Saltair na Rann

The title Saltair na Rann ("Psalter of Quatrains") refers to a series of 150 early Middle Irish religious cantos, written in the tenth century—for the most part apparently around 988. The number of the cantos imitates the number of psalms in the Bible. Together they narrate the sacred history of the world, from its creation down to the last days of humanity. In the principal manuscript, Rawlinson B 502 (Bodleian, Oxford), it is followed by two poems of devotion and ten ‘Songs of the Resurrection’, which were added in the late tenth century.