THE WAR OF THE GAEDHIL WITH THE GAILL, OR THE INVASIONS OF IRELAND BY THE DANES AND OTHER NORSEMEN. THE ORIGINAL IRISH TEXT, EDITED, WITH TRANSLATION AND INTRODUCTION

London, England: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1867. First Edition. Leather-bound. Very Good Plus. Large octavo, 10 in. x 6.7 in., pp. ccvii, 349, [3], 16 (advertising). Illustrated with two color frontispieces, one of which folds out. Luxuriously rebound in dark red half morocco with decorative tolling in blind over gray marbled boards. Gilt title on black panel, and four raised band with gilt bandlines, to spine. Newer endpapers. Printed marginalia, with a few additional marginal notes written in by previous owner. Light spotting to preliminary pages and final advertising pages. The text offers the original Medieval Gaelic facing the English translation.

Editor James Henthorn Todd (1805 - 1869) was a biblical scholar, educator, and Irish historian. He is noted for his efforts to place religious disagreements on a rational historical footing, for his advocacy of a liberal form of Protestantism, and for his endeavors as an educator, librarian, and scholar of Irish history. Todd's last major work was Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh: The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill (1867), drawn from two Irish texts (one of which is dated c.1150) and including translations, notes, and genealogies. (Dictionary of Irish Biography)

"Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib" is a medieval Irish text that tells of the depredations of the Vikings and Uí Ímair dynasty in Ireland and the Irish king Brian Boru's great war against them, beginning with the Battle of Sulcoit in 967 and culminating in the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, in which Brian was slain but his forces were victorious. The chronicle, which compares King Brian to Augustus and Alexander the Great, was written in the early twelfth century, at least a hundred years after the events it describes. Much of the narrative is drawn from the earlier Annals of Ulster.