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THE
PREFACE.
Saltair na Rami, ' 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 O'Longan about seventy years ago. The Lebar Brecc version
of No. X will be found at p. in b of the lithographic facsimile of that
MS., Dublin, 1876.
The Saltair, like the Félire 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 Oengus cele Dé,
'I am Oengus the Culdee'— actually occurs in line 8009. But that this
attribution is erroneous follows, first, from the numerous Middle-Irish
forms which the poem contains 1 , 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 11. 2349-2365 of certain
contemporary kings, as well as of Dub-dá-lethe, one of S. Patrick's
successors in the see of Armagh, who died A.D. 1061.
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. 1, 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. 63 b is really one of the so-called Brehon law treatises
1
e.g. natrimúir 399, 421, scérdair 443, na slóig 709, betit 853, cestait 953,
istsléib 4109, etc., etc.
b
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