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XIV. 



SILVA FOCLUTI. 

 By PEOFESSOE EOIN MacNEILL, D.Litt. 



[Read Febkuaky 12. Published Makch 23, 1923.] 



Dr. Newport "White's edition of " Libri Sancti Patricii " (Proceedings of the 

 Eoyal Irish Academy, vol. xxv, section C, Nos. 7 and 11 — " The Paris MS. 

 of St. Patrick's Latin Writings ") suggests a solution of the many difficulties 

 that have arisen around the placing of " Silva Focluti " in St. Patrick's 

 account of the vision in which he seemed to hear voices calling him back to 

 Ireland. The pertinent phrases of the narrative are these (p. 242, cp. 

 p. 549) :— 



Et iterum in Britanniis eram cum parentibus meis .... Et ibi 

 scilicet uidi in uisu noctis etc. . . . et . . . putabam . . . audire uocem 

 ipsorum qui erant iuxta siluam Focluti quae est prope mare occidentale, 

 et . . . exclamauerunt . . . Eogamus te, sancte puer, ut uenias et adhuc 

 ambulas inter nos. 



According to Dr. White's list of variants, the reading Focluti is not found 

 in the MSS. cited by him under the reference letters B, 0, F, F4, P, and E, so 

 that apparently it is the reading of the Book of Armagh alone. The 

 readings of the other MSS. are : ^lirguUi B, idrgulti uolutique C, the same 

 with uolutique marked for deletion r4, uirgultique F, uirgulti uolutique P, 

 uirgulti ueluti E. 



These variants at once force us to recognize that St. Patrick could not 

 have written Focluti. In Irish words beginning with F, F did not replace 

 the older V until the beginning of the seventh century. Focluti, therefore, 

 has been substituted in the Book of Armagh (A) for the word originally 

 written by St. Patrick. 



I take it that -qus, which is absent in A, B, and K, is no more than a 

 duplication of the following word quae, for wliich que would be a normal 

 spelling in early 1 rish mss. It is possible to regard uirgulti, absent from A, 

 either as an incorporated gloss or emendation or as part of the original text. 

 The fact that uirgulti stands without uoluii or ueluti in two mss. and is 

 represented in a third by Focluti alone gives ground for supposing that the 

 original here had a single word, which a redactor proposed to replace or 

 explain by the, to him, more intelligible uirgulti, and that uirgulti, interlined 



E.I. A. PKOC, VOL. XXXVI, SECT. C. [28] 



