The triumph tree : Scotland's earliest poetry, 550-1350

"The Triumph Tree" brings together for the first time the poetry of five languages--Latin, Welsh, Gaelic, Anglo Saxon and Norse--in an accessible, scholarly anthology of translations that form a spectacular window on Scotland's past.

Ranging from war to religion, nature to love, the quality and power of these poems display the riches of a vanished world.

Alongside famous works such as "The Gododdin" (here in its most faithful translation yet) and "The Dream of the Road," are poems by and for St Columbia, the homesick verse of Gaelic poets on crusade, the court skalds of the Orkney earls, poems in praise of strong drinkers, harps, books and islands, and much else besides--many of which have never before appeared in translation.