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wir verbergen kein Geheimniss wir gehoren zur Genossenschaft Colum Kille's."

46. "Cinnus do sluagh tire Temrach torme comland

An fitir lat, cia meit mac as beo do Domnoll? "

Wie steht es mit der Schar des Landes von Temair, wo Kampfe dröhnen, Weisst du, wie viel Söhne Domnalls am Leben sind?" 47. Dlomais an cleireach la heolus- ord ro derbudh

os cathair cli: "Ad bi tri maic do ri Temrach.

Es erklarte der Kleriker mit Kenntnis-die Würde wurde gewissenauf dem linken Stuhl: "Drei Söhne des Königs von Temair leben.

48. Do rochair Fiacha mac Domnaill-derba samle

[blocks in formation]

Fiacha Domnalls Sohn ist gefallen das sind sichere Beschreibungen; durch die Männer von Ross fand er Ruhe; im Boden ist seine Wohnung.

49. Assa decheng lassa torchoir, tresiu fairind

[ba] coib corach-:

Diarmait Olach ocus Ailill.

Dies sind die zwei Helden, durch die er gefallen ist, stärker als eine
Menge, ein wurfreicher Sieg-: Diarmait Olach und Ailill.

50. Es rocartha isan ngním sin cen chuit cairde

seasca lanamna cen burbai

forsin fairrgi."

Ausgewiesen wurden ob dieser Tat ohne jede Freundschaft sechzig
Paare ohne Torheit auf die See."

51. "Is fir duib, a cleirchiu fiadha [t]-fiach ro derbadh.

Is forgoll fír.

Messi ro marb mac rig Temrach.

"Ihr sprecht wahr, Kleriker des Herrn!-die Schuld wurde erwiesen. Es ist ein wahres Zeugnis. Ich bin's der den Sohn des Königs von Temair getotet hat.

In some of the stanzas the lyric character of the verse appears more prominently, as in Stanza 60:

Dal fer nime-nert la cride, crechadh allmar—,

dal fer nifirnn-uathmur comrum-, dal fer talmun.

Die Versammlung der Männer des Himmels-Herzenstarke-Herrliche Beute!, die Versammlung der Männer der Hölle-schrecklicher Kampf!-, die Versammlung der Männer der Erde.

From these stanzas we learn that the voyage of the two clerics of Colum cille's munntir took place in the beginning of the kingship of Donnchad after the death of Domnall; that Domnall was king of Ireland; that Fiacha was killed by the Men of Ross, by the heroes Diarmait Olach and Ailill, to be exact; that sixty pairs

of Men of Ross were set adrift on the sea as punishment for the deed; that the voyaging clerics Snedgus and Mac Riagla found these people on a terrestrial island paradise; and that two sons of Domnall still were alive when the clerics left Ireland. We do not learn why Fiacha was killed, although the inference is clear that the killing was regarded as justifiable; we are not told who passed judgment on the Men of Ross; and, more strangely still, we do not know how or why the two clerics happened to undertake the voyage upon the sea.

In all the other imrama, and in all other forms of this imram, the motive for the voyage of the hero or heroes is given some stress, and is always made clear. The absence of this element in Poem can only be explained, it seems to me, on the theories that the poet was writing a poem to accompany a more detailed account, perhaps in prose; or that he assumed his audience, from some other source, to be familiar with the story. That the missing introductory matter was the same essentially as that found in Prose A seems probable. If not, the author of Prose A, though a somewhat slavish and not always clear-minded follower of Poem, must be credited with the invention of the whole introductory machinery, inspired only by the hints in Stanzas 1-3 and 45-51 of Poem. But this author's very close dependence on Poem, especially in his treatment of the Elias episode, which he neither understood nor clarified," suggests that in the introduction he was following some authority.

The happy way in which the introductory elements first appearing in Prose A fit in with the part of the story preserved in Poem suggests a common source for the two pieces rather than an author for Prose A who was clever enough to invent motivating machinery and other structural and introductory matter with great aptness, yet so stupid as to misunderstand the poet's use of muntir,

41 He omits much of the detail found in Poem, such as the description of Elias' dwelling, the Gospel Book used by Elias, the sermon of Elias, the reference to Antichrist, etc. He does not make it clear that it is Elias who welcomes the clerics. In fact, from Prose A alone one does not learn that the clerics even saw Elias, although their later request to be allowed to see Enoch, copied from Poem, is only explainable on the assumption that they had already seen Elias (cf. Poem, Stanzas 56 ff.). Prose B makes the clerics see both Elias and Enoch, ignoring the fact that they had already seen Elias.

misconceive the Elias episode, and introduce chronological confusion. The conception of Snedgus and Mac Riagla as playing the role of messengers of Colum cille, bearing the decision of the great saint that the Men of Ross be set adrift to be punished by God, the errand itself suggesting the undertaking of a voyage of their own, would seem under the circumstances, a particularly inspired piece of invention. The introductory parts of Prose A, with which Poem has nothing to correspond, include the rather elaborate motivation of the murder of Fiacha, the details reading like genuine tradition. Note especially the detailed historical statement; the striking blood-spittle incident; the deer lure motive; the putting of the prisoners into one house to be burned alive; and the peculiar fact that the Men of Ross had never before been subject to a king. If the author of Prose A were merely inventing enough material to make the narrative materials in Poem intelligible, he could have omitted much of this. The style of the introductory section is marked by the same crispness and brevity as characterizes the rest of the piece; yet it takes up considerably more than onethird of the whole account.

The author of Prose A, throughout, uses as few words as possible, and seems to me to be condensing, as he certainly was in the Elias episode, if, as seems likely, he was following Poem, or some earlier version with a similar presentation. The form of the deer-lure incident seems especially to betray signs of condensation, Prose A not making it evident even that the appearance of the deer was the result of an intrigue:

Prose A It was then that a deer passed near them. All the king's household go after the deer. Then the Men of Ross took his own weapons from the king, for none of them had a weapon, and so they killed him.

Prose B: Now one day there was an assembly held by them, and present with them were the two crown princes of their native lords, to wit, Diarmait Olmar and Ailill. And these said, "Truly yon neighboring lord who is over you is worse for you than we are. For neither our fathers nor our grandsires inflicted hardships like this, though ye continually slew them."

Then the gentry of the assembly formed a plan to kill Fiacha. Not long afterwards Fiacha entered the assembly, and his men saw a stag passing them, and loosed their hounds against it. They themselves went after the hounds, leaving Fiacha alone in the assembly. Then those gentry betrayed him and killed him, and after the murder they went to the safeguard of Ronan the Fair and Maine mac Niall, etc.

That the intrigue feature belonged to the original form of the incident is further suggested by a similar appearance of the motive in another piece of Celtic tradition. The sixth-century St. Cairnech aided King Muircheartach mac Erca in killing Cairnech's brother, King Luirig. Muircheartach visited King Luirig in his assembly. The Lord sent a fawn out of the mountain into the king's assembly [evidently to fulfill a prophecy the saint had made to the king]. All the host went in pursuit of the fawn except the king and his women. Muircheartach then killed King Luirig.42 Here clearly the appearance of the deer was no accident. Its appearance in Prose A as an accident suggests condensation, although it may possibly indicate imperfect knowledge of source materials.

It may be noted that the presentation in Prose B is not only more complete and intelligible, but perhaps more primitive, and that it harmonizes with Stanzas 49 and 51 of Poem. Prose A does not mention the part played by the native princes.

The abrupt turn of affairs in the section immediately following this incident also suggests the result of condensation, there being nothing to motivate the king's sudden change of mind. In all the later versions the suggestion of the resort to Colum cille comes from the protectors to whom the Men of Ross had fled. It is possible that the text of Prose A at this point indicates that the author had before him and was rejecting some such version as Prose B. Prose A reads:

That deed [the murder of Fiacha] was evil in his brother Donnchad's eyes, and he came and took them all prisoners, and puts them into one house to be burned alive. Then he himself said (Bá andsin asbert-somfesin), "It is not meet for me to do this deed without counsel from my soul friend, from Colum cille." So he sends messengers to Colum cille.

The suggestion that the author of Prose A substituted the seventh-century Domnall for the eighth-century Domnall because he misunderstood muntir Colaim cille in Poem offers a plausible explanation of the change in time-setting if other evidence shows

42 Found in The Legend of St. Cairnech, preserved in one version of the Irish Nennius (J. H. Todd, ed., The Irish Version of the Historia Britonum of Nennius, Irish Archeological Society, Dublin, 1848, pp. 183-84: the passage in question appears in the Book of Ballymote text only; cf. Preface, p. xli).

that there actually was such a change. Since the word would be appropriate, however, either in the sense of contemporary disciples of Colum cille or of members of the Columban establishment in subsequent times, the suggestion itself affords no direct evidence. The Irish life of Colum cille in the Book of Lismore, for example, affords many instances of muntir in the sense of contemporary disciples. In the absence of conclusive evidence, therefore, that the time-setting really was altered by the author of Prose A, it seems fair to suppose that the phrase in Poem meant what the authors of all the prose versions took it to mean, members of the Ionan establishment in Colum cille's own time.

The absence in Poem of specific reference to Colum cille as playing the part of counsellor to Donnchad is not necessarily significant, since the resort to Colum cille belongs to the introductory section of the story, which is wholly lacking in Poem (except for the scattered hints in Stanzas 1, 2, 47-50). The failure of Poem to identify Domnall as Domnall mac Aed mac Ainmire is also of doubtful significance in view of the nature of the presentation in Poem. The whole name would be unwieldly in the verse," and if, as seems probable, the author felt his audience to be familiar with the events of the story, he would not feel any narrative responsibility for being more specific.

43 Betha Coluim Chille in Stokes, Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore, Oxford, 1890, lines 896-897: Orachuala Colum cille inni-sin doraidh re mhuinntir, "So when Colum cille heard that, he said to his household," etc.; other instances appear in lines 885, 966, 973, 1012, and 1027 and in other lives in the same collection: Betha Brenainn, lines 3669, 3673; Betha Shenain, line 1815; etc.

I do not presume to challenge Professor Thurneysen's judgment on a linguistic matter but would merely point out by examples that the word was common in the narrower sense in which the authors of our prose versions understood it. Reeves, Adamnan, p. 342, explains muntir: “The family, vernacularly called muintir and in Latin familia, consisted of fratres or commembres whom the founder styles mei familiares monachiand addressed as filioli." Cf. further ibid., p. 162, n. x, and J. H. Todd, St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland (Dublin, 1864), p. 159. On the derivation of muntir see J. Vendryes, ZCP, 1x, 289 ff.; Julius Porkorney, ZCP, x, 202 ff. and other authorities cited therein.

"Even the use of two proper names seems to have furnished the poet some difficulty; see Thurneysen's note on the meter of Stanza 2, Zwei Vers., p. 15.

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