>>4097That's actually true. I had always been told that anti-Irish sentiment was a creation of imperial Britain. Then I read a book about Carolingian poetry and care across this gem written in the time of Charlemagne:
Now let him carry books, let him bear the burden of affairs,
and prepare barbs to destroy the Irishman.
I shall send these kisses to him as long as I live;
these the fierce wolf gives you, ass with long ears.
Sooner will the dog feed the hare or the cruel wolf feed the lambs,
or the cat turn and flee from the timid mouse,
than a Goth will join with an Irishman in a friendly treaty of peace.
Should an Irishman wish to enter into one it would be all air.
An Irishman shall pay his penalty or flee like the south wind,
however different he may try to be, he is nothing but Irishman.
And also this:
While this is happening, while my poem is being read,
let the miserable Irishman stand there, a lawless and raging thing,
a dire thing, a hideous enemy, a horror of dullness, a terrible plague,
a bane of quarrelsomeness, a wild thing, a great abomination,
a wild thing, a foul thing, a lazy thing, a wicked thing,
a thing hateful to the pious, a thing opposed to the good,
with curved hands, its neck bent back a little,
may it fold its crooked arms across its stupid chest.
Doubting, astonished, trembling, raging, panting,
let it stand there, unstable of hearing, hand, eyes, mind and step.
With swift movement let it repress now one, now another feeling,
at one moment bellowing forth mere groans, at another fierce words.
May it turn now to the reader, now to all the chief men
who are there, doing nothing rationally.
May that savage enemy seethe with the wish to criticise,
but let his ability not match his desire to censure.
He has learnt many things, but nothing fixed and sure.
He, a numbskull, thinks he knows everything.
He did not learn in order to be considered a sage,
but so that he would have arms ready at hand for the fray.