The following volumes, almost all of which existed prior to the year 1100, are also alluded to in our old literature:--The Book of Dubhdaleithe; the Yellow Book of Slane; the original Leabhar na h-Uidhre, or "Book of the Dun Cow"; the Books of Eochaidh O'Flanagain; a certain volume known as the book eaten by the poor people in the desert; the Book of Inis an Dúin; the short Book of Monasterboice; the Books of Flann of Monasterboice; the Book of Flann of Dungiven; the Book of Downpatrick; the Book of Derry; the Book of Sábhal Patrick; the Black Book of St. Molaga; the Yellow Book of St. Molling; the Yellow Book of Mac Murrough; the Book of Armagh (not the one now so called); the Red Book of Mac Egan; the Long Book of Leithlin; the Books of O'Scoba of Clonmacnois; the "Duil" of Drom Ceat; the Book of Clonsost; the Book of Cluain Eidhneach (the ivy meadow) in Leix; and one of the most valuable and often quoted of all, Cormac's great Saltair of Cashel, compiled by Cormac mac Culinan, who was at once king of Munster and archbishop of Cashel,[4] and who fell in battle in 903, according to the chronology of the "Four Masters." The above are certainly only a few of the books in which a large early literature was contained, one that has now perished almost to a page. Michael O'Clery, in the Preface to his Book of Invasions written in 1631, mentions the books from which he and his four antiquarian friends compiled their work--mostly now perished!--and adds:--
"The histories and synchronisms of Erin were written and tested in the presence of those illustrious saints, as is manifest in the great books that are named after the saints themselves and from their great churches; for there was not an illustrious church in Erin that had not a great book of history named from it or from the saints who sanctified it. It would be easy, too, to know from the books which the saints wrote, and the songs of praise which they composed in Irish that they themselves and their churches were the centres of the true knowledge, and the archives and homes of the manuscripts of the authors of Erin in the elder times. But, alas! short was the time until dispersion and decay overtook the churches of the saints, their relics, and their books; for there is not to be found of them now [1631] but a small remnant that has not been carried away into distant countries and foreign nations--carried away so that their fate is unknown from that time unto this."