LEBOR NA HUIDRE
longer be determined. A copy of the longest medieval
Irish narrative, Táin Bó Cúailnge(“The Cattle Raid of
Cúailnge”), is found among its leaves, together with
two of its remscéla(fore-tales). That tale’s premier
hero, Cú Chulainn, also features in other compositions
therein, including those describing his birth and resur-
rection. The activities of the latter’s Ulaid colleagues
are similarly recounted, most notably in Fled Bricrenn
(“Bricriu’s Feast”) and Mesca Ulad(“The Intoxication
of the Ulaid”), as are those of royal personages. To gail
Bruidne Da Derga(“The Destruction of Da Derga’s
Hostel”) provides a literary biography of the prehis-
toric king Conaire Mór; other narratives focus on piv-
otal events in a particular monarch’s reign. Among
these is the otherworld journey of fair Connlae, son of
King Conn Cétchathach, which forms one of a group
of texts that emphasizes the supernatural in all its
guises. Its Christian dimension is highlighted in a story
relating the prophetic revelation of another of Conn’s
sons, Art, which finds thematic resonance in Comthoth
Láegaire co cretim(“The Conversion of Láegaire to
the Faith”). These are complemented by religious texts
includingDá Brón Flatha Nime(“The Two Sorrows
of the Kingdom of Heaven”) and the homiletic tracts,
Scéla Laí Brátha(“The Tidings of Doomsday”) and
Scéla na hEsérgi(“The Tidings of the Resurrection”),
for which the manuscript constitutes our sole witness.
Scribes
This pair of homilies, along with a handful of other
texts, are in the hand of the latest of the trio of scribes
connected with the codex whose homiletic interest has
earned him the designation “H.” A thorough reviser,
H inserted his new material either in sections of the
manuscript that he had previously erased or on leaves
intercalated precisely for that purpose. His work is also
to be detected in the many interpolations in texts orig-
inally written by Scribe A, who began the manuscript,
or by his more prolific successor, M, so named because
of his identification with Máel-Muire, the author of the
codex’s two probationes pennae. Since this man can
be located in time and place as the Máel-Muire mac
Célechair who was killed by marauders in Clonmacnoise
in 1106, the approximate date and provenance of the
compilation were long considered secure. An analysis
of the pen trials in question, however, has led Ó
Concheanainn to posit that they were in fact written
by H, whose language does not appear to be signifi-
cantly later than that of the original scribes. Certain
linguistic features do indeed suggest that the interpo-
lator could well have been active about the turn of the
twelfth century, but the scanty palaeographical evidence
is difficult to evaluate, as Ó Concheanainn admits. In
any event, it seems that the principal scribe and pro-
digious editor, one of whom was Máel-Muire, may
even have been contemporaries, the reviser remolding
the manuscript considerably, in accordance with both
his own scholarly tastes and the various recensions of
texts he himself had to hand.Provenance
In the case of two thematically related tracts, Aided
Nath Í(“The Death of Nath Í”) and Senchas na Relec
(“Burial Ground Lore”), H in fact provides an indica-
tion of their ultimate origin. In Lebor na hUidre’s
sole colophon, he attributes their compilation to the
eleventh-century scholars, Flann Mainistrech and
Eochaid úa Cerín, who drew on a range of manuscripts
both in Armagh and in Flann’s Louth monastery of
Monasterboice. Moreover, both H and the manu-
script’s main scribe cite Cín Dromma Snechta (The
Book of Drumsnat) as a source in the case of four tales;
six further tales thought to have been contained in this
lost eighth-century manuscript are also preserved in
our Book. As far as much of its base material is con-
cerned, therefore, Lebor na hUidre’s associations are not
with Máel-Muire’s home monastery of Clonmacnoise
but with the southeast Ulster/northeast Leinster area
where the scribe’s family originated. Furthermore, a
similar geographical focus can be detected in many
of the noninterpolated narratives, as Ó Concheanainn
has shown. Accordingly, the likelihood is that the
codex first took form at some distance from the
monastic community whose patron’s dun cow was
later to give it his name. It is tempting to speculate,
with Ó Concheanainn, that it was at Clonmacnoise that
H undertook his dramatic alterations, in whose library
he would have had access to alternative texts, though
it must be admitted that his additional material also
displays a northeastern bias in part. Notwithstanding
this, our earliest record of the Book places it in Sligo in
the mid-fourteenth century, having been acquired by
the Uí Chonchobhair as ransom from the Uí Dhomhnaill
of Donegal, who repossessed the work a century later.
It was still in Ulster more than one hundred and fifty
years after that, as Míchéal Ó Cléirigh’s transcription
ofFís Adamnáin (“Adamnán’s Vision”) from it in 1628
attests. Nonetheless, its sojourn in Connacht was a
significant one, close textual connections between it
and manuscripts of western provenance indicating that
it was extensively drawn on by a range of scribes.
Moreover, its influence can be detected at an earlier
period also if the twelfth-century redactors of the
Book of Leinsteremployed H’s texts as exemplars, as