glorify the king with temporal honours, at the same. time that he rejoiced that through his own labour and zeal he had attained to the knowledge of heavenly glory. The copy of the said letter is as follows:

“To the most glorious lord, and his most excellent son, Ethelbert, king of the English, Bishop Gregory. Almighty God advances good men to the government of nations, that He may by their means bestow the gifts of His lovingkindness on those over whom they are placed. This we know to have come to pass in the English nation, over whom your Highness was placed, to the end, that by means of the blessings which are granted to you, heavenly benefits might also be conferred on your subjects. Therefore, my illustrious son, do you carefully guard the grace which you have received from the Divine goodness, and be eager to spread the Christian faith among the people under your rule; in all uprightness increase your zeal for their conversion; suppress the worship of idols; overthrow the structures of the temples; establish the manners of your subjects by much cleanness of life, exhorting, terrifying, winning, correcting, and showing forth an example of good works, that you may obtain your reward in Heaven from Him, Whose Name and the knowledge of Whom you have spread abroad upon earth. For He, whose honour you seek and maintain among the nations, will also render your Majesty’s name more glorious even to posterity.

“For even so the most pious emperor, Constantine, of old, recovering the Roman commonwealth from the false worship of idols, brought it with himself into subjection to Almighty God, our Lord Jesus Christ, and turned to Him with his whole mind, together with the nations under his rule. Whence it followed, that his praises transcended the fame of former princes; and he excelled his predecessors in renown as much as in good works. Now, therefore, let your Highness hasten to impart to the kings and peoples that are subject to you, the knowledge of one God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; that you may surpass the ancient kings of your nation in praise and merit, and while you cause the sins of others among your own subjects to be blotted out, become the more free from anxiety with regard to your own sins before the dread judgement of Almighty God.

“Willingly hear, devoutly perform, and studiously retain in your memory, whatsoever counsel shall be given you by our most reverend brother, Bishop Augustine, who is trained up in the monastic rule, full of the knowledge of Holy Scripture, and, by the help of God, endued with good works; for if you give ear to him when he speaks on behalf of Almighty God, the sooner will Almighty God hear his prayers for you. But if (which God forbid!) you slight his words, how shall Almighty God hear him on your behalf, when you neglect to hear him on behalf of God? Unite yourself, therefore, to him with all your mind, in the fervour of faith, and further his endeavours, by that virtue which God has given you, that He may make you partaker of His kingdom, Whose faith you cause to be received and maintained in your own.

“Besides, we would have your Highness know that, as we find in Holy Scripture from the words of the Almighty Lord, the end of this present world, and the kingdom of the saints, which will never come to an end, is at hand. But as the end of the world draws near, many things are about to come upon us which were not before, to wit, changes in the air, and terrors from heaven, and tempests out of the order of the seasons, wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes in divers places; which things will not, nevertheless, all happen in our days, but will all follow after our days. If, therefore, you perceive that any of these things come to pass in your country, let not your mind be in any way disturbed; for these signs of the end of the world are sent before, for this reason, that we may take heed to our souls, and be watchful for the hour of death, and may be found prepared with good works to meet our Judge. Thus much, my illustrious son, I have said in few words, with intent-that when the Christian faith is spread abroad in your kingdom, our discourse to you may also be more copious, and we may desire to say the more, as joy for the full conversion of your nation is increased in our mind.

“I have sent you some small gifts, which will not appear small to you, when received by you with the blessing of the blessed Apostle, Peter. May Almighty God, therefore, perfect in you His grace which He has begun, and prolong your life here through a course of many years, and in the fulness of time receive you into the congregation of the heavenly country. May the grace of God preserve you in safety, my most excellent lord and son.

“Given the 22nd day of June, in the nineteenth year of the reign of our most religious lord, Mauritius Tiberius Augustus, in the eighteenth year after his consulship, and the fourth indiction.”

602. Annals of the Four Master.s

The second year of Aedh. St. Sinell, Bishop of Magh Bile, died on the first day of October.

602. Cronicum Scotorum.

Comgall, abbot of Bennchor, rested in the 91st year of his age, and fiftieth year and 3rd month and 10th day of his abbacy; he rested on the 6th of the Ides of May. The battle of Slemain in which Colmán Rímid, king of Cenél nEógain, was victor, and Conall Cú, son of Aed son of Ainmire, escaped by flight. The battle of Cúil Cáil in which Fiachna son of Baetán was victor. Fiachna son of Demán fled. Death of Fogartach son of Aed.

602. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of Comgall of Bennchor. The battle of Slemain in which Colmán Rímid, king of Cenél nÉogain, was victor, and Conall Cú, son of Aed son of Ainmire, took flight or escaped by flight. The battle of Cúil Caíl in which Fiachna son of Demán took flight. Fiachna son of Báetán was victor. Death of Uatu son of Aed. The battle of Echros.

602. Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Ailithir, abbot of Cluain Moccu Nóis.

Bede.

CHAP. XXXIII.

How Augustine repaired the church of our Saviour, and built the monastery of the blessed Peter the Apostle; and concerning Peter the first abbot of the same.

Augustine having had his episcopal see granted him in the royal city, as has been said, recovered therein, with the support of the king, a church, which he was informed had been built of old by the faithful among the Romans, and consecrated it in the name of the Holy Saviour, our Divine Lord Jesus Christ, and there established a residence for himself and all his successors.’ He also built a monastery not far from the city to the eastward, in which, by his advice, Ethelbert erected from the foundation the church of the blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, and enriched it with divers gifts; wherein the bodies of the same Augustine, and of all the bishops of Canterbury, and of the kings of Kent, might be buried. Nevertheless, it was not Augustine himself who consecrated that church, but Laurentius, his successor.

The first abbot of that monastery was the priest Peter, who, being sent on a mission into Gaul, was drowned in a bay of the sea, which is called Amfleat, and committed to a humble tomb by the inhabitants of the place; but since it was the will of Almighty God to reveal his merits, a light, from Heaven was seen over his grave every night; till the neighbouring people who saw it, perceiving that he had been a holy man that was buried there, and inquiring who and whence he was, carried away the body, and interred it in the church, in the city of Boulogne, with the honour due to so great a person.

SBG St Dunawd.

Dunawd turned his arms against his own countrymen, the sons of Urien Rheged. The Picts took advantage of this disunion among the Britons, and drove Dunawd from his territory. He fled to Wales and placed himself, like his father, under the protection of Cyngen, son of Cadell Deyrnllwg, Prince of Powys, and embraced the religious life along with his sons Deiniol, Cynwyl and Gwarthan, and Cyngen granted them a site on the banks of the Dee in Flintshire, where they together founded the great monastery of Bangor Iscoed. Dunawd was abbot at the time of the second conference of the Welsh Bishops with Augustine. The first took place at Augustine’s Oak, circa 602.

SBG St Ufelwy.

In 602 or 603 Augustine of Canterbury sought a conference with the British bishops. The two parties met at Augustine’s Oak, on the borders of the Hwiccas and West Saxons. Bede implies that it was not merely bishops who were summoned, but the heads of the great schools or abbeys, and this is precisely what he would have done when he had discovered that the leaders and those exercising jurisdiction in the British Church were the abbots who were only occasionally bishops. The traditional list of those present at this first conference is contained in the lolo MSS. 4 ; but it is apocryphal. It gives seven bishops : 1, Hereford ; 2, Llandaff ; 3, Llanbadarn ; 4, Bangor ; 5, S. Asaph ; 6, Wig ; 7, Morganwg. That a Bishop sat in Hereford so early as 603 is not likely; and there was no see of Morganwg, or Wig. Ufelwy is supposed to have been the prelate from Llandaff who attended the conference. That he did so can hardly be doubted, as he was on the immediate confines, in fact on the debated and debatable ground in Ewyas and Erging; and if the conference took place at Aust, as has been supposed, then he was the nearest great abbot-bishop.

Ed. I think it more likely that Augustine travelled west along the Thames and perhaps Kennet before taking the Roman road to Bath. There he may have travelled down the Avon to Bristol, to the place now called Saint Augustines Cathedral. British Bishops may have travelled by sea from Wales and Cornwall, or down the Severn before being swept by the tide to Saint Augustines Cathedral in Bristol. The Welsh name for Bristol is Caer Oder, which I could translate as the frontier or meeting place.

603.Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of bishop Sillán. Annals of Inisfallen. Repose of Cainnech moccu Dálann.

603. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of Finntan moccu Echdach. The battle of Echros in Muiresc between Cenél Cairpri and Uí Fhiachrach Muirsce. Mael Cothaid, king of Uí Fhiachrach, was put to flight. Everything that has been set down under the following year I have found in the Book of Cuanu to have taken place in this. Sinell, bishop of Mag Bili, rested. The battle of Sliab Cua in Mumu.

603. Cronicum Scotorum.

Repose of Finntán of Cluain Eidnech. Sinell, bishop of Mag Bili, rested. The slaying of Colmán Rímid by a man of his own kindred who was called Lochán Dilmada.

Of what value kingship, of what value law. Of what value power over princes,

Since it is king Colmán the counter. Whom Lochan Dilmada has slain?

The slaying of Aed Sláine by Conall son of Suibne on the brink of Loch Semdid. Aed Gustan, foster-brother of Conall, and Baethgal Bile killed him. Hence was said:

The advice was no preventative. To the warriors north of Tuirbe;

Conall slew Aed Sláine. Aed Sláine slew Suibne.

The slaying of Aed Rón, king of Uí Failge, in Faithche meic Meccnaen on the same day in which Aed Sláine was slain. Aed Buide, king of Tebtha, and the king of Uí Maine i.e. Maine son of Niall, were killed in Bruiden da Coca by the same Conall.

Great was the red sorrow—Over the chieftains of Erinn all—

Aedh Slaine, with multitudes. Aedh Roin, Aedh Buidhe were slain.

Death of Conall son of Aed son of Ainmire.Cú cen Máthair, king of Mumu, died. Colmán son of Léníne rested. Lasrén of Min Drochait {Mendrochat?} rested. Mauricius dies.

Ed. See The Gododin above.

603. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

603. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Aethan, King of the Scots, fought against the Dalreods and against Ethelfrith, king of the North-humbrians, at Daegsanstane [Dawston?], and they slew almost all his army. There Theodbald, Ethelfrith’s brother, was slain with all his band. Since then no king of the Scots has dared to lead an army against this nation. Hering, the son of Hussa, led the enemy thither.

Bede.

CHAP. XXXIV.

How Ethelfrid, king of the Northumbrians, having vanquished the nations of the Scots, expelled them from the territories of the English. [603 A. D.]

At this time, the brave and ambitious king, Ethelfrid, governed the kingdom of the Northumbrians, and ravaged the Britons more than all the chiefs of the English, insomuch that he might be compared to Saul of old, king of the Israelites, save only in this, that he was ignorant of Divine religion. For he conquered more territories from the Britons than any other chieftain or king, either subduing the inhabitants and making them tributary, or driving them out and planting the English in their places. To him might justly be applied the saying of the patriarch blessing his son in the person of Saul, “Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf; in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil.” Hereupon, Aedan, king of the Scots that dwell in Britain, being alarmed by his success, came against him with a great and mighty army, but was defeated and fled with a few followers; for almost all his army was cut to pieces at a famous place, called Degsastan, that is, Degsa Stone. In which battle also Theodbald, brother to Ethelfrid, was killed, with almost all the forces he commanded. This war Ethelfrid brought to an end in the year of our Lord 603, the eleventh of his own reign, which lasted twenty-four years, and the first year of the reign of Phocas, who then was at the head of the Roman empire. From that time, no king of the Scots durst come into Britain to make war on the English to this day.

IN the meantime, Augustine, with the help of King Ethelbert, drew together to a conference the bishops and doctors of the nearest province of the Britons, at a place which is to this day called, in the English language, Augustine’s Ac, that is, Augustine’s Oak, on the borders of the Hwiccas and West Saxons; and began by brotherly admonitions to persuade them to preserve Catholic peace with him, and undertake the common labour of preaching the Gospel to the heathen for the Lord’s sake. For they did not keep Easter Sunday at the proper time, but from the fourteenth to the twentieth moon; which computation is contained in a cycle of eighty-four years. Besides, they did many other things which were opposed to the unity of the church. When, after a long disputation, they did not comply With the entreaties, exhortations, or rebukes of Augustine and his companions, but preferred their own traditions before all the Churches which are united in Christ throughout the world, the holy father, Augustine, put an end to this troublesome and tedious contention, saying, “Let us entreat God, who maketh men to be of one mind in His Father’s house, to vouchsafe, by signs from Heaven, to declare to us which tradition is to be followed; and by what path we are to strive to enter His kingdom. Let some sick man be brought, and let the faith and practice of him, by whose prayers he shall be healed, be looked upon as hallowed in God’s sight and such as should be adopted by all.” His adversaries unwillingly consenting, a blind man of the English race was brought, who having been presented to the British bishops, found no benefit or healing from their ministry; at length, Augustine, compelled by strict necessity, bowed his knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying that He would restore his lost sight to the blind man, and by the bodily enlightenment of one kindle the grace of spiritual light in the hearts of many of the faithful. Immediately the blind man received sight, and Augustine was proclaimed by all to be a true herald of the light from Heaven. The Britons then confessed that they perceived that it was the true way of righteousness which Augustine taught; but that they could not depart from their ancient customs without the consent and sanction of their people. They therefore desired that a second time a synod might be appointed, at which more of their number should be present.

This being decreed, there came, it is said, seven bishops of the Britons, and many men of great learning, particularly from their most celebrated monastery, which is called, in the English tongue, Bancornaburg, and over which the Abbot Dinoot is said to have presided at that time. They that were to go to the aforesaid council, be-took themselves first to a certain holy and discreet man, who was wont to lead the life of a hermit among them, to consult with him, whether they ought, at the preaching of Augustine, to forsake their traditions. He answered, “If he is a man of God, follow him.”— “How shall we know that?” said they. He replied, “Our Lord saith, Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart; if therefore, Augustine is meek and lowly of heart, it is to be believed that he bears the yoke of Christ himself, and offers it to you to bear. But, if he is harsh and proud, it is plain that he is not of God, nor are we to regard his words.” They said again, “And how shall we discern even this?” – “Do you contrive,” said the anchorite, “that he first arrive with his company at the place where the synod is to be held; and if at your approach he rises tip to you, hear him submissively, being assured that he is the servant of Christ; but if he despises you, and does not rise up to you, whereas you are more in number, let him also be despised by you.”

They did as he directed; and it happened, that as they approached, Augustine was sitting on a chair. When they perceived it, they were angry, and charging him with pride, set themselves to contradict all he said. He said to them, “Many things ye do which are contrary to our custom, or rather the custom of the universal Church, and yet, if you will comply with me in these three matters, to wit, to keep Easter at the due time; to fulfil the ministry of Baptism, by which we are born again to God, according to the custom of the holy Roman Apostolic Church; and to join with us in preaching the Word of God to the English nation, we will gladly suffer all the other things you do, though contrary to our customs.” They answered that they would do none of those things, nor receive him as their archbishop; for they said among themselves, “if he would not rise up to us now, how much more will he despise us, as of no account, if we begin to be under his subjection?” Then the man of God, Augustine, is said to have threatened them, that if they would not accept peace with their brethren, they should have war from their enemies; and, if they would not preach the way of life to the English nation, they should suffer at their hands the vengeance of death. All which, through the dispensation of the Divine judgement, fell out exactly as he had predicted.

For afterwards the warlike king of the English, Ethelfrid, of whom we have spoken, having raised a mighty army, made a very great slaughter of that heretical nation, at the city of Legions, (Chester) which by the English is called Legacaestir, but by the Britons more rightly Car-legion. Being about to give battle, he observed their priests, who were come together to offer up their prayers to God for the combatants, standing apart in a place of greater safety; he inquired who they were, and what they came together to do in that place. Most of them were of the monastery of Bangor, in which, it is said, there was so great a number of monks, that the monastery being divided into seven parts, with a superior set over each, none of those parts contained less than three hundred men, who all lived by the labour of their hands. Many of these, having observed a fast of three days, had come together along with others to pray at the aforesaid battle, having one Brocmail for their protector, to defend them, whilst they were intent upon their prayers, against the swords of the barbarians. King Ethelfrid being informed of the occasion of their coming, said; “If then they cry to their God against us, in truth, though they do not bear arms, yet they fight against us, because they assail us with their curses.” He, therefore, commanded them to be attacked first, and then destroyed the rest of the impious army, not without great loss of his own forces. About twelve hundred of those that came to pray are said to have been killed, and only fifty to have escaped by flight. Brocmail, turning his back with his men, at the first approach of the enemy, left those whom he ought to have defended unarmed and exposed to the swords of the assailants. Thus, was fulfilled the prophecy of the holy Bishop Augustine, though he himself had been long before taken up into the heavenly kingdom, that the heretics should feel the vengeance of temporal death also, because they had despised the offer of eternal salvation.

SBG St Oudoceus.

Into the Life of Oudoceus was thrust a statement, absolutely destitute of foundation, that he had gone to Canterbury and had tendered his submission to S. Augustine, and had received consecration from his hands.

SBG St Melyd.

Melyd was bishop of London, a man from the country of Rome.”By him is intended Mellitus, an abbot of Rome, who was sent, with Justus, and others, by Gregory to England in 601 to assist S. Augustine in his mission, by whom he was consecrated first bishop of London in 604. In 619 he become archbishop ofCanterbury, and died in 624.

Sabinian Pope 604-606

604. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Augustine consecrated two bishops, Mellitus and Justus. He sent Mellitus to preach baptism to the East-Saxons, whose king was called Sebert, son of Ricole, the sister of Ethelbert, and whom Ethelbert had there appointed king. And Ethelbert gave Mellitus a bishop’s see in London, and to Justus he gave Rochester, which is twenty-four miles from Canterbury.

604. Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Gregory of Rome. Annals of Inisfallen. Repose of Saint Sinech Annals of Inisfallen. Death of king Suibne, son of Colmán Mór. Repose of Senach abbot of Cluain Ferta Brénainn.

Bede.

IN the year of our Lord 604, Augustine, Archbishop of Britain, ordained two bishops, to wit, Mellitus and Justus; Mellitus to preach to the province of the East Saxons, who are divided from Kent by the river Thames, and border on the Eastern sea. Their metropolis is the city of London, which is situated on the bank of the aforesaid river, and is the mart of many nations resorting to it by sea and land. At that time, Sabert, nephew to Ethelbert through his sister Ricula, reigned over the nation, though he was under subjection to Ethelbert, who, as has been said above, had command over all the nations of the English as far as the river Humber. But when this province also received the word of truth, by the preaching of Mellitus, King Ethelbert built the church of St. Paul the Apostle, in the city of London, where he and his successors should have their episcopal see. As for Justus, Augustine ordained him bishop in Kent, at thc city of Dorubrevis, which the English call Hrofaescaestrae, from one that was formerly the chief man of it, called Hrof. It is about twenty-four miles distant from the city of Canterbury to the westward, and in it King Ethelbert dedicated a church to the blessed Apostle Andrew, and bestowed many gifts on the bishops of both those churches, as well as on the Bishop of Canterbury, adding lands and possessions for the use of those who were associated with the bishops.

After this, the beloved of God, our father Augustine, died, and his body was laid outside, close by the church of the blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, above spoken of, because it was not yet finished, nor consecrated, but as soon as it was consecrated, the body was brought in, and fittingly buried in the north chapel thereof; wherein also were interred the bodies of all the succeeding archbishops, except two only,

604. Annals of Ulster.

The slaying of Colmán Rímid son of Baetán Bríge son of Muirchertach Mac Erca by a man of his own kindred i.e. by one of his kindred called Lochán Dilmana.

Of what value kingship, of what value law, of what value power over princes

Since it is king Colmán the Counter whom Lochan Dithnadha has slain?

The slaying of Aed Sláine son of Diarmait Derg son of Fergus Cerrbél son of Conall of Cremthann son of Niall Naígiallach by Conall son of Suibne. They reigned together with equal power at Temair.

It was no time when counsel prevailed(?) For the warriors beyond Tuirbe:

Conall slew Áed of Sláine, Áed Sláine slew Suibne.

The slaying of Aed Rón, king of Uí Failge, in Faithche Meic Meccnaen on the brink of Loch Semdid on the same day on which Áed Sláine was slain. Aed Gustan, foster-brother of Conall, and Baethgal Bile, killed him. Hence was said:

The advice was no preventative to the warriors north of Tuirbe:

Conall slew Áed Sláine, Aed Sláine slew Suibne.

Aed Buide, king of Cenél Maine, died. Death of Conall Cú, son of Áed son of Ainmire. Cú cen Máthair died.

604. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fourth year of Aedh. Fiachra Caech, son of Baedan, was slain by the Cruithni.

605. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Slaebre in which Brandub son of Eochu was vanquished. The Uí Néill were the victors, i.e. Áed Uairidnach, who reigned at that time. The slaying of Brandub, king of Laigin, by his own kindred in treachery. He was son of Eochu son of Muiredach son of Aed son of Feidlim son of Énna Cennselach son of Labraid son of Bresal Bélach son of Fiachu ba Aiccid son of Cathaír Mór. He reigned 30 years in Laigin and was slain in the battle of Damchluain; or it may have been Sarán Saebderg, i.e. superior of Senboth Sine, who killed him, as the poet said:

Sarán the squint-eyed, running his course till now, as superior of Senboth Sine,

It was he—it is no fiction— Who killed Brandub son of Eochu.

Foccas reigned 7 years. Death of Laisrén, abbot of Ía.

605. Annals of Inisfallen. Repose of Comgall of Bennchor. The battle of Cúil Caíl. The battle of Slemain [gained] by Colmán Rímid, the victor. Conall escaped. The battle of Echros. Colmán, son of Lénéne, rested, and Fintan, son of Eochu, and Laisrén of Min Droichit.

605. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Slaebre in which Brandub son of Eochu was vanquished. The Uí Néill were the victors. The slaying of Brandub king of Laigin, by his own son-in-law, whose name was Sarán Saebderc, i.e. superior of Senboth Sine. Thence was said:

Sarán the squint-eyed, running his course till now,

As superior of Senboth Sine,

It was he—it is not fiction—

Who killed Brandub son of Eochu.

Of which an old woman of Laighen spoke the verse:

If, in the lifetime of Eochaid’s son,

The Northern had come to me,

From the battle regarding which they boast,

They would have been long panic-driven.

If in a pillared house

Were the son of Eochaidh, son of Muiredhach,

I would not bear my full sack

To a church for the sake of Aedh Aldan.

Death of Laisrén, abbot of Ia. Death of Colmán son of Feradach, king of Osraige. Aed Allán rules for seven years.

605. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fifth year of Aedh. St. Beoghna, Abbot of Beannchair next after Comhgall, died on the 22th of August. Molua, i.e. Lughaidh Mac hUi Oiche, first abbot of Cluain Fearta Molua, died. Seachnasach, son of Garbhan, chief of Cinel Boghaine, was slain by Domhnall, son of Aedh, son of Ainmire. Conall of the Red Dart, son of Daimhin, was killed by the Ui Meith Macha.

606. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year died Gregory; about ten years since he sent us baptism. His father was called Gordianus, and his mother Silvia.

606. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of Beóguin, abbot of Bennchor. Death of Aedán son of Gabrán son of Domangart, king of Albu, and the slaying of the sons of Baetán i.e. son of Cairell. In the second year of the emperor Foccas, according to Bede, Pope Gregory went to the Lord. At the request of Boniface, he decreed the See of Rome and of the Apostolic Church to be head of all churches, because the Church of Constantinople was wont to describe itself as the premier church. Or, as others state, Gregory here migrated to Christ, that is, in this year.

606. Annales Cambriae.

The burial of bishop Cynog.

606. Cronicum Scotorum.

Death of Aedán son of Gabrán son of Domangart in the 37th year of his reign and the 88th or86th year of his age. The slaying of the sons of Baetán son of Cairell in Dún Mogna by their uterine brother.

606. Annals of the Four Masters.

The sixth year of Aedh Uairidhnach. St. Sillan, son of Caimin, Abbot of Beannchair Bangor, and successor of Comhgall, died on the 28th of February.

Aedh the Anchorite died. Aedh, son of Colgan, chief of Oirghialla and of all the Airtheara, died on his pilgrimage, at Cluain Mic Nois. Of him was said:

There was a time when Loch Da Damh was a pool of splendour,

The lake was nothing else but splendour in the reign of Aedh, son of Colgan.

Indifferent to me who destroyed it; my friend has abandoned it;

Though it was he that placed a brilliant house upon the island of Loch Da Damh.

Maelumha, son of Baedan, died. Colga Doilene, son of Fiachna, died. Maelduin, son of Ailen, chief of Mughdorn Maighean, died.

607. Annales Cambriae.

The death of Aidan son of Gabrán

Boniface III Pope 607

607. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Ceolwulf fought with the South-Saxons. And Ethelfrith led his army to Chester; where he slew an innumerable host of the Welsh; and so was fulfilled the prophecy of Augustine, wherein he saith “If the Welsh will not have peace with us, they shall perish at the hands of the Saxons.” There were also slain two hundred priests, who came thither to pray for the army of the Welsh. Their leader was called Brocmail, who with some fifty men escaped thence.

607. Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Sinell, and the slaying of Aed Sláine and of Aed Rón and of Aed Buide. Hence Aed Allain said

Very great was the red slaughter
Of the kings of all Ireland,
Aed Sláine with a host,
Aed Róin and Aed Buide.

The son of Colmán Rímid and Conchenn his mother, die. Aed Alláin held the kingship.

607. Annals of the Four Masters.

After Aedh Uairidhnach had been seven years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he died at Ath Da Fearta. The battle of Odhbha, by Aenghus, son of Colman, wherein was slain Conall Laegh Breagh, son of Aedh Slaine, with a great number about him, of which was said:

The whitethorn on top of Odhbha,

though its sharp darts it throws not,

Lawful for it that its aspect should be evil:

there was a great head in its mouth;

SBG St Kyndeyrn.

Kentigern now resolved on a visit to Columcille in Hy. Attended by his disciples, he proceeded to meet that remarkable man, chanting psalms. In like manner Columba marshalled his monks, and they met, embraced, and had long conferences together. Before parting they exchanged their pastoral staves. Kentigern ‘s, as given to- him by Columba, covered with gold and jewels, was still preserved in Ripon Cathedral in the beginning of the fifteenth century. In the tenth century, under the name Cathbhuaidh ( Battle victory), it was carried as a standard in going to battle.When Kentigern had reached an extreme old age, he became so feeble that his chin had to be sustained by a bandage. Feeling that his end was approaching, he fortified himself with extreme unction, and the life-giving sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, and summoning his disciples to him, gave them his final exhortation, and blessed them severally as they bent before him, raising his hand, with extreme difficulty. Then he ordered a hot bath to be prepared for him ; when he was put in it he expired, as he signed himself with the cross.

He died on a Sunday in the year 603 according to some, 612 according to the Annales Cambrics.

608. Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of Maelcobha, son of Aedh, son of Ainmire, in the sovereignty of Ireland.

608. Cronicum Scotorum.

Death of Fiachra Caech son of Baetán, by the Cruithin, and repose of Eochu. The killing of Sechnusach son of Garbán, king of Cenél Bógaine, by Domnall son of Aed. The repose of Lugaid moccu Óchae.

608. Annals of Ulster.

Death of Fiachna Crach son of Baetán, by the Cruithin, and repose of Aed son of Dall. Sabinian, a Tuscan by birth, occupied the See of Peter 1 year, 5 months, 9 days; he was buried in the basilica of Peter.

608. Annals of Inisfallen.

The beginning of a Circle. The slaying of Brandub son of Eochu, i.e. king of Laigin, by his own kindred. Repose of Laisréne, i.e. an abbot.

609. Repose of Beóguine. Death of Aedán, son of Gabrán. Death of Colmán Daimíne and of Aengus, son of Aed Sláine.

SBG St Dagan.

He was consecrated Bishop about the year 609. Dagan is said to have taken S. Lugid’s Rule to Rome, and to have shown it to S. Gregory (590-604). S. Lugid’s Rule divided the day into three parts, one for work, one for prayer, and one for study. When Gregory saw it, he said, ” The man who drew up this Rule had an eye ranging round his community and up to Heaven.” How it was, we do not know, but by some means he was brought into communication with Laurentius, immediate successor to Augustine at Canterbury (604-619). Augustine had failed to come to terms with the British Bishops, who were offended at his arrogance. Laurence attempted to effect a union with the Scotic (Irish) Bishops.Dagan had passed through Wales. Popular tradition pointed out the place of his landing on Strumble Head, where stood a Capel Degan, commemorating his visit there. About this more presently.

In Wales, among the British, he had heard of the conference at Augustine’s Oak, and had felt the resentment that had been provoked by the rudeness of Augustine, shown to men he venerated profoundly, and he hotly took their side against the Italian Missioners. Nevertheless, he is represented as a man of very mild disposition -prceplacidum he is called by Marianus O’Gorman, who is a very late authority (1167), and drew from his own imagination the characteristics of the Saints he commemorated. One is tempted to quote the words of Pope in the Dunciad, relativeDagan died on September 13. The Annals of the Four Masters give the date as 640. The meeting with Laurence would seem to have taken place about 608. He was then a bishop, and probably not very young.

609. Annals of Ulster.

The killing of Sechnusach son of Garbán and the death of Conall son of Daiméne, and the repose of Lugaid moccu Óchae.

St Boniface V Pope 609-625.

609. Annals of the Four Masters.

The second year of Maelcobha. St. Tolua Fota, Abbot of Cluain Mic Nois, died.Seanach, Abbot of Ard Macha, died; he was of Cluain Ua nGrici.

SBG St Edwen.

Edwen was foundress of Llanedwen, in Anglesey, on the shore of the Menai Straits, she was, according to Welsh tradition, of Saxon descent, either a daughter or niece of Edwin of Northumbria. Edwin was the son of Ella, and he had been dethroned whilst still a child by his brother-in-law Ethelfrid, married to his sister Acca, and who bore the name of the Ravager. Edwin was obliged to take refuge first with one and then with another, and found a protector in Redwald, king of the East Angles, and married his daughter; and Redwald declared war against Ethelfrid, defeated and slew him, and established Edwin as king in Northumbria. If Edwin was some time in Gwynedd, probably Edwin was an illegitimate child by some Welsh woman. She embraced the religious profession. Edwin was not at the time a Christian; he was not baptized till long after, in 627.

Four Ancient Books of Wales.

Black Book of Carmarthen XVI

I. BLESSED is the birch in the valley of the Gwy,
Whose branches will fall off one by one, two by two,
It will remain when there will be a battle in Ardudwy,
And the lowing together of cattle about the ford of Mochnwy,
And spears and shouting at Dyganwy,
And Edwin bearing sway in Mona,
And youths pale and light
In ruddy clothes commanding them.

II. Blessed is the birch in Pumlumon,
Which will see when the front of the stag shall be exalted,
And which will see the Franks clad in mail,
And about the hearth food for whelps,
And monks frequently riding on steeds.

III. Blessed is the birch in the heights of Dinwythwy,
Which will know when there shall be a battle in Ardudwy,
And spears uplifted around Edrywy,
And a bridge on the Taw, and another on the Tawy,
And another, on account of a misfortune, on the two banks of the Gwy,
And the artificer that will make it, let his name be Garwy;
And may the principal of Mona have dominion over it.
Women will be under the Gynt, and men in affliction.
Happier than I is he who will welcome
The time of Cadwaladyr: a song he may sing!

610. Annals of the Four Masters St. Colman Eala, i.e. Mac Ui Selli, abbot, died on the 26th of September, in the fifty sixth year of his age. Neman, Abbot of Lis Mor, died. After Maelcobha, son of Aedh, son of Ainmire, had been three years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he was slain by Suibhne Meann, in the battle of Sliabh Toadh. Ronan, son of Colman, King of Leinster, died. Gorman, one of the Mughdhorna, from whom are the Mac Cuinns, and who was a year living on the water of Tibraid Fingin, on his pilgrimage at Cluain Mic Nois, died.

610. Cronicum Scotorum.

Death of Aed son of Colgu, king of Ind Airther, on pilgrimage in Cluain moccu Nóis, of which was said:

1. There was a time

When Loch-dha-damh was a linn of splendour;

It was not the Loch that was splendid,

But the Prince Aedh, son of Colgan.

2. I care not, since he lives not—

The friend who loved me—

Whoso places a brillant house

On the island of Loch-dha-damh.

Death of Sillán moccu Minn, abbot of Bennchor, and the death of Aedán, the

anchorite.

The death of Mael Umai son of Baetán.

610. Annals of Ulster.

Death of Aed son of Colgu, king of Ind Airthir. Death of Sillán moccu Minn, abbot of Bennchor, and the death of Aedán, anchorite of Bennchor, and the death of Mael Umai son of Baetán. Senach from Cluain Uaingrighe, abbot of Ard Macha, rested. End of the chronicle of Eusebius.

611. The army of the Ulaid was struck by terrible thunder in Bairche. Death of Mael Dúin son of Ailéne, king of Mugdorna, and death of Eógan son of Eochu Laib. Repose of Colmán of Lann Ela. Thus, in the Book of Cuanu. Aed Rón and Aed Laigen died.

611. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Cynegils succeeded to the government in Wessex, and held it one and thirty winters. Cynegils was the son of Ceol, Ceol of Cutha, Cutha of Cynric.

611. Cronicum Scotorum.

The army of Ulaid was struck by terrible thunder in Bairche. Death of Mael Dúin son of Ailéne, king of Mugdorna. Repose of Colmán moccu Selli, of Lann Ela, in the 56th year of his age.

611. Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of Suibhne Meann, son of Fiachna, son of Fearadhach, in sovereignty over Ireland. The church of Beannchair Uladh was burned.

612. The second year of Suibhne. Fintan of Oentrebh, Abbot of Beannchair, died. Connere Connor was burned. The devastation of Torach by a marine fleet.

612. Annales Cambriae.

The death of Kentigern and bishop Dyfrig.

612. Cronicum Scotorum.

Death of Aed Allán son of Domnall, king of Temair, i.e. Aed Uairidneach. The battle of Odba, won by Óengus son of Colmán, in which Conall Laeg Breg son of Aed Sláine fell, as it was said:

The whitethorn on the summit of Odhba,

Though sharp darts it throws not,

Lawful for it that its aspect should be evil—

There was a great head in its mouth.

Mael Coba begins to reign.

612. Annals of Ulster.

Death of Aed Allán son of Domnall, king of Temair. The battle of Odba, won by Aengus son of Colmán, in which fell Conall Laeg Breg son of Aed Sláine. Mael Coba begins to reign this year.

612. Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Sillán and Aedán. The burial of Lugaid moccu Óche and of Mael Uma, son of Baetán. Lightning destroys the army of Ulaid. The fifth year of the emperor Heraclius and the fourth year of king Sisebutus, and the end of Isidore’s Chronicle.

613. Repose of Colmán Ela, and of Baetán Aba. Death of Aed Alláin, king of Ireland. Mael Coba, son of Aed, reigned. Repose of Colmán, abbot of Clúain.

613. Annals of Ulster.

Repose of Finntan of Aentrab, abbot of Bennchor. Death of Colmán Uathach. The battle of Caer Legion, in which holy men were slain, and Solon son of Conaen, king of the Britons fell. Heraclius reigns 26 years.

The battle of Caer Legion (ie Chester). And there died Selyf son of Cynan. And Iago son of Beli slept (ie died).

SBG St Selyf.

Selyf was Prince of Powys, and son of Cynan Garwyn ab Brochwel Ysgythrog. He fell at the battle of Chester in 613. The Irish annalist Tighernach calls him Rex Bretanorum, which seems to imply that he was for a time the Gwledig or Over- King of the Cymry.

613. Annals of the Four Masters.

The third year of Suibhne. Colgu, son of Suibhne, was killed; and the death of Fiacha, son of Con, all occurred in this year. Fearghus, son of Colman Mor, Prince of Meath, was slain by Anfartach Ua Meascain, of Muintir Blaitine, of which these lines were composed:

If he should come to my house,

Ua Meascain Anfartach,

Poisoned water I will give to him,

for the slaying of Fearghus.

Whatever time the forces of the race

of Colman shall march by Cuilne,

After a month they will put from their seat

the Sil Meascain, with the Blaitini,

613. Cronicum Scotorum.

Repose of Finntan of Aentrab, abbot of Bennchor. Death of Colmán Uathach. Lucaill the Tall, abbot of Cluain moccu Nóis, rested. A star was seen at the seventh hour of the day.

614. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fourth year of Suibhne. St. Caemhan Breac, of Ros Each, died on the fourteenth day of September. Aedh Beannan, King of West Munster, died. To commemorate his death was said:

Aedh Beannan,

of Eoghanacht Iar-Luachair,

Woe to the wealth of which he was king!

Happy the land of which he was guardian.

His shield when he would shake,

his foes would be subdued;

Though it were but on his back,

it was shelter to West Munster

Finghin, son of Fiachra, died.

614 Annals of Ulster.

To-Lua the Tall, abbot of Cluain Moccu Nóis, rests. A star was seen at the eighth hour of day.

614. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Cynegils and Cwichelm fought at Bampton, and slew two thousand and forty-six of the Welsh.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

Cynegils received the kingdom of the West-Angles, and, in conjunction with Cuichelm, he fought against the Britons at a place called Beandune, and having defeated their army, slew more than two thousand and forty of them.

614. Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of [Caer] Legeóin in Britain between the Saxon and Britons, in which fell multitudes of holy men.

615. Death of Colmán. Repose of Fintan, abbot of Bennchor, and of Luicell, abbot of Cluain. Here others mention the repose of Mo-Lue moccu Óche.

615. Cronicum Scotorum.

The slaying of Mael Coba son of Aed son of Ainmire in the battle of Sliab Tuath. Suibne Menn son of Fiachna was victor. Repose of Diarmait, third abbot of Cluain Iraird. The death of Rónán son of Colmán, king of Laigin. Suibne Menn rules. Gormán, of the Mugdorna, from whom sprang the descendants of Conn—it is he who was for a year on the water of Tiprat Fingin, and on pilgrimage in Cluain he died.

615. Annals of Ulster.

The slaying of Mael Coba son of Áed in the battle of Sliab Tuath Bélgadhain, alias in the battle of Sliab Truim. Suibne Menn was victor. Repose of Diarmait, third abbot of Cluain Iraird. The battle of Fidnach eilech in riaddai (?). Caemán the Speckled rested.

615. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fifth year of Suibhne. Ailill, son of Baedan; Maelduin, son of Fearghus, son of Baedan; and Diucolla, were slain in Magh Slecht, in the province of Connaught. They were of the race of Baedan, son of Muircheartach. Fiachra, son of Ciaran, son of Ainmire, son of Sedna, died. The battle of Ceann Gabhad.

SBG St Oudoceus.

The year in which he died is not known; it seventy years old, then the date was about 615. He was succeeded as Bishop of Llandaff by Berth wyn.

616. Annals of the Four Masters.

The sixth year of Suibhne. Aenghus, son of Colman Mor, chief of the Southern Ui Neill, died. The reerection of the church of Torach by the Cinel Conaill, it having been destroyed some time before. Dunchadh, son of Eoghanain; Neachtan, son of Canann; Aedh ….. died.

616. Annales Cambriae.

Ceredig died.

616. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year died Ethelbert, king of Kent, the first of English kings that received baptism: he was the son of Ermenric. He reigned fifty-six winters, and was succeeded by his son Eadbald. And in this same year had elapsed from the beginning of the world five thousand six hundred and eighteen winters. This Eadbald renounced his baptism, and lived in a heathen manner; so that he took to wife the relict of his father. Then Laurentius, who was archbishop in Kent, meant to depart southward over sea, and abandon everything. But there came to him in the night the apostle Peter, and severely chastised him, because he would so desert the flock of God. And he charged him to go to the king, and teach him the right belief. And he did so; and the king returned to the right belief. In this king’s days the same Laurentius, who was archbishop in Kent after Augustine, departed this life on the second of February, and was buried near Augustine. The holy Augustine in his lifetime invested him bishop, to the end that the church of Christ, which yet was new in England, should at no time after his decease be without an archbishop. After him Mellitus, who was first Bishop of London, succeeded to the archbishopric. The people of London, where Mellitus was before, were then heathens: and within five winters of this time, during the reign of Eadbald, Mellitus died. To him succeeded Justus, who was Bishop of Rochester, whereto he consecrated Romanus bishop.

In that time Laurentius was archbishop, and for the sorrowfulness which he had on account of the king’s unbelief he was minded to forsake this country entirely, and go over sea; but St. Peter the apostle scourged him sorely one night, because he wished thus to forsake the flock of God, and commanded him to teach boldly the true faith to the king; and he did so, and the king turned to the right (faith). In the days of this same king, Eadbald, this Laurentius died. The holy Augustine, while yet in sound health, ordained him bishop, in order that the community of Christ, which was yet new in England, should not after his decease be at any time without an archbishop. After him Mellitus, who had been previously Bishop of London, succeeded to the archbishopric. And within five years of the decease of Laurentius, while Eadbald still reigned, Mellitus departed to Christ.

Bede.

CHAP. V.

IN the year of our Lord 616, which is the twenty-first year after Augustine and his company were sent to preach to the English nation, Ethelbert, king of Kent, having most gloriously governed his temporal kingdom fifty-six years, entered into the eternal joys of the kingdom of Heaven. He was the third of the English kings who ruled over all the southern provinces that are divided from the northern by the river Humber and the borders contiguous to it; but the first of all that ascended to the heavenly kingdom. The first who had the like sovereignty was Aelli, king of the South-Saxons; the second, Caelin, king of the West-Saxons, who, in their own language, is called Ceaulin; the third, as has been said, was Ethelbert, king of Kent; the fourth was Redwald, king of the East-Angles, who, even in the life-time of Ethelbert, had been acquiring the leadership for his own race. The fifth was Edwin, king of the Northumbrian nation, that is, of those who live in the district to the north of the river Humber; his power was greater; he had the overlordship over all the nations who inhabit Britain, both English and British, except only the people of Kent; and he reduced also under the dominion of the English, the Mevanian Islands of the Britons, lying between Ireland and Britain; the sixth was Oswald, the most Christian king of the Northumbrians, whose kingdom was within the same bounds; the seventh, his brother Oswy, ruled over a kingdom of like extent for a time, and for the most part subdued and made tributary the nations of the Picts and Scots, who occupy the northern parts of Britain: but of that hereafter.

King Ethelbert died on the 24th day of the month of February, twenty-one years after he had received the faith, and was buried in St. Martin’s chapel within the church of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, where also lies his queen, Bertha. Among other benefits which he conferred upon his nation in his care for them, he established, with the help of his council of wise men, judicial decisions, after the Roman model; which are written in the language of the English, and are still kept and observed by them. Among which, he set down first what satisfaction should be given by any one who should steal anything belonging to the Church, the bishop, or the other clergy, for he was resolved to give protection to those whom he had received along with their doctrine.

This Ethelbert was the son of Irminric, whose father was Octa, whose father was Oeric, surnamed Oisc, from whom the kings of Kent are wont to be called Oiscings. His father was Hengist, who, being invited by Vortigern, first came into Britain, with his son Oisc, as has been said above.

But after the death of Ethelbert, the accession of his son Eadbald proved very harmful to the still tender growth of the new Church; for he not only refused to accept the faith of Christ, but was also defiled with such fornication, as the Apostle testifies, as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife. By both which crimes he gave occasion to those to return to their former uncleanness, who, under his father, had, either for favour or fear of the king, submitted to the laws of the faith and of a pure life. Nor did the unbelieving king escape without the scourge of Divine severity in chastisement and correction; for he was troubled with frequent fits of madness, and possessed by an unclean spirit. The storm of this disturbance was increased by the death of Sabert, king of the East Saxons, who departing to the heavenly kingdom, left three sons, still pagans, to inherit his temporal crown. They immediately began openly to give themselves up to idolatry, which, during their father’s lifetime, they had seemed somewhat to abandon, and they granted free licence to their subjects to serve idols. And when they saw the bishop, whilst celebrating Mass in the church, give the Eucharist to the people, filled, as they were, with folly and ignorance, they said to him, as is commonly reported, “Why do you not give us also that white bread, which you used to give to our father Saba (for so they were wont to call him), and which you still continue to give to the people in the church?” To whom he answered, “If you will be washed in that font of salvation, in which your father was washed, you may also partake of the holy Bread of which he partook; but if you despise the laver of life, you can in no wise receive the Bread of life.” They replied, “We will not enter into that font, because we know that we do not stand in need of it, and yet we will be refreshed by that bread.” And being often earnestly admonished by him, that this could by no means be done, nor would any one be admitted to partake of the sacred Oblation without the holy cleansing, at last, they said, filled with rage, “If you will not comply with us in so small a matter as that which we require, you shall not stay in our province.” And they drove him out and bade him and his company depart from their kingdom. Being driven thence, he came into Kent, to take counsel with his fellow bishops, Laurentius and Justus, and learn what was to be done in that case; and with one consent they determined that it was better for them all to return to their own country, where they might serve God in freedom of mind, than to continue to no purpose among barbarians, who had revolted from the faith. Mellitus and Justus accordingly went away first, and withdrew into the parts of Gaul, intending there to await the event. But the kings, who had driven from them the herald of the truth, did not continue long unpunished in their worship of devils. For marching out to battle against the nation of the Gewissi, they were all slain with their army. Nevertheless, the people having been once turned to wickedness, though the authors of it were destroyed, would not be corrected, nor return to the unity of faith and charity which is in Christ.

CHAP. VI.

LAURENTIUS, being about to follow Mellitus and Justus, and to quit Britain, ordered his bed to be laid that night in the church of the blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, which has been often mentioned before; wherein having laid himself to rest, after he had with tears poured forth many prayers to God for the state of the Church, he fell asleep; in the dead of night, the blessed chief of the Apostles appeared to him, and scourging him grievously a long time, asked of him with apostolic severity, why he was forsaking the flock which he had committed to him? or to what shepherd he was leaving, by his flight, Christ’s sheep that were in the midst of wolves? “Hast thou,” he said, “forgotten my example, who, for the sake of those little ones, whom Christ commended to me in token of His affection, underwent at the hands of infidels and enemies of Christ, bonds, stripes, imprisonment, afflictions, and lastly, death itself, even the death of the cross, that I might at last be crowned with Him?” Laurentius, the servant of Christ, roused by the scourging of the blessed Peter and his words of exhortation, went to the king as soon as morning broke, and laying aside his garment, showed the scars of the stripes which he had received. The king, astonished, asked who had presumed to inflict such stripes on so great a man. And when he heard that for the sake of his salvation the bishop had suffered these cruel blows at the hands of the Apostle of Christ, he was greatly afraid; and abjuring the worship of idols, and renouncing his unlawful marriage, he received the faith of Christ, and being baptized, promoted and supported the interests of the Church to the utmost of his power.

He also sent over into Gaul, and recalled Mellitus and Justus, and bade them return to govern their churches in freedom. They came back one year after their departure, and Justus returned to the city of Rochester, where he had before presided; but the people of London would not receive Bishop Mellitus, choosing rather to be under their idolatrous high priests; for King Eadbald had not so much authority in the kingdom as his father, and was not able to restore the bishop to his church against the will and consent of the pagans. But he and his nation, after his conversion to the Lord, sought to obey the commandments of God. Lastly, he built the church of the holy Mother of God, in the monastery of the most blessed chief of the Apostles, which was afterwards consecrated by Archbishop Mellitus.

616. Annals of Ulster.

Death of Suibne son of Crechéne, king of Ciannachta Glinne Geimin, and death of Aedán son of Mongan, king of Dál Riata or nAraide and death of Petrán bishop of Lusca. In the same year? Aed and Critán of Airéne died. The burning of Bennchor.

616. Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Sliab Tuath [gained] by the Laigin over Mael Coba, son of Aed, in which Mael Coba fell. Suibne reigned after him.

616. William of Malmesbury.

Chronicle of the Kings of England.

Ethelbert died in the twenty-first year after he had embraced the Christian faith, leaving the diadem to his son Edbald. As soon as he was freed from the restraints of paternal awe, he rejected Christianity, and overcame the virtue of his stepmother. But the severity of the divine mercy opposed a barrier to his utter destruction: for the princes, whome his father had subjugated, immediately rebelled, he lost a part of his dominions, and was perpetually haunted by an evil spirit, whereby he paid the penalty of his unbelief. Laurentius, the successor of Augustine, was offended at these transactions, and after having sent away his companions, was meditating his own departure from the country, but having received chastisement from God, he was induced to change his resolution. The king conversing with him on the subject, and finding his assertions confirmed by his stripes, became easily converted, and accepted the grace of Christianity, and broke off his incestuous intercourse. But, that posterity might be impressed with the singular punishment due to apostasy, it was with difficulty he could maintain his hereditary dominions, much less rival the eminence of his father. For the remainder of his life, his faith was sound, and he did nothing to sully his reputation. The monastery also, which his father had founded without the walls of Canterbury, he ennobled with large estates, and sumptuous presents. The praises and merits of both these men ought ever to be proclaimed, and had in honor by the English; because they allowed the Christian faith to acquire strength in England, by patient listening and willingness to believe. Who can contemplate, without satisfaction, the just and amiable answer which Bede makes king Ethelbert to have given to the first preaching of Augustine? “That he could not, thus early, embrace a new doctrine and leave the accustomed worship of his country; but that, nevertheless, persons who had undertaken so long a journey for the purpose of kindly communicating to the Angles what they deemed an inestimable benefit, far from meeting with ill treatment, ought rather to be allowed full liberty to preach, and also to receive the amplest maintenance.” He fully kept his promise; and at length the truth of Christianity becoming apparent by degrees, himself and all his subjects were admitted into the number of the faithful. And what did the other? Though led away at first, more by the lusts of the flesh than perverseness of heart, yet he paid respect to the virtuous conduct of the prelates, although he neglected their faith; and lastly, as I have related, was easily converted through the sufferings of Laurentius, and became of infinite service to the propagation of Christianity. Both, then, were laudable: both deserved high encomiums; for the good work, so nobly begun by the one, was kindly fostered by the other.

617. Annals of Inisfallen.

The burning of Bennchor of Ulaid. Repose of Critán and Petrán, and of Aedán, son of Mongán.

617. Annales Cambriae.

Edwin begins his reign.

617. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year was Ethelfrith, king of the Northumbrians, slain by Redwald, king of the East-Angles; and Edwin, the son of Ella, having succeeded to the kingdom, subdued all Britain, except the men of Kent alone, and drove out the Ethelings, the sons of Ethelfrith, namely, Enfrid. Oswald, Oswy, Oslac, Oswood. Oslaf, and Offa.

617. Annals of Ulster.

The burning of the martyrs of Aig—the burning of Donnán of Aig on the fifteenth of the Kalends of May with one hundred and fifty martyrs; and the slaughter of Torach and the burning of Condaire. Isidore wrote his chronicle down to this year, ending thus: Heraclius then completed the fifth year of his imperial reign, this being in the fifth year of the emperor Heraclius and in the fourth of the most religious prince Sesibutus. From the beginning of the world to the present year of Heraclius i.e. the fifth, there are 5814 years.

617. Cronicum Scotorum.

The burning of Donnán of Aig on the fifteenth of the Kalends of May with one hundred and fifty martyrs; and the laying waste of Torach.

617. Annals of the Four Masters.

The seventh year of Suibhne. St. Caemhghin, Abbot of Gleann Da Locha, died on the 3rd of June, after having spent one hundred and twenty years of his age till then. Comhgall, a bishop, and Eoghan, Bishop of Rath Sithe, died.

The battle of Ceann Delgtean by Conall, son of Suibhne, and Domhnall Breac, wherein were slain the two sons of Libren, son of Illann, son of Cearbhall.

Maelbracha, son of Rimeadh, son of Colman, son of Cobhthach, and Ailill, son of Ceallach, died. The battle of Ceann Gubha (or Ceann Bughbha) was gained by Raghallach, son of Uadach, over Colman, son of Cobhthach (the father of Guaire Aidhne), where Colman himself was slain. Colga, son of Ceallach, died. Ailill, son of Ceallach, died.

618. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Tolorgán, and of Fergus, son of Colmán.

618. Annals of the Four Masters.

The eighth year of Suibhne. St. Sillan, Bishop and Abbot of Magh Bile Movilla, died on the 25th of August. Liber, Abbot of Achadh Bo Cainnigh, died. Rath Guala was burned by Fiachna, son of Baedan, of which Fiachna said:

Fire caught Rath Guala,

little treasure will escape from it,

The force which caused it is manifest;

it was not from one spark it caught it;

Fire caught Rath Guala,

little treasure will escape from it;

Vehemently their evils kindle fire

in the fort of Aedh Bolc.

618. Annals of Ulster.

The conflict in Eilenn(?) on Easter Day. The slaying of Colgu son of Suibne and the death of Fiachra son of Conall and the slaying of Fergus son of Colmán Mór i.e. by Anfartach descendant of Mescán, of the people of Blaitíne.

If there should come to me to my house,

Mescán’s grandson, Anfortach,

I shall give him wormy water

For having slain Fergus.

When there shall come troops

Of the Ceinél Colmáin past Cuilne,

They shall for this interrogate

Mescán’s seed in Blaitíne.

Caemgein of Glenn Dá Locha, and bishop Comgall, and bishop Eógan of Ráithe Síthe, rested. The incursion of Macha, and an earthquake in Gaul.

618. Cronicum Scotorum.

Caemgein of Glenn da Locha rested in Christ in the 120th year of his age. The slaying of Fergus son of Colmán Mór, king of Mide, by Anfartach descendent of Mescán, of the people of Blaitíne. Death of Aed Bennán, overking of Mumu, of the Eoganacht. Death of Sillán, abbot of Mag Bili, and Fíngein son of Fiachra rested.

619. Annals of the Four Masters.

The ninth year of Suibhne. Doir, son of Aedh Allainn, was slain by Failbhe Flann Fidhbhadh, as he Failbhe himself said:

What advantage to me is the slaying of Dair,

as I did not slay Dairene?

It is then one kills the chaffer,

when he destroys his young ones.

He was afterwards killed in revenge of Doir. His Failbhe’s mother said, lamenting him:

It was the mortal wounding of a noble,

not the demolition of Inis Cail,

For which the shouts of the enemies were exultingly

raised around the head of Failbhe Flann Fidhbhadh.

Ronan, son of Colman, died.

619. Annals of Ulster.

Liber, abbot of Achad Bó Cainnig rested. Death of Sillán, abbot of Mag Bili. Death of Aed Bennán and of Fíngein son of Fiachra.

Bede.

CHAP. VII. (619)

IN this king’s reign, the blessed Archbishop Laurentius was taken up to the heavenly kingdom: he was buried in the church and monastery of the holy Apostle Peter, close by his predecessor Augustine, on the 2nd day of the month of February. Mellitus, who was bishop of London, succeeded to the see of Canterbury, being the third archbishop from Augustine; Justus, who was still living, governed the church of Rochester. These ruled the Church of the English with much care and industry, and received letters of exhortation from Boniface, bishop of the Roman Apostolic see, who presided over the Church after Deusdedit, in the year of our Lord 619. Mellitus laboured under the bodily infirmity of gout, but his mind was sound and active, cheerfully passing over all earthly things, and always aspiring to love, seek, and attain to those which are celestial. He was noble by birth, but still nobler by the elevation of his mind.

In short, that I may give one instance of his power, from which the rest may be inferred, it happened once that the city of Canterbury, being set on fire through carelessness, was in danger of being consumed by the spreading conflagration; water was thrown on the fire in vain; a considerable part of the city was already destroyed, and the fierce flames were advancing towards the bishop’s abode, when he, trusting in God, where human help failed, ordered himself to be carried towards the raging masses of fire which were spreading on every side. The church of the four crowned Martyrs was in the place where the fire raged most fiercely. The bishop, being carried thither by his servants, weak as he was, set about averting by prayer the danger which the strong hands of active men had not been able to overcome with all their exertions. Immediately the wind, which blowing from the south had spread the conflagration throughout the city, veered to the north, and thus prevented the destruction of those places that had been exposed to its full violence, then it ceased entirely and there was a calm, while the flames likewise sank and were extinguished. And because the man of God burned with the fire of divine love, and was wont to drive away the storms of the powers of the air, by his frequent prayers and at his bidding, from doing harm to himself, or his people, it was meet that he should be allowed to prevail over the winds and flames of this world, and to obtain that they should not injure him or his.

This archbishop also, having ruled the church five years, departed to heaven in the reign of King Eadbald, and was buried with his fathers in the monastery and church, which we have so often mentioned, of the most blessed chief of the Apostles, in the year of our Lord 624, on the 24th day of April.

619. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Fíngen son of Aed, king of Mumu. The destruction of Donnán of Eg on the fifteenth of the Kalends of May [April 17]. Death of the son of Comgall, and the repose of bishop Eógan. A great earthquake in Gaul.

SBG St Melyd.

620 – 629. Edwin.

620 – 629

620. Annals of Inisfallen.

The abbot Líber died. Repose of Dímán, son of Flannán. Death of Finngaine, son of Fiachra, and of Aengus, son of Colmán, and of Senach Garb, and of Aed Bennán, and of Sillán, bishop of Mag Bile. The battle of Cennbag, in which fell Colmán, son of Cobthach, son of Ailill, son of Cellach. The battle of Cenn Delgthen, in which the two sons of Librén, son of Illedan son of Cerball, fell. Conall, son of Suibne son of Colmán, was victor.

620. Annals of Ulster.

The slaying in Mag Slécht in the territory of Connacht of the kindred of Baetán i.e. of Ailill son of Baetán and of Mael Dúin son of Fergus son of Baetan; and the death of Fiachra son of Ciarán son of Ainmire son of Sétna.

620. Cronicum Scotorum.

The slaying of the kindred of Baetán, i.e. of Ailill son of Baetán and of Mael Dúin son of Fergus son of Baetán and of Díucaill, in Mag Leced in the territory of Connacht. The death of Fiachra son of Ciarán son of Ainmire son of Sétna i.e. a second founder of Daire Calgaigh.

620. Annals of the Four Masters.

The tenth year of Suibhne. Seanach Garbh, Abbot of Cluain Fearta Breanainn Clonfert, died. Colman, son of Coimgellan, died. Aedh son of Cumascach died. Ronan, son of Tuathal, Lord of the Airtheara, died. Cormac Caemh and Illann, son of Fiachra, died. Mongan, son of Fiachra Lurgan, was killed with a stone by Arthur, son of Bicar, one of the Britons, of which Beg Boirche said:

Cold is the wind across Ile,

which they have at Ceann Tire;

They shall commit a cruel deed in consequence,

they shall kill Mongan, son of Fiachna.

Where the church of Cluain Airthir is at this day,

renowned were the four there executed,

Cormac Caemh with shouting,

and Illann, son of Fiachra;

And the other two,

to whom many territories paid tribute,

Mongan, son of Fiachna Lurgan,

and Ronan, son of Tuathal.

Cathal, son of Aedh, Ring of Munster, died.

Saint Isidor of Seville.

Etymologiae IX, 2, 102 (414)

Some suppose that the Britones are so called because they are brutes – a people situated in the ocean, with sea between, as it were the outside world, of whom virgil wrote “the Britanni a world apart.”

Etymologiae XIV, 6, 2-6 (170-171)

Britannia, an island of the ocean, separated from the whole world by the sea between, is so called from the name of its people. It lies on the further side of Gaul, looking towards Spain. Its circuit is 4,875 miles. There are many great rivers in it, hot springs, and a large and varied quantity of metals. Jet especially occurs there, and pearls.

Thanatos, an island of the ocean in the Fretum Gallicum, separated from Britannia by a narrow estuary, has corn-growing plains and a rich soil. It is called Thanatos from the death (Greek thanatos) of serpents; for while it has none of its own, soil taken from it to any place whatsoever kills snakes there.

Thyle is the furthest island of the ocean beyond the shores of Britannia to the north west. It takes its name from the sun (a sole), because in it the sun makes its summer solstice and beyond it there is no day, whence it happens that its sea is sluggish and hard.

The Orchades, islands of the ocean, are placed beyond Britannia, 33 in number, of which 20 are unocupied and 13 inhabited.

Scotia is the same as Hibernia, an island next to Britannia, smaller than it in size but more fertile in its situation. It stretches from the south west to north and its nearest parts look towards Iberia and the Cantabric Ocean, whence it is called Hibernia

621. Annals of Ulster.

Senach Garb, abbot of Cluain Ferta, dies. The killing of Aengus son of Colmán Mór i.e. king of the Uí Néill. Dúnchad son of Eógan, Nechtan son of Canu, and Áed died.

621. Cronicum Scotorum.

The death of Óengus son of Colmán Mór, i.e. king of Uí Néill.Dúnchad son of Eóganán, Nechtan son of Canu, and Aed died. Fíngein son of Fiachra Encride rested.

622. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Cenn Deilgthen, in which two sons of Librén son of Illand son of Cerball fell. Conall son of Suibne was victor, and Domnall Brec with him. Or this year the death of Caemgein. Conaing son of Aedán son of Gabrán was drowned.

The waves of the sea great and clear

And the sands have covered them;

Against a frail wattled curach

They have combined to destroy Conaing.

The woman who flung her fair locks

Into his skiff, over Conaing;—

Pleasantly she smiles

To-day, before Bile Tortan.

Death of Mael Mracho son of Rímid son of Colmán son of Cobthach, and of Ailill son of Cellach. The battle of Cennguba, in which Colmán son of Cobthach, i.e. the father of Guaire, king of Connacht, fell by Ragallach son of Uatu. The death of Colgu son of Cellach.

622. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Cenn Deilgthen. Conall son of Suibne was victor; two sons of Librén, son of Illand son of Cerball, fell. Conaing son of Aedán was drowned.

The waves of the sea great and clear

And the sands have covered them;

Against a frail wattled curach

They have combined to destroy Conaing.

Death of Mael Mracho son of Rímid son of Colmán son of Cobthach, and of Ailill son of Cellach. The battle of Lindas. Repose of Caemgein of Glenn dá Locha according to some. The battle of Cennbag, in which Colmán son of Cobthach fell.

The killing of Ailill son of Cellach. The death of Colgu son of Cellach.

622. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twelfth year of Suibhne. St. Feargna Brit, Abbot of Ia, and a bishop, died on the second day of March. St. Lachtnain, son of Torben, Abbot of Achadh Ur, died on the 10th recte 19th of March. The battle of Carn Fearadhaigh was gained by Failbhe Flann over the Connaughtmen, wherein were slain Conall, chief of Ui Maine, Maeldubh, Maelduin, Maelruain, Maelcalgaigh, and Maelbreasail, and other nobles and plebeians besides them; and Guaire Aidhne was routed from the battle field; of which was said:

There fell of the Connaughtmen,

at Ath Cuma an tSeisir,

Maelduin, Maelruain, Maelcalgaigh,

Conall, Maeldubh, Maelbreisil.

The battle of Lethed Midinn, at Drung, was fought by Fiachna, son of Deman, Lord of Dal Fiatach, against Fiachna, son of Baedan, King of Ulidia. The battle was gained over Fiachna, son of Baedan, and he fell therein. Mac Laisre, Bishop and Abbot of Ard Macha, died.

623. Annals of Ulster.

Death of Fergna, abbot of Í. Repose of Mac Laisre, abbot of Ard Macha, and of Finnia, abbot of Ner. The storming of Ráith Guala by Fiachna son of Baetán.

Fire has seized Ráith Guala,

Save ye a little from it!

Swiftly do the evil men kindle

A fire in the fort of Áed of the Fir Bolg.

623. Annals of the Four Masters.

Colman Mac Ua Bardani, of the tribe of Dal Barrdainne, Abbot of Cluain Mic Nois, died. After Suibhne Meann had been thirteen years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he was slain at Traigh Brena, by Congal Claen; of which was said:

Suibhne, with hosts attending him,

the destructive people of Brena overtook him;

The valorous sage was slain

by Congal Caech, son of Scannal.

623. Cronicum Scotorum.

Death of Fergna, abbot of Ia. Repose of Mac Laisre, abbot of Ard Macha. The storming of Raíth Guala by Fiachna son of Baetán. Death of Rónan son of Colmán, and Colmán of Stiallán died. The killing of Dor son of Aed Allán. Failbe Fland Fidbad slew him, whence his mother said:

It would be a noble wounding

It would not be the demolition of Inis Cail—

If the shout of the enemy was raised

Round the head of Failbe Flann Fidhbadh.

Birth of Adamnán, abbot of Ia.

624. Annales Cambriae.

The sun is covered (ie eclipsed).

624. Annals of Ulster.

Death of Rónán, son of Colmán; and Colmán of Stiallán died; and the killing of Dor, son of Áed Allán. Births of Adamnán, abbot of Í.

624. Annals of the Four Masters.

The first year of Domhnall, son of Aedh, son of Ainmire, in the sovereignty of Ireland. St. Colman Stellan, of Tir Da Ghlas Terryglas, died on the 26th of May. St. Maedhog, Bishop of Fearna, died on the 31st of January.Ronan, son of Colman, died.

The battle of Dun Ceithern was gained by Domhnall, son of Aedh, son of Ainmire, over Congal Caech, or Claen, son of Scannlan, where Guaire Gaillseach, son of Forannan, and many others, were slain; and Congal was afterwards defeated; of which was said:

The battle of Dun Ceithirn,

in which there was red blood over grey eyes;

There were in the track of Congal Crom

bodies thick-necked, comely.

The battle of Ard Corainn was gained by Connadh Cerr, Lord of Dal Riada, where Fiachna, son of Deman, King of Ulidia, was slain.

624. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year died Archbishop Mellitus.

SBG St Melyd.

Bede

CHAP. VIII.[624 A.D.]

JUSTUS, bishop of the church of Rochester, immediately succeeded Mellitus in the archbishopric. He consecrated Romanus bishop of that see in his own stead, having obtained authority to ordain bishops from Pope Boniface,

CHAP. IX.

AT this time the nation of the Northumbrians, that is, the English tribe dwelling on the north side of the river Humber, with their king, Edwin, received the Word of faith through the preaching of Paulinus, of whom we have before spoken. This king, as an earnest of his reception of the faith, and his share in the heavenly kingdom, received an increase also of his temporal realm, for he reduced under his dominion all the parts of Britain that were provinces either of the English, or of the Britons, a thing which no English king had ever done before; and he even subjected to the English the Mevanian islands, as has been said above. The more important of these, which is to the southward, is the larger in extent, and more fruitful, containing nine hundred and sixty families, according to the English computation; the other contains above three hundred.

The occasion of this nation’s reception of the faith was the alliance by marriage of their aforesaid king with the kings of Kent, for he had taken to wife Ethelberg, otherwise called Tata, (a term of endearment) daughter to King Ethelbert. When he first sent ambassadors to ask her in marriage of her brother Eadbald, who then reigned in Kent, he received the answer, “That it was not lawful to give a Christian maiden in marriage to a pagan husband, lest the faith and the mysteries of the heavenly King should be profaned by her union with a king that was altogether a stranger to the worship of the true God.” This answer being brought to Edwin by his messengers, he promised that he would in no manner act in opposition to the Christian faith, which the maiden professed; but would give leave to her, and all that went with her, men and women, bishops and clergy, to follow their faith and worship after the custom of the Christians. Nor did he refuse to accept that religion himself, if, being examined by wise men, it should be found more holy and more worthy of God.

So, the maiden was promised, and sent to Edwin, and in accordance with the agreement, Paulinus, a man beloved of God, was ordained bishop, to go with her, and by daily exhortations, and celebrating the heavenly Mysteries, to confirm her, and her company, lest they should be corrupted by intercourse with the pagans. Paulinus was ordained bishop by the Archbishop Justus, on the 21st day of July, in the year of our Lord 625, and so came to King Edwin with the aforesaid maiden as an attendant on their union in the flesh. But his mind was wholly bent upon calling the nation to which he was sent to the knowledge of truth; according to the words of the Apostle, “To espouse her to the one true Husband, that he might present her as a chaste virgin to Christ.”‘ Being come into that province, he laboured much, not only to retain those that went with him, by the help of God, that they should not abandon the faith, but, if haply he might, to convert some of the pagans to the grace of the faith by his preaching. But, as the Apostle says, though he laboured long in the Word, “The god of this world blinded the minds of them that believed not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ should shine unto them.”

The next year there came into the province one called Eumer, sent by the king of the West-Saxons, whose name was Cuichelm, to lie in wait for King Edwin, in hopes at once to deprive him of his kingdom and his life. He had a two-edged dagger, dipped in poison, to the end that, if the wound inflicted by the weapon did not avail to kill the king, it might be aided by the deadly venom. He came to the king on the first day of the Easter festival,’ at the river Derwent, where there was then a royal township, and being admitted as if to deliver a message from his master, whilst unfolding in cunning words his pretended embassy, he startled up on a sudden, and unsheathing the dagger under his garment, assaulted the king. When Lilla, the king’s most devoted servant, saw this, having no buckler at hand to protect the king from death, he at once interposed his own body to receive the blow; but the enemy struck home with such force, that he wounded the king through the body of the slaughtered thegn. Being then attacked on all sides with swords, in the confusion he also slew impiously with his dagger another of the thegns, whose name was Forthhere.

On that same holy Easter night, the queen had brought forth to the king a daughter, called Eanfled. The king, in the presence of Bishop Paulinus, gave thanks to his gods for the birth of his daughter; and the bishop, on his part, began to give thanks to Christ, and to tell the king, that by his prayers to Him he had obtained that the queen should bring forth the child in safety, and without grievous pain. The king, delighted with his words, promised, that if God would grant him life and victory over the king by whom the murderer who had wounded him had been sent, he would renounce his idols, and serve Christ; and as a pledge that he would perform his promise, he delivered up that same daughter to Bishop Paulinus, to be consecrated to Christ. She was the first to be baptized of the nation of the Northumbrians, and she received Baptism on the holy day of Pentecost, along with eleven others of her house. At that time, the king, being recovered of the wound which he had received, raised an army and marched against the nation of the West-Saxons; and engaging in war, either slew or received in surrender all those of whom he learned that they had conspired to murder him. So he returned victorious into his own country, but he would not immediately and unadvisedly embrace the mysteries of the Christian faith, though he no longer worshipped idols, ever since he made the promise that he would serve Christ; but first took heed earnestly to be instructed at leisure by the venerable Paulinus, in the knowledge of faith, and to confer with such as he knew to be the wisest of his chief men, inquiring what they thought was fittest to be done in that case. And being a man of great natural sagacity, he often sat alone by himself a long time in silence, deliberating in the depths of his heart how he should proceed, and to which religion he should adhere.

AT this time he received a letter from Pope Boniface exhorting him to embrace the faith,

CHAP. XII.

THUS wrote the aforesaid Pope Boniface for the salvation of King Edwin and his nation. But a heavenly vision, which the Divine Goodness was pleased once to reveal to this king, when he was in banishment at the court of Redwald, king of the Angles, was of no little use in urging him to receive and understand the doctrines of salvation. For when Paulinus perceived that it was a difficult task to incline the king’s proud mind to the humility of the way of salvation and the reception of the mystery of the life-giving Cross, and at the same time was employing the word of exhortation with men, and prayer to the Divine Goodness, for the salvation of Edwin and his subjects; at length, as we may suppose, it was shown him in spirit what the nature of the vision was that had been formerly revealed from Heaven to the king. Then he lost no time, but immediately admonished the king to perform the vow which he had made, when he received the vision, promising to fulfil it, if he should be delivered from the troubles of that time, and advanced to the throne.

The vision was this. When Ethelfrid, his predecessor, was persecuting him, he wandered for many years as an exile, hiding in divers places and kingdoms, and at last came to Redwald, beseeching him to give him protection against the snares of his powerful persecutor. Redwald willingly received him, and promised to perform ‘what was asked of him. But when Ethelfrid understood that he had appeared in that province, and that he and his companions were hospitably entertained by Redwald, he sent messengers to bribe that king with a great sum of money to murder him, but without effect. He sent a second and a third time, offering a greater bribe each time, and, moreover, threatening to make war on him if his offer should be despised. Redwald, whether terrified by his threats, or won over by his gifts, complied with this request, and promised either to kill Edwin, or to deliver him up to the envoys. A faithful friend of his, hearing of this, went into his chamber, where he was going to bed, for it was the first hour of the night; and calling him out, told him what the king had promised to do with him, adding, “If, therefore, you are willing, I will this very hour conduct you out of this province, and lead you to a place where neither Redwald nor Ethelfrid shall ever find you.” He answered, “I thank you for your good will, yet I cannot do what you propose, and be guilty of being the first to break the compact I have made with so great a king, when he has done me no harm, nor shown any enmity to me; but, on the contrary, if I must die, let it rather be by his hand than by that of any meaner man. For whither shall I now fly, when I have for so many long years been a vagabond through all the provinces of Britain, to escape the snares of my enemies?” His friend went away; Edwin remained alone without, and sitting with a heavy heart before the palace, began to be overwhelmed with many thoughts, not knowing what to do, or which way to turn.

When he had remained a long time in silent anguish of mind, consumed with inward fire, on a sudden in the stillness of the dead of night he saw approaching a person, whose face and habit were strange to him, at sight of whom, seeing that he was unknown and unlooked for, he was not a little startled. The stranger coming close up, saluted him, and asked why he sat there in solitude on a stone troubled and wakeful at that time, when all others were taking their rest, and were fast asleep. Edwin, in his turn, asked, what it was to him, whether he spent the night within doors or abroad. The stranger, in reply, said, “Do not think that I am ignorant of the cause of your grief, your watching, and sitting alone without. For I know of a surety who you are, and why you grieve, and the evils which you fear will soon fall upon you. But tell me, what reward you would give the man who should deliver you out of these troubles, and persuade Redwald neither to do you any harm himself, nor to deliver you up to be murdered by your enemies.” Edwin replied, that he would give such a one all that he could in return for so great a benefit. The other further added, “What if he should also assure you, that your enemies should be destroyed, and you should be a king surpassing in power, not only all your own ancestors, but even all that have reigned before you in the English nation?” Edwin, encouraged by these questions, did not hesitate to promise that he would make a fitting return to him who should confer such benefits upon him. Then the other spoke a third time and said, “But if he who should truly foretell that all these great blessings are about to befall you, could also give you better and more profitable counsel for your life and salvation than any of your fathers or kindred ever heard, do you consent to submit to him, and to follow his wholesome guidance?” Edwin at once promised that he would in all things follow the teaching of that man who should deliver him from so many great calamities, and raise him to a throne.

Having received this answer, the man who talked to him laid his right hand on his head saying, “When this sign shall be given you, remember this present discourse that has passed between us, and do not delay the performance of what you now promise.” Having uttered these words, he is said to have immediately vanished. So, the king perceived that it was not a man, but a spirit, that had appeared to him.

Whilst the royal youth still sat there alone, glad of the comfort he had received, but still troubled and earnestly pondering who he was, and whence he came, that had so talked to him, his aforesaid friend came to him, and greeting him with a glad countenance, “Rise,” said he, “go in; calm and put away your anxious cares, and compose yourself in body and mind to sleep; for the king’s resolution is altered, and he designs to do you no harm, but rather to keep his pledged faith; for when he had privately made known to the queen his intention of doing what I told you before, she dissuaded him from it, reminding him that it was altogether unworthy of so great a king to sell his good friend in such distress for gold, and to sacrifice his honour, which is more valuable than all other adornments, for the love of money.” In short, the king did as has been said, and not only refused to deliver up the banished man to his enemy’s messengers, but helped him to recover his kingdom. For as soon as the messengers had returned home, he raised a mighty army to subdue Ethelfrid; who, meeting him with much inferior forces, (for Redwald had not given him time to gather and unite all his power,) was slain on the borders of the kingdom of Mercia, on the east side of the river that is called Idle. In this battle, Redwald’s son, called Raegenheri, was killed. Thus Edwin, in accordance with the prophecy he had received, not only escaped the danger from his enemy, but, by his death, succeeded the king on the throne.

King Edwin, therefore, delaying to receive the Word of God at the preaching of Paulinus, and being wont for some time, as has been said, to sit many hours alone, and seriously to ponder with himself what he was to do, and what religion he was to follow, the man of God came to him one day, laid his right hand on his head, and asked, whether he knew that sign? The king, trembling, was ready to fall down at his feet, but he raised him up, and speaking to him with the voice of a friend, said, “Behold, by the gift of God you have escaped the hands of the enemies whom you feared. Behold, you have obtained of His bounty the kingdom which you desired. Take heed not to delay to perform your third promise; accept the faith, and keep the precepts of Him Who, delivering you from temporal adversity, has raised you to the honour of a temporal kingdom; and if, from this time forward, you shall be obedient to His will, which through me He signifies to you, He will also deliver you from the everlasting torments of the wicked, and make you partaker with Him of His eternal kingdom in heaven.”

CHAP. XIII.

THE king, hearing these words, answered, that he was both willing and bound to receive the faith which Paulinus taught; but that he would confer about it with his chief friends and counsellors, to the end that if they also were of his opinion, they might all together be consecrated to Christ in the font of life. Paulinus consenting, the king did as he said; for, holding a council with the wise men,’ he asked of every one in particular what he thought of this doctrine hitherto unknown to them, and the new worship of God that was preached? The chief of his own priests, Coifi, immediately answered him, “0 king, consider what this is which is now preached to us; for I verily declare to you what I have learnt beyond doubt, that the religion which we have hitherto professed has no virtue in it and no profit. For none of your people has applied himself more diligently to the worship of our gods than I; and yet there are many who receive greater favours from you, and are more preferred than I, and are more prosperous in all that they undertake to do or to get. Now if the gods were good for any thing, they would rather forward me, who have been careful to serve them with greater zeal. It remains, therefore, that if upon examination you find those new doctrines, which are now preached to us, better and more efficacious, we hasten to receive them without any delay.”

Another of the king’s chief men, approving of his wise words and exhortations, added thereafter: “The present life of man upon earth, O king, seems to me, in comparison with that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the house wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your ealdormen and thegns, while the fire blazes in the midst, and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad. The sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter into winter again. So, this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all. If, therefore, this new doctrine tells us something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.” The other elders and king’s counsellors, by Divine prompting, spoke to the same effect.

But Coifi added, that he wished more attentively to hear Paulinus discourse concerning the God Whom he preached. When he did so, at the king’s command, Coifi, hearing his words, cried out, “This long time I have perceived that what we worshipped was naught; because the more diligently I sought after truth in that worship, the less I found it. But now I freely confess, that such truth evidently appears in this preaching as can confer on us the gifts of life, of salvation, and of eternal happiness. For which reason my counsel is, O king, that we instantly give up to ban and fire those temples and altars which we have consecrated without reaping any benefit from them.” In brief, the king openly assented to the preaching of the Gospel by Paulinus, and renouncing idolatry, declared that he received the faith of Christ: and when he inquired of the aforesaid high priest of his religion, who should first desecrate the altars and temples of their idols, with the precincts that were about them, he answered, “I; for who can more fittingly than myself destroy those things which I worshipped in my folly, for an example to all others, through the wisdom which has been given me by the true God?” Then immediately, in contempt of his vain superstitions, he desired the king to furnish him with arms and a stallion, that he might mount and go forth to destroy the idols; for it was not lawful before for the high priest either to carry arms, or to ride on anything but a mare. Having, therefore, girt a sword about him, with a spear in his hand, he mounted the king’s stallion, and went his way to the idols. The multitude, beholding it, thought that he was mad; but as soon as he drew near the temple he did not delay to desecrate it by casting into it the spear which he held; and rejoicing in the knowledge of the worship of the true God, he commanded his companions to tear down and set on fire the temple, with all its precincts. This place where the idols once stood is still shown, not far from York, to the eastward, beyond the river Derwent, and is now called Godmunddingaham, where the high priest, by the inspiration of the true God, profaned and destroyed the altars which he had himself consecrated.

624. Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Mac Laisre, bishop of Ard Macha. Repose of Fergna, abbot of Í. The destruction of Ráith Guala by Fiachna, son of Baetán.

625.Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Colmán Stélláin, abbot of Tír dá Glas. Birth of Adamnán.

625. Annals of Ulster .

A dark year. Áedán son of Cumuscach and Colmán son of Comgallán migrate to the Lord; and Rónán son of Tuathal, king of Ind Airthir, and Mongán, son of Fiachna of Lurga, die.

1. 1] Remarkable are the four over whom it has closed without recall,

2] The earth of Cluain Airthir churchyard today:

3] Cormac the Handsome,

4] And Illann son of Fiachu.

2. 1] The other two—

2] Many territories do service to them—

3] Are Mongán son of Fiachna of Lurga,

4] And Rónán son of Tuathal

Maedóc of Ferna rested.

625. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Paulinus was invested bishop of the Northumbrians, by Archbishop Justus, on the twelfth day before the calends of August.

This year Archbishop Justus consecrated Paulinus bishop of the North-humbrians.

Honorius I Pope 625-38

625. Cronicum Scotorum.

Maedóc of Ferna rested. The son of Fiachna i.e. Mongán was struck by Arthur son of Bicuir the Briton with a stone and died, of which Bécc of Bairche said:

Cold is the wind across Ile

Which blows against the youth of Cenn-tire;

They will commit a cruel deed in consequence;

They will kill Mongan, son of Fiachna.

Cormac caem and Illand son of Fiachu die.Ronan, son of Tuathal died:—

The church of Cluain-Airthir to-day—

Illustrious the four on whom it closed:

Cormac the mild, who submitted to tribulations,

And Illann, son of Fiacha.

And the other pair,

To whom many territories were obedient—

Mongan, son of Fiachna Lurgan,

And Ronan, son of Tuathal.

Óengus son of Colmán Mór, king of Mide, was killed. Cathal son of Aed, king of Mumu, died.

626. Annales Cambriae.

Edwin is baptized, and Rhun son of Urien baptized him.

626. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Leithet Midind in which Fiachna of Lurga fell. Fiachna son of Demán was victor. The besieging of Crunnmael ‘Sack of Ashes’ by the Uí Néill.

626. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year came Eamer from Cwichelm, king of the West-Saxons, with a design to assassinate King Edwin; but he killed Lilla his thane, and Forthere, and wounded the king. The same night a daughter was born to Edwin, whose name was Eanfleda. Then promised the king to Paulinus, that he would devote his daughter to God, if he would procure at the hand of God, that he might destroy his enemy, who had sent the assassin to him. He then advanced against the West-Saxons with an army, felled on the spot five kings, and slew many of their men. This year Eanfleda, the daughter of King Edwin, was baptized, on the holy eve of Pentecost. And the king within twelve months was baptized, at Easter, with all his people. Easter was then on the twelfth of April. This was done at York, where he had ordered a church to be built of timber, which was hallowed in the name of St. Peter. There the king gave the bishopric to Paulinus; and there he afterwards ordered a larger church to be built of stone. This year Penda began to reign; and reigned thirty winters. He had seen fifty winters when he began to reign. Penda was the son of Wybba, Wybba of Creoda, Creoda of Cynewald, Cynewald of Cnebba, Cnebba of Icel, Icel of Eomer, Eomer of Angelthew, Angelthew of Offa, Offa of Wearmund, Wearmund of Whitley, Whitley of Woden.

626. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Leithet Midind in which Fiachna son of Baedán, i.e. the king of Dál Araide, was killed. Fiachna son of Demán i.e. the king of Dál Fiachach, was victor.

626. Annals of the Four Masters.

The second year of Domhnall. Finntan Maeldubh died. Mobhai mac Ui Aldai died. The battle of Leathairbhe between Maelfithrigh, chief of Cinel Mic Earca, and Ernaine, son of Fiachra, chief of Cinel Fearadhaigh, where Maelfithrigh, son of Aedh Uairidhnach, was slain. Brandubh, son of Maelcobha, died.

626. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Rónán, son of Tuathal. Eclipse of the sun. Death of Mongán, son of Fiachna.

627.Annals of Inisfallen. Repose of Aed son of Cumascach, and of Lachtna.

627. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fourth year of Domhnall. The battle of Ath Abla, where Dicul, son of Fearghus, was slain by the Munstermen. The monastery of Inis Medcoit was founded by Bishop Aedhan.

627. Annales Cambriae.

Belin dies.

627. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Ard Corann in which fell Fiachna son of Demán: the Dál Riata were victors. The battle of Carn Feradaig in Cliú, in which Failbe the Red of Feimen was victor. Guaire of Aidne took flight. Conall son of Maeldub took flight, and the king of Uí Maine fell.

There fell only of the Connachta In the battle-destruction of the six

Mael Dúin, Mael Ruáin, Mael Calgaig, Conall, Maeldub and Mael Bresail.

The vision which the religious bishop Fursa beheld.

627. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year was King Edwin baptized at Easter, with all his people, by Paulinus, who also preached baptism in Lindsey, where the first person who believed was a certain rich man, of the name of Bleek, with all his people. At this time Honorius succeeded Boniface in the papacy, and sent hither to Paulinus the pall; and Archbishop Justus having departed this life on the tenth of November, Honorius was consecrated at Lincoln Archbishop of Canterbury by Paulinus; and Pope Honorius sent him the pall. And he sent an injunction to the Scots, that they should return to the right celebration of Easter.

This year, at Easter, Paulinus baptized Edwin king of the North-humbrians, with his people; and earlier within the same year, at Pentecost, he had baptized Eanfled, daughter of the same king.

Bede.

KING EDWIN, therefore, with all the nobility of the nation, and a large number of the common sort, received the faith, and the washing of holy regeneration, in the eleventh year of his reign, which is the year of our Lord 627, and about one hundred and eighty after the coming of the English into Britain. He was baptized at York, on the holy day of Easter, being the 12th of April, in the church of St. Peter the Apostle, which he himself had built of timber there in haste, whilst he was a catechumen receiving instruction in order to be admitted to baptism. In that city also he bestowed upon his instructor and bishop, Paulinus, his episcopal see. But as soon as he was baptized, he set about building, by the direction of Paulinus, in the same place a larger and nobler church of stone, in the midst whereof the oratory which he had first erected should be enclosed. Having, therefore, laid the foundation, he began to build the church square, encompassing the former oratory. But before the walls were raised to their full height, the cruel death of the king left that work to be finished by Oswald his successor. Paulinus, for the space of six years from this time, that is, till the end of the king’s reign, with his, consent and favour, preached the Word of God in that country, and as many as were foreordained to eternal life believed and were baptized. Among them were Osfrid and Eadfrid, King Edwin’s sons who were both born to him, whilst he was in banishment, of Quenburga, the daughter of Cearl, king of the Mercians.

Afterwards other children of his, by Queen Ethelberg, were baptized, Ethelhun and his daughter Ethelthryth, and another, Wuscfrea, a son; the first two were snatched out of this life whilst they were still in the white garments of the newly-baptized, and buried in the church at York. Yffi, the son of Osfrid, was also baptized, and many other noble and royal persons. So great was then the fervour of the faith, as is reported, and the desire for the laver of salvation among the nation of the Northumbrians, that Paulinus at a certain time coming with the king and queen to the royal township, which is called Adgefrin, stayed there with them thirty-six days, fully occupied in catechizing and baptizing; during which days, from morning till night, he did nothing else but instruct the people resorting from all villages and places, in Christ’s saving Word; and when they were instructed, he washed them with the water of absolution in the river Glen, which is close by. This township, under the following kings, was abandoned, and another was built instead of it, at the place called Maelmin.

These things happened in the province of the Bernicians; but in that of the Deiri also, where he was wont often to be with the king, he baptized in the river Swale, which runs by the village of Cataract; for as yet oratories, or baptisteries, could not be built in the early infancy of the Church in those parts. But in Campodonum, where there was then a royal township, he built a church which the pagans, by whom King Edwin was slain, afterwards burnt, together with all the place. Instead of this royal seat the later kings built themselves a township in the country called Loidis. But the altar, being of stone, escaped the fire and is still preserved in the monastery of the most reverend abbot and priest, Thrydwulf, which is in the forest of Elmet.

CHAP. XV.

EDWIN was so zealous for the true worship, that he likewise persuaded Earpwald, king of the East Angles, and son of Redwald, to abandonhis idolatrous superstitions, and with his whole province to receive the faith and mysteries of Christ. And indeed his father Redwald had long before been initiated into the mysteries of the Christian faith in Kent, but in vain; for on his return home, he was seduced by his wife and certain perverse teachers, and turned aside from the sincerity of the faith; and thus his latter state was worse than the former; so that, like the Samaritans of old, he seemed at the same time to serve Christ and the gods whom he served before; and in the same temple he had an altar for the Christian Sacrifice, and another small one at which to offer victims to devils. Aldwulf, king of that same province, who lived in our time, testifies that this temple had stood until his time, and that he had seen it when he was a boy. The aforesaid King Redwald was noble by birth, though ignoble in his actions, being the son of Tytilus, whose father was Uuffa, from whom the kings of the East Angles are called Uuffings.

Earpwald, not long after he had embraced the Christian faith, was slain by one Ricbert, a pagan; and from that time the province was in error for three years, till Sigbert succeeded to the kingdom, brother to the same Earpwald, a most Christian and learned man, who was banished, and went to live in Gaul during his brother’s life, and was there initiated into the mysteries of the faith, whereof he made it his business to cause all his province to partake as soon as he came to the throne. His exertions were nobly promoted by Bishop Felix, who, coming to Honorius, the archbishop, from the parts of Burgundy, where he had been born and ordained, and having told him what he desired, was sent by him to preach the Word of life to the aforesaid nation of the Angles. Nor were his good wishes in vain; for the pious labourer in the spiritual field reaped therein a great harvest of believers, delivering all that province (according to the inner signification of his name) from long iniquity and unhappiness, and bringing it to the faith and works of righteousness, and the gifts of everlasting happiness. He had the see of his bishopric appointed him in the city Dommoc, and having presided over the same province with pontifical authority seventeen years, he ended his days there in peace.

CHAP. XVI.

PAULINUS also preached the Word to the province of Lindsey, which is the first on the south side of the river Humber, stretching as far as the sea; and he first converted to the Lord the reeve of the city of Lincoln, whose name was Blaecca, with his whole house. He likewise built, in that city, a stone church of beautiful workmanship; the roof of which has either fallen through long neglect, or been thrown down by enemies, but the walls are still to be seen standing, and every year miraculous cures are wrought in that place, for the benefit of those who have faith to seek them. In that church, when Justus had departed to Christ, Paulinus consecrated Honorius bishop in his stead, as will be hereafter mentioned in its proper place. A certain priest and abbot of the monastery of Peartaneu,(Partney in Lincolnshire)a man of singular veracity, whose name was Deda, told me concerning the faith of this province that an old man had informed him that he himself had been baptized at noon-day, by Bishop Paulinus, in the presence of King Edwin, and with him a great multitude of the people, in the river Trent, near the city, which in the English tongue is called Tiouulfingacaestir; and he was also wont to describe the person of the same Paulinus, saying that he was tall of stature, stooping somewhat, his hair black, his visage thin, his nose slender and aquiline, his aspect both venerable and awe-inspiring. He had also with him in the ministry, James, the deacon, a man of zeal and great fame in Christ and in the church, who lived even to our days.

It is told that there was then such perfect peace in Britain, wheresoever the dominion of King Edwin extended, that, as is still proverbially said, a woman with her new-born babe might walk throughout the island, from sea to sea, without receiving any harm. That king took such care for the good of his nation, that in several places where he had seen clear springs near the highways, he caused stakes to be fixed, with copper drinking-vessels hanging on them, for the refreshment of travellers; nor durst any man touch them for any other purpose than that for which they were designed, either through the great dread they had of the king, or for the affection which they bore him. His dignity was so great throughout his dominions, that not only were his banners borne before him in battle, but even in time of peace, when he rode about his cities, townships, or provinces, with his thegns, the standard-bearer was always wont to go before him. Also, when he walked anywhere along the streets, that sort of banner which the Romans call Tufa, and the English, Thuuf, was in like manner borne before him.

Bede.

Extract from the Life and Confession of St. Felix

There was a certain countryman, poor in worldly goods, but rich in faith, who supported himself in straitened circumstances by the possession of two oxen, which he used in his own work, and also let out for hire to his neighbours. These oxen, which he took great care of, were one morning missing; and their owner, when he discovered the loss, without the slightest idea of searching for and finding them, ran to the church of St. Felix, where he threw himself prostrate on the ground before the doors of the sacred house; and, fixing his eyes on the earth, besought the holy man to restore him his oxen which he had lost, and vowed never to leave the church until he should recover them. He remained there all the day, uttering cries which savoured of a rustic dialect, but nevertheless evinced the faith which was in his heart. When evening came on he was ejected by the multitude, and thrust out of the sacred edifice. He then returned home, where he continued his lamentations all the night. But, because every one who asks receives, and who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened, and, as the Psalmist says, “The Lord hath heard the desire of The countryman recovers his oxen.the poor,”―at midnight, when every thing was buried in sleep, and the poor man alone was kept awake by poverty and sorrow for his loss, on a sudden, wonderful to be related, the oxen which he was seeking came to the door, as if by Divine interposition; having returned safe from the hands of the robbers, through the wild country and the darkness of night, to their owner’s house. They knocked with their horns against the door of the house, to signify that they were come back; but the poor man, in fear and trembling, thinking that the thieves were returned, durst not open the door, until the oxen, as if understanding the cause of his delay, informed him who they were by lowing. The rustic, having thus recovered his cattle, acted by no means like a rustic on the occasion, but like a wise man and a faithful Christian; for the first thing which he did in the morning was to offer up thanks to his Redeemer. He went to the church of St. Felix, and took his oxen along with him. He joyfully told everyone who met him on his way thither, and also those who were at the church, the benefits which he had received from the holy confessor; and, inasmuch as by lamenting so long for his loss he had done no small injury to his eyes, he offered up a petition to St. Felix, and got them cured; so that he returned home benefited in more ways than one, and full of joy.

At this time, they desired to erect a more noble building in honour of the saint; and for this purpose wished to remove two small cottages of disagreeable exterior, which stood in the way, and presented a most unsightly appearance in the vicinity of the church. With this end in view, Bishop Paulinus requested their owners to pay respect to the holy Saint Felix, and suffer their private houses to be removed, in order to beautify and improve the church. The owners, however, brutally rejected his request, and said they would part with their lives rather than their property. The bishop despaired of miraculous removal of the unsightly buildings to overcome their obstinacy; but this was speedily brought about by the Divine interposition: for one night, when all were asleep, a conflagration suddenly arose from one of those same cells, and began to spread to the neighbouring houses, apparently gaining fresh strength every moment, and likely to consume all the houses far and near. Roused by the noise and the flames, the citizens flocked together to put out the fire, by throwing water upon it; or at all events to save their property from the houses. But they found all human aid was unavailing, and they began to turn their attention to prayer. Led by the bishop, they thronged to the church of St. Felix, and on bended knees supplicated for assistance from on high. They then proceeded to the adjoining church of the Apostles, and put up the same prayer. After this, the bishop returned home, and taking a small splinter of the wood of our Lord’s cross, threw it into the midst of the fire. Immediately the flames subsided, and this small fragment of wood effected what so many men, with abundance of water, had not been able to accomplish. Such, indeed, was its power, that the usual nature of things was changed; and fire, which usually consumes everything, was itself consumed by the wood of our Lord’s passion. When the conflagration was over, the citizens came in the morning to see what havoc had been committed during the night, and expected to find that they were great losers: but they found that nothing had been burnt, except what deserved to be burnt. Of the two houses before-mentioned, which even themselves wished to destroy, one was utterly consumed by the flames. The owner was put to shame by the thing; for he perceived that he had lost his house all the same, without meriting any obligation from the holy father; and immediately afterwards the owner of the other house which remained began to pull it down with his own hands, that the whole space round the church might be cleared, and be rendered worthy the merits of the saint. When all the rubbish was removed, the Bishop Paulinus persevered in rebuilding the church, and accomplished the task in three years, adding pictures, and every other proper ornament. In this church are celebrated the blessed life and ever memorable passion of Saint Felix, who, on the 14th of January finished his glorious career, and received the crown of life, which God hath promised to those which love him.

The end of the Book of the Life and Confession of St. Felix, which I, Christ’s servant Bede, translated into prose out of the metrical work of the Holy Bishop Paulinus.

627. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Ard Corann won by the Dál Riata in which fell Fiachna son of Demán by the king of Dál Riata. The battle of Carn Feradaig. Failbe the Red was victor. Guaire of Aidne took flight. Conall son of Mael Dub, king of Uí Maine, fell, and Mael Dúin and Mael Ruain and Mael Calcaigh, Conall son of Mael Dub son of Mael Bresail.

The vision of Fursa was manifested.

Aelfric of Eynsham.

The vision of Furseus.

We will now recount to you the vision of another man, which is true, since the apostle Paul might not announce his vision to men.

There was a Scottish priest named Furseus, noble-born in the world’s estimation, of honourable life, and great faith. He was learned from childhood, living in chastity, devout in spirit, amiable of aspect, and in holy virtues daily thriving.

Then he forsook father, and mother, and relations, and learned, a stranger, in another country. After this he raised a minster, and planted it with pious men. After a time, sickness befell him, so that he was brought to death.

Then two angels took his soul, and, flying with white wings, bore him between them. A third angel flew before him, armed with a white shield and a shining sword. The three angels were shining with like brightness, and conveyed to the soul wondrous pleasantness with the sound of their wings, and with the melody of their song greatly gladdened it. They sung, “Ibunt sancti de virtute in virtutem; vidchitur Dens dcorum in Sion: “that is in English, “The saints go from virtue to virtue; the God of all gods shall be seen in Sion.” Then he heard afterwards another, as it were, unknown song, many thousand angels thus saying, ‘ Exierunt obviani Christo:” that is, ” They went to meet Christ.”

Whereupon an angel of the celestial hosts commanded the angel who was leading the soul, to lead it back again to the body from which it had been led. Then said the angel to him, who flew on his right hand. Thou shalt receive thy body again, and give to God the work and efficacy of thy solicitude.

Then said the holy Furseus, that he would not voluntarily leave their society. The angel answered him, After the good efficacy of thy solicitude, we will come again to thee, and will take thee to us. They then sung, and the soul could not understand how it again came into the body, by reason of the pleasantness of the melody. Then about cock crowing the holy man lay re quickened, suffused with a rosy hue, and the corpse-bearers, straight ways uncovered his face. Furseus then asked, why their noise was so great, or at what they so greatly wondered? They answered him, and said, that he had died in the evening, and that his corpse had lain on the floor all night till cock crowing.

He then sat up, reflecting on his vision, and bade them house him, and thus sick lived two days. Then again, on the third midnight, he stretched forth his hands in prayer, and blithely departed from this toilsome life. Then came again the three aforesaid angels, and led him. Whereupon came the accursed devils with horrid aspect towards the soul, and one of them said. Let us obstruct them with battle. The devils then fighting shot their fiery darts against the soul, but the devilish darts were straight ways all extinguished by the shielding of the armed angel. The angels said to the accursed spirits. Why will ye hinder our journey? This man is not a party to your ruin. The adversaries said that it was unjust, that a man who had consented to evil should go to rest without punishment, when it is written, that they are as guilty who consent to wrong as they who perpetrate it. The angel then fought against the accursed spirits so vigorously, that it seemed to the holy man that the cry of the battle and the noise of the devils might be heard over all the earth.

The devils again said, Evil discourse he practised: he shall not unhurt enjoy the everlasting life. The holy angel said. Unless ye can fix on him the deadly sins, he shall not perish for the less. The old accuser said. Unless ye forgive men their sins, the Heavenly Father will not forgive you your sins. The angel answered. On whom has this man avenged his injuries? The devil said. It is not written that they shall not take vengeance, but. Unless ye forgive from your hearts those sinning against you. The angel said. We shall be judged before God. The old devil again said. It is written. Unless ye be as meek in innocence as a child, ye will not have entrance into the kingdom of heaven. This commandment he has in no wise fulfilled. The angel of God absolved him, and said, Mercy he had in his heart, though he observed the usage of men. The devil answered, As he received that evil from human usage, let him also so receive the punishment from the Judge above. The holy angel said. We shall be reconciled before God. The adversaries were then overcome, through the angel’s fighting and caution.

The holy angel then bade the blessed man look on the world. He then looked back, and saw, as it were, a dark dell, very low; and saw there four immense fires kindled, and the angel said to him. These four fires will consume all the world, and burn the souls of those men who through transgression have made void the confession and promise of their baptism. That one fire will burn the souls of those men that loved leasing; the second, of those that followed covetousness; the third, of those that stirred up strife and discord; the fourth fire will burn the souls of those men who have practised fraud and improbity.

The fire then approached the holy man, and he forthwith terrified, said to the angel. The fire approaches me. The angel answered. That will not burn thee for a punishment which thou hast not in life kindled by sins. Though this fire is terrible and great, nevertheless, it burns everyone according to his works. As the body is inflamed by unallowed lusts, so also burns the soul in inevitable punishment. The armed angel then flew before him, parting the flame, and the other two flew at his two sides, and shielded him from the peril of the fire. The devils then in fight shot towards the soul, and one of them said to the angels. The servant who knows his master’s will, and will not execute it, shall be punished with great punishments. The holy angel asked, In what has this man not fulfilled his Master’s will? The devil answered. It is written, that the

God on high hateth the gift of the unrighteous. He had taken a little before a garment of a dying man. Then said the angel. He believed that every one that had given him any gift, had shown penitence in life. The devil answered. First, he should have proved their repentance, and then received their gift. The angel answered. Let us refer to the judgement of God. The accursed spirit answered, God said, that every sin that was not atoned for on earth, should be judged in this world. This man cleansed not his sins on earth, nor here receives he any punishment: where now is God’s justice? The angel rebuked them, and said. Blame not too presumptuously, for ye know not God’s secret judgements. The devil answered. What is here secret? The angel said. Ever will God’s mercy be with a man, while there is any penitence hoped for. The devil answered. It is not now his time to repent, in this place.

The angel answered. Know ye not the great deepness of God’s mysteries? Repentance, may yet be allowed him. Then said another devil, It is written. Love thy neighbour as thyself. The angel answered. This man did good to his neighbour. The adversary answered. It is not enough that a man do good to his neighbour, unless he love him as himself. The holy angel answered. Good deeds are a manifestation of true love, and God requites every man according to his deeds. Whereupon the devil said tauntingly. This man promised that he would forsake all worldly things, and he afterwards loved worldly things against his own promise, and against the apostle’s command, who said, Love not this world, nor the things which are in the world. The holy angel answered, lie loved not worldly possessions for his need alone, but to distribute to all the poor. The old accuser again said. It is written. Unless thou correct the unrighteous, and say unto him his unrighteousness, I will reproach his bloodshed at thy hands. This man would not make known to the sinning their sins. The angel said. It is written of the evil time, that the wise shall be silent, when he sees that his preaching hath no success.

In all these disputes, the fighting of the devils was very obstinate against the soul and the holy angels, until, through God’s doom, the adversaries were confounded, and the holy man was then invested with an immense light. lie then looked up, and saw a host of many angels shining with great brightness, and the souls of the holy flying towards him with indescribable light, and put the devils to flight from him, and turned away from him the terror of the fire. Then he knew among the holy two venerable priests, who before in life had been his countrymen, very celebrated. They approached, and spoke to him familiarly. One of them was called Beanus, the other Meldanus. Then was there a great serenity in the heaven, and two angels flew, as it were, through a hill into heaven, and then a great light darted out there after the angels, and the song of four hosts of angels was heard, thus saying, ” Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Dominus Deus sabaoth.”

Then said the angel to the blessed man, that the melody was from the celestial host, and bade him listen attentively to the heavenly song, and said. Verily into this heavenly realm sadness never comes save for men’s perdition.

Again, there came angels flying from the heavenly secrecy, and declared that he should again return to the world. Furseus was then, through this announcement, astonished, and the two aforesaid priests obtained from the angels that they might speak to him, and said to him. What dost thou dread? Thou hast one day’s journey to travel. Furseus then inquired concerning the ending of this world. They said. The ending of this world will not be yet, though it be near, but mankind will be afflicted with famine and with pestilence. Through four things the souls of men perish, that is, through sins, and through the instigation of the devil, and through the heedlessness of teachers, and through evil example of unrighteous chiefs. Over the teachers is God’s ire most excited, because they neglect the divine books, and are wholly solicitous about worldly things. To bishops and priests, it is fitting that they attend to their doctrine, and say to the people their need. To monastic men it is fitting that they lead their lives in stillness. Do thou make known thy vision in the world, and be sometimes in privacy, and sometimes among men. When thou art in privacy, hold sedulously the commandments of God; and again, when thou goest out among men, go for the Salvation of their souls, not for worldly gains. Be not solicitous about worldly gains, but be merciful to all thy adversaries with pure heart, and requite good for evil, and pray for thy enemies. Be as a true steward, and appropriate nothing to thyself, but sustenance and raiment. Feed thy body with allowed meats, and despise every evil. After these admonitions and other manifold instructions, all the heavenly host went up to the heavenly company, and the two priests, Beanus and Mcldaims, with them. But Furseus with the three angels returned to earth.

They then came again to the penal fire, and the armed angel cleared the way for him through the fire, dividing the flame in two. The devils then shot from the fire, and cast an unrighteous soul burning upon the blessed man Furseus, so that his shoulder and his face were burnt by the penal fire. Furseus instantly knew the soul; he had formerly in life been his townsman, and he had taken a garment from his corpse, as we said to you a little before. The angels then seized the soul, and cast it again into the fire. Then said one of the devils. As thou before didst receive his property, so shalt thou be his associate in his torments. God’s angel answered, lie received not his property from any covetousness, but for the redemption of his soul: and the fire instantly ceased.

Then said God’s angel to the man Furseus. That which thou thyself hast kindled, that burned on thee. If thou hadst not received the garment of this sinful man at his decease, his torment could not have injured thee. Preach now to all men to repent and make confession to priests, until the last hour of their lives; but yet the possessions of no sinful man are to be received at his end, nor let his corpse be buried in a holy place; but ere he departs let be said to him the sharp torments, that his heart may be touched with the bitterness, that he may at some time after be purified, if he at least at his departure repent of his unrighteousness, and distribute alms abundantly. But let not the priest receive to us. anything of the sinful man’s possessions j but let them be distributed to the poor at his grave.

After this speech, the angels came with the soul, and set it on the roof of the church, where the corpse lay surrounded with people; and the angels bade him recognise his own body, and again assume it. Furseus then looked on his body as on an unknown corpse, and would not approach it. The holy angel said. Why shunnest thou to receive this body, which thou mayest without the strife of sins henceforth have? Verily thou hast in this tribulation overcome unallowed lusts, so that they henceforth may have no power against thee. He then saw his body opened under the breast, and the angel said to him. When thou shalt be requickened, sprinkle thy body with font-water, and thou wilt feel no soreness, save the burn that thou caughtest in the fire. Do well in all thy life, and we then after thy good deeds will again take thee happy to us.

The holy man Furseus arose from death a second time, and saw about him a great multitude of men, lay and ecclesiastical, and with great lamentation bewailed their human undertakings and folly. He sat then, and said in order all his vision, which to him, through God’s angels, in that while had been shown. He was sprinkled with font-water, as the angel had ordered, yet was the burn, that he had caught from the unrighteous man, on his shoulder and on his face ever visible. A great wonder that that was seen on the body which the soul only had received

He went then o’er all Ireland and Scotland, declaring the things that he had seen and heard, and with God’s grace was wonderfully filled, desiring no earthly thing. To all good men he was kind, to the unrighteous and sinful terrible. In divine miracles he shone, and drove out devils from men possessed, and cheered the poor. He went twelve years thus preaching between the Irish and Scots, and afterwards over all the English nation. and also raised a minster in this island, went then south over sea to the realm of the Franks, and was there received with great veneration, and erected a monastery. Then after a little interval he fell sick, and departed to the kingdom of heaven, to the eternal joy, which he before had seen, in which he lives happy ever with God; and his body was buried with great veneration, and after about four years, sound, without corruptible decay, was buried in another place; where his merits are shown by miracles, to the praise of the Almighty, who is Ruler of all nations. Amen.

628. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Bolg Luatha, in which Faelán son of Colmán, king of Laigin, was victor. The battle of Both, in which Suibne Menn son of Fiachna was victor, and Domnall son of Aed took flight. The slaying of Suibne Menn—the king of Ireland, Suibne Menn son of Fiachna son of Feradach son of Muiredach son of Eógan—in Taerr Bréni, i.e. by Congal Caech son of Scanlán. Repose of Colum son of Bairdéne, abbot of Cluain. The killing of Cuiméne son of Colmán. The devastation of Laigin by Domnall. Domnall son of Aed son of Ainmire begins to reign.

628. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Bolg Luatha, in which he himself fell. Faelán son of Colmán, king of Laigin, was victor. The battle of Both, in which Suibne Menn son of Fiachna was victor; Domnall son of Aed took flight. The slaying of Suibne Menn son of Fiachna in Tráig Bréni, by Congal Caech son of Scannal. Repose of Columbanus son of Badéne, abbot of Cluain. The killing of Cuman son of Colmán. The devastation of Laigin by Domnall. Domnall son of Aed reigns. The battle of Fid Eoin in which Mael Caích son of Scannal i.e. the king of the Cruithin was victor. The Dál Riata fell, and Díucaill son of Eochu king of the Cruithin people fell, and Aedhan’s descendants, i.e. Rigullan son of

Conaing and Faelbhe son of Eochaid and Oric son of Albirit, heir designate of Saxan, with a great slaughter of their followers. The death of Eochu Buide son of Aedán in the 20th year of his reign. The battle of Dún Ceithirn in which Congal Caech took flight, and Domnall

son of Aed was victor, in which Guaire Gaillsech son of Forinnán fell.

628. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Cynegils and Cwichelm fought with Penda at Cirencester, and afterwards entered into a treaty there.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

Fourteen years after, Cynegils and Cuichelm fought against Penda at Cirencester.

628. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fifth year of Domhnall. The battle of Ath Goan, in Iarthar Liffe, by Faelan, son of Colman; by Conall, son of Suibhne, chief of Meath; and by Failge, or Failbhe Flann, King of Munster, wherein was slain Crimhthann, son of Aedh, son of Seanach, King of Leinster, with many others along with him. Mor Mumhan died.

628. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Cathal son of Aed, king of Mumu.

629. The battle of Carn Feradaig between Mumu and Connachta. Fáilbe Fland was victor; Guaire Aidne was put to flight.

Annales Cambriae.

The beseiging of king Cadwallon in the island of Glannauc.

629. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Fid Eóin in which Mael Caích son of Scannal, king of the Cruithin, was victor. The Dál Riata fell. Connid Cerr, king of Dál Riatai, fell. The battle of Dún Ceithirn, in which Congal Caech took flight, and Domnall son of Aed was victor, in which Guaire son of Forinnán fell. Or, the battle of Fid Eóin, in which fell the grandsons of Aedán, Rigullon and Failbe. Death of Echaid Buide son of Aedán, king of the Picts. Thus, I have found in the Book of Cuanu.

SBG St Constantine.

Constantine, son of Rhydderch Hael, King of the Cumbrian Britons, was born after the return of Kentigern to Strathclyde in 573. Of him we know very little; only what we are told in the Life of S. Kentigern by Joscelyn, which is this. The queen (of Rhydderch), Langueth by name, was sterile, but, by the benediction and intercession of S. Kentigern, she conceived and bore a son, whom the Saint baptized, and to whom he gave the name of Constantine. The boy grew up in favour with God and man, and after his father’s death succeeded to the sovereignty of the Northern Cymry, and was subject to the bishop, as was his father. And because God was with him, he succeeded in controlling all the barbarous neighbouring nations, without effusion of blood. And he excelled all the kings who had reigned before him in Cumbria in riches and glory and dignity, and, what was more con- siderable, in sanctity. Wherefore, illustrious in merits, finish- ing his course in prosperity, he was crowned with glory in heaven, ” Sanctusque Constantius usque ad prasens solet a pluribus appellari.” Rhydderch is supposed to have died about 600, and we may put the date of the death of this Constantine as taking place about 630.

630 – 650. Columba, Aiden

630 – 650

630. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Leitheirbe between the Cenél nEógain themselves, in which Mael Fithrich fell; and the battle of Mitaine. Taerr Bréni is burned, and the killing of Brandub, son of Mael Cobo. Or thus it is related in the book of Dub dá Leithe: The battle of Leitheirbe between the descendants of Mac Erca and the descendants of Feradach, in which Mael Fithrich fell. Ernaine son of Fiachna, was victor.

630. Annales Cambriae.

Gwyddgar comes and does not return. On the Kalends of January, the battle of Meigen; and there Edwin was killed with his two sons; but Cadwallon was the victor.

630. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Leitheirbe between the Cenél Feradaigh and the Cenél Meic Erca, in which Mael Fithrich fell. Ernaine son of Fiachna was victor. The killing of Brandub son of Mael Cobo. The death of Connad Cerr, as some say, in the first year of his reign, in the battle of Fid Eoin. The falling asleep of Finntan son of Mael Dub. Mo-Bai moccu Aldai rested.

The death of Aelle, king of the Saxons.

630. Annals of the Four Masters.

The seventh year of Domhnall. The two sons of Aedh Slaine were slain by Conall, son of Suibhne, at Loch Trethin, at Freamhain, namely, Congal, chief of Breagh, ancestor of the Ui Conaing, and Ailill Cruitire i.e. the Harper, ancestor of the Sil Dluthaigh.

The battle of Seaghais, wherein were slain Loichen, son of Neachtain Ceannfoda, and Comasgach, son of Aenghus.

The battle of Cuil Caelain, by Diarmaid, son of Aedh Slaine, where the two sons of Aenghus, son of Colman Mor, namely, Maelumha and Colga, and some others along with them, were slain; of which was said:

The battle of the fair Cuil Caelain, it was fought on one side with devotedness,

Was gained by Diarmaid, of Deala, over the mead-drinking men of Meath,

In which the white headed Colgan was pierced, and Maelumha of great dignity,

Two sons of Aenghus of glorious arms, the son of fine-shaped, great-voiced Colman.

Segene, Abbot of Ia Coluim Cille, founded the church of Rechrainn. Conall, son of Suibhne, chief of Meath, and Maelumha, son of Forannan, were slain by Diarmaid, son of Aedh Slaine.

630. Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Oclad, in which Crunnmael and Suibne, i.e. Mend, fell.

631. Death of Echaid Buide, son of Aedán. The battle of Dún Cethrair; and the death of Aed, son of Cuimíne, son of Colgu. The slaying of Cáilchíne, son of Díma, from Liathmuine.

631. Cronicum Scotorum.

The death of Cinead son of Lugthréine, king of the picts.

631 Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Aille’s son, and death of Cinaed son of Lugthréine, king of the Picts.

631. Annals of the Four Masters.

The eighth year of Domhnall. Ernaine, son of Fiachna, chief of Cinel Fearadhaigh, was slain. It was by him Maelfithrigh, son of Aedh Uairidhnach, was slain in the battle of Letherbhe. Carthach, i.e. Mochuda, son of Finnall, was banished from Rathain.

631. Annales Cambriae.

The battle of Cantscaul (Denisburna near Hexham) in which Cadwallon fell.

Bede.

CHAP. XVIII.

Of the life and death of the religious King Sigbert [Circ. 631 A.D.]

AT this time, the kingdom of the East Angles, after the death of Earpwald, the successor of Redwald, was governed by his brother Sigbert, a good and religious man, who some time before had been baptized in Gaul, whilst he lived in banishment, a fugitive from the enmity of Redwald. When he returned home, as soon as- he ascended the throne, being desirous to imitate the good institutions which he had seen in Gaul, he founded a school wherein boys should be taught letters, and was assisted therein by Bishop Felix, who came to him from Kent, and who furnished them with masters and teachers after the manner of the people of Kent.

This king became so great a lover of the ‘heavenly kingdom, that at last, quitting the affairs of his kingdom, and committing them to his kinsman Ecgric, who before had a share in that kingdom, he entered a monastery, which he had built for himself, and having received the tonsure, applied himself rather to do battle for a heavenly throne. A long time after this, it happened that the nation of the Mercians, under King Penda, made war on the East Angles; who finding themselves no match for their enemy, entreated Sigbert to go with them to battle, to encourage the soldiers. He was unwilling and refused, upon which they drew him against his will out of the monastery, and carried him to the army, hoping that the soldiers would be less afraid and less disposed to flee in the presence of one who had formerly been an active and distinguished commander. But he, still mindful of his profession, surrounded, as he was, by a royal army, would carry nothing in his hand but a wand, and was killed with King Ecgric; and the pagans pressing on, all their army was either slanghtered or dispersed.

They were succeeded in the kingdom by Anna, the son of Eni, of the blood royal, a good man, and the father of good children, of whom, in the proper place, we shall speak hereafter. He also was afterwards slain like his predecessors by the same pagan chief of the Mercians.

632. Annales Cambriae.

The slaughter of the (river) Severn and the death of Idris.

632. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Cadwallon, king of the Britons, and Ainfrith. The burning of Bennchor Mór in Britain, and the killing of Rónán son of Baetán. The battle of Áth Abla, in which Dícuill son of Fergus Tuile fell by the Munster host. The island church of Medgote was founded. Mór Muman, daughter of Aed Bennán, died.

632. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Áth Abla, in which Dícuill son of Fergus Tuile fell by the Munster host. The island church of Medgote was founded.

632. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year was Orpwald baptized.

632.Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Fintan and Maeldub. Death of Cobthach, king of the Déisi.

633. Death of Aed Damán, king of Iarmumu. Death of Cinaed, king of Alba, and of Étaín, king of the Saxons, and the burning of …

633. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year King Edwin was slain by Cadwalla and Penda, on Hatfield moor, on the fourteenth of October. He reigned seventeen years. His son Osfrid was also slain with him. After this Cadwalla and Penda went and ravaged all the land of the Northumbrians; which when Paulinus saw, he took Ethelburga, the relict of Edwin, and went by ship to Kent. Eadbald and Honorius received him very honourably, and gave him the bishopric of Rochester, where he continued to his death.

633. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Iudris, king of the Britons. The battle of Áth Goan in western Life, in which Cremthann son of Aed son of Senach, king of Laigin, fell.

633. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Áth Goan in western Life in which Cremthann son of Aed son of Senach, king of Laigin, fell. Faelán son of Colmán and Conall son of Suibne, king of Mide, and Failbe Flann, king of Mumu, were victors. The death of Mór of Mumu. Enán of Druim Raithi rested. The killing of two sons of Aed Sláine by Conall son of Suibne at Loch

Trethin at Fremainn, i.e. Congal king of Brega, ancestor of Uí Conaing, and Ailill the Harper, ancestor of Síl Dlúthaig. The killing of Conall son of Suibne king of Mide in the house of Nadfraích’s son by Diarmaid son of Aed Sláine. The repose of Fintan Munnu son of Telchan on the 12th of the Kalends of November, and of Ernaine son of Cresine. The battle of Segais in which fell Lóchéne son of Nechtan Cennfada and Cumascach son of Óengus.

633. Annals of the Four Masters.

The tenth year of Domhnall. Failbhe Flann, King of Munster, died.

SBG St Cadwaladr Fendigaia.

Cadwaladr son of Cadwallon ab Cadfan, was the last of the Welsh princes who assumed the title of Gwledig or chief sovereign of Britain. Cadwallon had been defeated by Edwin, when young, and he had fled to Ireland. Returning to Britain, he assumed the title of king, and defended the title in a series of battles. The Welsh of Gwynedd and Powys rallied to his flag in large numbers, and going to the assistance of Penda, he completely defeated Edwin at Heathfield in 633. For a while Cadwallon overpowered the Northumbrians, and proceeded to devastate the whole region.

The Life of Columba, written by Adomnán of Iona 633

He very often foretold the future deserts, sometimes joyful, and sometimes sad, of many persons while they were still living in mortal flesh. In the dreadful crash of wars, he obtained from God, by the virtue of prayer, that some kings should be conquered, and others come off victorious. And such a grace as this he enjoyed, not only while alive in this world, but even after his departure from the flesh, as God, from whom all the saints derive their honour, has made him still a victorious and most valiant champion in battle. I shall give one example of especial honour conferred by Almighty God on this honourable man, the event having occurred the day before the Saxon prince Oswald went forth to fight with Catlon (Ceadualla of Bede), a very valiant king of the Britons. For as this same King Oswald, after pitching his camp, in readiness for the battle, was sleeping one day on a pillow in his tent, he saw St. Columba in a vision, beaming with angelic brightness, and of figure so majestic that his head seemed to touch the clouds. The blessed man having announced his name to the king, stood in the midst of the camp, and covered it all with his brilliant garment, except at one small distant point; and at the same time, he uttered those cheering words which the Lord spake to Jesua Ben Nun before the passage of the Jordan, after Moses’ death, saying, ‘Be strong and of a good courage; behold, I shall be with thee,’ etc. Then St. Columba having said these words to the king in the vision, added, ‘March out this following night from your camp to battle, for on this occasion the Lord has granted to me that your foes shall be put to flight, that your enemy Catlon shall be delivered into your hands, and that after the battle you shall return in triumph, and have a happy reign.’ The king, awaking at these words, assembled his council and related the vision, at which they were all encouraged; and so, the whole people promised that, after their return from the war, they would believe and be baptized, for up to that time all that Saxon land had been wrapt in the darkness of paganism and ignorance, with the exception of King Oswald and the twelve men who had been baptized with him during his exile among the Scots. What more need I say? On the very next night, King Oswald, as he had been directed in the vision, went forth from his camp to battle, and had a much smaller army than the numerous hosts opposed to him, yet he obtained from the Lord, according to His promise, an easy and decisive victory for King Catlon was slain, and the conqueror, on his return after the battle, was ever after established by God as the Bretwalda of all Britain. I, Adamnan, had this narrative from the lips of my predecessor, the Abbot Failbe, who solemnly declared that he had himself heard King Oswald relating this same vision to Segine the abbot.

Bede.

CHAP. I. How King Edwin’s next successors lost both the faith of their nation and the kingdom; but the most Christian King Oswald retrieved both. [633 A.D.]

EDWIN being slain in battle, the kingdom of the Deiri, to which province his family belonged, and where he first began to reign, passed to Osric, the son of his uncle Aelfric, who, through the preaching of Paulinus, had also received the mysteries of the faith. But the kingdom of the Bernicians—for into these two provinces the nation of the Northumbrians was formerly divided —passed to Eanfrid, the son of Ethelfrid, who derived his origin from the royal family of that province. For all the time that Edwin reigned, the sons of the aforesaid Ethelfrid, who had reigned before him, with many of the younger nobility, lived in banishment among the Scots or Picts, and were there instructed according to the doctrine of the Scots, and were renewed with the grace of Baptism. Upon the death of the king, their enemy, they were allowed to return home, and the aforesaid Eanfrid, as the eldest of them, became king of the Bernicians. Both those kings, as soon as they obtained the government of their earthly kingdoms, abjured and betrayed the mysteries of the heavenly kingdom to which they had been admitted, and again delivered themselves up to defilement and perdition through the abominations of their former idolatry.

But soon after, the king of the Britons, Caedwalla, the unrighteous instrument of rightful vengeance, slew them both. First, in the following summer, he put Osric to death; for, being rashly besieged by him in the municipal town, he sallied out on a sudden with all his forces, took him by surprise, and destroyed him and all his army. Then, when he had occupied the provinces of the Northumbrians for a whole year, not ruling them like a victorious king, but ravaging them like a furious tyrant, he at length put an end to Eanfrid, in like manner, when he unadvisedly came to him with only twelve chosen soldiers, to sue for peace. To this day, that year is looked upon as ill-omened, and hateful to all good men; as well on account of the apostacy of the English kings, who had renounced the mysteries of the faith, as of the outrageous tyranny of the British king. Hence it has been generally agreed, in reckoning the dates of the kings, to abolish the memory of those faithless monarchs, and to assign that year to the reign of the following king, Oswald, a man beloved of God. This king, after the death of his brother Eanfrid, advanced with an army, small, indeed, in number, but strengthened with the faith of Christ; and the impious commander of the Britons, in spite of his vast forces, which he boasted nothing could withstand, was slain at a place called in the English tongue Denisesburna, that is, the brook of Denis.

634. Annals of Ulster.

The killing of two sons of Aed Sláine by Conall son of Suibne at Loch Treitni opposite Fremainn, i.e. Conga1 king of Brega, and Ailill the Harper, ancestor of Síl Dlúthaig.

634. Annals of the Four Masters.

The eleventh year of Domhnall. St. Eochaidh, Abbot of Lis Mor, died on the 17th of April. St. Finntan, son of Telchan, died on the 21st of October. The battle of Magh Rath was gained by Domhnall, son of Aedh, and the sons of Aedh Slaine, over Congal Claen, son of Scannlan, King of Ulidia, where fell Congal, and the Ulidians and foreigners along with him. The battle of Saeltire was gained by Conall Cael, son of Maelcobha, over the Cinel Eoghain.

634. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Osric, whom Paulinus baptized, succeeded to the government of Deira. He was the son of Elfric, the uncle of Edwin. And to Bernicia succeeded Eanfrith, son of Ethelfrith. This year also Bishop Birinus first preached baptism to the West-Saxons, under King Cynegils. The said Birinus went thither by the command of Pope Honorius; and he was bishop there to the end of his life. Oswald also this year succeeded to the government of the Northumbrians, and reigned nine winters. The ninth year was assigned to him on account of the heathenism in which those lived who reigned that one year betwixt him and Edwin.

Bede.

CHAP. II. How, among innumerable other miracles of healing wrought by the wood of the cross, which King Oswald, being ready to engage against the barbarians, erected, a certain man had his injured arm healed. [634 A.D.]

THE place is shown to this day, and held in much veneration, where Oswald, being about to engage in this battle, erected the symbol of the Holy Cross, and knelt down and prayed to God that he would send help from Heaven to his worshippers in their sore need. Then, we are told, that the cross being made in haste, and the hole dug in which it was to be set up, the king himself, in the ardour of his faith, laid hold of it and held it upright with both his hands, till the earth was heaped up by the soldiers and it was fixed. Thereupon, uplifting his voice, he cried to his whole army, “Let us all kneel, and together beseech the true and living God Almighty in His mercy to defend us from the proud and cruel enemy; for He knows that we have undertaken a just war for the safety of our nation.” All did as he had commanded, and accordingly advancing towards the enemy with the first dawn of day, they obtained the victory, as their faith deserved. In the place where they prayed very many miracles of healing are known to have been wrought, as a token and memorial of the king’s faith; for even to this day, many are wont to cut off small splinters from the wood of the holy cross, and put them into water, which they give to sick men or cattle to drink, or they sprinkle them therewith, and these are presently restored to health.

The place is called in the English tongue Hefenfelth, or the Heavenly Field, which name it undoubtedly received of old as a presage of what was afterwards to happen, denoting, that the heavenly trophy was to be erected, the heavenly victory begun, and heavenly miracles shown forth to this day. The place is near the wall in the north which the Romans formerly drew across the whole of Britain from sea to sea, to restrain the onslaught of the barbarous nations, as has been said before. Hither also the brothers of the church of Hagustald, which is not far distant, long ago made it their custom to resort every year, on the day before that on which King Oswald was afterwards slain, to keep vigils there for the health of his soul, and having sung many psalms of praise, to offer for him in the morning the sacrifice of the Holy Oblation. And since that good custom has spread, they have lately built a church there, which has attached additional sanctity and honour in the eyes of all men to that place; and this with good reason; for it appears that there was no symbol of the Christian faith, no church, no altar erected throughout all the nation of the Bernicians, before that new leader in war, prompted by the zeal of his faith, set up this standard of the Cross as he was going to give battle to his barbarous enemy.

Nor is it foreign to our purpose to relate one of the many miracles that have been wrought at this cross. One of the brothers of the same church of Hagulstald, whose name is Bothelm, and who is still living, a few years ago, walking carelessly on the ice at night, suddenly fell and broke his arm; he was soon tormented with a most grievous pain in the broken part, so that he could not lift his arm to his mouth for the anguish. Hearing one morning that one of the brothers designed to go up to the place of the holy cross, he desired him, on his return to bring him a piece of that sacred wood, saying, he believed that with the mercy of God he might thereby be healed. The brother did as he was desired; and returning in the evening, when the brothers were sitting at table, gave him some of the old moss which grew on the surface of the wood. As he sat at table, having no place to bestow the gift which was brought him, he put it into his bosom; and forgetting, when he went to bed, to put it away, left it in his bosom. Awaking in the middle of the night, he felt something cold lying by his side, and putting his hand upon it to feel what it was, he found his arm and hand as sound as if he had never felt any such pain.

Bede

CHAP. XVIII. 634

“IN the meantime, Archbishop Justus was taken up to the heavenly kingdom, on the 10th of November, and Honorius, who was elected to the see in his stead, came to Paulinus to be ordained, and meeting him at Lincoln was there consecrated the fifth prelate of the Church of Canterbury from Augustine. To him also the aforesaid Pope Honorius sent the pall, and a letter, wherein he ordains the same that he had before ordained in his epistle to King Edwin, to wit, that when either the Archbishop of Canterbury or of York shall depart this life, the survivor, being of the same degree, shall have power to ordain another bishop in the room of him that is departed; that it might not be necessary always to undertake the toilsome journey to Rome, at so great a distance by sea and land, to ordain an archbishop.

CHAP. XIX.

THE same Pope Honorius also wrote to the Scots. After having laid down the manner of keeping Easter, they add this concerning the Pelagians in the same epistle:

“And we have also learnt that the poison of the Pelagian heresy again springs up among you; we, therefore, exhort you, that you put away from your thoughts all such venomous and superstitious wickedness. For you cannot be ignorant how that execrable heresy has been condemned; for it has not only been abolished these two hundred years, but it is also daily condemned by us and buried under our perpetual ban; and we exhort you not to rake up the ashes of those whose weapons have been burnt. For who would not detest that insolent and impious assertion, ‘That man can live without sin of his own free will, and not through the grace of God?’ And in the first place, it is blasphemous folly to say that man is without sin, which none can be, but only the one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus. Who was conceived and born without sin; for all other men, being born in original sin, are known to bear the mark of Adam’s transgression, even whilst they are without actual sin, according to the saying of the prophet, ‘For behold, I was conceived in iniquity; and in sin did my mother give birth to me.’

CHAP. XX.

EDWIN reigned most gloriously seventeen years over the nations of the English and the Britons, six whereof, as has been said, he also was a soldier in the kingdom of Christ. Caedwalla, king of the Britons, rebelled against him, being supported by the vigorous Penda, of the royal race of the Mercians, who from that time governed that nation for twenty-two years with varying success.

A great battle being fought in the plain that is called Haethfelth, Edwin was killed on the 12th of October, in the year of our Lord 633, being then forty-eight years of age, and all his army was either slain or dispersed. In the same war also, Osfrid, one of his sons, a warlike youth, fell before him; Eadfrid, another of them, compelled by necessity, went over to King Penda, and was by him afterwards slain in the reign of Oswald, contrary to his oath. At this time a great slaughter was made in the Church and nation of the Northumbrians; chiefly because one of the chiefs, by whom it was carried on, was a pagan, and the other a barbarian, more cruel than a pagan; for Penda, with all the nation of the Mercians, was an idolater, and a stranger to the name of Christ; but Caedwalla, though he professed and called himself a Christian, was so barbarous in his disposition and manner of living, that he did not even spare women and innocent children, but with bestial cruelty put all alike to death by torture, and overran all their country in his fury for a long time, intending to cut off all the race of the English within the borders of Britain. Nor did he pay any respect to the Christian religion which had sprung up among them; it being to this day the custom of the Britons to despise the faith and religion of the English, and to have no part with them in anything any more than with pagans. King Edwin’s head was brought to York, and afterwards taken into the church of the blessed Peter the Apostle, which he had begun, but which his successor Oswald finished, as has been said before. It was laid in the chapel of the holy Pope Gregory, from whose disciples he had received the word of life.

The affairs of the Northumbrians being thrown into confusion at the moment of this disaster, when there seemed to be no prospect of safety except in flight, Paulinus, taking with him Queen Ethelberg, whom he had before brought thither, returned into Kent by sea, and was very honourably received by the Archbishop Honorius and King Eadbald. He came thither under the conduct of Bassus, a most valiant thegn of King Edwin, having with him Eanfled, the daughter, and Wuscfrea, the son of Edwin, as well as Yffi, the son of Osfrid, Edwin’s son. Afterwards Ethelberg, for fear of the kings Eadbald and Oswald, sent Wuscfrea and Yffi over into Gaul to be bred up by King Dagobert, who was her friend; and there they both died in infancy, and were buried in the church with the honour due to royal children and to Christ’s innocents. He also brought with him many rich goods of King Edwin, among which were a large gold cross, and a golden chalice, consecrated to the service of the altar, which are still preserved, and shown in the church of Canterbury.

At that time, the church of Rochester had no pastor, for Romanus, the bishop thereof, being sent on a mission to Pope Honorius by Archbishop Justus, was drowned in the Italian Sea; and thus Paulinus, at the request of Archbishop Honorius and King Eadbald, took upon him the charge of the same, and held it until he too, in his own time, departed to heaven, with the fruits of his glorious labours; and, dying in that Church, he left there the pall which he had received from the Pope of Rome. He had left behind him in his Church at York, James, the deacon, a true churchman and a holy man, who continuing long after in that Church, by teaching and baptizing, rescued much prey from the ancient enemy; and from him the village, where he chiefly dwelt, near Cataract, has its name to this day. He had great skill in singing in church, and when the province was afterwards restored to peace, and the number of the faithful increased, he began to teach church music to many, according to the custom of the Romans, or of the Cantuarians. And being old and full of days, as the Scripture says. He went the way of his fathers.

634. Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Mo-Bae moccu Alldae. Death of Rónán, son of Fergus. The slaying of Catluan.

635.. The battle of Cúil Óchtair between the UÍ Fhidgeinte and the Araid.

635. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year King Cynegils was baptized by Bishop Birinus at Dorchester; and Oswald, king of the Northumbrians, was his sponsor.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

After six years bishop Birinus came among the Western Angles, preaching to them the gospel of Christ. And the number of years that elapsed since their arrival in Britain out of Germany, was about one hundred and twenty. At that time Cynegils received baptism from the holy bishop Birinus, in a town called Dorchester.

Bede.

CHAP. V. Of the life of Bishop Aidan. [635 A.D.]

FROM this island, then, and the fraternity of these monks, Aidan was sent to instruct the English nation in Christ, having received the dignity of a bishop. At that time Segeni, abbot and priest, presided over that monastery. Among other lessons in holy living, Aidan left the clergy a most salutary example of abstinence and continence; it was the highest commendation of his doctrine with all men, that he taught nothing that he did not practice in his life among his brethren; for he neither sought nor loved anything of this world, but delighted in distributing immediately among the poor whom he met whatsoever was given him by the kings or rich men of the world. He was wont to traverse both town and country on foot, never on horseback, unless compelled by some urgent necessity; to the end that, as he went, he might turn aside to any whomsoever he saw, whether rich or poor, and call upon them, if infidels, to receive the mystery of the faith, or, if they were believers, strengthen them in the faith, and stir them up by words and actions to giving of alms and the performance of good works.

His course of life was so different from the slothfulness of our times, that all those who bore him company, whether they were tonsured or laymen, had to study either reading the Scriptures, or learning psalms. This was the daily employment of himself and all that were with him, wheresoever they went; and if it happened, which was but seldom, that he was invited to the king’s table, he went with one or two clerks, and having taken a little food, made haste to be gone, either to read with his brethren or to pray. At that time, many religious men and women, led by his example, adopted the custom of prolonging their fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, till the ninth hour, throughout the year, except during the fifty days after Easter. Never, through fear or respect of persons, did he keep silence with regard to the sins of the rich; but was wont to correct them with a severe rebuke. He never gave money to the powerful men of the world, but only food, if he happened to entertain them; and, on the contrary, whatsoever gifts of money he received from the rich, he either distributed, as has been said, for the use of the poor, or bestowed in ransoming such as had been wrongfully sold for slaves. Moreover, he afterwards made many of those he had ransomed his disciples, and after having taught and instructed them, advanced them to priest’s orders.

It is said, that when King Oswald had asked a bishop of the Scots to administer the Word of faith to him and his nation, there was first sent to him another man of more harsh disposition,who, after preaching for some time to the English and meeting with no success, not being gladly heard by the people, returned home, and in an assembly of the elders reported, that he had not been able to do any good by his teaching to the nation to whom he had been sent, because they were intractable men, and of a stubborn and barbarous disposition. They then, it is said, held a council and seriously debated what was to be done, being desirous that the nation should obtain the, salvation it demanded, but grieving that they had not received the preacher sent to them. Then said Aidan, who was also present in the council, to the priest in question, “Methinks, brother, that you were more severe to your unlearned hearers than you ought to have been, and did not at first, conformably to the Apostolic rule, give them the milk of more easy doctrine, till, being by degrees nourished with the Word of God, they should be capable of receiving that which is more perfect and of performing the higher precepts of God.” Having heard these words, all present turned their attention to him and began diligently to weigh what he had said, and they decided that he was worthy to be made a bishop, and that he was the man who ought to be sent to instruct the unbelieving and unlearned; since he was found to be endued preeminently with the grace of discretion, which is the mother of the virtues. So, they ordained him and sent him forth to preach; and, as time went on, his other virtues became apparent, as well as that temperate discretion which had marked him at first.

CHAP. VI. Of King Oswald’s wonderful piety and religion. [635-642 A.D.]

KING OSWALD, with the English nation which he governed, being instructed by the teaching of this bishop, not only learned to hope for a heavenly kingdom unknown to his fathers, but also obtained of the one God. Who made heaven and earth, a greater earthly kingdom than any of his ancestors. In brief, he brought under his dominion all the nations and provinces of Britain, which are divided into four languages, to wit, those of the Britons, the Picts, the Scots, and the English. Though raised to that height of regal power, wonderful to relate, he was always humble, kind, and generous to the poor and to strangers.

To give one instance, it is told, that when he was once sitting at dinner, on the holy day of Easter, with the aforesaid bishop, and a silver dish full of royal dainties was set before him, and they were just about to put forth their hands to bless the bread, the servant, whom he had appointed to relieve the needy, came in on a sudden, and told the king, that a great multitude of poor folk from all parts was sitting in the streets begging alms of the king; he immediately ordered the meat set before him to be carried to the poor, and the dish to be broken in pieces and divided among them. At which sight, the bishop who sat by him, greatly rejoicing at such an act of piety, clasped his right hand and said, “May this hand never decay.” This fell out according to his prayer, for his hands with the arms being cut off from his body, when he was slain in battle, remain uncorrupted to this day, and are kept in a silver shrine, as revered relics, in St. Peter’s church in the royal city, which has taken its name from Bebba, one of its former queens. Through this king’s exertions the provinces of the Deiri and the Bernicians, which till then had been at variance, were peacefully united and moulded into one people. He was nephew to King Edwin through his sister Acha; and it was fit that so great a predecessor should have in his own family such an one to succeed him in his religion and sovereignty.

CHAP. VII. How the West Saxons received the Word of God by the preaching of Birinus; and of his successors, Agilbert and Leutherius. [635-670 A. D.]

AT that time, the West Saxons, formerly called Gewissae, in the reign of Cynegils, received the faith of Christ, through the preaching of Bishop Birinus,who came into Britain by the counsel of Pope Honorius ; having promised in his presence that he would sow the seed of the holy faith in the farthest inland regions of the English, where no other teacher hadbeen before him. Hereupon at the bidding of the Pope he received episcopal consecration from Asterius, bishop of Genoa, but on his arrival in Britain, he first came to the nation of the Gewissae, and finding all in that place confirmed pagans, he thought it better to preach the Word there, than to proceed further to seek for other hearers of his preaching.

Now, as he was spreading the Gospel in the aforesaid province, it happened that when the king himself, having received instruction as a catechumen, was being baptized together with his people, Oswald, the most holy and victorious king of the Northumbrians, being present, received him as he came forth from baptism, and by an honourable alliance most acceptable to God, first adopted as his son, thus born again and dedicated to God, the man whose daughterhe was about to receive in marriage. The two kings gave to the bishop the city called Dorcic, there to establish his episcopal see; where having built and consecrated churches, and by his pious labours called many to the Lord, he departed to the Lord, and was buried in the same city; but many years after, when Haedde was bishop,” he was translated thence to the city of Venta,and laid in the church of the blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul.

When the king died, his son Coinwalch succeeded him on the throne, but refused to receive the faith and the mysteries of the heavenly kingdom; and not long after he lost also the dominion of his earthly kingdom; for he put away the sister of Penda, king of the Mercians, whom he had married, and took another wife; whereupon a war ensuing, he was by him deprived of his kingdom, and withdrew to Anna, king of the East Angles, where he lived three years in banishment, and learned and received the true faith; for the king, with whom he lived in his banishment, was a good man, and happy in a good and saintly offspring, as we shall show hereafter.

But when Coinwalch was restored to his kingdom, there came into that province out of Ireland, a certain bishop called Agilbert, a native of Gaul, but who had then lived a long time in Ireland, for the purpose of reading the Scriptures. He attached himself to the king, and voluntarily undertook the ministry of preaching. The king, observing his learning and industry, desired him to accept an episcopal see there and remain as the bishop of his people. Agilbert complied with the request. And presided over that nation as their bishop for many years. At length the king, who understood only the language of the Saxons, weary of his barbarous tongue, privately brought into the province another bishop, speaking his own language, by name Wini, who had also been ordained in Gaul; and dividing his province into two dioceses, appointed this last his episcopal see in the city of Venta, by the Saxons called Wintancaestir. (Winchester) Agilbert, being highly offended, that the king should do this without consulting him, returned into Gaul, and being made bishop of the city of Paris, died there, being old and full of days. Not many years after his departure out of Britain, Wini was also expelled from his bishopric by the same king, and took refuge with Wulfhere, king of the Mercians, of whom he purchased for money the see of the city of London, and remained bishop thereof till his death. Thus, the province of the West Saxons continued no small time without a bishop.

During which time, the aforesaid king of that nation, sustaining repeatedly very great losses in his kingdom from his enemies, at length bethought himself, that as he had been before expelled from the throne for his unbelief, he had been restored when he acknowledged the faith of Christ; and he perceived that his kingdom, being deprived of a bishop, was justly deprived also of the Divine protection. He, therefore, sent messengers into Gaul to Agilbert, with humble apologies entreating him to return to the bishopric of his nation. But he excused himself, and protested that he could not go, because he was bound to the bishopric of his own city and diocese; notwithstanding, in order to give him some help in answer to his earnest request, he sent thither in his stead the priest Leutherius, his nephew, to be ordained as his bishop, if he thought fit, saying that he thought him worthy of a bishopric. The king and the people received him honourably, and asked Theodore, then Archbishop of Canterbury, to consecrate him as their bishop. He was accordingly consecrated in the same city, and many years diligently governed the whole bishopric of the West Saxons by synodical authority.

CHAP. III. How the same King Oswald, asking a bishop of the Scottish nation, had Aidan sent him, and granted him an episcopal see in the Isle of Lindisfarne. [635A.D.]

THE same Oswald, as soon as he ascended the throne, being desirous that all the nation under his rule should be endued with the grace of the Christian faith, whereof he had found happy experience in vanquishing the barbarians, sent to the elders of the Scots, among whom himself and his followers, when in banishment, had received the sacrament of Baptism, desiring that they would send him a bishop, by whose instruction and ministry the English nation, which he governed, might learn the privileges and receive the Sacraments of the faith of our Lord. Nor were they slow in granting his request; for they sent him Bishop Aidan, a man of singular gentleness, piety, and moderation; having a zeal of God, but not fully according to knowledge; for he was wont to keep Easter Sunday according to the custom of his country, which we have before so often mentioned,from the fourteenth to the twentieth of the moon; the northern province of the Scots, and all the nation of the Picts, at that time still celebrating Easter after that manner, and believing that in this observance they followed the writings of the holy and praiseworthy Father Anatolius. Whether this be true, every instructed person can easily judge. But the Scots which dwelt in the South of Ireland had long since, by the admonition of the Bishop of the Apostolic see, learned to observe Easter according to the canonical custom.

On the arrival of the bishop, the king appointed him his episcopal see in the island of Lindisfarne, as he desired. Which place, as the tide ebbs and flows, is twice a day enclosed by the waves of the sea like an island; and again, twice, when the beach is left dry, becomes contiguous with the land. The king also humbly and willingly in all things giving ear to his admonitions, industriously applied himself to build up and extend the Church of Christ in his kingdom; wherein, when the bishop, who was not perfectly skilled in the English tongue, preached the Gospel, it was a fair sight to see the king himself interpreting the Word of God to his ealdormen and thegns, for he had thoroughly learned the language of the Scots during his long banishment. From that time, many came daily into Britain from the country of the Scots, and with great devotion preached the Word to those provinces of the English, over which King Oswald reigned, and those among them that had received priest’s orders administered the grace of Baptism to the believers. Churches were built in divers places; the people joyfully flocked together to hear the Word; lands and other property were given of the king’s bounty to found monasteries; English children, as well as their elders, were instructed by their Scottish teachers in study and the observance of monastic discipline. For most of those who came to preach were monks. Bishop Aidan was himself a monk, having been sent out from the island called Hii (Iona)whereof the monastery was for a long time the chief of almost all those of the northern Scots, and all those of the Picts, and had the direction of their people. That island belongs to Britain, being divided from it by a small arm of the sea, but had been long since given by the Picts, who inhabit those parts of Britain, to the Scottish monks, because they had received the faith of Christ through their preaching.

635. Annals of Ulster.

The slaying of Conall son of Suibne in the house of Nad-Fraích’s son by Diarmait son of Aed Sláine. The battle of Cúil Caeláin won by Diarmait son of Aed Sláine, and Mael Umai son of Oengus fell therein. The church of Rechru was founded. A great snowfall killed many in Mag Breg. Repose of Fintan son of Telchán and of Ernaine son of Crésene. Death of Gartnán son of Foth. Echuid of Les Mór died. The battle of Segais in which fell Lóchéne son of Nechtan Cennfhata, Cumuscach son of Óengus and Gartnaith son of Foth.

635. Annals of the Four Masters.

The twelfth year of Domhnall. Ailill, son of Aedh Roin; Congal, son of Dunchadh, died. Duinseach, wife of Domhnall, son of Aedh, King of Ireland, died.

636. The thirteenth year of Domhnall. St. Mochuda, Bishop of Lis Mor and Abbot of Raithin Rahen, died on the 14th of May. The battle of Cathair Chinncon, in Munster, was gained by Aenghus Liath, over Maelduin, son of Aedh Beannan. Maelodhar Macha, chief of Oirghialla, died. Maelduin, son of Aedh, was burned at Inis Caein. Maelduin, son of Fearghus, and Maelduin, son of Colman, died.

636. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year King Cwichelm was baptized at Dorchester, and died the same year. Bishop Felix also preached to the East-Angles the belief of Christ.

636. Annals of Ulster.

The killing of Ernáine son of Fiachna, who defeated Mael Fithrich son of Aed Allán alias Uairidnach in the battle of Leitheirbe; and the expulsion of Carthach from Raithen at Eastertide.

636. Cronicum Scotorum.

The killing of Ernaine son of Fiachna, who defeated Mael Fithrich son of Aed Allán in the battle of Leitheirbe. The expulsion of Carthach i.e. Mochuda i.e. Mochta son of Firaill from Raithen at Eastertide.

636. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Ailill, son of Aed, in Loch Trethle. Death of Aengus, son of Nechtain. Death of Congal, king of Brega. Repose of Carthach, abbot of Cluain Ferta Brénainn, who is called Ségán.

637. The battle of Cúil in which fell Mael, son of Aengus, son of Conall, son of Suibne. The battle of [Áth] Goan, in which Crimthann son of Aed, king of Laigin, fell. Fáilbe Flann and Faelán, son of Colmán, [were] victors. Repose of Munnu, son of Tilchán.

637. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Mag Roth won by Domnall son of Aed and the sons of Aed Sláine but Domnall son of Aed ruled Temair at that time, in which fell Conall Caech king of Ulaid and Faelchú son of Airmedach king of Mide in a counterattack, with many nobles. The battle of Sailtír on the same day, won by Conall Cael son of Mael Cobo against the Cenél nEógain. The death of Failbe Flann of Feimen, king of Mumu. The repose of Mo-Chutu of Raithen on the 2nd of the Ides of May.

637. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Mag Roth and the battle of Sailtír were fought on the same day. Conall Cael son of Mael Cobo of the Cenél nEógain, and adherent of Domnall, was victor in the battle of Sailtír; and the death of Failbe Flann of Feimen, king of Mumu. Mo-Chutu of Raithen rests.

637. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fourteenth year of Domhnall. St. Cronan Mac Ua Loegde, Abbot of Cluain Mic Nois, died on the 18th of July. St. Mochua, Abbot of Balla, died.

638. Annals of the Four Masters.

St. Critan, of Aendruim, died on the seventeenth of May. Aedh Dubh, Abbot and Bishop of Cill Dara Kildare, died. He had been at first King of Leinster.Dalaise Mac hU Imdae, Abbot of Leithglinn, died.

638. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Glenn Muiresan, in which the followers of Domnall Brec were put to flight, and the besieging of Eten. Crónán moccu Laegde, abbot of Cluain moccu Nóis, rested. The death of Do-Chua of Balla.

Kalends second feria. The killing of Congal son of Dúnchad. Death of Duinsech, wife of Domnall. Repose of Crídán in Naendruim. The repose of Aed Dub i.e. king of Laigin, abbot of Cell Dara. Do-Laise moccu Imdae, abbot of Leithglenn, rested. Death of Ailill son of Aed Rón i.e. king of Laigin. At this time pope Theodosius flourished.

638. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Glenn Muiresan and the besieging of Eten. Crónán moccu Laegde, abbot of Cluain Moccu Nóis, died.

638. Annals of Inisfallen.

Expulsion of Mo-Chutu from Raithen. Les Mór was founded.

639. The battle of Roth, in which Congal Caech fell. Death of Fáilbe Flann. Repose of Mo-Chutu of Les Mór. Repose of Crónán, abbot of Cell Dara. Repose {of Dagan, and} of Mo-Laise of Leithglenn, {i.e. moccu Nechti}, and of Saint Sinell, and of Cúán, son of Amalgaid, and of Gobán, son of Nasca. The burning and slaying of Mael Dúin in Inis Caín Dega. Death of Domnall, son of Aed, and of Domnall Brec. Repose of Oswald, king of the Angles; i.e. Anglicus means Sax (Saxon).

639. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Birinus baptized King Cuthred at Dorchester, and received him as his son.

639. Annals of Ulster.

The killing of Congal son of Dúnchad. Death of Duinsech, wife of Domnall. The battle of Oswald, king of the Saxons. Repose of Crídán in Naendruim, and of Aed Dub, abbot of Cell Dara—both bishops. Do-Laise moccu Imdae, abbot of Leithglenn, rested. Death of Ailill son of Aed Rón. Heraclius, with his mother Martina, reigned 2 years.

639. Annals of the Four Masters.

St. Dagan, of Inbher Daeile, died on the 13th of September. After Domhnall, son of Aedh, son of Ainmire, had been sixteen years in the sovereignty of Ireland, he died at Ard Fothadh, in Tir Aedha, after the victory of penance, for he was a year in his mortal sickness; and he used to receive the body of Christ every Sunday. Oilill, son of Colman, chief of Cinel Laeghaire, died.

640. The first year of Conall Cael and Ceallach, two sons of Maelcobha, son of Aedh, son of Ainmire, over Ireland, in joint sovereignty. Scannlan Mor, son of Ceannfaeladh, chief of Osraighe Ossory, died. Cuana, son of Ailcen, chief of Feara Maighe Fermoy, died. He was the person who was called Laech Liathmhuine.

640. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Cathair Chinn Chon. Aengus Liathdána was victor. Mael Dúin, son of Aed Bennán, took flight.

Severinus Pope 640

640. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Cathair Chinn Con won by the Mumu. Óengus Liathdána was victor. Mael Dúin son of Aed Bennán took flight.

640. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year died Eadbald, King of Kent, after a reign of twenty-five winters. He had two sons, Ermenred and Erkenbert; and Erkenbert reigned there after his father. He overturned all the idols in the kingdom, and first of English kings appointed a fast before Easter. His daughter was called Ercongota – holy damsel of an illustrious sire! whose mother was Sexburga, the daughter of Anna, king of the East-Angles. Ermenred also begat two sons, who were afterwards martyred by Thunnor.

Bede.

CHAP. VIII. How Earconbert, King of Kent, ordered the idols to be destroyed, and of his daughter Earcongota, and his kinswoman Ethelberg, virgins consecrated to God. [640 A.D.]

IN the year of our Lord 640, Eadbald, king of Kent, departed this life, and left his kingdom to his son Earconbert, who governed it most nobly twenty-four years and some months. He was the first of the English kings that of his supreme authority commanded the idols throughout his whole kingdom to be forsaken and destroyed, and the fast of forty days to be observed; and that the same might not be lightly neglected, he appointed fitting and condign punishments for the offenders. His daughter Earcongota, as became the offspring of such a parent, was a most virtuous virgin, serving God in a monastery in the country of the Franks, built by a most noble abbess, named Fara, at a place called In Brige; for at that time but few monasteries had been built in the country of the Angles, and many were wont, for the sake of monastic life, to repair to the monasteries of the Franks or Gauls; and they also sent their daughters there to be instructed, and united to their Heavenly Bridegroom, especially in the monasteries of Brige, of Cale,and Andilegum.Among whom was also Saethryth,daughter of the wife of Anna, king of the East Angles, above mentioned; and Ethelberg,the king’s own daughter; both of whom, though strangers, were for their virtue made abbesses of the monastery of Brige. Sexburg, that king’s elder daughter, wife to Earconbert, king of Kent, had a daughter called Earcongota, of whom we are about to speak.

Many wonderful works and miracles of this virgin, dedicated to God, are to this day related by the inhabitants of that place; but for us it shall suffice to say something briefly of her departure out of this world to the heavenly kingdom. The day of her summoning drawing near, she began to visit in the monastery the cells of the infirm handmaidens of Christ, and particularly those that were of a great age, or most noted for their virtuous life, and humbly commending herself to their prayers, she let them know that her death was at hand, as she had learnt by revelation, which she said she had received in this manner. She had seen a band of men, clothed in white, come into the monastery, and being asked by her what they wanted, and what they did there, they answered, “They had been sent thither to carry away with them the gold coin that had been brought thither from Kent.” Towards the close of that same night, as morning began to dawn, leaving the darkness of this world, she departed to the light of heaven. Many of the brethren of that monastery who were in other houses, declared they had then plainly heard choirs of singing angels, and, as it were, the sound of a multitude entering the monastery. Whereupon going out immediately to see what it might be, they beheld a great light coming down from heaven, which bore that holy soul, set loose from the bonds of the flesh, to the eternal joys of the celestial country. They also tell of other miracles that were wrought that night in the same monastery by the power of God; but as we must proceed to other matters, we leave them to be related by those whose concern they are. The body of this venerable virgin and bride of Christ was buried in the church of the blessed protomartyr, Stephen. It was thought fit, three days after, to take up the stone that covered the tomb, and to raise it higher in the same place, and whilst they were doing this, so sweet a fragrance rose from below, that it seemed to all the brethren and sisters there present, as if a store of balsam had been opened.

Her aunt also, Ethelberg, of whom we have spoken, preserved the glory, acceptable to God, of perpetual virginity, in a life of great self-denial, but the extent of her virtue became more conspicuous after her death. Whilst she was abbess, she began to build in her monastery a church, in honour of all the Apostles, wherein she desired that her body should be buried; but when that work was advanced half way, she was prevented by death from finishing it, and was buried in the place in the church which she had chosen. After her death, the brothers occupied themselves with other things, and this structure was left untouched for seven years, at the expiration whereof they resolved, by reason of the greatness of the work, wholly to abandon the building of the church, and to remove the abbess’s bones thence to some other church that was finished and consecrated. On opening her tomb, they found the body as untouched by decay as it had been free from the corruption of carnal concupiscence, and having washed it again and clothed it in other garments, they removed it to the church of the blessed Stephen, the Martyr. And her festival is wont to be celebrated there with much honour on the 7th of July.

John IV Pope 640-642

640. William of Malmesbury.

Chronicle of the Kings of England.

To him, (Edbald) after a reign of twenty-four years, succeeded Erconbert, his son, by Emma, daughter of the king of France. He reigned an equal number of years with his father, but under happier auspices; alike remarkable for piety toward God, and love to his country. For his grandfather, and father, indeed, adopted our faith, but neglected to destroy their idols; whilst he, thinking it derogatory to his royal zeal not to take the readiest mode of annihilating openly what they only secretly condemned, leveled every temple of their gods to the ground, that not a trace of their paganism might be handed down to posterity. This was nobly done: for the mass of the people would be reminded of their superstition, so long as they could see the altars of their deities. In order, also, that he might teach his subjects, who were too much given to sensual indulgence, to accustom themselves to temperance, he enjoined the solemn fast of Lent to be observed throughout his dominions. This was an extraordinary act for the king to attempt in those times: but he was a man whom no blandishments of luxury could enervate; no anxiety for power seduce from the worship of God. Wherefore he was protected by the favour of the Almighty; everything, at home and abroad, succeeded to his wishes, and he grew old in uninterrupted tranquillity. His daughter Ercongotha, a child worthy of such a parent, and emulating her father in virtuous qualities, became a shining light in the monastery of Kalas in Gaul.

641. Cronicum Scotorum.

Death of Maelodar Caech, king of the Airthir and death of Bruide son of Foth. The burning of Mael Dúin son of Aed in Inis Caín. The killing of Mael Dúin son of Fergus son of Mael Dúin son of Colmán.The repose of Dagán of Inber Daile.

641. Annals of the Four Masters.

The second year of Conall and Ceallach. Maelbreasail and Maelanfaidh died; and Flann Enaigh was mortally wounded. These were of the Cinel Conaill Gulban.

641. Annals of Ulster.

Death of Maelodar Caech, king of the Airthir. Death of Bruide son of Foth. Domnall. son of Aed changed camp in Druim Naó. Shipwreck of a vessel of the community of Í. The besieging of Rith. The burning of Mael Dúin in Inis Caín. The killing of Mael Dúin son of Fergus, and of Mael Dúin son of Colmán.

642. Annals of the Four Masters.

The third year of Conall and Ceallach. St. Cronan Beg, Bishop of Aendruim, died on the 7th of January. Furadhran, son of Bec, son of Cuanach, chief of Ui Mic Uais, died. Uaisle, daughter of Suibhne, son of Colman, wife of Faelan, King of Leinster, died. The battle of Gabhra was fought between the Leinstermen themselves.

Theodore I Pope 642-649

642. Annals of Ulster.

Death of Domnall son of Aed, king of Ireland, at the end of January. Afterwards Domnall Brec was slain at the end of the year, in December, in the battle of Srath Caruin, by Hoan, king of the Britons. He reigned 15 years.

Cuimméne recited

His good is the good beyond, It is not the good here;

Now Domnall concedes the king of Ros.

The sage who will come from the south, It is he who may tell you your weal;

He will bring a cumman to his house for the son of Aed son of Ainmire.

—Colum Cille recited

The killing of Ailill son of Colmán, king of Cenél Loegaire. Constantine son of Heraclius reigned 6 months. The battle of Oswy against the Britons.

642. Cronicum Scotorum.

Death of Domnall son of Aed, king of Ireland, at the end of January, in the 13th year of his reign, at Ard Fothaigh. Afterwards Domnall Brec was slain at the end of the year in December, in the battle of Sraith Caruin, by Hoan, king of Britons, in the 12th year of his reign. The killing of Ailill son of Colmán, king of Cenél Loegaire.

Bede.

CHAP. IX. How miracles of healing have been frequently wrought in the place where King Oswald was killed; and how, first, a traveller’s horse was restored and afterwards a young girl cured of the palsy. [642 A.D.]

OSWALD, the most Christian king of the Northumbrians, reigned nine years, including that year which was held accursed for the barbarous cruelty of the king of the Britons and the reckless apostacy of the English kings; for, as was said above, it is agreed by the unanimous consent of all, that the names and memory of the apostates should be erased from the catalogue of the Christian kings, and no year assigned to their reign. After which period, Oswald was killed in a great battle, by the same pagan nation and pagan king of the Mercians, who had slain his predecessor Edwin, at a place called in the English tongue Maserfelth, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, on the fifth day of the month of August.

How great his faith was towards God, and how remarkable his devotion, has been made evident by miracles even after his death; for, in the place where he was killed by the pagans, fighting for his country, sick men and cattle are frequently healed to this day. Whence it came to pass that many took up the very dust of the place where his body fell, and putting it into water, brought much relief with it to their friends who were sick. This custom came so much into use, that the earth being carried away by degrees, a hole was made as deep as the height of a man. Nor is it surprising that the sick should be healed in the place where he died; for, whilst he lived, he never ceased to provide for the poor and the sick, and to bestow alms on them, and assist them.

Many miracles are said to have been wrought in that place, or with the dust carried from it; but we have thought it sufficient to mention two, which we have heard from our elders.

It happened, not long after his death, that a man was travelling on horseback near that place, when his horse on a sudden fell sick, stood still, hung his head, and foamed at the mouth, and, at length, as his pain increased, he fell to the ground; the rider dismounted, and taking off his saddle, waited to see whether the beast would recover or die. At length, after writhing for a long time in extreme anguish, the horse happened in his struggles to come to the very place where the great king died. Immediately the pain abated, the beast ceased from his frantic kicking, and, after the manner of horses, as if resting from his weariness, he rolled from side to side, and then starting up, perfectly recovered, began to graze hungrily on the green herbage. The rider observing this, and being an intelligent man, concluded that there must be some wonderful sanctity in the place where the horse had been healed, and he marked the spot. After which he again mounted his horse, and went on to the inn where he intended to stop. On his arrival he found a girl, niece to the landlord, who had long been sick of the palsy; and when the members of the household, in his presence, lamented the girl’s grievous calamity, he gave them an account of the place where his horse had been cured. In brief, she was put into a wagon and carried to the place and laid down there. At first she slept awhile, and when she awoke, found herself healed of her infirmity. Upon which she called for water, washed her face, arranged her hair, put a kerchief on her head, and returned home on foot, in good health, with those who had brought her.

CHAP. X. How the dust of that place prevailed against fire. [After 642 A.D.]

ABOUT the same time, another traveller, a Briton, as is reported, happened to pass by the same place, where the aforesaid battle was fought. Observing one particular spot of ground greener and more beautiful than any other part of the field, he had the wisdom to infer that the cause of the unusual greenness in that place must be that some person of greater holiness than any other in the army had been killed there. Ide therefore took along with him some of the dust of that piece of ground, tying it up in a linen cloth, supposing, as was indeed the case, that it would be of use for curing sick people, and proceeding on his journey, came in the evening to a certain village, and entered a house where the villagers were feasting at supper. Being received by the owners of the house, he sat down with them at the entertainment, hanging the cloth, with the dust which he had carried in it, on a post in the wall. They sat long at supper and drank deep. Now there was a great fire in the middle of the room, and it happened that the sparks flew up and caught the roof of the house, which being made of wattles and thatch, was suddenly wrapped in flames; the guests ran out in panic and confusion, but they were not able to save the burning house, which was rapidly being destroyed. Wherefore the house was burnt down, and only that post on which the dust hung in the linen cloth remained safe and untouched by the fire. When they beheld this miracle, they were all amazed, and inquiring into it diligently, learned that the dust had been taken from the place where the blood of King Oswald had been shed. These wonderful works being made known and reported abroad, many began daily to resort to that place, and received the blessing of health for themselves and their friends.

643. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Kenwal succeeded to the kingdom of the West-Saxons, and held it one and thirty winters. This Kenwal ordered the old church at Winchester to be built in the name of St. Peter. He was the son of Cynegils.

643. Annals of Ulster.

Death of Huaisle son of Suibne. Repose of Crónán, bishop of Naendruim. The battle of Cenn Con. The burning of Iarnbadb son of Gartnaith. Cellach and Conall Cael i.e. two sons of Mael Cobo son of Aed son of Ainmire, begin to reign, as some state. Constantine son of Constantine reigned 28 years. Here it is uncertain who reigned after Domnall. Some historigraphers state that four kings, i.e. Cellach, Conall Cael, and two sons of Aed Sláine son of Diarmait son of Fergus Cerrbél son of Conall of Cremthann son of Niall Naígiallach, namely Diarmait and Blathmac, reigned in mingled rule.

643. Cronicum Scotorum.

Here it is uncertain who reigned after Domnall. Some historiographers state that four kings, i.e. Cellach and Conall Cael, and two sons of Aed Sláine, namely Diarmait and Blathmac, reigned in mingled rule. Death of Huaisle daughter of Suibne son of Colmán i.e. the queen of Faelán king of Laigin. The death of Crónán, bishop of Naendruim. The battle of Cenn Con. Cellach and Conall Cael begin to reign. The death of Scandlán Mór son of Cendfaelad, king of Osraige. The death of Cuanu son of Cailcin, king of Fernmag. The killing of two grandsons of Bógaine, Mael Bresail and Mael Anfaith Enaig. Mo-Chaí of Naendruim rested.

643. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fourth year of Conall and Ceallach. Dunchadh, son of Fiachna, son of Deman, King of Ulidia, died.

644. Annals of the Four Masters.

The fifth year of Conall and Ceallach. Bolgluatha, Lord of Ui Ceinnsealaigh, died.

644. Annals of Ulster.

The killing of two grandsons of Bógaine, i.e. Mael Bresail and Mael Anfaith. The slaying of Flann of Aenach. Death of Bresal son of Sechnasach.

644. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year died at Rochester, on the tenth of October, Paulinus, who was first Archbishop at York, and afterwards at Rochester. He was bishop nineteen winters, two months, and one and twenty days. This year the son of Oswy’s uncle (Oswin), the son of Osric, assumed the government of Deira, and reigned seven winters.

Bede

CHAP. XIV. How on the death of Paulinus, Ithamar was made Bishop of Rochester in his stead; and of the wonderful humility of King Oswin, who was cruelly slain by Oswy. [644-651 A. D.]

OSWALD being translated to the heavenly kingdom, his brother Oswy, a young man of about thirty years of age, succeeded him on the throne of his earthly kingdom, and held it twenty-eight years with much trouble, being attacked by the pagan nation of the Mercians, that had slain his brother, as also by his son Alchfrid, and by his nephew Oidilwald, the son of his brother who reigned before him. In his second year, that is, in the year of our Lord 644, the most reverend Father Paulinus, formerly Bishop of York, but at that time Bishop of the city of Rochester, departed to the Lord, on the ioth day of October, having held the office of a bishop nineteen years, two months, and twenty-one days; and was buried in the sacristy of the blessed Apostle Andrew,’ which King Ethelbert had built from the foundation, in the same city of Rochester. In his place Archbishop Honorius ordained Ithamar, of the Kentish nation, but not inferior to his predecessors in learning and conduct of life.

Oswy, during the first part of his reign, had a partner in the royal dignity called Oswin, of the race of King Edwin, and son to Osricof whom we have spoken above, a man of wonderful piety and devotion, who governed the province of the Deiri seven years in very great prosperity, and was himself beloved by all men. But Oswy, who governed all the other northern part of the nation beyond the Humber, that is, the province of the Bernicians, could not live at peace with him; and at last, when the causes of their disagreement increased, he murdered him most cruelly. For when each had raised an army against the other, Oswin perceived that he could not maintain a war against his enemy who had more auxiliaries than himself, and he thought it better at that time to lay aside all thoughts of engaging, and to reserve himself for better times. He therefore disbanded the army which he had assembled, and ordered all his men to return to their own homes, from the place that is called Wilfaraesdun, that is, Wilfar’s Hill, which is about ten miles distant from the village called Cataract, towards the north-west. He himself, with only one trusty thegn, whose name was Tondhere, withdrew and lay concealed in the house of Hunwald, a noble, whom he imagined to be his most assured friend. But, alas! it was far otherwise; for Hunwald betrayed him, and Oswy, by the hands of his reeve, Ethilwin, foully slew him and the thegn aforesaid. This happened on the 20th of August, in the ninth year of his reign, at a place called Ingetlingum, where afterwards, to atone for this crime, a monastery was built, wherein prayers should be daily offered up to God for the redemption of the souls of both kings, to wit, of him that was murdered, and of him that commanded the murder.

King Oswin was of a goodly countenance, and tall of stature, pleasant in discourse, and courteous in behaviour; and bountiful to all, gentle and simple alike; so that he was beloved by all men for the royal dignity of his mind and appearance and actions, and men of the highest rank came from almost all provinces to serve him. Among all the graces of virtue and moderation by which he was distinguished and, if I may say so, blessed in a special manner, humility is said to have been the greatest, which it will suffice to prove by one instance.

He had given a beautiful horse to Bishop Aidan, to use either in crossing rivers, or in performing a journey upon any urgent necessity, though the Bishop was wont to travel ordinarily on foot. Some short time after, a poor man meeting the Bishop, and asking alms, he immediately dismounted, and ordered the horse, with all his royal trappings, to be given to the beggar; for he was very compassionate, a great friend to the poor, and, in a manner, the father of the wretched. This being told to the king, when they were going in to dinner, he said to the Bishop, “What did you mean, my lord Bishop, by giving the poor man that royal horse, which it was fitting that you should have for your own use? Had not we many other horses of less value, or things of other sorts, which would have been good enough to give to the poor, instead of giving that horse, which I had chosen and set apart for your own use?” Thereupon the Bishop answered, “What do you say, O king? Is that son of a mare more dear to you than that son of God?” Upon this they went in to dinner, and the Bishop sat in his place; but the king, who had come in from hunting, stood warming himself, with his attendants, at the fire. Then, on a sudden, whilst he was warming himself, calling to mind what the bishop had said to him, he ungirt his sword, and gave it to a servant, and hastened to the Bishop and fell down at his feet,’ beseeching him to forgive him; “For from this time forward,” said he, “I will never speak any more of this, nor will. I judge of what or how much of our money you shall give to the sons of God.” The bishop was much moved at this sight, and starting up, raised him, saying that he was entirely reconciled to him, if he would but sit down to his meat, and lay aside all sorrow. The king, at the bishop’s command and request, was comforted, but the bishop, on the other hand, grew sad and was moved even to tears. His priest then asking him, in the language of his country, which the king and his servants did not understand, why he wept, “I know,” said he, “that the king will not live long; for I never before saw a humble king; whence I perceive that he will soon be snatched out of this life, because this nation is not worthy of such a ruler.” Not long after, the bishop’s gloomy foreboding was fulfilled by the king’s sad death, as has been said above. But Bishop Aidan himself was also taken out of this world, not more than twelve days after the death of the king he loved, on the 31st of August, to receive the eternal reward of his labours from the Lord.

644. Annales Cambriae.

The battle of Cogfry in which Oswald king of the Northmen and Eawa king of the Mercians fell.

645. Cronicum Scotorum.

Death of Furudrán, son of Béicce son of Cuanu, king of Uí Moccu Uais. Lóchéne son of Fíngein, king of the Cruithin, died. The battle of Gabra between the Laigin themselves.

645. Annales Cambriae.

The hammering of the region of Dyfed, when the monastery of David was burnt.

645. Annals of Ulster.

Death of Furudrán son of Béicce son of Cuanu, king of Uí Moccu Uais. Lóchéne son of Fíngein, king of the Cruithin, died.

645. Annals of the Four Masters.

The sixth year of Conall and Ceallach. Mac Laisre, Abbot of Beannchair Bangor, died on the 16th of May.

Raghallach, son of Uatach, King of Connaught, was killed by Maelbrighde, son of Mothlachan, on Sunday precisely, of which was said:

1. Raghallach, son of Uatach,

was pierced on the back of a white steed;

Muireann hath well lamented him,

Cathal hath well avenged him.

2. Cathal is this day in battle,

though he is bound to peace in the presence of kings;

Though Cathal is without a father,

his father is not without being revenged.

3. Estimate his terrible revenge

from the account of it related;

He slew six men and fifty,

he committed sixteen devastations.

4. I had my share like another,

in the revenge of Raghallach,

I have the grey beard in my hand of

Maelbrighde, son of Mothlachan.

The battle of Carn Conaill was gained by Diarmaid, son of Aedh Slaine against Guaire, wherein were slain the two Cuans, namely, Cuan, son of Enda, King of Munster, and Cuan, son of Conall, chief of Ui Fidhgeinte; and Tolamhnach, chief of Ui Liathain; and Guaire was routed from the battle field. Diarmaid, on his way to this battle, went first through Cluain Mic Nois. The congregation of St. Ciaran made supplication to God that he might return safe, through the merits of their guarantee. After the king’s return, he granted Tuaim nEirc (i.e. Liath Manchain), with its sub divisions of land, as altarsod, to God and to St. Ciaran; and he gave three maledictions (i.e. curses) to that king whose people should take even a drink of water there. Wherefore Diarmaid ordered his burial place at Cluain Mic Nois.

645. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year King Kenwal was driven from his dominion by King Penda.

Elegy to Cynddylan.

Unyielding battle of menacing lords,
Rhiau and Rhirid and Rhiosedd
and Rhigyfarch, the generous chieftain, the chariot driver.
I shall lament until I lie in my oaken coffin
for the slaying of Cynddylan in his grandeur.

Grandeur in battle! Did I think
of going to Menai, though there was no ford for me?
I love those of the land of Cemais who give me welcome,
the king of Dogfeiling, oppressor of the Cadelling.
I shall lament until I would be in my oaken silence
for the slaying of Cynddylan, grievous loss.

Grandeur in battle! To think
of going to Menai, though I cannot swim!
I love those who welcome me to Aberffraw,
the king of Dogfeiling, terror to the Cadelling.
I shall lament until I would be in my oaken silence
for the slaying of Cynddylan and his mustering of hosts.

Grandeur in battle! Civilised wine!
I beseech sorrowfully, old and filled with hiraeth.
When he raided the cattle of Pennawg, I lost
a brave, unyielding, unforgiving hero.
He used to make campaigns beyond Tern, the proud land.
I shall lament until I would be in the unmoving earth
for the slaying of Cynddylan, of the fame of Caradog.

Grandeur in battle! So good was the destiny

that Cynddylan, the battle leader, got
seven hundred chosen soldiers in his retinue,
When the son of Pyd requested, he was so ready!
He did not go to the wedding feast; he was not married.
O God! What different company, what black burial?
I shall lament until I would be with the throng under the earth
for the slaying of Cynddylan, of majestic fame.

Grandeur in battle! I am so very well accustomed
to all the finest fishes and beasts,
through violence I have lost the finest warriors,
Rhiau and Rhirid and Rhiosedd
and Rhigyfarch, generous [ruler] of every borderland.
They used to drive back the spoils from the dales of Taff.
Captives lamented; lame, cattle bellowed.
I shall lament until I would be in the most constricted plot
for the slaying of Cynddylan, famed at the border.

Grandeur in battle! Do you see this?

My heart burns like a firebrand.

I enjoyed the wealth of their men

and women. They could not repay me enough.

I used to have brothers. It was better when they were

the young whelps of great Arthur, the mighty fortress.

Before Lichfield they fought,

There was gore under ravens and keen attack.
Limed shields broke before the sons of the Cyndrwynyn.
I shall lament until I would be in the land of my resting place
for the slaying of Cynddylan, famed among chieftains.

Grandeur in battle! Extensive spoils
Morial bore off from in front of Lichfield.
Fifteen hundred cattle from the front of battle;
four twenties of stallions and equal harness.
The chief bishop wretched in his four-cornered house (?),
the book-keeping monks did not protect.
Those who fell in the blood before the splendid warrior
no brother escaped from the entrenchment to his sister.
They escaped from the uproar with grievous wounds.
I shall lament until I would be in my lowly grave plot
for the slaying of Cynddylan, famous to every generous man.

Grandeur in battle! So pleasant it was
in my soul when I visited Pwll and Alun!
Fresh rushes under foot until bedtime;
feather pillows under me, as far down as my knees.
And though I have gone there, to my own country,
there is not one kinsman left: birds have claimed them.
And though I am not led to God at the Judgment Mount,
None has sinned as I have.

645. Annals of Inisfallen.

The battle of Cenn Con between Mael Dúin, son of Aed Bennán, and Aengus Liath from Áine. Much slaughter on both sides. Repose of Mac na Cerda. Death of Mael Ochtraig, king of the Déisi.

646. Death of Scandlán Mór son of Cenn Faelad, king of Osraige. Death of Aengus Liath from Áine at Glennamain.Death of Cuanu, son of Cáilchíne.

646. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year King Kenwal was baptized.

646. The Annals of Ulster.

The slaying of Scannall son of Béicce son of Fiachra, king of the Cruithin. Mac Laisre, abbot of Bennchor, rested.

646. Cronicum Scotorum.

The slaying of Scandlán son of Béicce son of Fiachra, king of the Cruithin. Mac Laisre, abbot of Bennchor, rested. Bede was born at this time. At this time pope Marcianus flourished.

646. Annals of the Four Masters.

The seventh year of Conall and Ceallach. The battle of Dun Crimhthainn was gained by Conall and Ceallach, the two sons of Maelcobha, over Aenghus, son of Domhnall; and Aenghus was slain in this battle; and there was also slain in this same battle Cathasach, son of Domhnall Breac. Maelcobha, son of Fiachna, son of Deman, King of Ulidia, was slain by Congal Ceannfoda, son of Dunchadha.

647. The eighth year of Conall and Ceallach.

Dunchadh and Conall, two sons of Blathmac, son of Aedh Slaine, were slain by the Leinstermen, in the mill race of the mill of Maelodhran, son of Dima Cron. Marcan and Maelodhran mortally wounded the two; of which Maelodhran said:

O mill! which grindedst much of wheat,

It was not grinding oats thou wert, when thou didst grind the seed of Cearbhall.

The grain which the mill has ground is not oats, but red wheat,

With the scions of the great tree Maelodhran’s mill was fed.

647. Cronicum Scotorum.

Mael Cobo son of Fiachna, was killed, i.e. the king of Ulaid, by Congal Cennfada son of Dúnchad. The battle of Bolg Luatha, king of Uí Cheinnselaigh.

647. Annals of Ulster.

Mael Cobo son of Fiachna, king of Ulaid, was killed. Dúnchad grandson of Rónán was killed. The battle of Colgu son of Crunnmáel Bolg Luatha, king of Uí Chennselaigh.

647. Annals of Inisfallen.

Death of Mael Coba, son of Fiachra, at the hands of Congal Cennfhata. Repose of Mac Laisre, abbot of Bennchor.

648. Death of Rogellach, son of Uata.

648. Annals of Ulster.

Fursu the devout died.

648. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Kenwal gave his relation Cuthred three thousand hides of land by Ashdown. Cuthred was the son of Cwichelm, Cwichelm of Cynegils.

Ethelwerd’s Chronicle.

Kenwalk gave to his relation, Cuthred, out of his farms, three thousand measures, adjacent to a hill named Esc’s dune, [Aston?]

648. Cronicum Scotorum.

The slaying of Ragallach, son of Uatu, king of Connacht i.e. by Mael Brigte son of Mothlachán i.e. the Corco Cullu slew him. The battle of Cairn Conaill fought on Whitsunday, where the two Cuans fell i.e. Cuan son of Enda, king of Muman, and Cuan son of Cairill, son of the Ui Fidhgente and Tolmnach, king of the Ui Liathain; and Guaire took flight, and Diarmait son of Aedh Slaine was victor. It is on a Sunday that Diarmait went to fight this battle, that is, through Cluain moccu Nóis and the congregation of Ciaran and prayed for him that he might come safe for the sake of their surety. When the king returned, he granted Doimnerc with its divisions today called Liath Mancháin, as a sod of the altar of Ciarán, and imposed three curses on the king of Mide if any of his people consumed as much as a drink of water there, so that it was for this reason that Diarmait asked to be buried in Cluain moccu Nóis. Repose of Furse in Peronne in France, according to some. Mo-Choemóc of Liath Mór dies.

648. Annals of the Four Masters.

The ninth year of Conall and Ceallach. Maincheni, Abbot of Meanadrochit, died. The battle of Cuil Corra, by Aeldeith and Onchu, where Cillene, son of Forannan, chief of Ui Failghe Offaly, was slain. Cugamhna, son of Suibhne, died.

649. The tenth year of Conall and Ceallach. St. Cronan of Magh Bile died on the seventh day of the month of August. The battle of Airther Seola, in Connaught, by Ceannfaeladh, son of Colgan and Maenach, son of Baeithin, chief of Ui Briuin, in which was slain Marcan, son of Toimen, chief of Ui Maine. Fearghus, son of Domhnall, and Fearghus, son of Raghallach, and Aedh Beathra, son of Cuimin, were killed by the Ui Fiachrach Aidhne. Aedh Roin, son of Maelcobha, died. Maeldoid, son of Suibhne, chief of Meath, died.

649.Annals of Inisfallen.

Repose of Maenchéne of Min Droichit {and of Crónán of Luachair and of Colmán moccu Tulduib} and repose of Fursu the holy. Death of Crunnmael son of Aed, king of Uí Fhidgeinte. The battle of Carn Conaill [gained] over Guaire Aidni by Diarmait, son of Aed, in which Dúnchad and Conall, two sons of Blathmac, fell.

St Martin I Pope 649-655

649 Annales Cambriae.

Slaughter in Gwent.

649 Annals of Ulster. The slaying of Ragallach son of Uatu, king of Connacht. The battle of Carn Conaill in which Guaire took flight, and Diarmait son of Aed Sláine was victor.

(The field of Corb’s son is thus— Something that sets every plain in Munster alight

A standing-stone has become the colour of blood: That is lamentable, Talamnach.

Guaire sang:

I am thankful for what has been gained Tonight for my feast, a single morsel;

I have had many another night When Mary’s son gave me seven cows.)

Death of Aengus Bronbachall, king of Cenél Cairpri. The warfare of the descendants of Aedán and of Garthnaith, son of Accidán. Repose of Fursu in Peronne.

SBG St Collen.

He was the son of Gwynog ab Caledog (al. Cydebog) ab Cawrdaf ab Caradog Freichfras, and his mother was Ethni (al. Eithinen) Wyddeles, daughter of Matholwch, an Irish lord. she was Matholwch’s daughter by one of his wife’s handmaids, and was sent to Britain to be reared. Ethni, the night she conceived, dreamt that a dove flew to her, took her heart out of her bosom, and bore it up to heaven, whence the bird returned, and restoring it to its place, with sweet odours, disappeared.

Collen, when a youth, was sent to France to study at Orleans, where he remained for over eight years, during the time, it is said, of Julian the Apostate, but this is an anachronism, as Collen lived in the seventh and not the fourth century.

To bring the incessant wars that were then being waged between the Pagans and Christians to a speedy termination, a paynim named Bras challenged to fight in single combat any one that the Christians might choose to pit against him, stipulating that the losing side should henceforth adopt the religion of the conqueror. The Pope was greatly perplexed, for he could not find any Christian brave enough to accept the challenge. At last he was divinely directed to go to Porth Hantwn, and the first person he met there should be his choice. He traversed land and sea until he reached that port, and the first person he met was Collen, who cheerfully accepted the challenge.

The champions met. In the first encounter Collen’s hand was slightly wounded. Bras counselled him to give in, adding that he would cure the wound for him by the application of a precious ointment that he had in his basinet, and at the same time magnanimously handed him the ointment box. Collen applied some of the ointment to the wound and it was healed forthwith, but instead of returning the box to Bras, he threw it into the river, so that neither should get any further benefit from it. Collen next felled his antagonist, who, imploring him not to kill him, promised to embrace the Christian religion. The Pope baptized him there and then, and ” the whole nation of the Greeks believed, and they were all baptized.”

As a souvenir of this signal victory, the Pope presented Collen with a ” relic, none other than the lily that blossomed before the pagans, when one of them said that it was no truer that a son was born to the Virgin, than that the withered lily in yonder pot should ever bear fair flowers. Then that lily blossomed. That lily the Pope gave to Collen, who brought it into this Island, and it is said to be still at Worcester.” Collen, landing in Cornwall, came to Glastonbury Abbey, where he took the religious habit, and in three months’ time was chosen abbot. Then, with the convent’s leave, ” he took upon him a life that was heavier and harder than being abbot,” which consisted in preaching and upholding the Catholic Faith. This he daily pursued; for the space of three years, and then returned to the abbey, where he remained five years. ” Then he became angry with the men of the land for their wrong-doing, and cursed them.” His choleric temper now drove him to Glastonbury Tor, and ” there he made himself a cell under a rock in a secret place out of the way.”

One day, whilst in his cell, he overheard two men talking about Gwyn ab Nudd, and remarking that he was king of Annwn (the Under- world) and the Fairies. This was too much for Collen. He put out his head and bade them stop their foolish talk immediately; these were none other than demons. They replied that he would have to answer for such words as those. He then drew in his head. Presently he heard knocking at his door, and got for reply, ” I am here, the messenger of Gwyn ab Nudd, King of Annwn, to bid thee come by mid-day to-morrow to speak with him on the top of the hill.” Collen declined to go. The same messenger ” in raiment the one-half red and the other half blue ” came again the next day, and the day after, when at last, losing patience, he said, ” If thou dost not come, Collen, it will be the worse for thee.” The menace disconcerted him, and, taking with him some holy water he had prepared, he proceeded up the hill.

“On reaching the top, he saw the fairest castle that he had ever beheld, manned by the best-appointed troops; and there were numbers of musicians with every manner of song, vocal and instrumental; steeds with youths riding them, the handsomest in the world; maidens of noble mien, sprightly, light-footed, gay-apparelled, and in the bloom of youth; and every magnificence becoming the court of a sumptuous king. He beheld a courteous man on the rampart, who bade him enter, saying that the king was waiting for him to come to dine. Collen entered the castle, and found the king sitting in a chair of gold. He welcomed Collen with due honour, and bade him seat himself at the table, adding that, besides what he saw thereon before him, he should have the rarest of all dainties and luxuries his mind could desire, and should be supplied with every liquor and sweet drink his heart could wish; and that there were in readiness for him every luxury of courtesy and service, of banquet and honourable entertainment, of rank and gifts, and of every respect and welcome due to a man of his wisdom. ‘ I will not,’ said Collen, ‘ eat the tree-leaves.’ ‘ Hast thou ever seen men better apparelled than these in red and blue? ‘ asked the king. ‘ Their apparel is good enough,’ said Collen, ‘ of the kind it is.’ ‘ What kind is that? ‘ inquired the king. Then answered Collen: ‘ The red on the one side betokens burning, and the blue on the other betokens cold; and with that he drew out his sprinkler (siobo), and dashed the holy water over them, whereupon they vanished out of his sight, so that there was neither castle, nor troops, nor men, nor maidens, nor music, nor song, nor steeds, nor youths, nor banquet, nor the appearance of anything whatsoever but the green tumps.”

That night, on his return to his cell, Collen prayed God that he might have a place to dwell in for the rest of his life, and he was bidden to go a journey next day until he met a horse, which he was to mount; and as much ground as he could compass that day should be ” his sanctuary until Doomsday.” He met the horse at a place called Rhysfa Maes Cadfarch; and ” he rode it round his parish, and in the centre of the sanctuary made his cell,” in which he spent the remainder of his days, and within it was laid to his rest.

650. Cronicum Scotorum.

The battle of Oswy against Penda, in which Penda with 30 kings fell. The battle of Dún Cremthainn in which Óengus, son of Domnall fell. The sons of Mael Coba i.e. Conall Cael and Cellach, were victors. Death of Cathusach son of Domnall Brec. Death of Crónán of Mag Bili.

650. Annales Cambriae.

The rising of a star.

650. Annals of Ulster.

The battle of Oswy against Penda. The battle of Dún Cremthainn in which Aengus son of Domnall fell. The victors were the sons of Mael Coba, i.e. Cellach and Conall Cael. Death of Cathusach son of Domnall Brec. Death of Crónán of Mag Bili. This year Bede was born.

650 Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Egelbert, from Gaul, after Birinus the Romish bishop, obtained the bishopric of the West-Saxons.

650. Anglo Saxon Chronicle.

This year Birinus the bishop died, and Agilbert the Frenchman was ordained.

650. Annals of the Four Masters.

The eleventh year of Conall and Ceallach. Aithchen, Abbot of Tir Da Ghlas Terryglass, died. Cailcen, of Lothra, died. The battle of Fleascach, by Crunnmael, son of Suibhne, chief of Cinel Eoghain, in which was slain Cumascach, son of Oilioll, chief of Ui Cremhthainn. Crunnmael Erbuilg, son of Ronan, chief of South Leinster, died. St. Bearaidh, Abbot of Duibhlinn, died.

Bede

CHAP. XVI. How the same Aidan, by his prayers, saved the royal city when it was fired by the enemy. [Before 651 A.D.]

ANOTHER notable miracle of the same father is related by many such as were likely to have knowledge thereof; for during the time that he was bishop, the hostile army of the Mercians, under the command of Penda, cruelly ravaged the country of the Northumbrians far and near, even to the royal city, which has its name from Bebba, formerly its queen. Not being able to take it by storm or by siege, he endeavoured to burn it down; and having pulled down all the villages in the neighbourhood of the city, he brought thither an immense quantity of beams, rafters, partitions, wattles and thatch, wherewith he encompassed the place to a great height on the land side, and when he found the wind favourable, he set fire to it and attempted to burn the town.

At that time, the most reverend Bishop Aidan was dwelling in the Isle of Fame, which is about two miles from the city; for thither he was wont often to retire to pray in solitude and silence; and, indeed, this lonely dwelling of his is to this day shown in that island. When he saw the flames of fire and the smoke carried by the wind rising above the city walls, he is said to have lifted up his eyes and hands to heaven, and cried with tears, “Behold, Lord, how great evil is wrought by Penda!” These words were hardly uttered, when the wind immediately veering from the city, drove back the flames upon those who had kindled them, so that some being hurt, and all afraid, they forebore any further attempts against the city, which they perceived to be protected by the hand of God.

Historia Augusta

And now, my friend, accept this gift of mine, which, as I have often said, I have brought out to the light of day, not because of its elegance of style but because of its learned research, chiefly with this purpose in view, that if any gifted stylist should wish to reveal the deeds of the emperors, he might not lack the material, having, as he will, my little books as ministers to his eloquence. I pray you, then, to be content and to contend that in this work I had the wish to write better than I had the power.

The End.