Varia I: 1. Two quatrains in Cath Maighe Rath; 2. An unrecorded scribal note in RIA 23 Q 16; 3. IGT II 1258

A list of a number of the Ulstermen’s exploits forms part of a poem in the later recension of Cath Maighe Rath which was edited by O’Donovan in 1842 and suggested by Dillon to date from the late-thirteenth or fourteenth century.1 The earliest copy of the tale is preserved in a portion of the Yellow Book of Lecan (YBL) written in 1398 9 by Murchadh O´ Cuinnlis (cols 281-310).2 There are also copies in two seventeenth-century manuscripts written by Da´ibhı´dh O´ Duibhgeanna´ in and a manuscript of the early-eighteenth century in the hand of Tumultach mac Muirghiosa, namely RIA B IV 1 (236), RIA 24 P 9 (739) and RIA 23 K 44 (58), which are referred to as B, P and K, respectively, below.3 O’Donovan based his edition on YBL but also consulted the copy in K, adopting its readings on occasion to correct ‘deficiencies’ where he found the text of YBL to be ‘obviously defective’.4