Matheson Collection > Anecdota from Irish manuscripts

XVIII Sanas Cormaíc
or the Lúil Dromma Ceta ; i) 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 LonáÍD, who died in 9 IS. 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 — 215)
and in Egerton 1782, fol. 15aff. It is mentioned as one of the
dúili hélrai in the metrical treatise, Jr. T. Ill p. 50.
^) Some of these are cited in the preface to O'Mnlconry's
Glossary. The Virgilius mentioned there is not the Roman
poet, but the Stii century grammarian Virgilius Maro.
3) 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 pre-
served by Michael O'Clery in BIV2, pp. 79b and 132a. The
beginning of this poem is A choicid cáin Cairpri chriiaid, and
its author, as I hope to prove some day, is Orthanach úa
Cóilláma. — The quatrain of which the first lice only is quoted
in § 3G9 is found complete in H. 3. 18, p. 66. It is the 20 th
stanza of a poem preserved in 23 N 10, p. 17, where it has the
heading Uga Corbnmc nmc Cukndain.