coire sois

C o i r e So i s

© 2014 University of Notre Dame

Coire Sois

The Cauldron of Knowledge

A C O M PA N I O N T O E A R LY I R I S H S A G A

T O M Á S Ó C A T H A S A I G H

EDITED BY MATTHIEU BOYD

University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana


Copyright © 2014 by University of Notre DameNotre Dame, Indiana 46556

www.undpress.nd.eduAll Rights Reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ó Cathasaigh, Tomás.Coire Sois, The Cauldron of Knowledge : a Companion to Early Irish Saga /

Tomás Ó Cathasaigh ; edited by Matthieu Boyd.pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-0-268-03736-9 (pbk.) — ISBN 0-268-03736-1 (paper)

1. Irish literature—To 1100—History and criticism. 2. Irish literature—Middle Irish, 1100–1550—History and criticism.

3. Epic literature, Irish—History and criticism. I. Boyd, Matthieu, editor of compilation. II. Title.

PB1321.O34 2013891.6'209001—dc23

2013029855

∞ The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelinesfor Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.


Contents

Foreword by Declan Kiberd ix

Preface by Matthieu Boyd xv

Acknowledgments xxi

Abbreviations xxv

Maps xxviii

1 Introduction: Irish Myths and Legends (2005) 1

PA RT 1 . T H EM E S

2 The Semantics of síd (1977–79) 19

3 Pagan Survivals: The Evidence of Early Irish Narrative (1984) 35

4 The Concept of the Hero in Irish Mythology (1985) 51

5 The Sister’s Son in Early Irish Literature (1986) 65

6 Curse and Satire (1986) 95

7 The Threefold Death in Early Irish Sources (1994) 101

8 Early Irish Literature and Law (2006–7) 121


PA RT 2 . T E X T S

The Cycles of the Gods and Goddesses

9 Cath Maige Tuired as Exemplary Myth (1983) 135

10 The Eponym of Cnogba (1989) 155

11 Knowledge and Power in Aislinge Óenguso (1997) 165

12 “The Wooing of Étaín” (2008) 173

The Ulster Cycle

13 Táin Bó Cúailnge (2002) 187

14 Mythology in Táin Bó Cúailnge (1993) 201

15 Táin Bó Cúailnge and Early Irish Law (2005) 219

16 Sírrabad Súaltaim and the Order of Speaking among

the Ulaid (2005) 238

17 Ailill and Medb: A Marriage of Equals (2009) 249

18 Cú Chulainn, the Poets, and Giolla Brighde Mac Con

Midhe (2005) 259

19 Reflections on Compert Conchobuir and Serglige

Con Culainn (1994) 271

The Cycles of the Kings

20 “The Expulsion of the Déisi” (2005) 283

21 On the LU Version of “The Expulsion of the Déisi” (1976) 293

22 The Déisi and Dyfed (1984) 301

23 The Theme of lommrad in Cath Maige Mucrama (1980–81) 330

24 The Theme of ainmne in Scéla Cano meic Gartnáin (1983) 342

25 The Rhetoric of Scéla Cano meic Gartnáin (1989) 352

vi Contents


Contents vii

26 The Rhetoric of Fingal Rónáin (1985) 376

27 On the Cín Dromma SnechtaVersion of

Togail Brudne Uí Dergae (1990) 399

28 Gat and díberg in Togail Bruidne Da Derga (1996) 412

29 The Oldest Story of the Laigin: Observations on Orgain

Denna Ríg (2002) 422

30 Sound and Sense in Cath Almaine (2004) 439

The Fenian Cycle

31 Tóraíocht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne (1995) 449

The Pursuit of Diarmaid and Gráinne (translated by the

author, 2011) 466

Further Reading (compiled by Matthieu Boyd) 484

Notes 501

Bibliography of Tomás Ó Cathasaigh 551

Works Cited 555

Index 589


ForewordDeclan Kiberd

Tomás Ó Cathasaigh is one of a generation of scholars whose intellectual

formation owes as much to French poststructuralism as to native interpre-

tative traditions. His early essays appeared not only in Éigse but also in The

Crane Bag, a journal of ideas whose very title encapsulated that moment

when old Irish legend was invoked under the sign of continental literary

theory. Repeatedly in the following pages, he cites the work of Georges

Dumé zil on the three functions of warrior and hero mythology in Indo-

European narrative: sacred sovereignty; physical force; fertility and food

production. Yet, unlike many scholars who found a guru and a method

when Paris dictated fashions in cultural analysis, Ó Cathasaigh cheerfully

admits at an early stage of his application that Dumézil’s approach may

well be superseded; for the present, he concludes, it is the theory that ac-

counts most fully for the workings of the texts under scrutiny.

There is an equally delicious moment in another essay when Ó Catha-

saigh offers two quotations from that maître à penser, Claude Lévi-Strauss,

on the structure of ancient myth: the sentences quoted are rather at odds

with one another, but Ó Cathasaigh is content to note the discrepancy as

an element in the range of possible interpretations, leaving resolution for

some other time.

This is typical of his method with his own predecessors in the study of

early Irish texts. In often-packed paragraphs, he offers reviews of the various

ix


mythological, historical, and linguistic approaches to Cú Chulainn or Fionn.

These reviews sometimes hint at the conflicts between famous scholars

without ever accusing them of fanaticism and without remarking that such

monomania was of just that warlike kind warned against by many monk-

ish redactors of the old tales.

As a gifted teacher, Ó Cathasaigh has the gift of explanation rather than

simplification. He feels the need to acquaint his students with the range of

past approaches, even as he develops his own method. There is a mellow,

amused, sometimes vaguely regretful note in his surveys of the scholarly

battlefield, but also an insistence on saying his piece, even though in saying

it he will usually concede that there will be many more analyses to trump

his own. That note of tentative, enquiring reverence for the text under dis-

cussion and of respect for all scholars past and future is still unusual enough

in the field to be worthy of celebration.

Why did early Irish literature become, rather like Shakespeare’s texts

in the nineteenth century, a happy hunting ground for zealotry and fanati-

cism among commentators? Some of this could be put down to the vanity

of gifted pioneers in a developing discipline; more again might be attrib-

uted to the strident patriotism of certain nationalist interpreters of “the

matter of Ireland”; but the main reason for such repressive analyses may

have been a puritanical fear of art, the sort of panic that often overwhelms a

mind confronted by the uncontrollable nature of literary texts. Many schol-

ars were rather like patients in the early years of psychoanalysis who aborted

the analysis not long after it had begun. Fearing the potent force of stories

rich in emotional and symbolic power, they retreated into a merely linguis-

tic or historical analysis, treating those texts as a means of establishing the

rules of grammar or syntax or of understanding the surrounding world pic-

ture. The idea that each text might be the passionate utterance of a literary

artist was the last thing most wanted to think about.

Ó Cathasaigh is quite trenchant and steadfast about this: “In general

we can say that an appreciation of the conceptual framework which under-

lies early Irish narrative is an essential element in the criticism of individual

works. But whereas, in this respect as in others, the historian can cast light

on the early texts by virtue of his knowledge and interpretation of other

(non-literary) sources, there are strict limits to the amount of historical in-

formation which may be extracted from what are, after all, literary texts.”

That is a modest and timely warning to Celtic scholars of the autonomy of

the creative imagination. Even the criticism of modern Irish texts, restricted

x Foreword


to a largely linguistic analysis in the first half of the twentieth century, ran in

the second half of that century the equal risks of reducing literature to fod-

der for historians. While it was certainly a good thing that some historians

were now competent enough in Irish to use its materials, some of them, in

taking the figurative promises of lovers over-literally, may have inferred a

degree of material comfort in Gaelic society of the eighteenth century that

did not widely exist. With much the same reservation in mind, it has to be

said that a great lament like Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire (“The Lament for

Art O’Leary”) was something more than an exercise in rural sociology or

indeed an example of composition by a group. As one reads and admires

Ó Cathasaigh’s attempts to restore and respect the artistic nature of the

foundational texts under his scrutiny, one is struck by a singular irony: the

period in which he wrote many of these essays was one in which scholars

of modern Irish-language texts often performed a reverse maneuver on,

say, Caoineadh Airt, seeking to highlight it as an example of communal

tradition rather than individual talent.

Ó Cathasaigh remarks that writers of English have turned to the leg-

ends and sagas for inspiration far more often than writers of modern Irish.

That is undeniable—the achievements of a Yeats, Synge, or George Russell

in recasting the story of Deirdre and the Sons of Uisneach are proof enough

of that. Yet the persistence of this story as the most popular of Trí Truaighe

na Scéalaíochta (“The Three Sorrows of Storytelling”), while a sign of its

artistic brilliance, must also have answered a felt need in more modern so-

cieties, wracked not only by emigration but also by guilt at the treatment

of those migrants intrepid enough to return. It might even be said that the

gae bolga, which explodes on entering the skin, was taken by more modern

tellers as a prefiguration of the dum-dum bullet; or that accounts of the

periodic bouts of depression overtaking heroes prefigure the jaded state of

a society deprived of hope or innovation. Indeed, the obsession in so many

tales and poems with the loss of sovereignty by flawed leaders must strike

any young student now reading them in Dublin as a prophecy of an Ire-

land that they will, in all likelihood, have to leave. Although all the classic

texts must be allowed to breathe in their own time and setting, there is every

reason for current writers to want to make them live again as exempla of

continuing crises in Irish culture.

And there is evidence that contemporary writers of Irish, such as

Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, are turning for inspiration and guidance to texts

that were once of great interest to the revival generation. Ó Cathasaigh,

Foreword xi


with characteristic modesty, suggests that many students may prioritize

the study of modern Irish over early Irish literature; but, if anything, the

reverse is true—the early texts provide one of the great literatures of Eu-

rope, beside which the writings in the modern Irish language, however

brilliant, read like something of a coda.

The essays in this volume will be gratefully read by scholars of Irish

literature in English for the light that they cast on such topics as the rela-

tion between god and man as mediated through a hero-figure, or for the

ways in which they illuminate the difference between the story of Cú Chu-

lainn (about his integration into Ulster society) and Fionn (expressing his

extra-social status as a mercenary warrior for hire). If religion mediates

man’s relation with destiny, morality deals with the attempts by mortals to

regulate their dealings with one another—and it is on the cusp between

these zones that the hero-figure comes into his own. Ó Cathasaigh has his

own way of suggesting that the religious and moral impulse may clash with

and destroy one another in the end: he finds in Tochmarc Étaíne (“The

Wooing of Étaín”) a narrative commentary on “the relationship between

god and man, between the denizens of the síde and the men and women

living on the surface of Ireland.”

There is much to learn from these pages, whose insights might assist

even readers of Finnegans Wake. Ó Cathasaigh laments at one point that

Giambattista Vico’s comment (that the first science to be learned should be

the interpretation of fables) has left little impression upon the intellectual

life of Ireland—but it certainly fascinated James Joyce, whose last work is

an attempt to locate all knowledge from the Christian Gospels to the An-

nals of the Four Masters within a narrative that spans Vico’s ages of gods,

heroes, and peoples. That said and admitted, it would of course be wrong if

Irish legend were to be seen simply as (in Ó Cathasaigh’s phrase) “a quarry

for modern creative writers.” The whole burden of these essays is that it

constitutes a great literature in its own right and not a mere backdrop to

the study of any other.

Ó Cathasaigh’s emphasis on the text serves as a corrective in his mind

to a possible over-emphasis on the life of a writer, the accompanying world

picture, or even the implied readers and audiences. (Borrowing from M.H.

Abrams, he uses the terms “the work,” “the artist,” “the universe,” and “the

audience.”) In this he may reflect something of the protocols of close read-

ing, which came to prominence in the middle decades of the twentieth

xii Foreword


century, especially in English literary studies, under the influence of major

thinkers like Abrams, W.K. Wimsatt, or, indeed, Denis Donoghue (who had

a huge following in the lecture-halls of University College Dublin when

Ó Cathasaigh was a young scholar). To those nativists who might object

that such protocols are of little relevance to a literature produced out of

very different conditions, the answer must surely be: why not? The work,

as Ó Cathasaigh says, “is our point of departure, and to it we must always

return.” But there are pressing reasons, other than the mid-twentieth-

century fashion of treating texts as autonomous artifacts, for taking a se-

verely literary approach: “There are, of course, literary critics who would

in any case argue the primacy of work-based criticism on theoretical

grounds, but in regard to early Irish literature we need only appeal to the

purely practical consideration that the work is virtually all that we have

at our disposal in the way of evidence.” Writing brilliantly of the Táin,

Ó Catha saigh marvels that, despite the limited but interesting range of in-

terpretations, commentators have chosen to ignore rather than contest what

literary criticism exists. Most of the essays here are a plea to fellow scholars

to look up from their grammatical dictionaries and to engage in the wider

debate. Nor should scholars of modern Irish feel excluded from the discus-

sion, which might lead some of them to question some of Ó Cathasaigh’s

own analyses. For instance, he disputes the suggestion that Cú Chulainn

is a Christ-like personage, but a figure who combines pagan ferocity with a

death while strapped to a pillar will continue to strike many of us as a pre -

figuration of muscular Christians, a sort of English public-schoolboy in

the drag of Celtic hero.

Ó Cathasaigh’s invitation to scholars is pressing in its pragmatism but

also in its confidence in the artistic value of the works to be studied. Ear-

lier scholars who mined texts for their philological or historical learning

were in all likelihood often lacking in such confidence: without ever quite

realizing it, they may have feared that early Irish literature was often infe-

rior as literature. It is a noteworthy and welcome development that in re-

cent decades some of the leading commentators on modern Irish-language

literature, such as Seán Ó Coileáin and Philip O’Leary, have themselves

written on the early Irish tales in a manner that vindicates Ó Cathasaigh’s

methods. For his own part, Ó Cathasaigh (again following Abrams) is su -

premely interested in the rhetorical devices of voice and authorial address

that seem to conjure in turn an implied reader of a certain kind, trained in

Foreword xiii


such literary devices. Yet he also remains grateful for the continuing work

of historians and grammarians: “It has to be said that an immense amount

of work remains to be done on early Irish literature: most of the texts stand

in need of competent edition and translation, not to speak of interpreta-

tion and evaluation.”

Despite that need, the discipline of early Irish studies stands currently,

in Irish universities at any rate, in real danger of collapse. The main source

of that danger is a Higher Education Authority (and its agents in campus

administrations) determined to introduce “business methods” to the study

of the humanities and, in so doing, to count the number of students in every

classroom. There is reason to believe that the rather cranky methods adopted

by some scholars of Old Irish may have turned bright young people away

from it to work in other areas. If that is true, then Ó Cathasaigh’s exciting,

open-minded approach to narrative as art provides a perfect antidote along

with the promise of revival. There may never be huge numbers studying

Old Irish in Dublin or other cities, but it is no exaggeration to say that the

health of their discipline provides a reliable indication of the true state of

both academia and the nation. If ancient kings were enjoined to protect the

sovereignty of the polity, placing duty to that order above short-term con-

siderations, there ought to be a similar constraint on today’s education au-

thorities and university presidents. Otherwise, the work of all academics is

in vain; and the ces noínden (period of debility) that immobilized the men

of the Táinmay last even longer in our time than it did in theirs. A people

without a clear sense of the past will cease to form a conception of the fu-

ture. Ó Cathasaigh quotes a famous bardic poem that suggests that if the

old texts are allowed to die, then people will know nothing more than the

name of their own fathers. The warning may be even more apposite now

than when Giolla Brighde Mac Con Midhe issued it.

xiv Foreword


PrefaceMatthieu Boyd

For over thirty years, Tomás Ó Cathasaigh has been one of the foremost

interpreters of early Irish narrative literature qua literature. His method

combines a rare philological acuity with painstaking literary analysis.

Ó Cathasaigh broke new ground with his insistence that the extraor-

dinarily rich and varied corpus of early Irish literature “cannot be properly

understood except as literature, with due allowance being made for its his-

torical dimension.” In “Pagan Survivals: The Evidence of Early Irish Nar-

rative” (1984), the item in this volume that gives the fullest attention to

scholarly trends, he remarked: “the tendency has been to conduct the dis-

cussion of Irish texts principally in terms either of the artists who have pro-

duced them or of the universe which is reflected in them, so that there is

a pressing need to analyze the extant texts as literary works in their own

right.” Later, in his study of “The Rhetoric of Fingal Rónáin,” he added

frankly that “Irish studies has not had enough of the cultivation of literary

scholarship as an intellectual discipline.”

If he was correct in this, the phenomenon can partly be explained by the

initial difficulty posed by the language of the texts and by the time and effort

needed to develop the linguistic tools that literary critics would require.

The Royal Irish Academy Dictionary of the Irish Language, begun in 1913, was

only completed in 1976, and the Lexique étymologique de l’irlan dais ancien,

begun in 1959, remains unfinished. Even now, despite considerable progress

xv


in the last three decades, the field continues to feel the lack of modern edi-

tions and translations of important works.

However, there was also a question of attitudes. Previously, the liter-

ary texts had been treated as repositories of linguistic forms, historical

data, and mythological debris to be exploited by philologists, historians,

and mytholo gists, often for predetermined purposes. They were invariably

seen as the products of mere scribes or redactors rather than self-conscious

literary art ists. Some scholars, like T. F. O’Rahilly, went so far as to consider

the texts to be in error vis-à-vis their theories. Ó Cathasaigh’s point was

that, regardless of the origins of a particular text, it could be profitably

studied in the form in which it has come down to us, with respect to the

rhetorical strategies employed, or the sustained development of key themes

either within a single text (as in “The Theme of lommrad in Cath Maige

Mucrama” [1980– 81]), or in a number of texts (as in “The Semantics of

síd” [1977– 79]). His studies revealed a hitherto unsuspected degree of nar-

ratorial art and thematic consistency within and among the sagas to which

he gave his attention. He sometimes achieved this through the judicious

application of theoretical frameworks such as Dumézil’s trifunctional ap-

proach to Indo-European myth, which he was among the first to bring to

bear. He was not shackled to literary criticism, however, and was also able

to produce outstanding historical research (e.g., in “The Déisi and Dyfed”

[1984]) and technical studies of manuscript redactions and early Irish

grammar.

After nearly two decades of such work, it was natural that Ó Catha-

saigh should have been asked to survey “Early Irish Narrative Literature”

in the volume on Progress in Medieval Irish Studies edited by Kim McCone

and Katharine Simms (see Ó Cathasaigh 1996b, a valuable snapshot of the

field); but with characteristic modesty he said hardly anything there about

his own contributions. Patrick Sims-Williams, in his 2009 John V. Kelleher

Lecture at Harvard University, “How Our Understanding of Early Irish Lit-

erature Has Progressed,” was not so reticent. He identified two major ad-

vances of the past few decades: (1) the realization that early Irish literary

texts are attuned to the political conditions in which they were redacted,

and can be analyzed as propaganda; and (2) the realization that early Irish

literary texts can be analyzed as works of literature, on their own terms.

The first approach is exemplified by the work of Donnchadh Ó Corráin

and Máire Herbert; the second by that of Ó Cathasaigh.

xvi Preface


It is no longer necessary to justify a literary-critical approach to early

Irish texts. Ó Cathasaigh was swiftly joined in this by Kim McCone, Joseph

Nagy, Philip O’Leary, Joan Radner, William Sayers, and others. They in turn

have been followed by a new generation of scholars. One thing that consis-

tently distinguishes Ó Cathasaigh’s work is the respect in which it is held

by scholars on both sides of ideological divides, such as the well-known

nativist/antinativist tension that became acute upon the publication in

1990 of Kim McCone’s Pagan Past and Christian Present in Early Irish Lit-

erature. Often, Ó Cathasaigh’s reading of an early Irish saga is the basis for

all subsequent work.

Medievalists in other areas, treading (perhaps unconsciously) in the

tracks of nineteenth-century Celtic enthusiasts like Ernest Renan and Mat -

thew Arnold, too often have an unfortunate tendency to treat early Irish

literature as exotic, mystical, and mystifying, calling it (for instance) “ex-

tremely rich in color, fresh and sensuous description and imagery, a delight

in nature, and a delight in the play of language” but at the same time “weak

in consistent or logical narrative force, devoid of character development,

and lacking in subtlety” (Colish 1997, 85). Ó Cathasaigh’s body of work is

a definitive rebuttal of such perceptions. The way he makes us see both the

subtlety and the logic in this literature lays a strong foundation for compara -

tive study and opens early Irish saga to the appreciation of the wider world.

With the exception of his book, The Heroic Biography of Cormac mac

Airt (1977)—which Patrick K. Ford, his future Harvard colleague, described

as “the best and most solid piece of comparative analysis of early Irish lit-

erature to appear in some time” (1979, 836)—Ó Cathasaigh has chosen to

express himself through articles in scholarly journals and edited collections.

It may be said that the lasting fame of journals such as Celtica, Éigse, and

Ériu is due in no small part to his contributions.

This volume brings together Ó Cathasaigh’s most important articles

published over a period of some thirty years. For most of this time, he was

employed at University College Dublin, where he attained the rank of Statu-

tory Lecturer. In 1995, he became Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Irish Stud-

ies at Harvard University, where he remains in 2013.

The book is by no means a definitive collection of Ó Cathasaigh’s

oeuvre. He has important contributions currently in press and many oth-

ers still to be written. Nevertheless, the articles appearing here are proven

classics, or “instant classics” of unmistakable value, and having them at last

Preface xvii


between two covers will not only make them more accessible to those who

are already used to citing them, but also help a new audience to discover

them and the fascinating literature that they discuss.

HOW THIS BOOK IS ORGANIZED

The contents of this book are subdivided into “Themes” (studies on over-

arching or recurrent issues in the field) and “Texts” (studies on individual

literary works). An article like “The Theme of lommrad in Cath Maige Mu-

crama,” which is an elucidation of a single saga, appears under “Texts.”

“Texts” has been further subdivided into the conventional Cycles: the Cy-

cles of the Gods and Goddesses (to use Ó Cathasaigh’s preferred designa-

tion, as against “the Mythological Cycle”); the Ulster Cycle; the Cycles of

the Kings; and the Fenian Cycle.

Articles are in chronological order within each group, except that

“Texts” articles on the same subject (Táin Bó Cúailnge, “The Expulsion of

the Déisi,” Scéla Cano meic Gartnáin, and Togail Bruidne Da Derga) appear

together for ease of reference, and have sometimes been reordered to begin

with the most general or accessible treatment, followed by more focused or

specialized discussions.

The volume opens with “Irish Myths and Legends,” Ó Cathasaigh’s 2005

Anders Ahlqvist Lecture, which introduces the Cycles and many of the major

topics that the articles explore in more detail. It is the work of a mature

scholar presenting his subject through the lens of his own expertise.

At the end of the volume are a few suggestions for “Further Read-

ing” relating to each article, which are intended to show the current state

of scholarship with respect to the text or theme that Ó Cathasaigh discusses.

These suggestions are not meant to be exhaustive, nor do they include

sources that Ó Cathasaigh himself has cited; rather, they emphasize new

work and conflicting interpretations. The scantiness of the Further Read-

ing in some cases indicates that very little has been done on Ó Cathasaigh’s

subject since he wrote about it—these may be especially productive topics

for future research.

New editions and translations of early Irish texts are normally not

mentioned in the Further Reading section. Rather, this information can be

found in the list of Works Cited; for every edition that Ó Cathasaigh cites,

xviii Preface


the entry also identifies any more recent editions that have appeared, which

then have their own entries in the Works Cited.

EDITORIAL INTERVENTION

Obvious misprints in the original publications (on the order of “Rawlin-

son 5 B02” for “Rawlinson B 502” or “kinship” for “kingship”) have been

silently corrected. Further corrections have been made only with the au-

thor’s knowledge and approval. When a statement in the original article is

no longer true, a correction appears in square brackets.

British English spellings have been changed to American English, ex-

cept in quotations. The occasional Irishism has been amended for the bene -

fit of North American readers.

The spelling of proper nouns such as names and titles of Irish texts has

been standardized across the volume, except in quotations from the second-

ary literature. The spellings are those that Ó Cathasaigh currently prefers:

Cúailnge instead of Cúailgne is one example. The spelling of names does

occasionally vary according to the date of the text under discussion; thus the

spellings Finn and Óengus are used for the characters in Old and Middle

Irish texts, as opposed to Fionn and Aonghus for the characters in Early

Modern Irish texts such as The Pursuit of Diarmaid and Gráinne.

Bibliographic references originally appeared in a variety of formats.

All are now expressed in parenthetical notation. However, in order to pre-

serve the original numbering, it was not thought advisable to eliminate

any notes. In one case (“Gat and díberg in Togail Bruidne Da Derga”) the

notes had to be renumbered, as the numbering restarted on every page in

the original.

Ó Cathasaigh’s works are listed in a separate bibliography in advance

of the Works Cited.

A NOTE ON THE TITLE

As explained in the text known as “The Caldron of Poesy” (L. Breatnach

1981; compare Kelly 2010), the Cauldron of Knowledge, Coire Sois (pro-

nounced approximately “Corra Sosh”), is generated upside-down within

Preface xix


a person, and knowledge is distributed out of it. At earlier stages—the

Cauldrons of Goiriath and Érmae, which represent basic and intermediate

study—the cauldron has to be set upright so that it can fill with knowl-

edge; it is converted into Coire Sois, the highest stage, by the action of ei-

ther sorrow or joy. Included in this joy (fáilte) is fáilte dóendae ‘human joy,’

of which there are four kinds, the third of which is “joy at the prerogatives

of poetry after studying it well.” This description, of both the knowledge-

distributing cauldron and what is needed to create it, seems appropriate

for Tomás Ó Cathasaigh, a consummate teacher whose official rank of pro-

fessor would be expressed in Modern Irish as ollamh, the old word for the

highest grade of fili or poet. The fili’s remit was not simply poetry but also

the knowledge of history, law, philology, place-name lore, and narrative

literature—diverse competencies exemplified by the essays assembled in

this book.

The subtitle, “A Companion to Early Irish Saga,” should not be con-

strued as a claim of exhaustiveness. Not every early Irish saga extant is even

mentioned in these pages, let alone comprehensively discussed. However,

the book is a wise and dependable guide to the corpus: it covers the Cycle

groupings, key terms, important characters, recurring themes, rhetorical

strategies, and the narrative logic that this literature employs, and thus con-

stitutes exemplary preparation to read almost anything in the field.

xx Preface


Acknowledgments

The contents of this book have been reproduced from other sources, which

are gratefully acknowledged here.

“Irish Myths and Legends: The First Anders Ahlqvist Lecture,” first

published in Studia Celtica Fennica 2 (2005): 11– 26, appears with the kind

permission of the editor of Studia Celtica Fennica, Dr. Riitta Latvio.

“The Semantics of síd,” first published in Éigse 17, no. 2 (1978): 137– 55,

appears with the kind permission of the editor of Éigse, Prof. Pádraig

Breatnach.

“Pagan Survivals: The Evidence of Early Irish Narrative,” first pub-

lished in P. Ní Chatháin and M. Richter (eds.), Ireland and Europe: The Early

Church, 291– 307 (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1984), appears with the kind per-

mission of the publisher, Klett-Cotta Verlag.

“The Concept of the Hero in Irish Mythology,” first published in

R. Kearney (ed.), The Irish Mind: Exploring Intellectual Traditions, 79– 90

(Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 1985), appears with the kind permission of the

volume editor, Prof. Richard Kearney.

“The Sister’s Son in Early Irish Literature,” first published in Peritia 5

(1986): 128– 60, appears with the kind permission of the editor of Peritia,

Prof. Donnchadh Ó Corráin.

“Curse and Satire,” first published in Éigse 21 (1986): 10– 15, appears

with the kind permission of the editor of Éigse, Prof. Pádraig Breatnach.

xxi


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Studia Celtica Japonica n.s. 6 (1994): 53– 75.

“Early Irish Literature and Law: Lecture Presented at the Annual Meet-

ing of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters, April 27, 2007,” first pub-

lished in Sphinx (2007): 111– 19, appears with the kind permission of the

editor of Sphinx, Prof. Peter Holmberg, and the Finnish Society of Sciences

and Letters.

“Cath Maige Tuired as Exemplary Myth,” first published in P. de Brún,

S. Ó Coileáin, and P. Ó Riain (eds.), Folia Gadelica: Essays Presented by For-

mer Students to R.A. Breatnach, 1– 19 (Cork: Cork University Press, 1983),

appears with the kind permission of the publisher, Cork University Press.

“The Eponym of Cnogba,” first published in Éigse 23 (1989): 27– 38,

appears with the kind permission of the editor of Éigse, Prof. Pádraig

Breatnach.

“Knowledge and Power in Aislinge Óenguso,” first published in A. Ahl -

qvist and V. Capková (eds.), Dán do oide: Essays in Memory of Conn R. Ó Cléi -

righ, 431– 38 (Dublin: Linguistics Institute of Ireland, 1997), appears with the

kind permission of Prof. Anders Ahlqvist on behalf of the volume editors.

“Myths and Sagas: ‘The Wooing of Étaín,’” first published in B. Ó Con -

chubhair (ed.), Why Irish? Irish Language and Literature in Academia, 55– 69

(Galway: Arlen House, 2008), appears with the kind permission of the vol-

ume editor, Prof. Brian Ó Conchubhair.

“Táin Bó Cúailnge” (spelled “Táin Bó Cúailgne”), first published in A.D.

Hodder and R. E. Meagher (eds.), The Epic Voice, 129– 47 (Westport, CT:

Praeger, 2002), appears with the kind permission of the publisher’s parent,

ABC-CLIO.

“Mythology in Táin Bó Cúailnge,” first published in H. L.C. Tristram

(ed.), Studien zur Táin bó Cuailnge, 114– 32, ScriptOralia 52 (Tübingen:

Gunter Narr Verlag, 1993), appears with the kind permission of the pub-

lisher, Gunter Narr Verlag.

“Táin Bó Cúailnge and Early Irish Law: The Osborn Bergin Memorial

Lecture V (Endowed by Vernam Hull); Lecture Delivered 31st October 2003”

was first published by the Faculty of Celtic Studies, University College

Dublin (2005).

“Sírrabad Súaltaim and the Order of Speaking among the Ulaid,” first

published in B. Smelik et al. (eds.), A Companion in Linguistics: A Fest schrift

for Anders Ahlqvist on His Sixtieth Birthday, 80– 91 (Nijmegen: Stichting

xxii Acknowledgments


Uitgeverij de Keltische Draak, 2005), appears with the kind permission of

Dr. Rijcklof Hofman on behalf of the volume editors and the publisher,

Stichting Uitgeverij de Keltische Draak.

“Ailill and Medb: A Marriage of Equals,” first published in Ruairí

Ó hUiginn and Brian Ó Catháin (eds.), Ulidia 2: Proceedings of the Second

International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, 46– 53 (Maynooth: An

Sagart, 2009), appears with the kind permission of the publisher, Prof.

Pádraig Ó Fiannachta (An Sagart).

“Cú Chulainn, the Poets, and Giolla Brighde Mac Con Midhe,” first

published in J. F. Nagy and L. E. Jones (eds.), Heroic Poets and Poetic Heroes

in Celtic Tradition: A Festschrift for Patrick K. Ford, 291– 305, CSANA Year-

book 4– 5 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005), appears with the kind per-

mission of then-editor of the CSANA Yearbook, Prof. Joseph Nagy, and of

the publisher, Four Courts Press.

“Reflections on Compert Conchobuir and Serglige Con Culainn,” first

published in J. P. Mallory and G. Stockman (eds.), Ulidia: Proceedings of

the First International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, 85– 89 (Bel -

fast: December Publications, 1994), appears with the kind permission of

Prof. J. P. Mallory on behalf of the volume editors and the publisher, De-

cember Publications.

“The Expulsion of the Déisi,” first published in the Journal of the Cork

Historical and Archaeological Society 110 (2005): 68– 75, appears with the

kind permission of the guest editor, Dr. Kevin Murray, and of the Council

of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society.

“On the LU Version of ‘The Expulsion of the Déisi,’” first published in

Celtica 11 (1976): 150– 57, appears with the kind permission of the editors

of Celtica, Prof. Fergus Kelly and Prof. Malachy McKenna, and of the pub-

lisher, the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.

“The Déisi and Dyfed,” first published in Éigse 20 (1984): 1– 33, appears

with the kind permission of the editor of Éigse, Prof. Pádraig Breatnach.

“The Theme of lommrad in Cath Maige Mucrama,” first published in

Éigse 18, no. 2 (1981): 211– 24, appears with the kind permission of the edi-

tor of Éigse, Prof. Pádraig Breatnach.

“The Theme of ainmne in Scéla Cano meic Gartnáin,” first published

in Celtica 15 (1983): 78– 87, appears with the kind permission of the edi-

tors of Celtica, Profs. Fergus Kelly and Malachy McKenna, and of the pub-

lisher, the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.

Acknowledgments xxiii


“The Rhetoric of Scéla Cano meic Gartnáin,” first published in D. Ó Cor-

ráin, L. Breatnach, and K.R. McCone (eds.), Sages, Saints and Storytellers:

Celtic Studies in Honour of Professor James Carney, 233– 50 (May nooth: An

Sagart 1989), appears with the kind permission of the publisher, Prof. Pá -

draig Ó Fiannachta (An Sagart).

“The Rhetoric of Fingal Rónáin,” first published in Celtica 17 (1985):

123– 44, appears with the kind permission of the editors of Celtica, Profs.

Fergus Kelly and Malachy McKenna, and of the publisher, the Dublin In-

stitute for Advanced Studies.

“On the Cín Dromma SnechtaVersion of Togail Brudne Uí Dergae,” first

published in Ériu 41 (1990): 103– 14, appears with the kind permission of

the editors of Ériu and the Royal Irish Academy.

“Gat and díberg in Togail Bruidne Da Derga,” first published in A. Ahl -

qvist et al. (eds.), Celtica Helsingiensia: Proceedings from a Symposium on

Celtic Studies, 203– 13, Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 107 (Hel -

sinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 1996), appears with the kind permis-

sion of Prof. Anders Ahlqvist on behalf of the volume editors.

“The Oldest Story of the Laigin: Observations on Orgain Denna Ríg,”

first published in Éigse 33 (2002): 1– 18, appears with the kind permission

of the editor of Éigse, Prof. Pádraig Breatnach.

“Sound and Sense in Cath Almaine,” first published in Ériu 54 (2004):

41– 47, appears with the kind permission of the editors of Ériu and the

Royal Irish Academy.

“Tóraíocht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne,” first published in Léachtaí

Cholm Cille 25 (1995): 30– 46, appears with the kind permission of the edi-

tor of Léachtaí Cholm Cille, Prof. Pádraig Ó Fiannachta. The translation is

by the author, Tomás Ó Cathasaigh.

We are immensely grateful to Prof. Declan Kiberd for the foreword,

and to Prof. Thomas Charles-Edwards and Dr. Fiona Edwards for creating

the maps.

xxiv Acknowledgments


Abbreviations

Abbreviations used in only one article are defined within that article.

Anecd. Osborn Bergin et al., eds. 1907– 13. Anecdota from Irish

Manuscripts. 4 vols. Halle a. S.: Max Niemeyer.

BBCS Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies

BUD Orgain Brudne Uí Dergae (Nettlau 1893, 151– 52;

Thurneysen 1912– 13, 1:27; V. Hull 1954a; S. Mac Mathúna

1985, 449 f.)

CA Cath Almaine (Ó Riain 1978)

CCC Compert Con Culainn (van Hamel 1933)

CCSH Comparative Studies in Society and History

CConch Compert Conchobuir (V. Hull 1934)

CDS Cín Dromma Snechta(i) (lost ms.)

CMCS Cambridge/Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies

CMM Cath Maige Mucrama (O Daly 1975)

CMT Cath Maige Tuired (Stokes 1891b; Gray 1982)

DIAS Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies

DIL E.G. Quin (gen. ed., 1953– 75) et al. 1913– 76.

(Contributions to a) Dictionary of the Irish Language.

Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. Compact ed. (1983).

Online version at http://www.dil.ie.

ÉC Études Celtiques

xxv


ED “The Expulsion of the Déisi”

Eg. Egerton (classification of mss. held by the British Library)

gen. genitive case

IEW Julius Pokorny, ed. 1948– 69. Indogermanisches

etymologisches Wörterbuch. Bern: Francke.

IT Whitley Stokes and Ernst Windisch, eds., trans. 1880– 1909.

Irische Texte mit Übersetzungen und Wörterbuch. 4 vols.

Leipzig: S. Hirzel.

ITS Irish Texts Society

JCHAS Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society

JIES Journal of Indo-European Studies

K Kinsella (1970)

KZ Kuhns Zeitschrift (Zeitschrift für vergleichende

Sprachforschung)

LEIA J. Vendryes, ed. 1959– . Lexique étymologique de l’irlandais

ancien. 7 vols. Dublin: DIAS/Paris: Centre National de la

Recherche Scientifique.

LL R. I. Best, Osborn Bergin, M.A. O’Brien, and A. O’Sullivan,

eds. 1954– 84. The Book of Leinster, formerly Lebar na

Núachongbála. 6 vols. Dublin: DIAS.

LU Lebor na hUidre (Royal Irish Academy MS 23 E 25)

LU R. I. Best and Osborn Bergin, eds. 1929. Lebor na hUidre:

Book of the Dun Cow. Dublin: DIAS.

Met. Dind. E. J. Gwynn, ed., trans. 1903– 35. The Metrical

Dindshenchas. 5 vols. Dublin: DIAS.

NUI National University of Ireland

PBA Proceedings of the British Academy

PHCC Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium

PMLA Proceedings of the Modern Language Association

PRIA Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy

RC Revue Celtique

SC Studia Celtica

SH Studia Hibernica

SLH Scriptores Latini Hiberniae

SPAW Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der

Wissenschaften

TBC I Cecile O’Rahilly, ed., trans. 1976. Táin Bó Cúailgne:

Recension I. Dublin: DIAS.

xxvi Abbreviations


TBC LL Cecile O’Rahilly, ed., trans. 1967. Táin Bó Cúalgne from the

Book of Leinster. Dublin: DIAS.

TBDD Togail Bruidne Da Derga (Knott 1935)

TE1 Tochmarc Étaíne, part 1 (Bergin and Best 1934– 38)

Thes. Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, eds., trans. 1901– 3.

Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus: A Collection of Old-Irish

Glosses, Scholia, Prose and Verse. 2 vols. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Ulidia J. P. Mallory and Gerard Stockman, eds. 1994. Ulidia:

Proceedings of the First International Conference on the

Ulster Cycle of Tales. Belfast: December Publications.

Ulidia 2 Ruairí Ó hUiginn and Brian Ó Catháin, eds. 2009.

Ulidia 2: Proceedings of the Second International Conference

on the Ulster Cycle of Tales. Maynooth: An Sagart.

W Welsh

YBL The Yellow Book of Lecan (Trinity College Dublin MS 1318

[=H 2.16]).

ZCP Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie

Abbreviations xxvii


coire sois

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