The Traditionary Ballad — sometimes called the Manannan Metrical History or the Manx Chronicle in Verse — is the oldest surviving piece of Manx historical verse. Composed in Manx Gaelic between 1504 and 1522, it was first translated into English by Joseph Train in 1845. The full Manx Gaelic text with literal English translation also appears in the Mona Miscellany (Manx Society Vol. XXI, 1873).

The ballad records the tribute paid to Manannán: the rent each landholder paid was a bundle of coarse meadow grass yearly. It describes his protection of the Island: he would set a man standing on a hill to appear as if he were a hundred, "and thus did wild Mannanan protect that Island with all its booty." It names the two places the rushes were carried: South Barrule and Cronk y Voddy.

The ballad then records Saint Patrick’s arrival and Manannán’s expulsion, the establishment of Christianity, the succession of bishops and kings, and the coming of the Stanley family. It preserves the ecclesiastical settlement: "for each four quarterlands he made a chapel, for people of them to meet in prayer." It is at once a political chronicle, a record of ancient tribute, and a statement of identity — the Island’s oldest surviving account of itself, in its own language.