Anecdota from Irish manuscripts

XVIII Sanas Cormaic
or the Dull Dromma Ceta ; ^) an investigation of the various
sources used by Cormac or his predecessors; 2) the tracing
and verification of his quotations, ^) and an examination
of his knowledge of Latin, Greek and Hebrew. On all
these points since the slender information contained in
Stokes' preface no progress has been made.
It is probable that the Irish took the idea of alpha-
betical etymological glossaries from the tenth book of
Isidore's Etymologiae ('De Vocabulis'), on whose methods
their own etymological speculations are founded. The
very first entry in our Glossary is taken either from
Isidore VII 6, 3 or direct from Jerome's interpretation
by Flann Mainistrech, as Stokes assumes on p. 234, but by Flann
mac Lonáin, who died in 918. A post-Norse redaction is proved
by the quotation of Norse words in §§ 100, 183 and 507.
1) Preserved in H. 3. 18, pp. 63 — 83 (printed by Stokes in
the Transactions of the Philological Society 1859, pp. 170—21o)
and in Egerton 1782, fol. 15aff. It is mentioned as one of the
dúili bélrai in the metrical treatise, Ir. T. Ill p. 50.
2) Some of these are cited in the preface to O'Mulconry's
Glossary. The Virgilius mentioned there is not the Roman
poet, but the 5 th century grammarian Virgilius Maro.
^) I have occasionally added references in the foot-notes;
but much more remains to be done. Thus the quatrain quoted
in § 398 is taken from a poem the end of which is found in
LL 43 a (see 1. 50) , while two complete copies have been preserved
by Michael O'Clery in BIV2, pp. 79 b and 132 a. The
beginning of this poem is A clwicid cáin Cairpri chrúaid, and
its author, as I hope to prove some day, is Grthanach úa
CóiUáma. — The quatrain of which the first line only is quoted
in § 369 is found complete in H. 3. 18, p. 66. It is the 29 th
stanza of a poem preserved in 23 N 10, p. 17, where it has the
heading Vga CorbmsAc nmc Culendain.