Chapter X (7)

These many stories are only the protean forms of one favorite popular conception; the idea of one individual standing still, while the world sweeps by, and either blest or curst with a perpetual renewal of youth, or else awaking out of a sleep of centuries to find creation wearing a new face and new generations acting out the great drama of history. The different modifications of the story seem to derive their peculiar character from the peculiarities of the time and country in which they originate. The pagan tendency to personify all the phenomena of nature is exemplified in the myth of Enceladus, under which were represented the throes of Mount Etna. The wild, warlike, and semi-pagan spirit of Germany, which peoples dark mountain recesses with mysterious forms, and fastens a legend to each frowning crag and almost inaccessible fastness, finds apt expression in the legend of the sleeping Barbarossa and his mailed companions. And how beautifully the piety of the monkish chroniclers has embellished the same fiction in the fables of the seven sleepers and the monk of Hildesheim! In the former of these two stories, however, it is worthy of remark that an actual fact has been blended with the fiction. The seven sleepers are real historical personages, and their names are enrolled in the list of canonized saints. They were martyrs whom the Emperor Decius caused to be walled up alive in a cave, where many generations afterward their relics were found; and this discovery of the relics has been amplified into an actual resuscitation of the living men. The narrative in this spurious form is given by Jacobus de Voragine in his Golden Legend, and was made the subject of a poem by Goethe. The German poet adds that there was a dog with the seven Christians, and that immediately after their awakening, as soon as they had been seen by the king and people of Ephesus, they disappeared for ever from the sight of man:

"The most blessed angel Gabriel,
By the will of God Almighty,
Walling up the cave for ever,
Led them into paradise."

The most remarkable of all the varieties of this fiction is the legend of the Wandering Jew. Like the story of St. John's sleep at Ephesus, it seems to be based upon a false interpretation of Scripture. "There are some of them standing here," said our Lord, "who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom," (St. Matt. xvi. 28.) And it was the old belief that this prophecy was being literally fulfilled in the person of a Jew who was wandering over the face of the earth, and would continue to wander until the day of judgment. {763} The earliest mention of this mythical person occurs in Matthew Paris's Chronicle of English History, wherein he records that, in 1228, a certain Archbishop of Greater Armenia visited the abbey of St. Albans, on a pilgrimage to the shrines of the saints in England; and in the course of conversation he was asked "whether he had ever seen or heard any thing of Joseph, a man of whom there was much talk in the world, who, when our Lord suffered, was present and spoke to him, and who is still alive in evidence of the Christian faith; in reply to which, a knight in his retinue, who was his interpreter, replied, speaking in French, 'My lord well knows that man, and a little before he took his way to the western countries the said Joseph ate at the table of my lord the Archbishop of Armenia, and he has often seen and conversed with him.'" The archbishop went on to relate that, when Jesus had been delivered up to the Jews and they were dragging him out to be crucified, "Cartaphilus, a porter of the hall, in Pilate's service, as Jesus was going out of the door, impiously struck him on the back with his hand, and said in mockery, 'Go quicker, Jesus, go quicker, why do you loiter?' And Jesus, looking back on him with a severe countenance, said to him, 'I am going, and you shall wait till I return.' And according as our Lord said this Cartaphilus is still awaiting his return. At the time of our Lord's suffering he was thirty years old, and when he attains the age of a hundred years he always returns to the same age as he was when our Lord suffered. After Christ's death, when the Catholic faith gained ground, this Cartaphilus was baptized by Ananias, (who also baptized the apostle Paul,) and was called Joseph. He dwells in one or other divisions of Armenia, and in divers eastern countries, passing his time among the bishops and other prelates of the church; he is a man of holy conversation and religious; a man of few words, and very circumspect in his behavior; for he does not speak at all unless when questioned by the bishops and religious; and then he relates the events of olden times, and speaks of things which occurred at the suffering and resurrection of our Lord, and of the witnesses of the resurrection, namely, of those who rose with Christ, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto men. He also tells of the creed of the apostles, and of their separation and preaching. And all this," added the archbishop, (though we should think the statement rather superfluous,) "he relates _without smiling or levity of conversation_, as one who is well practised in sorrow and the fear of God, always looking forward with dread to the coming of Jesus Christ, lest at the last judgment he should find him in anger, whom, on his way to death, he had provoked to just vengeance." There is something not easy to explain in this story. Matthew Paris was an eye-witness of the events which he relates, so there can be little doubt that the Armenian prelate or his interpreter did really tell some such wondrous tale as this to the monks of St. Albans. Was it a pure invention? Or did the interpreter, by a familiar species of embellishment, represent his master as having seen the wandering Jew when he had only _heard_ of him? Or had the archbishop been deceived by some impostor who had taken advantage of the popularity of the legend to palm himself off upon the credulous as its veritable hero? One thing at all events is clear from the narrative of the monk of St. Albans; and that is, that the fable was by no means a new one in his time, though he is the earliest known writer who has handed it down to us. The Jew, according to this narrative, refused all gifts that were offered him, being content with a little food and scanty raiment; but with all his humble piety he seems to have cherished an odd sort of pride; for it is related that "numbers came to him from different parts of the world, enjoying his society and conversation, and to them, _if they are men of authority_, he explains all doubts on the matters on which he is questioned."

{764}

After the Armenian had visited the shrine of "St. Tumas de Kantorbire" in England and "Monsigour St. Jake," whereby we suppose is meant Santiago de Compostela in Spain, he went to Cologne to see the heads of the three kings, and there he is reported, in a rhyming chronicle by Philip Mouskes, afterward Bishop of Tournay, as repeating the story he had told at St. Albans, but with very slight differences.

There is no further mention of the Wandering Jew in literature for more than two hundred and fifty years; but, in 1505, he turns up to some purpose in Bohemia, where a poor weaver named Kokot was in great perplexity to find a treasure that had been buried by his great-grandfather sixty years before. The Jew had been present when the treasure was hid away, and he now appeared opportunely to show the heir where to find it. He seemed at this time to be about seventy years of age. About the same time we hear of him in the East, where there was a tradition that he appeared to the Arabian conqueror Fadhilah, and predicted the signs which were to precede the last judgment. But this mysterious visitor, who is called Zerib Bar Elia, seems to have been confounded in a curious way with the prophet Elijah. The most circumstantial account of the undying one was given about the middle of the sixteenth century by Dr. Paul von Eitzen, afterward Bishop of Schleswig, who seems to have been thoroughly deceived by one of the many impostors who arose during that century and the next, claiming to have been survivors of the rabble who followed Jesus to Calvary. Dr. Von Eitzen's story is that, being in church one Sunday in Hamburg, in the year 1547, "he observed a tall man with his hair hanging over his shoulders, standing barefoot during the sermon over against the pulpit, listening with deepest attention to the discourse, and whenever the name of Jesus was mentioned bowing himself profoundly and humbly, with sighs and beating of the breast. He had no other clothing in the bitter cold of the winter, except a pair of hose which were in tatters about his feet, and a coat with a girdle which reached to his feet; and his general appearance was that of a man of fifty years." The learned doctor was so much struck by the man's looks that after the sermon he made inquiries about him. He found that he was a mystery to everybody. Many people, some of them of high degree and title, had seen him in England, Scotland, France, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, Russia, Persia, and other countries, and nobody knew what to make of him. So Dr. Von Eitzen sought him out and questioned him. "Thereupon he replied modestly that he was a Jew by birth, a native of Jerusalem, by name Ahasuerus, by trade a shoemaker; he had been present at the crucifixion of Christ, and had lived ever since, travelling through various lands and cities, the which he substantiated by accounts he gave; he related also the circumstances of Christ's transference from Pilate to Herod, and the final crucifixion, together with other details not recorded in the evangelists and historians; he gave accounts of the changes of government in many countries, especially of the East, through several centuries, and moreover he detailed the labors and deaths of the holy apostles of Christ most circumstantially." The stranger added that he had done his best with others to have Christ put to death, and that, when sentence had been pronounced, he ran home and called his family together that they might look at the deceiver of the people as he was carried to execution. When the Lord was led by to Calvary, he was standing at the door of his shop with his little child on his arm. Spent with the weight of the cross which he was carrying, Christ tried to rest a little, but Ahasuerus, for the sake of obtaining credit among the other Jews, and also out of zeal and rage, drove the Lord forward and bade him hasten. "Jesus, obeying, looked at him and said, 'I shall stand and rest, but thou shalt go till the last day.' {765} At these words the man set down the child, and, unable to remain where he was, he followed Christ, and saw how cruelly he was crucified, how he suffered, how he died. As soon as this had taken place, it came upon him suddenly that he could no more return to Jerusalem, nor see again his wife and child, but must go forth into foreign lands, one after another, like a mournful pilgrim. Now, when, years after, he returned to Jerusalem, he found it ruined and utterly razed, so that not one stone was left standing on another; and he could not recognize former localities.

.....

Dr. Paul von Eitzen, along with the rector of the school of Hamburg, who was well read in history and a traveller, questioned him about events which had taken place in the East since the death of Christ, and he was able to give them much information on many ancient matters; so that it was impossible not to be convinced of the truth of his story, and to see that what seems impossible with men is, after all, possible with God." It does not seem to have required Dr. Von Eitzen's investigation to prove that what is impossible with man may be possible with God; but how any amount of questioning could demonstrate the truth of the stranger's story we are at a loss to see. It apparently failed to strike the reverend doctor and his associate that the Jew could have learned the history of the East as easily as they learned it themselves; and even if he made a good many blunders in his narrative, it is by no means certain that his questioners were wise enough to detect them.

This impostor, for so we may safely call him, observed the traditional silence, modesty, temperance, and poverty which the legend uniformly ascribes to the Wandering Jew, never accepting a larger alms than two skillings, (about nine cents,) which he immediately gave to the poor; never laughing; gladly listening to pious discourse; reverencing with sighs the utterance of the divine name; and waxing very indignant whenever he heard any one swear, especially by God's death or pains. He spoke the language of whatever country he travelled in, and had no foreign accent; so at least the account runs, but it does not appear how that fact was ascertained, nor is there mention of any competent linguist having examined his abilities in that line. He never staid long in one place.

Twenty-eight years afterward, that is, in 1575, two legates sent from Schleswig to the court of Spain declared on their return home that they had encountered the same mysterious person in Madrid, and conversed with him. In appearance, manner of life, habits, and garb, he was just the same as he had appeared in Hamburg. He spoke good Spanish. It is not said, however, that these legates had themselves seen the man when Dr. Von Eitzen talked with him twenty-eight years before, and the probability is, that they only inferred from the description left of that strange traveller that the wanderer in Madrid was the same person. In 1599, he is reported at Vienna; in 1601, at Lubeck; and about the same date at Revel in Livonia, and Cracow in Poland. He was also seen in Moscow, and in January, 1603, we find record again of his appearance at Lubeck. The next year he was in Paris. Rudolph Botoreus, who records his visit to that city in his history, apologizes for mentioning what may seem a mere old wives' fable, but says the story was so widely believed that he could not omit it. Bulenger, about the same date, also mentions the report of the Jew's arrival in Paris, but confesses that he neither saw him nor could hear anything authentic concerning him.

The frequency of the reappearance of this mythical character in different parts of Europe during the seventeenth century seems to indicate that the imposture was a profitable one. He assumes different names and tells his story with several variations. In one work he is called Buttadaeus. Elsewhere he is known as Isaac Laquedem. {766} In some accounts it is said that he was born of the tribe of Napluali, seven or eight years before the birth of Christ. He ran away from his father, who was either a carpenter or a shoemaker, to accompany the three wise men to Bethlehem; and his description on his return of the wonders he had seen and the rich presents which the magi laid at the feet of the babe whom they hailed King of the Jews, led to the massacre of the innocents. He was, according to this version, a carpenter by trade, and made the cross upon which the Lord suffered. At the end of every hundred years he falls into a fit or trance, from which he awakes with renewed youth, returning always to the age at which he was when the Saviour was crucified. He has tempted death in every conceivable form; he has courted pestilence, thrown himself into the thickest of battles, and called upon the sea to swallow him; but a miraculous interposition of divine power preserves him through everything, and the curse still drives him on from land to land, and will allow him no rest until the crucified Son of Man shall come in his glory to judge the world. Penitent and devout, yet tortured with remorse, he sweeps on perpetually round and round the world, and the sudden roar of a gale at night is attributed by the vulgar to the passing of the everlasting Jew. There is a Swiss story that he was seen one day standing on the Matterberg contemplating the scene with mingled awe and wonder. Once before he stood on that desolate spot, and then it was the site of a flourishing city. Once again he will revisit it, and that will be on the eve of judgment.

So late as the beginning of the last century a man calling himself the Wandering Jew made considerable noise in England, where many of the common people were found ignorant enough to believe in him. Following the custom of some of his early predecessors, he preferred the conversation of persons of distinction, and spared no pains to thrust himself into aristocratic company. Some of the nobility, half in jest, half out of curiosity, were wont to talk with him, and pay him as they might a mountebank. He used to say that he had been an officer of the sanhedrim, and that he had struck Christ as he was led away from Pilate's judgment seat. He remembered all the apostles, in proof of which he used to give what purported to be a description of their appearance, dress, and peculiarities; he had been acquainted with the father of Mohammed, and had disputed with the prophet himself about the crucifixion of Christ; he knew Saladin, Tamerlane, and Bajazet; he was in Rome when Nero set it on fire, and he remembered minutely the history of the crusades. He spoke many languages, and even conversed with an English nobleman in Arabic. Oxford and Cambridge sent professors to discover whether he was an impostor. It does not appear that he shrank from their examination, for it is pretty certain that he had been a great traveller, and it is not at all improbable that he was well enough read in history to perplex his questioners. On matters of detail it was easy enough for him to impugn the accuracy of authorities which contradicted him. Educated persons were not long in learning to laugh at his assumptions, but the vulgar trusted him, and even believed in his power of healing the sick. We are not aware that the humbug was ever thoroughly exposed to the satisfaction of the people at large, and when he afterward passed over to Denmark and Sweden he left probably a plenty of dupes behind him. The last recorded appearance of a person claiming to be the Wandering Jew was in 1774 at Brussels.

It would be a curious and interesting study to trace, if we could, the origin of this myth, but it is a baffling inquiry. Its kinship with the stories of long slumbers, marvellous resuscitations, and miraculous prolongation of life is sufficiently apparent, yet it presents remarkable differences from all these, and it is noteworthy that, during the five centuries and more in which we know that it flourished, it underwent no considerable modifications, such as popular legends in general are subject to. {767} When we first hear of it, it is already wide spread and as completely developed as it was when it finally dropped out of popular belief. And, as our readers can see from the narratives we have quoted, there never was even plausible reason to believe that the story was true. None of the testimony as to the Jew's appearances will bear the very slightest examination. Either the stories are manifest fabrications, or the persons to whom they refer were merely ordinary vagabonds. No vagabond, however, could have established such pretensions unless there had previously been some legend in vogue to suggest them and to induce people to accept them. Some have imagined that Ahasuerus is a type of the whole Jewish race, which, since it rejected the Redeemer, has been driven forth to wander over the face of the earth, yet is not to pass away until the end of time. This, however, can hardly be; for Ahasuerus becomes a devout Christian, and, moreover, one of his principal characteristics is contempt of money. Others identify him with the gypsies, who are said to have been cursed in a similar way because they refused shelter to the Virgin and child during the flight into Egypt; but this is only a local superstition which never obtained extensive acceptation. The more probable explanation is, that some pious monk borrowed one of the old legends which we referred to at the beginning of this article, and adding to it a conception taken from the words of the Saviour, "There are some of them standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom," constructed an allegory which was afterward accepted for literal truth in a not very critical age, and was kept alive by a succession of impostors.

------

{768}

Original.

"Abide In Me."

"I am the vine, you the branches."

"I AM the Vine."
"'Tis true, dear Lord, and yet the fruit,
And cool, green leaves that cast the grateful shade,
Are mine."
"Fie, silly branch! Without a root
Deep hidden in the lowly earth,
Thy fruit or leaves would ne'er had birth.
How quickly would thy coronal of leaves,
Which now from men such flattery receives,
Lose all its glory in their sight, and fade
And die;
Thy fruit for tastelessness be spurned;
Thyself be cast into the fire and burned,
If I
Who am, of all thou hast, the source,
Did not with living sap the force
Supply."
"Lord! pardon me my foolish pride;
Too much in my own strength I do confide.
Decree
That henceforth I shall bare and barren be,
If I give not all glory unto thee;
And chide
My wayward spirit when it turns aside,
And thinks to live and flourish, and yet not abide
In thee."

------

Abridged from The Dublin University Magazine.

The Invasions Of Ireland By The Danes.

A knowledge of history is considered an essential portion of the mental acquirements of every gentleman and lady, but it is for the most part a disagreeable, and, in many respects, a slightly immoral study, if we apply the same criterion to it which we do to its relative, romance. Moral lecturers on fiction instruct us that any novel or romance which centres its chief interest in wicked men or women, and devotes the greater portion of its pages to their proceedings, is an immoral, or, at least, an unedifying book. We need not waste pages or lines here in pointing out what sort of designs or deeds enter into the tissue of historical narrative, but as (the above reasoning notwithstanding) history is, and will continue to be, a popular and engrossing study, it is of importance that we be acquainted with the true nature of past events.

Desiderata for a Good Irish History.

With regard to our own country we have not in this case been well favored. Those histories which have appeared in print rest for their authority on hitherto inedited MSS., many portions which are of a legendary and romantic character. It is evident that it is only when all these MS. chronicles, that are worth the trouble and expense, are published and compared with each other and with foreign contemporary history, we can arrive with any certainty at the truth or probability of past events, the existence or otherwise of some semi-mythic heroes, or truthful chronological arrangement.

For the coming history of Ireland we are thankful that preparations have been making. We have had Keating's history badly translated for three half-centuries. He compiled it in the seventeenth century from MS. documents, some of which are unhappily not now in existence. Dr. O'Connor was enabled, through the munificence of the Duke of Buckingham, to get into print, accompanied by a Latin translation, the Annals of Tighernach, a monk of Clonmacnois, in the eleventh century, and a portion of the Annals of Ulster, but these books are nearly as inaccessible as the original MSS. {769} The Annals of the Four Masters, (the O'Clerys of Donegal Abbey, early part of the seventeenth century,) edited by the late Dr. O'Donovan, have been issued in a costly style by the firm of Hodges & Smith. For about a quarter of a century our Archaeological and Celtic Societies have been publishing, with translations, papers of great value, and at last, though at the eleventh hour, government has lent a hand in bringing before the public valuable materials for the future historian of Ireland. These consist of a portion of the ancient Irish code: the Senchus Mhor, the Chronicum Scotorum, edited by Mr. Hennessy, and the Wars of the Gael with the Foreigners, [Footnote 275] (with translation,) edited by Rev. Dr. Todd. This, we trust, is only an earnest of what government means to do. We hope to see in succession the Annals of Tighernach, of Lough Cé, of Ulster, [Footnote 276] and others issued at the moderate price adopted.

[Footnote 275: The War of the Gaedhill with the Gaill; or The Invasions
of Ireland by the Danes and other Norsemen. The Original Irish Text,
edited with Translation and Introduction by James Henthorn Todd, D.D.,
A.B., M.R.I.A., F.S.A., Senior Fellow T.C.D. Published by the Authority
of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the
Direction of the Master of the Rolls. London: Longmans & Co.]

[Footnote 276: Tiernach O'Braoin, Abbot of Clonmacnois, died in 1088.
The Annals that bear his name are continued to the fourteenth century.
They exhibit great conscientiousness on the part of the writer, who
never gives way to Bardic enthusiasm. The other chief books are the
Annals of Inisfallen, probably begun by Maol Suthain O'Carroll,
secretary to Brian Borumha, the Annals of Boyle, the Annals of Ulster,
compiled by Charles Maguire, a learned ecclesiastic at the Isle of
Shanat, in Lough Erne. His death occurred in 1493. The Annals begin at
A.D. 441 and are continued to 1541. The Annals of Loch Cé, compiled by
Brian MacDermot, relate events from the battle of Clontarf to 1590. The
Annals of Connacht include all that passed from 1224 to 1562. The
Annals of Clonmacnois were translated from the Gaelic into English in
1627, by Connia Mac Egan; the original is not extant.]

The deeply read and zealous editor of the work just quoted below would prefer to have been exercised on some of the others. We quote his own words:

"The editor cannot but regret that this tract, so full of the feelings of
clanship,... should have been selected as the first specimen of an Irish
chronicle, presented to the public under the sanction of the Master of
the Rolls. His own wish and recommendation to his Honor was, that the
purely historical chronicles, such as the Annals of Tighernach, the
Annals of Ulster, or the Annals of Loch Cé, should have been first
undertaken. The two former compilations, it is true, had been already
printed [Footnote 277], although with bad translations and wretchedly
erroneous topography; and a rule which at that time existed prohibited
the Master of the Rolls from publishing any work which, even in part, had
been printed before. This rule has since been judiciously rescinded, and
it is hoped that his lordship will soon be induced to sanction a series
of the chronicles of Ireland, especially the two just alluded to, which,
it is not too much to say, are to the history of Ireland and of Scotland
what the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is to that of England. The Annals of Loch
Cé (pr. Kay) belong to a later period. They begin with the battle of
Clontarf, and continue the history, with some few gaps, to 1590."

[Footnote 277: The Annals of Ulster are given only to the year 1131.
The Dublin MS. extends to 1503. The Chronicum Scotorum is not here
mentioned, because it is already on the list of the Master of the
Rolls, edited by Mr. W. M. Hennessy.--_Note by Rev. Dr. Todd._]

Nothing can be more to the purpose or better worthy of attention than the sequel of this passage.

"Until these and other sources of history are made accessible, it is vain
to expect any sober or trustworthy history of Ireland. The old romantic
notions of a golden age, so attractive to some minds, must continue to
prevail....

"The authors of our popular histories were avowedly ignorant, with
scarcely an exception, of the ancient language of Ireland--the language
in which the real sources of Irish history are written. It was as if the
authors of the history of Rome had been all ignorant of Latin, and the
writers of our histories of Greece unable to read Greek. Even this would
not, however, fully represent the real state of the case as regards
Ireland. Livy and Tacitus, Herodotus and Thucydides, are printed books,
and good translations of them exist. But the authorities of Irish history
are still for the most part in manuscript, and unpublished, untranslated,
and scattered in the public libraries in Dublin, Oxford, and London, as
well as on the continent of Europe, Hence our popular histories leave us
completely in the dark, and often contain erroneous information. Wherever
the Irish names of places or persons are concerned they are at fault.
They are entirely silent on the genealogies, relationships, and laws of
the clans and their chieftains a subject so essential, to the right
understanding of Irish history."

{770}

The most popular of our histories is that translated from the Irish of the learned Dr. Geoffry Keating, by Dermod O'Connor, and first published, Westminster, 1726. It was but indifferently done. Dr. Todd gives a decided preference to that lately executed by O'Mahony, and published in America. Dr. Todd gives his readers the pleasant information that two perfect copies of the original Irish, executed by John Torna O'Mulconry, a contemporary of Dr. Keating, are preserved in the library of Trinity College, Dublin.

The Mss. Of Our Danish Chronicle.

The narrative in the work under notice embraces two centuries, ending with the battle of Clontarf, A.D. 1014. Of the two hundred pages devoted to the subject, the wars waged by Mahon of Thomond and his younger brother, Brian Borumha, occupy a hundred and fifty. The fact is accounted for by giving the authorship to Mac Liag, Brian's chief bard, or some other devoted filea or seanachie of his house, who survived the great day at Clontarf. The learned editor furnishes ample accounts of the MSS. used in the work, and we proceed to make use of them for the information of our readers. A very small portion of it, to wit, one leaf, folio size, closely written on both sides in double columns, is preserved in the Book of Leinster. [Footnote 278] The contents of this leaf are given in the appendix.

[Footnote 278: The Book of Leinster was written by Finn, Bishop of
Kildare, for Hugh MacGriffin, tutor of that antetype of Henry VIII.,
namely, Diarmuid MacMurroch It is a collection of narratives, tales,
genealogies, and poems; some of these last attributed to Fionn
MacCumball and his son Oisin. The death of its compiler in 1160 is
noticed in the Annals of the Four Masters, under the date A.D. 1160.]

The second MS., also defective, is preserved in the library of Trinity College. We copy Dr. Todd's reference to it:

"This copy was found about the year 1840, by the late eminent scholar,
Mr. O'Curry, bound up in one of the Seabright MSS., formerly in the
possession of the celebrated antiquary, Edward Lluyd. There is nothing
except the appearance of the MS., and its handwriting, to fix its age,
but, judging from these criteria, we cannot be far wrong in supposing it
to have been written about the middle of the fourteenth century. It is
imperfect both at the beginning and at the end.... There are also some
intervening defects, arising from a loss of leaves."

The MS. in which the valuable fragment is preserved is marked H, 2, 17.

"The third MS. is a paper copy preserved in the Burgundian library,
Brussels, which has the advantage of being perfect. It is in the
handwriting of the eminent Irish scholar, Friar Michael O'Clery, by whom
it was transcribed in the year 1635. This appears by the following note
at the end:

"'Out of the Book of Cueonnacht O'Daly, the poor friar, Michael
O'Clery, wrote the copy from which this was written, in the convent of
the friars in Baile Tighe, Farannain, (Multifarnham,) in the month of
March of this year, 1628, and this (the present) copy was written by
the same friar in the convent of Dun-na-n Gail, (Donegal,) in the month
of November of this year, 1635.'"

The learned friar copied or introduced into his history catalogues and poems not to be found in the Dublin MS., and there are passages in the last not to be found in the Brussels copy. The chronicle now printed is, of course, the more copious, as it contains everything to be found in either.

It was not till some time after the discovery of the Dublin MS., by Mr. O'Curry, as recorded, that the existence of the Brussels copy became known. Dr. Todd proceeded to that city in August, 1848, and copied all the portions not to be found in the one at home. Afterward, as he observes:

"Through the influence of the Earl of Clarendon, then Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland, he obtained from the Belgian government a loan of this and some
other MSS., and in 1833 caused a complete copy of it to be made by Mr.
O'Curry, for the library of Trinity College, Dublin. These transcripts
have been carefully collated in forming the text of the present edition."

Who Wrote The Chronicle?

The authorship of the work is attributed to Muriertach Mac Liag, the chief bard of King Brian, but no sure conclusion can be come to on this point. {771} It is certain, however, that it is the production of a zealous Dalcassian, and that it was composed soon after the battle of Clontarf. We copy the curious circumstance which proves to certainty that the original compiler was contemporary with the concluding event of the narrative:

"It is stated in the account given of the battle of Clontarf, that the
full tide in Dublin Bay on the day of the battle, 23d April, 1014,
coincided with sunrise, and that the returning tide at evening aided
considerably in the defeat of the enemy.

"It occurred to the editor, on considering this passage, that a criterion
might be derived from it to test the truth of the narrative, and of the
date assigned by the Irish to the battle of Clontarf. He, therefore,
proposed to the Rev. Samuel Haughton, M.D., Fellow of Trinity College,
and Professor of Geology in the University of Dublin, to solve for him
this problem: 'What was the hour of high-water at the shore of Clontarf
in Dublin Bay on the 23d April, 1014?' The editor did not make known to
Dr. Haughton the object he had in view in this question, and the
coincidence of the results obtained with the ancient narrative is
therefore the more valuable and curious."

The result of Dr. Haughton's calculations, communicated to the Royal Irish Academy in May, 1861, was this:

"The tide along the Clontarf shore, when not obstructed by embankments
and walls, could not have differed many minutes, on the 23d April, 1014,
from 5 hours 30 minutes A.M., the evening tide being full in at 5 hours
55 minutes P.M.

"This proves that the author, if not himself an eye-witness, must have
derived his information from those who were. 'None others,' as Dr.
Haughton observes, 'could have invented the fact that the battle began at
sunrise, and that the tide was then full in.' The importance of the time
of tide became evident at the close of the day, when the returned tide
prevented the escape of the Danes from the Clontarf shore to the north
bank of the Liffey."

In the chronicle the author makes a distinction between races of the invaders, namely, the dark-haired Danes and the fair-haired Norwegians. The word Lochlann (lake land) is applicable to Norway with its numerous fiords, to which the ancient Irish writers applied the name of lochs. The epithet _gormglasa_ (bluish green) was probably applied to the plate armor worn by some of them.

Style and Spirit of the Work.

The following passage will furnish a fair specimen of the style of the chronicle, besides exhibiting the misery of a country divided into small kingdoms when a ferocious band of foreigners chose to make a lodgment in it:

"In a word, although there were an hundred hard-steeled iron heads on one
neck, and an hundred sharp, ready, cool, never-resting, brazen tongues in
each head, and an hundred garrulous, loud, unceasing voices from each
tongue, they could not recount, nor enumerate, nor tell what all the
Gaedhil suffered in common, both men and women, laity and clergy, old and
young, noble and ignoble, of hardship, and of injury, and oppression in
every house from these valiant, foreign, purely pagan people. Even though
great were this cruelty, and oppression, and tyranny--though numerous
were the oft-victorious clans of the many-familied Erinn--though numerous
their kings, and their royal chiefs, and their princes--though numerous
their heroes, and champions, and their brave soldiers, their chiefs of
valor and renown, and deeds of arms--yet not one of them was able to give
relief, or alleviation, or deliverance from that oppression and tyranny,
from the numbers, and the multitudes, and the cruelty, and the wrath of
the brutal, ferocious, furious, untamed, implacable hordes by whom that
oppression was inflicted, because of the excellence of their polished,
ample, treble, heavy, trusty, glittering corselets, and their hard,
strong, valiant swords, and their well-riveted long spears, and their
ready, brilliant arms of valor besides, and because of the greatness of
their achievements and of their deeds, their bravery and their valor,
their strength, and their venom, and their ferocity, and because of the
excess of their thirst and their hunger for the brave, fruitful, nobly
inhabited, full of cataracts, rivers, bays, pure, smooth-planed, sweet,
grassy land of Erinn."

Little can the mere English reader, who may look on much of this as mere bombast, feel the charm which such substantives and epithets as the following had on the original hearers or readers of the work: "Luireach, lainndearda, luchtmara, tredualach, trom, trebhraid, taitnemach," (Loricas, polished, ample, treble, etc.)

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Causes of the Invaders' Success.

The editor, alluding to the defeats suffered by the Irish forces on many occasions, finds no great difficulty in accounting for them, and this without the slightest reflection on their innate courage or skill in the use of their arms:

"The whole body of the clan were summoned to decide upon the question of
war or peace. Every petty chieftain of every minor tribe, if not every
individual clansman, had a voice not only in this primary question, but
also, when the war was declared, in the questions arising upon subsequent
military operations... The kings or chieftains were themselves chosen by
the clan, although the choice was limited to those who possessed a sort
of hereditary right, often complicated by a comparison of the personal
merits of the rival claimants.

"The army was a rope of sand. It consisted of a number of minor clans,
each commanded by its own petty chieftain, receiving no pay, and bound by
no oath of allegiance to the king or chief commander. Each clan, no
doubt, adhered with unshaken fidelity to its own immediate chieftain, but
he on the smallest offence could dismiss his followers to their homes
even at the very eve of a decisive battle.... These facts must be borne
in mind if we would rightly understand the inherent weakness of warfare
in ancient Ireland."

Thus many of the faults we choose to impute to our ancestors and their supposed natural propensities should be rather imputed to the circumstances in which they were placed than to themselves. A tribe could not reckon upon a continuance of peace with neighbors or strangers for a single week. A chief enjoying the strength, and courage, and wisdom of manhood was essential to their well-being, almost to their existence. The heir-apparent of the chief for the time might be a child or an incompetent youth. In this case it was but sound policy to elect during the chief's life his brother or other near relative to assume the command immediately on his decease. This was done, the election being restricted to the Duine Uasals (gentlemen) of the tribe. The scrutiny might be distinguished on occasions by the usual disagreeables of an election, but it prevented the inconveniences of an interregnum.

The Danish Proceedings Before Brian's Time.

The mere Irish were never much benefited by the nominal capital of their country. The Norwegians, getting it into their possession in 836 or 838, built a fortress there in 842, and the Danes, after a preliminary visit in 851, returned for reënforcements, and their king, Olaf the White, was recognized as supreme chief of all the foreigners in Ireland in 856, and made Dublin his headquarters.

There was a comparative rest from foreign invasions for about forty years, but Ireland's troubles began to thicken in the early part of the tenth century. Crowds of foreigners assembled, and the brave King of Ireland, Nial of the Black Knee, collected all the forces he could from Meath and the North, and attacked their united strength at Kilmashogue in the mountains beyond Rathfarnham. But the foreigners much outnumbered the natives, and the heroic king with twelve petty princes perished in the battle.

The ferocious invaders did not confine their attentions to Dublin and the north; they ravaged the pleasant south country, and feelingly does the chronicler describe the hellish mischief they committed. Overcome by his subjects, he sometimes even neglects his darling alliteration:

"They rent her (Erinn's) shrines, and her reliquaries, and her books.
They demolished her beautiful, ornamented temples; for neither
veneration, nor honor, nor mercy for Termonn, [Footnote 279] nor
protection for church or for sanctuary, for God or for man, was felt by
this furious, ferocious, pagan, ruthless, wrathful people. In short,
until the sand of the sea, or the grass of the field, or the stars of
heaven be counted, it will not be easy to recount, or to enumerate, or to
relate what the Gaedhil, all without distinction, suffered from them. ...
Alas! many and frequent were the bright and brilliant eyes that were
suffused with tears, and dimmed with grief and despair at the separation
of son from father, and daughter from mother, and brother from brother,
and relatives from their race and from their tribe."

[Footnote 279: Church lands having the privilege of sanctuary.]

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One of the most terrible of these southern descents was that made by Imar--son of Imar (Ivar) and his three sons Dubhceann, and Cu-Allaidh, and Aralt, (Black Head,) and Wild Dog, (Wolf,) and Harold. These worthies took possession of Limerick, and high and haughty were their proceedings.

"Such was the oppressiveness of the tribute and rent of the foreigners at
large and generally, that there was a king from them over every
territory, and a chief over every chieftainry, and an abbot over every
church, and a steward over every village, and a soldier in every house,
so that none of the men of Erinn had power to give the milk of his cow,
nor so much as the clutch of eggs of one hen, in succor or in kindness to
an aged man or to a friend, but was forced to preserve them for the
foreign steward, or bailiff, or soldier. And though there were but one
milk-giving cow in the house, she durst not be milked for an infant of
one night, nor for a sick person, but must be kept for the steward, or
bailiff, or soldier of the foreigners. And however long he might be from
the house, his share or his supply durst not be lessened. And although
there was in the house but one cow, it must be killed for the meal of one
night, if the means of a supply could not be otherwise procured.... And
an ounce of silver Findrunl was paid for every nose besides the royal
tribute every year. And he who had not the means of paying it, had
himself to go into slavery for it."

The alternative was the loss of the organ just mentioned.

Brian's Early Struggles.

But we have got to the tenth century, and the two youthful brothers destined to give a disabling blow to Danish tyranny are learning the profession of arms in their father's fortress in Thomond, (_Tuaith Muimhain_, North Munster.) These were Mathgamhain [Footnote 280] and Brian, sons of Cennedigh, (Kennedy,) chief of the tribe of Dal-Cais.

[Footnote 280: However the people of the tenth century pronounced this
word, modern scholars are content to sound it Mahoun.

An old Munster king, Oilliol Oiuim, appointed in his will that the
descendants of his two sons, Eogan and Cormac Oas, should sway the
sceptre of the south in alternate succession. A very unwise proceeding,
as future events proved.]

The first naming of these princes in the chronicle brings out an alliterative and patriotic glow on the pen of the enthusiastic chronicler.

"There were then governing and ruling this tribe two stout, able, valiant
pillars, two fierce, lacerating, magnificent heroes; two gates of battle,
two poles of combat, two spreading trees of shelter, two spears of
victory and readiness, of hospitality and munificence, of heart and
strength, of friendship and liveliness, the most eminent of the west of
Europe, namely, Mathgamain and Brian, the two sons of Cennedigh, son of
Lorcan, son of Lachtna, son of Core," etc.

Their cousins, the Eoganacht, having the lion's share in the government of Leath Mogha, the following were the principal privileges of the Dalcassians:

"It is the privilege of the host of Lugaidh's race
To lead the battalions of the hosts of Mumhain,
And afterward to be in the rere
In coming from a hostile land.

"It is not fealty that is required of them,
But to preserve the freedom of Caisel. [Footnote 281]
It is not rent, it is not tribute, as hath been heard;
It is not fostership nor fostership's fees.

[Footnote 281: The residence of the kings of the south assumed the
title of Caisiol, (_Cios_, tribute, _ail_, stone.)]

......

"And even when there is not a king
Out of you over Erinn of hosts,
Only that you would not infringe on right,
No human power could prevail over you."

Early in their lives the princes entered on a skirmishing warfare with the enemy; and when Mahon, weary of the resultless struggle, entered on a truce with the enemy, Brian still continued to harass them, and as his zealous biographer says, when he could not injure them on any day, he did it next night, and every inactive night was followed by a destructive day. He and his followers lived in temporary huts, and continued to kill daily and nightly their enemies "by companies, by troops, by scores, by hundreds, and (in case of a bad day or night) by quaternions."

"Great were the hardship and the ruin, the bad food and bad bedding,
which they inflicted on him in the wild huts of the desert, on the hard,
knotty, wet roots of his native country, whilst they killed his people,
and his trusty officers, and his comrades; sorrowful, wretched, unpitied,
weary, for historians say that the foreigners cut off his people, so that
he had at last but fifteen followers."

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Mahon, finding his brother in this wretched state, appointed a meeting, and a conference was held, given in verse in the text, Mahon gently chiding Brian for exposing the lives of his brave followers to certain death; Brian delicately hinting that such and such of their ancestors would not be so patient of the presence of the foe in Thomond as he (Mahon) chose to be:

"_Mahon_. Alone art them, O Brian of Banba (Erinn)!
Thy warfare was not without valor;
Not numerous hast thou come to our house;
Where hast thou left thy followers?

.....

"_Brian_. I have left them on Craig Liath, [Footnote 282]
In that breach where shields were cleft.
Birnn (Biörn)--it was difficult to cut off the man--
Fell there with his people.

[Footnote 282: Cariglea (Gray Rock) near Killaloe, seat of
_Aoibhin_, (_Aoine_, Venus?) the Bean Sighe of the
Dalcassian chiefs.]

.....

"Our fight at the Fergus was not soft;
Weary of it were we on both sides;
Our fight in the combat was no weak combat,
Thirty with Elius fell.

.....

"These are our adventures, O man!
O son of Cennedigh, the fair-skinned;
Often did we deliver ourselves with success,
From positions in which we despaired of escape.
Cennedigh for wealth would not have been,
Nor would Lorcan, the faithful, have been
So quiescent toward the foreigners,
As thou art, Mathgamhain!"

The result of the conference was a general gathering of the native fighting men to Cashel, and soon a general engagement took place between themselves and the foreigners at Sulcoit, in which these last sustained a terrible defeat. The chronicler then relates with much zest the march to Limerick, its destruction, and the treatment of the conquered:

"They carried off their jewels, and their best property, and their
saddles beautiful and foreign, their gold and their silver, their
beautiful woven cloth of all colors and of all kinds, their satins and
silken cloth, pleasing and variegated, both scarlet and green, and all
sorts of cloth, in like manner. They carried away their soft, youthful,
bright, matchless girls, their blooming, silk-clad young women, and their
active, large, and well-formed boys. The fort and the good town they
reduced to a cloud of smoke, and to red fire afterward. The whole of the
captives were collected on the hills of Saingel. Every one of them that
was fit for war was killed, and every one that was fit for a slave was
enslaved."

Family Quarrels.

A remnant of the Danish forces maintained a position in Inis Cealtra, (Scattery Island,) under Ivar, and six years later this chief induced the chiefs of the O'Donovans and O'Molloys to aid him to destroy the power of Mahon, now the acknowledged king of Munster, and even to take his life. These princes were of the Eoganacht branch of the royal line of Cashel, and, therefore, not friendly disposed to the present Dalcassian monarch. There are two differing narratives of the murder, with some poems interpolated, and a guess only can be made at the truthful succession of incidents. The editor presents as probable a version of the facts as can be got at among the confusion of the original accounts.

Mahon unfortunately accepted an invitation to O'Donovan's house at Bruree on the river Maigue, probably to bring about a more friendly feeling between the two rival branches of the descendants of their common ancestor, Oilliol Oluim.

The Bishop of Cork being active in the matter, and the Eoganacht chiefs having sworn neither to attempt his life nor blind him, he seems to have been quite unsuspicious. We next find him met by O'Molloy's people in a pass between Kilmallock and Cork, and about to be put to death. One of the accounts says that he had the Book of the Gospels of Barri (belonging to the cathedral of Cork) on his breast, but that, as soon as he saw his death determined on, he flung it the distance of a bow-shot away in order that it might not be stained with his blood. A cleric witness of the base deed denounced this curse on the O'Molloy, (Maelmuadh):

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"It is Aedh (Hugh) that shall kill thee, a man from the border of Aifi,
On the north of the sun with the harshness of the wind.
The deed thou hast done shall be to thee a regret:
That for which thou hast done it thou shalt not enjoy.
Perpetual shall be its misfortune; thy posterity shall pass away,
Thy history shall be forgotten, thy tribe shall be in bondage;
The calf of a pet cow shall overthrow thee at one meeting;
Thou shall not conquer it, Aedhan shall slay thee."

"The north of the sun with the harshness of the wind" implied the burial of the treacherous chief on the north side of a hill, where the sun's rays would not reach his grave.

The denunciation of the bishop noticed the erics payable for the murder of the king, but so atrocious was the deed that Brian would not accept any recompense but the life of the culprit.