Excerpt from The Saltair Na Rann: A Collection of Early Middle Irish Poems; Edited From Ms. Rawl. B. 502, in the Bodleian Library According to the scribe's note following line 7788 the poems now printed fall into four divisions, (1) the Psalter, (2) the poem on repentance, (3) the poem on confession, and (4) the ten poems on the Resurrection. That note means: Thus far the body of the Psalter of the Quatrains, to wit, the thrice fifty poems (juana). Two after, (one) for confession, and (the other) for repentance; and ten to set forth the Resurrection; so that there are twelve and thrice fifty poems altogether.' The thrice fifty poems - equal in number to the psalms, and hence 'the Psalter'-deal for the most part with incidents from the Old Testament. But the first poem contains a kind of description of the universe; poems XI (ou the penance of Adam and Eve) and XII (on the death of Adam) are founded on the Vita Adde cl Euae, two texts of which have been published by W. Meyer (miinchen, 1879) and poems XLII-L relate to the life of Christ. Poem CLI expresses repentance for transgression and prays for forgiveness. No. CLII is an expression of ignorance of God and his various works. Nos. CLIII to CLIX describe the events on each day of the week before the last Judgment. Sense here is so completely sacrificed to metrical requirements that these seven poems are, to a large extent, unintelligible to me. CLX deals with the seven resurrections - namely, (1) that of the apostles, (2) of the prophets, (3) of the confessors, (4) of the martyrs, (5) of the saints, (6) of the virgins, penitents, and baptized infants, and (7) of the rest of the human race. Poem CLXI treats of the coming of the demons out of hell to earth, the fall of the idols, etc. The last poem, CLXII, describes the triumph of the angels over their foes, the rewards of the righteous, the punishments of the wicked. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.