Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/45

PREFACE. xxxvii his " Trias Thaumaturga," which was published a few years earher, and it is said to have originally- formed part of the " Psalter of Cashel." The poem itself bears to have been written in the reign of Malcolm the Third, and contains within itself abun- dant marks of its authenticity. It has usually been dealt with as if, because it treats of the history of Scotland, it must necessarily have been written by a Scotchman, and aflford an early specimen of the Scotch dialect of the Irish language. But there is nothing whatever in the poem itself to show this ; on the contrary, the presumption is that it is an Irish document. It contains the Irish form of the traditions, and the opinion of the Editor is, that it is the work of Gillacaemhin, the Irish translator of Nennius. His reasons are : first, that it bears to have been written in the reign of Malcolm iii., and GiUacaemhin died in that reign, in the year 1072 ; secondly, that the statement of the early settlements in Scotland exactly correspond with those stated in the Irish Nennius, of which Gilla- caemhin was the translator, under letter D ; and, thirdly, that the poem begins with the line, " A eolcha Alban uile j" and Gillacaemhin wrote a precisely similar poem regarding the kings of Ireland, which is his uu- doubted work, and which begins with the line, " A eolcha Eireann airde," showing an obvious similarity of style. The text of this poem is taken from M'Firbis'