If you would listen to my story,
I will pronounce my chant
As best I can. I will with my mouth
Give you notice of the Holy Island;
Who he was that had it first,
And then what happened to him;
And how Patrick brought in Christianity,
And how it came to Stanley.
Manannan beg was son of Leirr,
He was the first that ever had it;
But as I can best conceive,
He himself was not a Christian.
_Poems_, p. 3.
This poem has a strong resemblance in its character and sentiment to
the oldest poems in the Cymmrian dialect.
The oldest known poem in this dialect which has been preserved in
its original orthography is a short poem of three stanzas, written
in the Irish character in a parchment MS. at Cambridge, containing a
paraphrase of the Gospels by Iuvencus, a Latin poet. The writing of
this MS. is anterior to the year 700.