45

allelina

39. Iacula.-This word is here of four syllables-i-a-cu-la.

41. Quo.-Over this word is the gloss co, "in order that."

45. Nimis honorati.—This verse seems to have been regarded as a part of the Hymn by the transcriber of the MS., as appears by his having repeated the first line of the Hymn immediately after it, according to a custom already noticed. See note, p. 23 supra. It is, however, Ps. cxxxviii. 17, with the reading honorati for honorificati. The absence of the

metre proves that it was not intended by the author as a part of the Hymn.

Exaudi nos.-This is an Antiphona to be recited after the Hymn; it is evidently in a rude rhyme. Then follows another Antiphon, Prayer, or Collect, in which, as already observed, "SS. Peter, Paul, and Patrick, and the other Apostles," are mentioned together. It is probable that we ought to read "et omnium sanctorum," or "omniumque sanctorum." Both these versicles are in a different character, although from the pen of the original scribe.

THE

a Drunkenness.-A more modern account states that Fiachna intended to lie with Cacht, daughter of Maolochtair, son of Aedh Bolg, King of the Decies, who was then at his house, on her way to St. Brennan's Hill, where she was going on a pilgrimage. She slept in the same room, and in the same bed, with Fiachna's daughter, and it was by mistake, not from drunkenness, that Fiachna committed the incest of which St. Cummain Fota was the offspring. This version of the story goes on to say that the infant, when born, was exposed in a cummuin, or box, of wicker-work, and sent off afloat upon the Abhan Mor, or Great River; that the box, carried down by the stream, was found by Bishop Declan's fishermen, who carried it to the Bishop; that the Bishop [who, it should be remembered, such are the anachronisms of this version of the story, was a contemporary of

St. Patrick], finding the child alive, baptized him, and committed him again to the river, predicting that it was reserved for St. Mida (or Ita) to educate the boy: that St. Ita, whilst washing her hands at the river, observed the floating box, opened it, and, carrying the child to the altar, there dedicated him to God, naming him Cummain, from his having been found in the box or basket. This story occurs in a MS. of the eighteenth century, very badly written, and in very bad modern Irish, which is preserved among the Betham MSS. (26 a) in the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin.

b The Abbess Ita.-This has been understood (see note) as if St. Ita herself had been alive when the infant St. Cummain was left at her church. Dr. Lanigan very fairly objects that St. Ita died in 569, exactly twenty-three years before M

He afterwards studied in Cork, until he became a his country; i. e. to the Eoghanacht of Loch Leins. Fiachna wherefore he said :

It is no falsehood for me, if that be said;

For near is the relationship of us

three,

My grandfather is my father,

My mother is my sister.

If good be born of evil,

It is I that should excel.

My sister is my mother,

My father is my grandfather.

St. Cummain was born. But there is nothing in the Scholiast's narrative which implies that St. Ita herself was alive, although more modern authors have represented it so. On the contrary, it is expressly said that when St. Cummain's mother came to the house of Ita, "St. Ita's comharb," that is, St. Ita's successor, or representative, "was not within ;" which proves that St. Ita herself was not then alive, otherwise she could have had no successor as abbess in her monastery. See Lanigan's Eccl. Hist. ii. p. 399, note 51.

The churn.-The Latin has sinus, the Irish ballan, a word which signifies a churn, or vessel for holding milk, a wooden drinking-cup, or bowl: and Isidore in his Glossary interprets sinus-"Vas in quo butyrum conficitur." See Du Cange in voce.

d Rebuked her. The version of this story in the Betham MS. (26 a), quoted above, note, represents the fault committed by St. Cummain's mother to have been, not that she gave him to drink out of the vessel of the abbess, but that she gave him milk to drink during a season of fasting.

e Notice not. This and the following poems are written in the MS. as prose, without division of the

Doctor. And then he returned to his father and to And every one then said that Cummain resembled

Short is the summing up,

I am the grandson of thy mother,

My mother also is accused of guilt
With the brother of thy brother,
With thyself, O Fiachnah,

For thou art the brother of thy brother.

To me there is a double relationship

To the race of Fiachra-Gairrinni',
For a grandson and a son to him
Is the said Cummain to Fiachna.

lines. But it has been thought better, in printing them, to restore the metrical arrangement. The repetition of the words Na pathaig, "Notice not," in the first line, is necessary for the metre. It was a common practice, when a verse was so constructed, to write the word once only.

A Doctor.-The word is rul, or raoi, a learned man of the highest degree.

8 Eoghanacht of Loch Lein.-i. e. of the Lake of Killarney. These were descendants of Eoghan Mor, eldest son of Oiliol Olum, King of Munster in the second century. See Irish version of Nennius, p. 258, note.

O Fiachna. In the Irish a 1achna, for a Fhiachna, the aspirated p being omitted, in accordance with the pronunciation. So again, in the last of these verses, in ti Cummaine diachno, for d' Fhiachno. St. Cummain's mother is called lann, for Flann, in more than one passage of this Preface. This dropping of the F is very common with Irish scribes, and has been the occasion of several mistakes. The Editor is indebted to Mr. Curry for this observation.

i Fiachra-Garrinni.-Fiachna, father of Cum

Cummain

main, was the son of Fiachra-Gairrine. was grandson to Fiachna (being the son of his daughter), as well as his son. His name, therefore, appeared in two different lines of the family pedigree.

Acknowledged.—This word is supplied from conjecture, as a word or two are illegible in the MS. All that can be read with certainty is given in the text (p. 72). Mr. Curry thinks that the letters didit are visible before Filium; if so, perhaps, credidit was the obliterated word.

* Domhnall.-He was King of Ireland from A. D. 628 to 642. See his Pedigree, Battle of Magh Rath, ed. by Dr. O'Donovan, p. 326.

1 To Columcille.-This saint died no earlier than A. D. 595 [592, Four Masters]. Therefore, the meaning, perhaps, may be that Domhnall consulted St. Columcille (which he might have done before that year, for his father died in 599), and that St. Columcille predicted St. Cummain, although this latter saint was then an infant, having been born in 590. It is more probable, however, that when

Columcille is mentioned, his comharb, or successor, is meant, according to the usual way of speaking of the Irish, who considered the saint as still presiding over his monastery, however long after his death, and as still speaking by the mouth of his successor. m The Doctor.-Or learned man. The same word, rul, is here used. See above, note!.

a Communion.-There seems here to be intended a play upon the word Cummain, "communion with the Church," and Cummain, the name of the saint who was destined to bring this communion to the house of Domhnall.

• Now it is.-The commencement only of this Rann or Poem is given, because four lines of it are quoted at length further on.

› Flann.-Here again the text has Lunn, the initial F being omitted. The verses that follow seem to allude to the ancient custom of putting on the raiment of the saint who acted as your penitentiary, in token of submission and humiliation This. it seems, Domhnall refused to do.