The following modern triads I owe to a communication from Dr. P.W. Joyce, who heard them in his youth among the people of Limerick:--
Three things to be distrusted: a cow's horn, a dog's tooth, and a horse's hoof.
Three disagreeable things at home: a scolding wife, a squalling child, and a smoky chimney.
The three finest sights in the world: a field of ripe wheat, a ship in full sail, and the wife of a Mac Donnell with child.[8]
[8] This triad comes from the Glynns of Antrim, the Mac Donnells' district.
In our collection an arrangement of the Triads in certain groups, according to their contents, is discernible. Thus, the first sixty-one--of which, however, the opening thirty-one are no Triads at all--are all topographical; and among the rest, those dealing with legal matters stand out clearly (§§ 149-172).
When the collection was made we have no means of ascertaining, except from internal evidence, such as the age of the language, and a few allusions to events, the date of which we can approximately fix.
The language of the Triads may be described as late Old-Irish. Their verbal system indeed is on the whole that of the Continental glosses,[9] and would forbid us to put them later than the year 900. On the other hand, the following peculiarities in declension, in which all the manuscripts agree, make it impossible for us to put them much earlier than the second half of the ninth century.
[9] I may mention particularly the relative forms _téite_ 167, _bíte_ 127, _ata_ 75, 76, 224, &c., _berta_ (O. Ir. _berte_) 109, 110, _fíchte_ (145), _coillte_ (166), _téite_ (167), _aragellat_ (sic leg. with N) 171; the deponent _neimthigedar_ 116, &c.; _ató_, 'I am' (104), and the use of the perfective _ad-_ in _conaittig_ 77, 78.
The genitive singular of _i-_ and _u-_stems no longer shows the ending _-o_, which has been replaced throughout by _-a_.[10] Now, in the Annals of Ulster, which are a sure guide in these matters and allow us to follow the development of the language from century to century, this genitive in _-o_ is found for the last time in A.D. 816 (_rátho, Ailello_). Thence onward the ending _-a_ is always found.
[10] _rátha_ 56, _foglada_ 92, _flatha_ 151, 248, 253; _dara_ 4, 34; _Ela_ 31, 35, 44 (cf. _Lainne Ela_, AU. 816); _átha_ 50, _betha_ 82, 83, 249.