many naturalists to believe that at some stage they buried themselves in the soft ooze. Such stories were trotted out into the late eighteenth century, even by such writers as Gilbert White (1720–93).14 If White could agree to such absurdities then Cambrensis will be partly forgiven for seeing birds in shellfish and slumberous cranes holding stones.
Topographia Hiberniae is presented in three parts: the position and topography of Ireland, including its natural history; the wonders and miracles of Ireland, and the inhabitants of the country. Cambrensis claimed that he used no written sources for the first two parts and so must have drawn mostly upon his own observations and notes, together with information provided by other people. As shown by his text, Cambrensis did not venture outside the neighbourhoods of Waterford or Cork on his first visit. On his second trip he travelled from Waterford to Dublin, possibly by the coastal route, and he probably visited Arklow and Wicklow. He saw both Kildare and Meath and almost certainly the River Shannon at Athlone, as well as Loughs Ree and Derg.15 In short, Cambrensis remained within the Norman-occupied areas where he would always be granted protection and succour. His commentary is thus biased towards the more fertile and amenable landscapes of Ireland.
The following analysis of the fauna of the time is based on the first version of the three known manuscripts copied from the original work by Cambrensis. This version dates from the twelfth century and is a copy in Latin, translated here by O’Meara.15 For Cambrensis, Ireland was a land ‘fruitful and rich in its fertile soil and plentiful harvests. Crops abound in the fields, flocks on the mountain and wild animals in the woods.’ However, the island was ‘richer in pastures than in crops, and in grass rather than grain’. As to the grass, it was ‘green in the fields in winter just the same as in summer. Consequently the meadows are not cut for fodder, nor do they ever build stalls for their beasts.’
Cambrensis went on to describe the soil, ‘soft and watery, and there are many woods and marshes. Even at the tops of high and steep mountains you will find pools and swamps. Still there are, here and there, some fine plains, but in comparison with the woods they are small.’ Swarms of bees ‘would be much more plentiful if they were not frightened off by the yew trees that are poisonous and bitter, and with which the island woods are flourishing.’ The rivers and lakes were rich in fish, especially salmon, trout and eels, and there were sea lamprey in the River Shannon. Three fish were present in Ireland that were ‘not found anywhere else’ – pollan, shad and charr – but other freshwater fish were ‘wanting’ – pike, perch, roach, gardon (chubb) and gudgeon. The same applied to minnows, loach and bullheads, and ‘nearly all that do not have their seminal origin in tidal rivers…’. They were nowhere to be seen.
Amongst the birds, Cambrensis noted that sparrowhawks and peregrine falcons were abundant, together with ospreys. He pondered why the hawks and falcons never increased their numbers as he observed that many young were born each year but few seemed to survive to adulthood, perhaps a hasty observation as he was hardly there long enough to pay close attention to population dynamics: ‘There is one remarkable thing about these birds, and that is, that no more of them build nests now than did many generations ago. And although their offspring increases every year, nevertheless the number of nest-builders does not increase; but if one pair of birds is destroyed, another takes its place.’ Eagles were as numerous as kites (harriers were often called ‘kites’ in ancient times), quail were plentiful, corncrakes innumerable, capercaillie nested in the woods (by 1800 they had become extinct) and only a few red grouse occupied the hills. ‘Cranes’ were recorded as being so numerous that one flock would contain a ‘hundred or about that number’. Barnacle geese were seen on the coastline while rivers had dippers, described by Cambrensis as a kind of kingfisher: ‘they are smaller than the blackbird, and are found on rivers. They are short like quails.’ True kingfishers were also present on the waterways. Swans (almost certainly whooper or Bewick’s) were very plentiful in the northern part of Ireland. Storks were seldom observed and were the ‘black kind’, but were in fact almost certainly the white or common stork, in view of the extreme scarcity of the black stork in Ireland. There were no black (carrion) crows, or ‘very few’. Crows that were present were ‘of different colours’ – i.e. hooded crows – and were seen dropping shells from the air onto stones, a behaviour often witnessed today. Partridges and pheasants (introduced during Elizabethan times) were absent, as were nightingales (the first Irish record was a migrant at Great Saltee, Co. Wexford, in 1953) and magpies. The historian Richard Stanihurst also observed in 1577 that ‘They lack the Bird called the Pye.’16 All magpies in Ireland today have descended from a ‘parcel of magpies’ that suddenly appeared in Co. Wexford about 1676.17
Floral motifs on cross (c. twelfth century) at Glendalough, Co. Wicklow. From F. Henry (1970) Irish Art in the Romanesque Period 1020–1170 AD. Methuen & Co. Ltd., London
Corroborative evidence for some of Cambrensis’s bird records comes from the remains of bird bones found in a lake dwelling, or crannóg, on a small island in the middle of a shallow lake at Lagore, near Dunshaughlin, Co. Meath. The crannóg dates from ad 700–900 with no evidence of occupancy after the Norman invasion of the twelfth century. Over one thousand bird bones were found during an excavation of the site and most were identified by Stelfox of the Natural History Museum, Dublin.18 The following species, relevant to Cambrensis’s text, were recorded: sea-eagle (four bones), barnacle goose (202 bones or fragments), whooper swan (19 bones), Bewick’s swan (9 bones), corncrake (one bone), crane (25 bones or portions of bones representing cranes of three different sizes) and heron (one skull and one beak). From these last two findings it might be concluded that Cambrensis was right about the abundance of cranes in Ireland, and that he was not confusing them with herons.
While now long extinct, cranes abounded in Ireland during the fourteenth century according to the text Polychronicon written by Ranulphus Higden (c.1299–c.1364), a monk from Chester, England.19 Their bones have been found in the Catacomb (five bones in the lower stratum of cave material, indicating the antiquity of the material) and Newhall Caves (one bone in the upper stratum), Co. Clare, dating back to prehistoric times.20 They were also a dietary item for the Late Bronze Age people of Ballycotton, Co. Cork.21
Animal bone evidence from earlier human settlement sites has shown wild boar, pigeons, duck, grouse, capercaillie and goshawk – another woodland species – at Mount Sandel, over looking the lower reaches of the River Bann, Co. Derry, and dating from some 9,000 years ago. Goshawk bones have also been found at a later Mesolithic site on Dalkey Island, Co. Dublin, and at the Early Bronze age site of Newgrange, Co. Meath. Further south at Boora Bog, near Tullamore, Co. Offaly, human food remains, contemporary with Mount Sandel, included pig, red deer and hare.22
Red deer stags were noted by Cambrensis as ‘not able to escape because of their too great fatness’ whereas the wild boars ‘were small, badly formed and inclined to run away’. Hares were present: ‘but rather small, and very like rabbits both in size and in the softness of their fur’. When put up by dogs ‘they always try to make their escape in cover, as does the fox – in hidden country, and not in the open’. However, when talking about ‘hares’, Cambrensis may have been describing wild rabbits – the behaviour reported is more typical of rabbits than hares – which were introduced by the Normans at about the time of Cambrensis’s visits. Pine martens occurred commonly in the woods, where they were hunted day and night, and badgers, according to the Welshman, frequented ‘rocky and mountainous places’. Cambrensis states that the following were absent from Ireland: moles, wild goats, deer, hedgehogs (later recorded by the historian Roderic O’Flaherty in 1684), beavers and polecats. Mice, on the other hand, were ‘infinite in numbers and consume much more grain than anywhere else’. There were no ‘poisonous reptiles’, nor ‘snakes, toads or frogs, tortoises or scorpions’.
This last statement has repeatedly been taken by naturalists as evidence that there were no native frogs in Ireland, leading
