Lebor Gabála Érenn — The Book of Invasions
c. 1000–1150 CE (compiled); oral tradition much older · Medieval Irish · Ireland
*This translation is not currently available.* Lebor Gabála Érenn ("The Book of the Taking of Ireland") is a medieval Irish compilation describing a mythic sequence of invasions of Ireland from the Flood through the Milesians. The standard English edition, by R.A.S. Macalister for the Irish Texts Society, was published across five volumes between 1938 and 1956 and copyright renewal status is uncertain. No complete pre-1929 English translation exists. We are actively exploring ways to include this text. Subscribe to our email list at anunnaki.ai for updates when new texts are added.
notes
Lebor Gabála Érenn ("The Book of the Taking of Ireland"), known in English as the Book of Invasions, is a medieval Irish mythological text compiled around 1000–1150 CE, drawing on much older oral traditions about the successive waves of mythical peoples who occupied Ireland before the historical Irish (the Gaels). The text synthesises pre-Christian Irish mythology with biblical chronology — Cessair arrives before the Flood, the Tuatha Dé Danann ("People of the Goddess Danu") are the Irish gods recast as superhuman invaders, and history ends with the sons of Míl (the ancestors of the Irish people) driving the Tuatha Dé underground into the síde (fairy mounds). The four treasures of the Tuatha Dé — the Stone of Destiny, the Spear of Lugh, the Sword of Nuada, and the Cauldron of the Dagda — correspond to the four cardinal directions and the four elements, and reappear in later Welsh and Arthurian mythology as the Grail and its associated hallows. The Morrigan, the Dagda, Lugh, Dian Cécht, and the cycle of divine battles represent the most complete surviving account of the Irish pantheon. Translation draws on Lady Gregory, Gods and Fighting Men (1904). Public domain. Presented here as selected passages.
currently held: Book of Leinster; Rawlinson MS B 512
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