A still more celebrated work, now unfortunately lost, the _Saltair of Tara_, has been universally attributed to Cormac by Irish scholars. Perhaps we should rather say it was compiled under his direction. "It contained," says an ancient writer in the _Book of Ballymote_, "the synchronisms and genealogies, as well as the succession of the [Irish] kings and monarchs, their battles, their contests, and their antiquities from the world's beginning down to the time it was written. And this is the _Saltair of Tara, which is the origin and fountain of the histories of Erin_ from that period down to the present time." "This," adds the writer in the _Book of Ballymote_, "is taken from the _Book of Ua Chongbhail_"--that is the _Book of Navan_--a still more ancient but now lost work. Not only do the writer in the ancient _Book of Navan_, and the copyist in the _Book of Ballymote_, expressly attribute this work to Cormac, but a still more ancient authority, the poet Cuan O'Lochain, who died in A.D. 1024, has this stanza in his poem on Tara:-- "He [Cormac] compiled the _Saltair of Tara_, In that _Saltair_ is contained The best summary of history; It is the _Saltair_ which assigns Seven chief kings to Erin of harbours," &c., &c. And it is, indeed, self-evident to the careful student of our annals that there must have been some one ancient "origin and fountain" from which the subsequent historians of Erin have derived their information--which existing monuments prove to be quite accurate--concerning the reign of Cormac and his more immediate predecessors in Ireland. The man who restored the Feis of Tara, and who, as we shall presently see, was also a celebrated judge and lawyer, was exactly such a person of forethought and culture as would gather together the poets and historians of his kingdom to execute under his own immediate direction this great work for the benefit of posterity. Keating tells us that it was called the _Saltair of Tara_ because the chief Ollave of Tara had it in his official custody; and as Cormac Mac Cullinan's Chronicle was called the _Saltair of Cashel_, and the Biblical Poem of Aengus the Culdee was called the _Saltair na Rann_, so this great compilation was named the _Saltair of Tara_. This, as O'Curry remarks, disposes of Petrie's objection that its name would rather indicate the Christian origin of the book. The answer is simple--Cormac never called the book by this name, as surely the compilers of the great works known as the _Book of Ballymote_ or the _Book of Leinster_ never called those famous compilations by their present names. Cormac was also a distinguished jurist--of that we have conclusive evidence in the _Book of Aicill_, which has been published in the third volume of the Brehon Law publications. The book itself is most explicit as to its authorship, and everything in the text goes to confirm the statements in the introduction, part of which is worth reproducing here.