Lec., the copy in the Book of Lecan, a fifteenth-century vellum in the library of the Royal Irish Academy, pp. 461-525 ; and
R., the copy in the Irish MS. in the town library of Rennes, ff 90-125. This excellent copy is perhaps fifty years older than BB. It has, unfortunately, lost a leaf between fo. 114 and fo. 115.[1] In R., as in BB., H., and Lec., prose and poems are placed together.
As to the date of the Dinnshenchas, O'Curry, Lectures, p. 108, states that it "was compiled at Tara about the year 550". But this is one of his ludicrous exaggerations. The reference s. v. Laigin, to the "King of Denmark and the Isles of the Foreigners", i.e., the Hebrides, points to a period after the year 795. Dr. Petrie, Tara Hill, p. 105, advised in the matter by the cool-headed O'Donovan, calls the collection "a compilation of the 12th century"; and philological considerations prove that this is right, though some of the metrical materials may possibly be older. But whatever be their date, the documents as they stand are a storehouse of ancient Irish folk-lore, absolutely unaffected, so far as I can judge, by any foreign influence. See, for instance, in the following fragment, Nos. 1, 6, 7, 9, 10, 14, 15, 18, 22, 23, 24, 33, 16, 38, 43, 44, and 46. Hence, though the Bodleian Dinnshenchas contains only about a third of the prose part of the work, and though much of this third is silly or obscure, a faithful edition of the text, with a literal translation, will perhaps be acceptable to the readers of this Review.
- ↑ It is said by O'Reilly, in his Irish Writers, p. cxxiii, that there is a copy of the Dinnshenchas in the so-called Book of Hy-Maini, one of the Stowe MSS. now in the library of the Royal Irish Academy ; and Dr. Petrie, Tara Hill, p. 109, note 1, states that there is another copy in H. 2. 15, a MS. in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. But this copy is not mentioned in the description of H. 2. 15 given by O'Curry in his Lectures, p. 193, and I could not find it when I examined the latter MS. in last July. Lastly, M. Henri Gaidoz (Revue Celtique, vi, 113) says that there are two fragments of the Dinnshenchas in the Advocates' library, Edinburgh.
