Version B comprises the closely related accounts of the Táin as contained
in the Book of Leinster (abbreviated LL.) and the following MSS.: Stowe
984 (Royal Irish Academy), written in the year 1633 and giving, except for
the loss of a leaf, a complete story of the Táin; H. 1. 13 (Trinity
College, Dublin), written in the year 1745 and giving the Táin entire;
Additional 18748 (abbreviated Add.), British Museum, copied in the year
1800 from a 1730 original; Egerton 209 and Egerton 106 (British Museum),
both fragments and dating from the eighteenth century. Fragments of a
modern version are also found in MS. LIX, Advocates' Library, Edinburgh.

To version C belong only fragments: H. 2. 17 (Trinity College, Dublin),
dating from the end of the fourteenth or the beginning of the fifteenth
century; the almost identical Egerton 93 (British Museum), consisting of
only ten leaves and dating from nearly a century later, and H. 2. 12
(Trinity College, Dublin), consisting of only two pages.[8]


The manuscripts belonging to each of these versions, A, B, and C, have
sufficient traits in common to place them in a group by themselves. The
question of the relationship of these manuscripts to one another and of the
character of the suppositional archetype from which they are all descended
is a most intricate one and one which has given rise to considerable
discussion. The question still awaits a definite answer, which may never be
forthcoming, because of the disappearance not only of the first draft of
the Táin, but also of that of some of its later redactions. We must not
overlook the possibility, either, of an otherwise faithful copyist having
inserted in the text before him a passage, or even an entire episode, of
his own fabrication. This, no doubt, happened not infrequently, especially
in the earlier period of the copying of Irish manuscripts, and a single