Texts

verse beg. Masu de chlaind Echdach aird

Old Irish
verse
Early Irish poetry

First words (verse)

Masu de chlaind Echdach aird

Author

Ascribed to: Orthanach úa Cóilláma

Orthanach úa Cóilláma

(d. 840)

bishop of Kildare and poet

Ascribed to Orthanach, commonly identified as Orthanach úa Cóilláma, bishop of Kildare (d. 840).

Manuscripts

Dublin, Trinity College, MS 1339 (H 2. 18) = Book of Leinster [s. xii²]

pp. 51b–52a

Language

Old Irish

Date

9th (or late 8th?) century, if the ascription to Orthanach úa Cóilláma is correct.

Form

verse (primary)

Metre

Gerard Murphy: “In the end of the first line ... of several stanzas ... what are apparently genuine instances of very imperfect consonance occur, with no aicill to compensate for their imperfection. They are: ruiss:gand (LL, ed. Best, Bergin and O'Brien, i. 7352); tend:uill (7404); dam:dornd (7432). Elsewhere in this poem all end-words make perfect consonance or aicill (except in 7472, where corruption is indicated). Orthanach seems to have been following a rule which permits imperfect consonance in the first line of a stanza (...). Agreement of corresponding vowels in quantity is essential to all forms of consonance, whether perfect or imperfect.”⁽¹⁾^{n. 1} Gerard Murphy, Early Irish metrics (1961): 35-36.

Length

Number of stanzas: 34

Classification

Early Irish poetryEarly Irish poetry
...

Sources

Notes

^1.

Gerard Murphy, Early Irish metrics (1961): 35-36.

Primary sources Text editions and/or modern translations – in whole or in part – along with publications containing additions and corrections, if known. Diplomatic editions, facsimiles and digital image reproductions of the manuscripts are not always listed here but may be found in entries for the relevant manuscripts. For historical purposes, early editions, transcriptions and translations are not excluded, even if their reliability does not meet modern standards.

[ed.] [tr.] Meyer, Kuno [ed. and tr.], “Orthanach ūa Cōillāma cecinit”, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 11 (1917): 107–113.

CELT – edition: <link> Internet Archive: <link>, <link>

[ed.] Best, Richard Irvine, Osborn Bergin, and M. A. OʼBrien, The Book of Leinster, formerly Lebar na Núachongbála, vol. 1, Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1954. 260 pp. + 4 pl.

CELT – edition (pp. 1-260): <link>

252–256 Diplomatic edition direct link