Windisch (ed.), Irische Texte I (1880), pp. 169–196 — Lebor na hUidre and Lebar Brecc recensions — translated into modern British English. The two recensions are substantially parallel; the translation follows the fuller Lebar Brecc text, with the LU-only material folded in where it adds substance.

¹ Noble and wonderful is the Lord of the elements, and great and wonderful are His power and His might. He is gentle and mild, merciful and gracious. Magnus Dominus noster et magna virtus ejus, et sapientiae ejus non est numerus — “Great is our Lord and great His power, and of His wisdom there is no number.” Noble and wonderful is the Lord; great and wonderful His power and might; there is no bound or reckoning to the abundance of His knowledge and His great wisdom. Suscipiens mansuetos Dominus, humiliat autem peccatores usque ad terram — the Lord gathers to Himself, to heaven, the people of alms and mercy and gentleness and true piety; but He casts down and dashes to earth and hell the godless gathering of the sons of malediction. The Holy Spirit — the Spirit from whom every dignity and every counsel of the Church proceeds, of both Testaments — it is that Spirit who set forth the mysteries and secrets of the divine law for the Church over the whole world; it is that Spirit who uttered these words through the royal prophet, David son of Jesse, saying: Magnus Dominus noster. “Great and mighty is our Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ” — that is, none can bring Him worthy praise; none can make a praise that is fitting for Him. Major est omni laude virtus qua condidit naturam rerum et sustinet molem gravem terram — for beyond every praise is the power wherewith He established the nature of things and sustains the heavy mass of the earth without its shaking beneath them. Et sapientiae ejus non est numerus — that is, the Father knows the quality of all things. Many are the knowledge and the wisdom of the Lord; for though the elements be many and diverse, there is nothing among them that is dark to Him. Suscipiens mansuetos Dominus — humiles ad imaginem Dei legi non adversantes — the Lord receives to Himself in His household the kindly and the gentle, who keep in them the likeness and image of God and go not against the eternal law. Humiliat autem peccatores — that is, those who are contrary to the meek — the harsh, who lack the meekness to attain the understanding of the Scriptures. He casts down and abases the sinners in hell — that is, those who are contrary to the gentle and on whom their lack of mercy and their lack of gentleness falls, in the understanding of the holy Scripture. Usque ad terram — that is, even to the wisdom of earthly things, even to the senses of the flesh. If then it is certain that the meek shall possess the good things of the Lord in the land of the living, what else shall these sinners — the harsh and not meek who are contrary to them — possess but everlasting torments in their kinds? For if the heavenly reward is assured to the gentle and the truly pious, what else shall befall the ungentle, the godless, the unmerciful, save the abundance of the everlasting pains in their several kinds.

² A multitude of the saints and righteous ones of the Lord of the elements, and of the apostles and disciples of Jesus Christ — to them were revealed the mysteries and secrets of heaven’s household under that veil, and the choice rewards of the righteous; and to them were revealed the diverse pains of hell with all that is in them. To Peter the apostle was revealed the four-cornered sheet let down from heaven to earth, with the four sweeps out of it — sweeter than any music its hearing. Paul the apostle was lifted up to the third heaven and heard the unspeakable words of the angels and the wondrous converse of heaven’s household. The twelve apostles were also taken on the day of Mary’s death, and they saw the pains and the wretched torments of the unfaithful — when the Lord commanded the angels of the sunset to open the earth before the apostles, that they might see and consider hell with its many pains, as He Himself had promised them long before His Passion.

³ Then it was revealed to Adamnán ua Tinne, the high sage of the west of the world — he of whom this is told — when his soul passed out of his body on the feast of John the Baptist, and he was taken to heaven with the angels of heaven, and to hell with its rabble host. When Adamnán’s soul parted from his body, the angel of his companionship who had been with him while he was in the body received him at once, and carried him first to see the kingdom of heaven.

⁴ The first land they reached was the Land of the Saints — a joyful, glad land. Wondrous assemblies of many kinds are there, with crystal walls of white around them and bright mantles over their heads. The saints of the east of the world are in an assembly apart in the east of the Land of the Saints; the saints of the west of the world in the west of the same land; the saints of the north and of the south of the world in two great assemblies to the south and the north. And every saint in the Land of the Saints is equally near to the hearing of the music and the contemplation of the host in which are the nine orders of heaven, ranged by their degrees and their rank.

⁵ At one time the saints sing wondrous music in praise of God; at another they are silent, listening to the music of heaven’s household — for the saints desire nothing else but to hear the music they listen to, and to contemplate the brightness they see, and to be sated with the fragrance that is in that land. There is a wondrous veil facing them to the south of them; a crystal veil between them and the golden veil that is nearer, and through it they contemplate the forms and the radiance of heaven’s household. Yet there is no darkness between heaven’s household and the saints, but they are manifest and present to them face to face for ever. A fiery circle, too, around that host, both within and without — and it hurts none of them.

⁶ The twelve apostles and the Virgin Mary are in an assembly apart about the mighty Lord. The patriarchs and prophets and disciples of Jesus Christ are near to the apostles. There are also holy virgins around Mary, with a little space between them. Babes and children are about them on every side, and the music of heaven’s household’s birds entertains them ever. A fair and splendid host of angels of companionship minister to the souls and serve among those assemblies in the King’s presence for ever. No man on earth could give the description or account of those assemblies as they truly are. The companies and the assemblies that are in the Land of the Saints, as we have said, shall abide in that great glory to the great day of Doom — until the righteous Judge set them in the stations and places where they shall be, gazing on God’s face without veil or shadow between them for ever and ever.

⁷ Yet great and mighty as is the splendour and the light that is in the Land of the Saints, as we have said, a thousand times greater is the radiance that is about heaven’s household around the Lord’s own throne. That royal seat stands in the city of might upon four columns of precious stone. And though there were no other delight for anyone but the fitting choir-song of those four columns, it would be enough of glory and delight for him. Three choice birds are in that city in the King’s presence, and their minds intent upon their Creator for ever — that is their portion ever. They celebrate the eight canonical hours in praising and magnifying the Lord, with the choral song of archangels accompanying them. From the birds and from the archangels the music begins, and all heaven’s household, both saints and holy virgins, answers them thereafter.

⁸ A great arch, too, above the ordinance like a royal city — like a diadem of might or a king’s crown. Were human eyes to see it, they would melt at once. Three ridges in its great circumference between them and the host — and its substance cannot be told. Six thousand warriors with the forms of horses and birds about the fiery city, burning without end or limit.

⁹ The telling of the mighty Lord who is in that royal seat is beyond the reach of any, save Himself alone, or the report of the heavenly orders. For none else can tell His splendour and His strength, His redness and His exceeding brightness, His delight and His joy, His power and His steadfastness, the multitude of His angels and archangels singing music to Him, His messengers coming to Him and from Him with gentle answers to every company in turn, His mildness and His great gentleness toward some, His patience and His great severity toward others of them.

¹⁰ If one were to gaze at Him east and west, south and north, he would find on every side His glorious countenance, brighter sevenfold than the sun. No human form is seen upon Him, of head or foot — but the red, fiery mass burning through the world, and all trembling and fearful before Him. Heaven and earth are full of His light and His radiance like a royal star in its great circuit. Three thousand diverse songs in every choral chant that is sung about Him — and each several one of them is sweeter than all the music of the world.

¹¹ The city in which that royal seat is — thus it stands: seven crystal walls of diverse colours about it, each wall higher than the next. The floor and lower foundation of the city is of bright crystal shot with the sun’s hue, variegated with blue and purple and green and every colour besides.

¹² A gentle, kindly household, wanting no goodness — they are the dwellers in that city. For none but saints and earnest pilgrims to God shall ever see or inhabit that city. Their array and their ordering is hard to know — how it came to be: for there is no one’s back or side to another’s, but as the power of the Lord’s ineffability has arrayed and kept them, face to face in ranks and high crowns round about the royal seat in its circuit, with delight and joy, and all their faces toward God.

¹³ A tree of crystal between every two choirs with a fair array of gold and silver upon it, with separate strands of precious stone and with diverse musical strains and with seats and crowns of carbuncle upon those crystal trees. Three precious stones with a soft sound and a sweetness of music between every two chief assemblies, and the two upper halves in blazing lanterns. Seven thousand angels in the forms of great candles lighting and illuminating the city round about; seven thousand others in its very centre burning for ever around the royal city. The men of the world in one place, though they be many — the breath of the fragrance of one candle of those candles would sate them.

¹⁴ As for those of the world’s people who shall not reach that city in their lifetime and whose dwelling is not assured after the judgement of Doom — it is in them that men shall dwell miserably and fearfully in fastnesses and in hills, in marshes and in rough places, until Doom comes.

Thus stand those hosts and those assemblies, and an angel of companionship for every soul among them ministering and serving it. A veil of fire and a veil of ice in the chief doorway of the city in its presence, striking and clashing against one another for ever. The sound and the noise of those veils clashing is heard through the world: Adam’s race, were they to hear that sound, would all be seized with trembling and unbearable terror before it. Sad and troubled are the sinners at that sound; but turned toward heaven’s household, nothing of that harsh thunder is heard but a little space, and sweeter than all music is what is found there.

¹⁵ Great and wondrous beyond telling is the ordering of that city — for small is the much that we have told of its diverse orders and its wonders.

Rare it is for the soul, after its long abiding and dwelling in the body with its sleep and its comfort and its delights and its ease, to approach and reach the Creator’s royal seat — unless it be with guides of angels; for the ranks of the seven heavens are hard to pass, and none of them is easy. Six gates of safe-conduct there are before the human race on the way to heaven. Keepers and doorkeepers of heaven’s household are set to guard each of those gates.

At the gate of the heaven nearest us, Michael the archangel is set, and two virgins with him with iron rods in their bosoms for the scourging and the overthrow of the sinners — and there the sinners meet their first affliction and their first suffering of the way they go.

¹⁶ At the gate of the second heaven, Uriel the archangel is its keeper, and two virgins with him with fiery scourges in their hands — and with them they scourge the sons of death across their faces and their eyes. A stream of fire is set blazing before that gate. Abercetus is the name of the angel who guards that stream — which tests and washes the souls of the saints from the weight of sin that cleaves to them, until they are as pure and as bright as the radiance of stars. There too is set a shining spring with balm and fragrance for the cleansing and washing of the souls of the righteous. But it scourges and burns the souls of the sinners, and does not heal them — it only adds pain and penance to them there. Then the sinners pass out of it with sorrow and great gloom, and the righteous with joy and gladness to the gate of the third heaven.

¹⁷ A fiery furnace is there ever blazing. Twelve thousand cubits high its flame reaches. The souls of the righteous pass through that furnace in a flash of the eye. But it burns and consumes the souls of the sinners for twelve years, and then the angel of companionship carries them to the fourth gate. So stands the gate of entry to the fourth heaven, with a stream of fire about it like the former stream — a wall of lead blazing there, the breadth of its fire twelve thousand cubits measured. The souls of the righteous pass over it as though it were not there at all; but it holds back the souls of the sinners for twelve years in misery and great torment, until the angel of companionship carries them to the gate of the fifth heaven.

¹⁸ A fiery stream also there, but different from the other streams — for there is a special whirlpool in the middle of that stream that turns the souls of the sinners round about and holds them for sixteen years. The righteous pass over it at once without delay. When the time comes to loose the sinners out of it, the angel strikes the stream with a hard rod of lion’s fury, and lifts the souls up on the rod’s end. Then Michael bears the souls to the gate of the sixth heaven — and no pain or torment is counted to the souls at that gate, but they are refreshed there by the light and radiance of precious stones. Then Michael goes with them to the angel of the Trinity, and they show the soul before the Creator in His presence.

¹⁹ Great and exceeding is the joy of heaven’s household and of the Lord Himself with that soul then, if it be a righteous stainless soul. But if the soul be unrighteous and imperfect, it finds harshness and severity from the mighty Lord. And He says to the angels of heaven — Hanc animam multum peccantem angelo Tartari tradite et demergat eam in infernum — “Take you with you, O angels of heaven, this godless soul, and deliver it into Lucifer’s hand to be drowned and sunk in the depths of hell for ever.”

²⁰ Then that wretched soul parts with horror and bitterness and dread from the presence of heaven’s kingdom and God’s face. Then it lets fall the heaviest of all sighs, on going into the devil’s face after seeing the delight of heaven’s household. Then it parts from the safe-conduct of the archangels by whom it was brought to heaven. Then the twelve fiery dragons swallow it, one after the other, until the nethermost dragon casts it into the devil’s jaws. And there it finds the fullness of every evil with the lack of every good in the presence of hell’s household for ever and ever.

²¹ When the angel of companionship had shown Adamnán’s soul these visions of heaven’s kingdom and the first adventures of every soul after leaving its body, he carried it then to see the lower hell with the multitude of its pains and its torments.

The first land they reached was a black, dark land — and it was bare and empty, with no pain at all there. A glen full of fire was before them. A great flame there reaching over its edges on every side. Black its depths, red its middle and its top. Eight monsters there, their eyes like fiery furnaces.

²² A great bridge across the glen — it reaches from edge to edge, high its middle but low its two ends. Three hosts go upon it, and not all pass over. One host — the bridge is broad for them from beginning to end, and they cross safe and whole without terror or fear across the fiery glen. Another host upon it — it is narrow for them at first but broad at the end, and they cross the same glen after great peril. The last host — the bridge is broad for them at first but narrow and confined at the end, and they fall from its middle into that same perilous glen, into the gullets of the eight burning monsters that make their dwelling in the glen.

²³ Those for whom that path was easy are the folk of virginity, the folk of earnest repentance, and the folk of red martyrdom zealous for God. Those for whom the way was narrow at first and broad at the end are the folk who are driven by necessity to do God’s will and afterwards turn their necessity into willing service to the Lord. Those for whom the bridge was broad at first and narrow at the end are the sinners, who incline to the teaching of God’s word but do not fulfil it after hearing.

²⁴ There are also countless hosts in the straits of everlasting pain in the misty land there. Every other hour the pain departs from them; the next hour it comes over them again. Those who are so are the folk whose good and evil were evenly matched. And on the day of Doom they shall be judged, and their good shall outweigh their evil on that day, and they shall be carried then to the haven of life in God’s presence for ever.

²⁵ There is also another great company near that folk, and great is their pain. Thus they are: bound to fiery pillars, a sea of fire around them up to their chins, fiery chains in serpent-form about their middles. Their faces flame in that pain. Those who are in that heavy pain are sinners and kin-slayers and destroyers of God’s Church, and merciless chieftains who were above the honour-price of the saints’ martyrdom upon the dues and tithes of the Church, and who made of those dues their own peculiar wealth against the will and pleasure of the Lord.

²⁶ There are also great hosts there standing for ever in black garments to their girdles. Short cloaks of ice about them. They stay not nor cease for ever, but their girdles burn between cold and heat. Hosts of demons in their great circuit with fiery clubs in their hands beating them on the head, and they shrieking at them. The wretches’ faces are all northward, and a rough bitter wind in their faces along with every evil. Showers of red fire raining upon them every night and every day, and they cannot escape it but must endure it for ever with lament and grief.

²⁷ Some of them have streams of fire in the holes of their faces; others, fiery nails through their tongues; others, nails through their heads from without. Those who are in that pain are the folk of churlishness and denial without love or charity of God — thieves and liars and traitors and cheats and robbers and raiders, false judges and contentious folk, shameless women and satirists, backbiters and men of learning who teach heresy. There are other great companies on islands in the middle of the sea of fire: a wall of silver about them for their clothing and their alms. Those are the folk who did mercy without diligence and were in filth and in bodily uncleanness to their life’s end; and their alms carry them into the middle of the sea of fire till Doom, and they shall be borne to the haven of life after Doom.

²⁸ There is also a great multitude there with red fiery mantles upon them to the ground. Their trembling and their cry is heard under the firmament. Unsparing companies of demons smother them, and foul, wide-mouthed hounds in their hands devour them and consume them. Red fiery wheels ever blazing about their necks. They are carried up to the firmament every other hour and cast down into the depths of hell the next hour. Babes and children are always wailing and lamenting on every side. Those who are in that pain are folk of orders who transgressed their orders, and false penitents, and liars who deceive and pervert the hosts and undertake for them miracles and marvels they cannot perform. The babes that are wailing there after the folk of orders are those who were brought to them for correction, and they corrected them not nor reproached them for their sins.

²⁹ Another great company there, here and there without ceasing across the fiery flags, fighting with the hosts of the demons. Countless are the showers of arrows fired at them, red-hot, by the demons. They run without stumbling, without ceasing, until they reach the black lochs and black rivers to quench those arrows in them. Sad and wretched are the wails and lamentations the sinners make in those waters — for it is an increase of pain to them. Those who are in that pain are smiths and artificers and traffickers in every sort, false judges of the Jews and of all besides, godless kings, incestuous and fleshly chieftains, adulterous women, and messengers who corrupt them in their misdeeds — and satirists. There is a wall of fire against the land of pains there: seven times more horrible and more bitter it is than the land of pains itself. Yet no souls dwell there for ever — for it belongs to the demons alone, its habitation until the day of Doom.

³⁰ Woe to him who is in those pains in the dwelling of the devil’s household! Woe to him who does not avoid that household! Woe to him who has for his lord a fierce, heedless demon! Woe to him who has for his master a black, swift, hateful demon, contending in wretched, powerless, mighty lamentation without ceasing — everlasting cold and hunger they have all alike. Woe to him who shall be listening to the lamentation and wailing of the souls in misery and prayer to the Lord for the day of Doom to come upon them swiftly — to see whether they might find some relief in the judgement; for they find no respite for ever save thrice every Sunday. Woe to him whose own portion that land shall be for ever!

Thus is that place: mountains full of thorny hollows; bare, burned plains; black, fiery glens; rough red hills; deep, foul-smelling mire; great thorny moors; filthy, ever-dark ways; sharp, pointed grasses; slippery, fiery stones; rough, burning heat; swift, scorching winds; harsh wintry colds; red fiery showers; bitter, ever-constant snows; rough, burning, miry bitterness; darkness in its blackness; cold in its everlasting snow; heat in its great fire; bitterness in its venom. Foul, beastly lochs; cold, rough, windy streams; foul, burning-hot pools. Rough, sandy earth; a slippery, falling slope; a red, scorching field; black, dark, sighing places; craggy, hard-flamed hills; a steep, icy ridge with frost like a crag of fire. Broad flags of fire upon its floor — burning, blazing, so that one flag of them would burn the whole world. Great, venomous, foul-smelling seas with horrible raging, with dragons, with tongues of fire upon them, with many other kinds of monsters in that sea, with four diverse kinds of fire: a black fire, burning, sighing; a red fire, dark, leaping, miry, hungry; a green fire, horrible, sharp, bitter, burning; a red fire, bitter, great, with streams of venom. Great fiery mountains there, and great red pointed iron nails there — dense, thick, sharp, high, with a dew of poison on the tip of every nail, whose poison would drown and burn all the men of the earth. And with a wail, an innumerable host of demons about the faithless soul, and they bear the soul with them into hell’s depths. With red fiery scourges in their hands and wide-mouthed, foul hounds at their command upon the sinners’ souls, they set those fiery scourges upon them, and they howl and roar and cry out and weep bitterly and grievously. And the stars of heaven and the firmament and all the elements are filled with the great wailing that the sinners’ souls make under the hands and grips of those undying enemies — the devil with his rabble host. And they bear them then into fiery hills and black, dark, deep, sighing glens, to the murky, ruinous maw of lower hell upon the bare, burning flags and the streams of diverse fire we have told. For there are four great streams across its middle: a stream of red-burning fire; a stream of ever-red snow with icy stones; a stream of deadly venom; a stream of black, dark, bitter water. And in them the demons’ hosts bathe themselves after their triumph and their sport in torturing the souls.

³¹ When the holy hosts of heaven’s household sing the fitting choir-song of the eight hours in joy and gladness praising the great Lord — then the sinners’ souls utter their wretched, mournful wails, being smitten without ceasing by the companies of demons. Those are the pains and the heavy torments which the angel of companionship showed to Adamnán’s soul after the survey of heaven’s kingdom.

Then the soul was carried in a flash of the eye through the golden veil and through the crystal veil to the Land of the Saints — the same land to which it had been brought when it parted from its body. When it had taken counsel to stay and abide in that land, it heard behind it through the veil the angel’s voice commanding it to return again to the same body out of which it had come, and to tell in the assemblies and gatherings of laymen and clerics the rewards of heaven’s household and the pains of hell, as the angel of companionship had shown it.

³² This then is the teaching Adamnán used to give the hosts from that time forth, while he was alive. This is the teaching he used to give at the great assembly of the men of Ireland — when Adamnán’s Law was imposed upon the Gaels, and women were freed by Adamnán and by Fínnachta Fledach son of Dúnchad son of Áed Sláine, by the king of Ireland and by the men of Ireland besides. For men and women used to go equally into battles and conflicts until this Law of Adamnán was imposed. This is the first teaching Patrick son of Calpurnius used to give — to tell the rewards of heaven and the pains of hell to the people who would believe in the Lord through his preaching and accept his spiritual direction at the gospel’s raising. This is the teaching Peter and Paul and the other apostles used most often to give — to tell pains and rewards, since they had been shown to them in the same way. This is what Silvester, abbot of Rome, did for Constantine son of Helen, the high king of the world, at the great assembly — when he dedicated Rome to Paul and to Peter. This is what Fabian, Peter’s successor, did for Philip son of Gordian, king of the Romans — when he believed in the Lord, and many thousands besides believed at that time. These are the first three of the Romans who believed in the Saviour Jesus Christ.

³³ This is the teaching Elias gives to the souls of the righteous, as he sits under the tree of life in Paradise. When Elias opens the book to teach the souls, the souls of the righteous come to him in the forms of white birds from every quarter. He tells them first of the rewards of the righteous — the delight and dignity of heaven’s kingdom — and he is glad in that while. Then he tells them of the pains and torments of hell and the destruction of Doomsday — and great grief and sorrow is manifest upon himself and upon Enoch, so that these are the two sorrows of heaven’s kingdom. Then Elias closes the book of teaching; and the birds utter a great wailing then, and beat their wings against their bodies so that streams of blood come out of them, for dread of the pains of hell and of Doomsday.

³⁴ When it is the souls of the saints and the righteous whose eternal dwelling in heaven’s kingdom is assured, they make that lamentation — even so would the men of the world, though it were tears of blood they shed, make lament for dread of Doomsday. Many evils and great afflictions there shall be on that day of Doom. Then the Lord shall take count with every man in the world — pains for the sinners, rewards for the righteous. Then they shall be cast into the depths of everlasting pain, and God’s word shall seal them under the curse of Doom’s judge. But the saints and the righteous, the folk of almsgiving and mercy, shall be borne to God’s right hand for an eternal dwelling. They shall be in that great glory in the unity of the Godhead and Manhood of God’s Son — in the unity that is nobler than every unity, in the unity of the holy Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. May God’s mercy… through the intercession of Adamnán… etc.

³⁵ Thus is that city: a kingdom without pride, without arrogance, without falsehood, without denial, without deceit, without fading, without sorrow, without fickleness, without corruption, without envy, without boasting, without sickness, without disease, without poverty, without nakedness, without want, without decay, without hail, without snow, without wind, without rain, without noise, without thunder, without darkness, without coldness — a noble, wondrous, free kingdom, with endurance, with light, with the fragrance of a land that is full of every good.

Finit. Amen.

Appended Matter (from Windisch’s edition) #

[The next item in Irische Texte I is “Cuchulainns Krankenlager und die einzige Eifersucht Emers” — The Sick-bed of Cú Chulainn and the Only Jealousy of Emer (Serglige Con Culainn), a secular Ulster Cycle tale unrelated to this collection’s scope. Only Windisch’s German introduction was captured in the extraction; the tale’s text itself is absent. In substance: the text is taken from Lebor na hUidre (facsimile pp. 43–50), where it is attributed to a transcript from the lost Yellow Book of Slane; it was previously published with an English translation by O’Curry in Atlantis nos. II–III (1858), though that translation silently passes over every difficulty. Stokes cited passages in his treatise on the Old Irish verb (Beitr. VII). Windisch’s own edition follows.]