A
large fragment of the book remained in a Belgian monastery in trust for
the true representative of the clan; and soon after Waterloo it was given
up to Sir Neal O'Donnell, to whose family it still belongs. It is now
shown at the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy. 'The fragment of the
original _Book of the Battle_', says O'Curry, 'is of small quarto form,
consisting of fifty-eight leaves of fine vellum, written in a small,
uniform, but rather hurried hand, with some slight attempts at
illumination.'
We have now to describe the great increase of books in Northumbria. In
the year 635 Aidan set up his quarters with a few Irish monks on the
Isle of Lindisfarne, and his Abbey soon became one of the main
repositories of learning.
The book called _The Gospels of St. Cuthbert_ was written in 688, and was
regarded for nearly two centuries as the chief ornament of Lindisfarne.
The monastery was burned by the Danes, and the servants of St. Cuthbert,
who had concealed the 'Gospels' in his grave, wandered forth, with the
Saint's body in an ark and the book in its chest, in search of a new
place of refuge. They attempted a voyage to Ireland, but their ship was
driven back by a storm. The book-chest had been washed overboard, but in
passing up the Solway Firth they saw the book shining in its golden cover
upon the sand. For more than a century afterwards the book shared the
fortunes of a wandering company of monks: in the year 995 it was laid on
St.
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