Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Ancient Laws of Ireland, Vol. 6: Glossary to Volumes I-V
Tms volume, the sixth volume in the series published under the short title of Ancient Laws of Ireland, is a glossary to the text in the preceding five volumes of this series. The Author has endeavoured to secure to the future students of these docu ments a reliable handbook to the vocabulary, so far as the printed documents extend. The references to the old glossary of o'davoren, published in Three Irish Glossaries, by W[hitley] S[tokes], 1862, will furnish a fair clue to the extent of the vocabulary included. It can hardly be doubted that the best hope of ultimate progress towards the solution of the numerous difficulties that beset this study, will be found in the minute investigation of the meaning of the various terms employed. The investigation can hardly fail to be facilitated by the publi cation of a work setting forth the place of the occurrence of these terms, even though the explanations given are not accepted in all cases, or even generally. No doubt, in many cases, definite knowledge of the precise connotation of a term is hardly to he expected, where the conditions have been long forgotten under which the usage arose, to which the term refers: to quote an example or two, the expression ?r fogerrtha seems used in a. Definite sense, but I do not know of any passage that shows its exact meaning; again, under gelestar I have suggested an origin for this word which may or may not be approved; under methas, the technical meaning can scarcely be said to be 'defined'; and so throughout the book, nearly every page of which contains reference to problems awaiting or defying solution. On ques tions of legal procedure, I have found it altogether impossible to include within the boundaries of the Glossary the thousand and one queries that arise at every turn in the discussions of the commentaries and their elaborate statements as to the forms and practices. The broad features are fairly established, in general, but the details often either elude precision or awake suspicion as to whether much may not have been mere elaboration.
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