SR 21-280 is based on a lost eighth-century cosmological tract drawing on: De ordine creaturarum (Pseudo-Isidore); Pliny’s Historia naturalis, ii; Isidore of Seville; etc.
Brück (M. T.), Conway-Piskorski (M.): A medieval Irish treatise on astronomy recalled, with a memoir of its translator and editor, Maura Power (1887–1916).
Argues that Isidore was not influential in Irish scholarly circles until the end of the seventh century. [1.] De Mirabilibus Sacrae Scripturae; [2.] De Ordine Creaturarum; [3.] Hisperica famina; [4.] Virgilius Maro Grammaticus; [4.] Some other texts; [5.] Conclusion.
vs. DIL s.v. Seiria ‘Syria’, Seiricda ‘Syrian’. Ir. Seiria, Seiricda, and Serdae derive from L Sēres (nom. pl.), Sēricus (adj.) ‘Chinese’; also on Seir, son of Adam, whose descendants survived the Flood.
The chief scribe of MS RIA B ii 1 is Aedh Buidhe Ó Leighin, scribe of the herbal tract in MS TCD 1343 (H 3.22); with palaeographical analysis. Also on Donncha Ó Conuill, a former owner of B, and the literary family of Ó Conuill. Includes plts.
FitzPatrick (Siobhán): The heavens, earth and imagined islands: an introduction to the medieval medical and astronomical resources of the Royal Irish Academy Library.
On the origin of the description of the position of Ireland in the 11th c. ‘Míniugud’ recension of Lebor gabála Érenn (cf. R. Thurneysen, Zu irischen Handschriften und Literaturdenkmälern, §15. Leabhar gabhála [Best² 1017]).
Discusses the various versions of this list, as transmitted in Saltair na rann, the ‘Pseudo-Bede’ texts, the Reference Bible, the Irish Liber de numeris, and In tenga bithnua, particularly dwelling upon the interpretation of ‘Olympus’ as one of the levels in the sky of the Christian universe.
Smyth (Marina): Understanding the universe in seventh-century Ireland.
SCH, 15. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1996. vii + 341 pp. (Studies in Celtic history, 15).
Rev. by
Máire Herbert, in IHS 31, nº 121 (May, 1998), pp. 124-125.
Gilbert Márkus, in Early medieval Europe 7/2 (Jul., 1998), pp. 371-372.
D. P. McCarthy, in Peritia 10 (1996), pp. 407-410.
Jean Rittmueller, in CMCS 34 (Winter, 1997), pp. 116-117.