Matheson Collection > Anecdota from Irish manuscripts

Sanas Cormaic XVII
torchelltaib t g ina deiscip. Cathbarr . . . ge co
coroin ordai ima chenn. Dealb is airegd le
Inchracht bni for duine fair. Teitt iarsin deissml
SencLain cona muintir . . aparuit ex illo teiripa(re). Du-
bium itaque quod e ille p(o)emates eiiit xps. 7 rl.
A handy and cheap edition of Cormac's Glossary has
long been a want felt by many students of Irish. When
Stokes in 1862 brought out his editio princejps from the
Lebar Brecc, he warned the reader that it was a mere
íxóooig, the time for óiOQ&cóostg of Celtic texts not
having yet arrived. So slow has been the progress of
Irish studies that fifty years later we have still to be
content with mere éxóóúng. In the case of our Glossary
a critical edition would have to be based not only upon
a collation and stemma of all existing MSS, but would
also involve a minute study of the language, so as to
separate the genuine articles from later additions, and if
possible to establish Cormac's authorship ; i) a definition
of the relationship of Cormac's work to such other com-
pilations as that which goes by the name of O'Mulconry,^)
») See CZ VIII p. 178. To the evideuce there collected
we may add § 1103, where a quatrain on Cenn-gécáin, Cormac's
predecessor on the throne of Cashel, is quoted, and § 140, where
one of the tributes of the king of Cashel is mentioDed.
*) Stokes unaccountably assigns this glossary to the ISth
or 14tii century. It belongs undoubtedly to the Old-Irish period'
as the verbal and other forms collected by Stokes on pp. 222
and 223 prove. To these may be added hue 779, the neuter
a cétleth 417, the inf. do buith 467, 604, and the part. nee.
buithi 300. The quatrain quoted in § 180 was not composed