th he compiled it" (facsimile, at the bottom of page
313). Who this Aed was will be clear from the other entry. It appears that
he had lent the manuscript while still unfinished to Finn macGorman, who
was Bishop of Kildare from 1148 and died in the year 1160, and who on
returning the book wrote in it the following laudatory note in Irish to
Aed: "(Life) and health from Finn, the Bishop of Kildare, to Aed son of
Crimthann, tutor of the chief king (i.e. of King Dermod macMurrogh, the
infamous prince who half a century later invited Strongbow and the Normans
to come over from Wales to Ireland) of Mug Nuadat's Half (i.e. of Leinster
and Munster), and successor of Colum son of Crimthann (this Colum was abbot
of Tir da ghlass the modern Terryglas on the shore of Lough Derg, in the
County Tipperary--and died in the year 548), and chief historian of
Leinster in respect of wisdom and intelligence, and cultivation of books,
science and learning. And let the conclusion of this little tale (i.e. the
story of Ailill Aulom son of Mug Nuadat, the beginning of which was
contained in the book which Finn returns) be written for me accurately by
thee, O cunning Aed, thou man of the sparkling intellect. May it be long
before we are without thee. My desire is that thou shouldst always be with
us. And let macLonan's Songbook be given to me, that I may understand the
sense of the poems that are in it. _Et vale in Christo._"[9]

It would seem from another note in the manuscript[10] that the Book of
Leinster afterwards belonged to some admirer of King Dermod, for he wrote:
"O Mary! Great was the deed that was done in Ireland this day, the kalends
of August (1166)--Dermod, son of Donnoch macMurrogh, King of Leinster and
of the (Dublin) Danes to be banished by the men of Ireland over the sea
eastwards. Woe, woe is me, O Lord, what shall I do!"[11]

My reason for founding the translation on the LL. version, in spite of the
fact that its composition is posterior by half a century to that of LU.,
was not merely out of respect for the injunction of the scribe of the _ne
varietur_ and to merit his blessing (page 369), but also because LL.'s is
the oldest _complete_ version of the Tain extant. Though as a rule (and as
is easily discernible from a comparison of LU. and LL.), the shorter,
terser and cruder the form of a tale is, the more primitive it is, yet it
is not always the oldest preserved form of a work that represents the
most ancient form of the