Written in 1185 for an English audience by Gerald of Wales, an Anglo-Norman, The History And Topography Of Ireland is a guide to a newly conquered land. Gerald had been part of the war party sent by King Henry II, and led by the King's son, the future King John. The text is fiercely anti-Irish, casually anti-Semitic, and full of tall tales. And yet it the chief source of primary material about Ireland in the Middle Ages.

The first part of the book contains a physical description of the land of Ireland, and a descripton of its flora and fauna. While some of his descriptions seem credible, he also reports of a species of bird which spontaneously grows from trees without parents, and even presents this as proof of the Virgin Birth.

In the second part of the book, he reports tales which he admits sound improbable, but which came to him from unimpeachable sources. Included in this section is the story of a wolfman, available under a different translation from the Latin online as pdf.

The final section of the book is given over to a discussion of the Irish people and their history. He connects the name Hibernia to the Spanish river Hiberus (Ebro), which flows into the Mediterranean near Barcelona. This he presumes is the original home of the Celtic tribes which settled in Ireland. He even argues that this justifies the rule of the English King Henry II in Ireland, for Henry (through his wife Eleanor) was lord of Aquitaine in southwest France, adjacent to the source of the Ebro in the Pyrenees.

Gerald describes the Irish people as uniformly barbaric, with only a talent for music to recommend them. It contains a brief description of Patrick's conversion of the island to Christianity, though Gerald is uncharacteristically skeptical of the notion that Patrick purged the island of poisonous reptiles.

The full text of this book does not appear to be available online, but the text of Gerald's The Conquest of Ireland is available on pdf. I hope you don't find it a downer to read about the original English conquest, because I wish you a Happy St. Patrick's Day.

(Cross-posted at Open Source Novel Blog)