EXCURSUS 

 ON OLD IRISH METRIC. 



The poem which closes our tale is composed in a metre of which the following is the 

 system: la ibTc-ib, all the rime-words, with two exceptions, being mono- 

 syllabic. There is an irregularity in the eighth stanza, where we have 4 a instead of 3 a, 

 with a dissyllabic rime-word. The rime a reappears in a word of the second line 

 {cuan-ruadh, troma-tonna) ; if this happens to be the last word of the line, as is the case 

 in most of the stanzas, the metre then changes to i a T aT b T a. The rime c 

 reappears in a word of the fourth line (cbonn-tonn, bht-t^ sileann-dileann, dos-tros, saer- 

 sdeth, re-ghne, main-ma\dh, dhamh-ghabh). The lines are to be read without up-beat, 

 like trochaic poetry, if one may borrow this term from Greek and Latin metric. 

 There are thus two stress-syllables in the first line, and four in the other three, thus : 



/ \ / 



/ \ / \ / \ / 

 I do not remember to have met with this metre anywhere else. A metre, however, 

 which approaches it very nearly (viz. iaTx Ta,a being dissyllabic, x trisyllabic) is 

 employed by Maelhu hua Brokhdin ( + ro86) in a hymn to S. Michael the Archangel, 

 of which Dr. Stokes in Goid.''^ p. i75 has printed two stanzas from the MS., H. 2. 16, 

 col. 336. I here give the whole of this poem from a copy which I owe to the kindness 

 of Dr. Stokes, adding the variants from another copy of it in Laud 610, p. 118 a. 2 : 



A aingil, 



beir, a Michil morfertaig, 



gusin coimdid mo chaingin. 



In cluine? 



cuinnig co dia n-dilgudach 



dilgud m' uilc adbail uile. 



Na furig / 



beir mo duthracht n-diuburtach 



gusin rig, gusin ruirig. 



2. morftrtaigl^. 3./ inu caingin 'L. ^. cuinid di/gadac/i L, '^,/uind'L, 



8. niu duthracht L. 9. ruiri L. 



