[Illustration:  SITE OF TARA.]

The oldest reference to this famous compilation is found in a poem on the site of ancient Tara, by Cuan O’Lochain, a distinguished scholar, and native of Westmeath, who died in the year 1024.  The quotation given below is taken from the Book of Ballymote, a magnificent volume, compiled in the year 1391, now in possession of the Royal Irish Academy:—­

    Temair, choicest of hills,
    For [possession of] which Erinn is now devastated,[7]
    The noble city of Cormac, son of Art,
    Who was the son of great Conn of the hundred battles: 
    Cormac, the prudent and good,
    Was a sage, a file [poet], a prince: 
    Was a righteous judge of the Fene-men,[8]
    Was a good friend and companion. 
    Cormac gained fifty battles: 
    He compiled the Saltair of Temur. 
    In that Saltair is contained
    The best summary of history;
    It is that Saltair which assigns
    Seven chief kings to Erinn of harbours;
    They consisted of the five kings of the provinces,—­
    The Monarch of Erinn and his Deputy. 
    In it are (written) on either side,
    What each provincial king is entitled to,
    From the king of each great musical province. 
    The synchronisms and chronology of all,
    The kings, with each other [one with another] all;
    The boundaries of each brave province,
    From a cantred up to a great chieftaincy.

From this valuable extract we obtain a clear idea of the importance and the subject of the famous Saltair, and a not less clear knowledge of the admirable legal and social institutions by which Erinn was then governed.

The CIN OF DROM SNECHTA is quoted in the Book of Ballymote, in support of the ancient legend of the antediluvian occupation of Erinn by the Lady Banbha, called in other books Cesair (pron. “kesar").  The Book of Lecan quotes it for the same purpose, and also for the genealogies of the chieftains of the ancient Rudrician race of Ulster.  Keating gives the descent of the Milesian colonists from Magog, the son of Japhet, on the authority of the Cin of Drom Snechta, which, he states, was compiled before St. Patrick’s mission to Erinn.[9] We must conclude this part of our subject with a curious extract from the same work, taken from the Book of Leinster:  “From the Cin of Drom Snechta, this below.  Historians say that there were exiles of Hebrew women in Erinn at the coming of the sons of Milesius, who had been driven by a sea tempest into the ocean by the Tirren Sea.  They were in Erinn before the sons of Milesius.  They said, however, to the sons of Milesius [who, it would appear, pressed marriage on them], that they preferred their own country, and that they would not abandon it without receiving dowry for alliance with them.  It is from this circumstance that it is the men that purchase wives in Erinn for ever, whilst it is the husbands that are purchased