The following version of the Orgain Néill Noígíallaig or The Slaying of Niall of the Nine Hostages is here published and translated for the first time from the Bodleian MS. Rawlinson B 502, 47a1–47a2. Other versions representing a slightly different redaction of the same tale are to be found in the Yellow Book of Lecan, p. 126b (L), and in the Book of Ballymote, p. 134b (B). I quote their variants wherever they throw light on our text.
According to the Annals, Niall, the eponymus of the Húi Néill, was King of Ireland from A.D. 379–405. It is probable that the account given in our tale of his expedition to Alba contains a reminiscence of Irish invasions of Great Britain at the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century. O'Donovan, indeed ( AFM p. 127, note 2) has no hesitation in identifying Niall with the Irish leader against whose attacks Stilicho had to defend himself; and perhaps the statement of the Annals that Niall was slain ‘oc muir n-Icht’, ‘by the sea of Wight,’ i.e. the English Channel, is based upon fact. Similarly, the antiquary Cinaed úa Artacáin, who died in 975, says in his poem on the grave of Niall: Niall mac Echach assa lecht / luid fa shecht clar trethan tricc, / roreraig comarbus Cuind / co ngáet ós muing mara Icht. Niall, son of Eochu, whose is this grave, went seven times across the swift sea, / He ruled Conn's heritage until he was slain upon the crest of the sea of Wight.’’
Book of Leinster, p. 154a
None of the three versions of our tale retains this old tradition; they are based on a number of different traditions in which later conditions are reflected. It is true, the mention of Roman hostages may perhaps be traced to an original account in which Niall's conflicts with the Romans in Britain were described, but in Britain itself our versions substitute the Saxons for the Romans. Similarly, the curious reference to the Picts — ‘among the bards of the Pictfolk,’ paragraph 1.9. — may contain a reminiscence of the time when the Irish were the allies of the Picts in their raids against Romans and Britons. But all three versions contain startling anachronisms. Thus, the Rawlinson version makes the exiled Echu proceed to Erc, son of Munremor, in Scotland. This was the ancestor of the Dalriadic kings of Scotland, who according to the Annals died in A. D. 474. In the Book of Ballymote his son Loarn, the Loernus of Adamnan, the eponymus of the Lornes, takes his place, while in the Yellow Book the anachronism is still greater, for it substitutes Gabran, the son of Domongart, who died in A. D. 560.
With regard to Niall's epithet ‘of the Nine Hostages,’ it is interesting to observe that the account given in the body of the tale does not tally with that of the verse quoted, which latter is no doubt the older and in all probability the true one.
Though the Rawlinson version is hardly earlier than the eleventh century, the poem on Niall's death with which it ends may be safely ascribed to the beginning of the ninth, as I have shown in the Festschrift für Whitley Stokes, p. 2, where the whole poem is edited from the fuller copy in the Yellow Book.