I have developed a huge fondness for The Triads of Ireland or Trecheng Breth Féne.

Trecheng Breth Féne can be translated as ‘A Triad of Judgements of the Irish’ or ‘A Triadic Arrangement of the Sayings of Irishmen.’

These manuscripts form a collection of about 214 texts written in Old Irish which is the Goidelic/Gaelic form of the Celtic languages and in use from c.600 – c.900.

The subjects used in the MSS range from nature to behaviour and law to geography.

Triads or the collection of threes have been used as a mnemonic device the world over but it is specifically linked to the Celtic worlds of Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

A Small Selection of Triads

• The three halidoms of the men of Ireland: breast, cheek, knee.
• Three unfortunate things for a man: a scant drink of water, thirst in an ale-house, a narrow seat upon a field.
• Three unfortunate things of husbandry: a dirty field, leavings of the hurdle, a house full of sparks.
• Three slender things that best support the world: the slender stream of milk from the cow’s dug into the pail, the slender blade of green corn upon the ground, the slender thread over the hand of a skilled woman.
• Three things for which an enemy is loved: wealth, beauty, worth.
• Three laughing-stocks of the world: an angry man, a jealous man, a niggard
• Three live ones that put away dead things: a deer shedding its horn, a wood shedding its leaves, cattle shedding their coat.
• Three impossible demands: go! though you cannot go, bring what you have not got, do what you cannot do.
• Three idiots that are in a bad guest-house: the chronic cough of an old hag, a brainless tartar of a girl, a hobgoblin of a gillie.
• Three things that constitute a harper: a tune to make you cry, a tune to make you laugh, a tune to put you to sleep
• Three nurses of theft: a wood, a cloak, night.

It’s sometimes hard to realise that these sayings are over a thousand years old.