c.700Immram Brain, published in The Voyage of Bran son of Febal to the land of the living (1895, London: David Nutt), pp. 1-35, edited and with translations by Kuno Meyer and Alfred Nutt, stanza 50
Bíaid dia chlaind, densa i ngair, fer cáin i curp críad gil.
Of your progeny, in a short while, will be a fair man in a body of white clay.
c.700 the Irish Infancy Gospel of Thomas, published in "Two Old Irish Poems", in Ériu 18 (1958), pp. 1-27, edited and with translations by James Carney, stanza 1
Imbu macán cóic bliadnae Ísu mac Dé bí, sénais dá huiscén dëac; arros·fí de crí. [MS. IMbu macan coigbliadhna iosa mac de bhi Senais da huiscen deac, ar ros fi de crí]
When Jesus, son of the living God, was a little five-year-old boy, he blessed twelve small pools; he had fenced them in with clay.
c.800, Würzburg Glosses on the Pauline Epistles, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 499–712, Wb. 4c30
c.808, Félire Oengusso, April 19; republished as Whitley Stokes, transl., Félire Óengusso Céli Dé: The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee, Harrison & Sons, 1905:
Luid Ermogin airdirc, iar forbu a glíad, co hÍssu, án soäd, as' uacht chorpáin crïad.
The famed Hermogenes went, after achieving his fight, to Jesus (a splendid change!), out of the coldness of his poor clay body.
c.800–825, Diarmait, Milan Glosses on the Psalms, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 7–483, Ml. 81c14
i.e. that rich earth flows from the mountains onto the firm lands, i.e. which causes fertility to them.
c.800–825, Diarmait, Milan Glosses on the Psalms, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 7–483, Ml. 85c14
.i. ⁊ inní sin fudumain .i. ní cummae fri cach crïeid, airis ansu turcbál essisi ara rigni ⁊ a domnai indaas cech cré.
i.e. and that deep, i.e. it is not the same as any clay, because it is more difficult to emerge from it on account of its tenacity and its depth than any clay.
c.900, Sanas Cormaic, from the Yellow Book of Lecan, Corm. Y 234
Crand .i. cré a fond.
[Cormac believed that the term crann(“tree”) was a univerbation of cré(“clay, earth”) and fonn(“base”)]
c.895–901, Vita tripartita Sancti Patricii, published in Bethu Phátraic: The tripartite life of Patrick (1939, Hodges, Figgis), edited and with translations by Kathleen Mulchrone, line 857
Do·fornde Patraic crois isind licc cona bachaill, ⁊ [...] ⁊ ro·ben in cloich amal bid cre maeth.
Patrick marked out a cross in the stone with his crozier, [...], and he cut into the stone as if it were soft clay.
