VII. Patrick’s Hymn[1].
This hymn, or rather incantation, said to have rendered S. Patrick and his monks invisible as such, is not in metre, but in a sort of rhythmical prose. It bears upon it marks of antiquity, such as the prayer to be delivered from the spells of women, smiths[2] and druids or wizards. The date of its composition cannot be determined. An inferior limit is fixed by the mention of the work in Lib. Ardm. fo. 16a 1, canticum eius (sc. Patricii) scotticum semper canere; and the Milan glossator may possibly refer to it when he writes cluasa Dǽ diar n‑eitsecht (Ml. 24a 18). The title, fáeth fiada, is a mis-spelling of fóid[3] (Cymr. gwaedd) fiada, and this is still further corrupted in the feth fia of the Book of Ballymote, 345b 26, where wizards are said to make feth fia (‘magical invisibility’) or prophecy (druid .i. doniat in feth fia nó in aisdinecht). The verbal forms of the hymn are interesting: atomriug from ad-dom-riug ‘me extollo, assurgo,’ as Ascoli (Gloss. pal. hib. cxcv.) for the first time rightly rendered this word: mí-dúthrastar the deponential s-conj. of mídúthraccur: arachuiliu, where the final u has not been explained. So in the declension: niurt the instrumental sg. of the neuter o-stem nert: cretim the same case of the fem. ā-stem cretem; and foísitin the same case of a stem in n. The hymn has been edited by Geo. Petrie (Antiquities of Tara Hill), by W. S. (Goidelica, p. 150), by Crowe (Journal of the Kilkenny Archaeological Association), and, lastly, by Bernard and Atkinson (the Irish Liber Hymnorum i. 133–135).
VIII. Mael Ísu’s Hymn.
This hymn is found only in the later portion of T. The author may have been Mael Ísu, the coarb of S. Patrick, who, according to the Annals of Tigernach, died in 1086, and whose day is Jan. 16. The metre is rinnard.
28. Codex Taurinensis, F. iv. 1[4].
This manuscript contains six leaves of an Hiberno-latin liturgy. An Old-Irish gloss is found in fo. 3a. According to W. Meyer the codex is more probably prior than posterior to 700 a.d.[5]
- ↑ Cf. Bernard and Atkinson II. lvii. sq., 208 sq.
- ↑ See J. M. Rodwell’s Koran, p. 179, Sir R. Burton’s First Footsteps in East Africa, p. 33, and A. Maury, Journal des Savants, Juin 1873, p. 745. With the whole incantation cf. the twelfth Assembly of Al-Ḥarîri, translated by T. Chenery.
- ↑ As díth infra p. 346, of díd, perf. sg. 3 of dínim.
- ↑ The Irish gloss has been printed by W. S., Goidelica, p. 2, the whole fragment by W. Meyer, Nachrichten von der Königl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Philologisch-historische Klasse, 1903, pp. 163 sq.
- ↑ Op. cit. 168 sq.
