42 Mr. Petrie on the History and Antiquities of Tara Hill. 



son of Ainmire, was King of Ireland ;* and the person (i. e. the writer) was Cennfaelad, the son of 

 Alill ; and the occasion of composing it was because Dermod's ignorance yielded to Cennfaelad's 

 skill, at the battle of Moraith, — (fought in 634. Annal. IV. Mag.) 



" ' Three victories were gained there. Congal, the Crooked, was defeated in his falsehood by 

 Donnald in his truth ;| and Subne the Mad ran mad on that occasion ; and the unskilfulness of 

 Dermod yielded to the skill of Cenfaelad.J The cause of the victory of Donnald over Congal, in 

 truth, was this, that falsehood must always be conquered by truth. — The cause of the victory gained 

 by Subne the Mad's turning mad, was, that he lost some Poems and Narratives, of which others 

 availed themselves after. — The cause of the victory of Dermod's unskilfulness yielding to Cenn- 

 faelad's skill, was, that he (Cenfaelad) was educated at Tuani-Drecan, at the meeting of the three 

 roads, between the houses of three learned men — that is, a Man skilled in Genealogies, and a Man 

 skilled in Poetry, and a Man skilled in difficult reading ; and whatever these three schools taught in 

 the day, he, by the acuteness of his intellect, pondered over each night, and whatever was most 

 difficult, he unknotted, and wrote down in his book of hard questions. We must not omit a fourth 

 victory gained at that time — that is, that a man of Ireland, and another man of Albany, passed 

 over to the East, without a ship of burthen, without a ship of war — namely, Duhdiad, the son of 

 Daman, and another of the Gael. 



" ' The place and time of Cenfaelad's work is stated. — If you ask for Cormac's, the place where 

 he wrote was Acill, near Temora : the time was when Carbre Liffecar, his son, was King of Ireland. 

 The person who wrote it, was Cormac himself; the occasion of his writing it was, that being deprived 

 of an eye by Angus of the Fearful Spear, after the daughter of Solar, the son of Art the Bastard, was 

 violated in Rath-Aodh, by Ceallac the son of Cormac, and (being consequently disqualified to 

 reign,) he retired to Acill, &c. 



" ' Cormac's part of this book is the Science of the laws of Ireland, and the Blai Cenfaelad's 



part is the Laws which follow them. The precepts of Cormac to the aged, the Precepts of Cenfae- 

 lad, to explain Law terms, difficult meanings, and devices. 



" ' The half the laws against falsehood — Cormac O'Con composed that half. 

 ' The next after that Cenfaelad, the son of Alill, (composed.) 

 'A man of skill was he Cenfaelad, the son of Alii. 

 ' He defeated the Ultonians in battle, and he composed the war songs.'§ 



" The sections of this fragment are 62. Each section begins with an ornamented initial, of a 

 larger size than the other capitals, which mark the minuter divisions. The four first leaves con- 



* " That is from 628 to 642. — This King Dmnald is mentioned by Adamnan, in his Life of Columba, 1. 1, c. 39, in 

 Triade, p. 349. — ' De bello in munitione Cethirni, in quo, ut multi norunt popull, Domnallus Aidi filius Victor sublimatus 

 est.' The same battle is mentioned in the Irish Annals of the IV Masters, an. 624. 



t " This seems to have been a Religious war between the Christian king Donnald and the Pagan Congal. 



X " This was written before the art of dating by the Christian aera was known in Ireland, and therefore the author 

 collects a number of cotemporary facts of universal notoriety, which served to establish his date. The Druids were not 

 entirely suppressed in the 7th century. 



§ " These four lines are written in the original as if they were prose. — What enables the translator to ascertain that 

 they are in verse, is a regular cadence throughout, dividing the sentences into equal number of syllables. Vide next page. 



