PREFACE. 



THE Saltair na Rann, ' Psalter of the Staves or Quatrains,' a 

 collection of 162 Early-Middle-Irish poems now for the first 

 time printed, is contained in its entirety only in the Bodleian MS. Rawl. 

 B. 502, ff. 19-40. But there is a copy of one of the poems (No. X) 

 in the Lebar Brecc, a MS. of the fifteenth century ; and corrupt and 

 modernised copies of poems IV, V, and VI are to be found in a MS. 

 also belonging to the Royal Irish Academy, marked 23. G. 25, written 

 by one 0'Longan about seventy years ago. The Lebar Brecc version 

 of No. X will be found at p. iii^ of the Hthographic facsimile of that 

 MS., Dubhn, 1876. 



The Saltair, like the Felire Oengusso and other pseudonymous 

 matter, is attributed to Oengus the Culdee, who flourished in the 

 beginning of the ninth century ; and his name is me Oengns cele Z^/, 

 ' I am Oengus the Culdee' actually occurs in Hne 8009. But that this 

 attribution is erroneous follows, first, from the numerous Middle-Irish 

 forms which the poem contains^, and which cannot possibly be due to 

 the transcriber, and, secondly, from its mention, in 1. 2342^ of an event 

 the murrain which began A.D. 985 and in Ih 2349-2365 of certain 

 contemporary kings, as well as of Dub-da-lethe, one of S. Patrick's 

 successors in the see of Armagh, who died A.D. T061. 



Our MS., Rawl. B. 502, is a large quarto, now containing 83 leaves 

 of vellum in a hand of the twelfth century, and 20 leaves of paper. 

 The vellum portion has been so fully described by the late Dr. Todd 

 {Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy^ vol. 5) PP- 164-168) and by 

 Mr. Macray {Catal. Codd. MSS. Bodl., Part V., fasc. i, cols. 719-722) as 

 to render further description unnecessary. Only this opportunity may 

 be taken to note that the ' Short Tract on Irish Grammar' stated to 

 occur at fo. 6^^ is really one of the so-called Brehon law treatises Coic 



' e.g. natrimuir 399, 421, scerdair 443, na sloig 709, betit 853, cestait 953, 



istsleib 4109, etc, etc. 

 b 



