Marina Bardash Nebro
May 22, 2014
Professor Cassvan
Final Term Paper
Saints and Poets: One and the Same
A majority, if not all, of the Celtic material handed down to readers from the
middle ages is plagued with contradiction. On the one hand the material comes
from a long tradition of oral telling and re-telling and from a culture that forbade the
written word; on the other, at some point in the tale’s history, the story had to have
been written down in order for modern scholars and students alike to be able to
enjoy and analyze the content. With the advent of Christianity in Ireland and Wales
the Celtic material was preserved despite the decline of Bardic poetry and the oral
tradition. Scribes in their scriptoria recorded the tales even when they conflicted
with the teachings of Christianity. In many versions of Celtic stories a Christian lens
can be seen in which certain characters or certain events are moralized in a
Christian sense. The question arises when looking at these scribes’ motivations
behind recounting tales of a pagan past. It has been thought that many Celtic poets
converted to Christianity and took up the duties of scribes and clerics. This fact
blurs the line between the two seemingly contrasting positions – pagan poet and
Christian cleric. A similar blurred line arises in the tale Guaire’s Greedy Guests in
which both poets and saints take front stage and compete against each other.
Though the poets are painted in a negative light and the saints are praised, this
Celtic tale highlights the glaring similarities between the two positions and gives the
reader insight into the transitional period between a pagan culture and a Christian
one.
The raconteur of Guaire’s Greedy Guests does all that he can to convey the
differences between godly saints and corrupt poets. In the dialogue between poet,
Senchan, and a saint, the poet exclaims, “I’d rather have Guaire satirized than me
alive and him safe from satire” (98). Their conversation immediately follows a
noble act performed by “blessed Ciaran” (98) in which he saves Guaire’s honor. By
partnering up an honorable act with a divisive attitude the storyteller emphasizes
the devious quality of the poet. He contrasts the two, again, in describing their
interactions with nature and animals. Marban, the “chief-prophet of heaven and
earth,” describes his relationship with his beloved boar, his “herdsman… medic…
messenger… [and] musician” (89). Senchan, on the other hand, does not apply the
same respect to the fauna that surround him, and instead he choses to satire the cats
and mice in his vicinity. Not only is the writer able to emphasize the poet’s crazy
thirst for unjust satire, but he also paints him as a lunatic who feels the need to
demonstrate his power of poetry to mere animals. Senchan’s desire to remain
distant from all that resides in the natural world – animals, dirt, sickness – can also
be seen as a fault of the poet because said distance removes him from his source of
power, whereas the saints described in the tale live as hermits away in lands such as
Glen in Scail.
In contrasting the saint and the poet so drastically, the narrator only alerts
the reader to the fact that the two are opposite sides of the same coin. The first hint
at this close similarity between Christian and pagan is that, in terms of familial
relations, they are quite close and connected. While Marban seems to be an
extremely holy and spiritual figure in the Christian sense his brother, Guaire,
remains part of the old Celtic and pagan tradition relegated by the magic of geiss or
taboos, and under the spell of traveling or touring poets. Similarly, while Senchan is
part of the old, oral tradition of reciting “praise or poison,” his brother, Caillin, is a
saint and belongs to the Christian tradition.1 The pairs of brothers were raised in
the same houses, yet chose different paths. Along the same lines, Marban
acknowledges his relation to a pagan past in saying that “the grandmother of my
servant’s wife was the granddaughter of a poet” (99). Though quite a distant
relation, Marban is highlighting the connection between the two different worlds.
This detail from the text illustrates what scholars have been pondering: that poets
and bards converted and became Christian clerics.
In describing the powers of both saint and poet, the tale shows that the two
do not differ so greatly after all. In an explanatory aside the scribe states that
Marban was “a saint, a prophet, a seer, and a host to all in Glen in Scail” (99). The
most important take away from the quote above is that Marban was a seer, someone
who exhibits great foresight and wisdom. In acquiring many of the items necessary
for Guaire’s guests it is obvious that Marban held some sort of foreknowledge. In
recounting to Guaire how he would be able to procure a cloak filled with berries,
Marban explains that he had “spread the cloak over [the bramble bush] in such a
way that neither rain nor foul weather touched them till now, thanks to Almighty
God and my own powers” (91). Though he references God in this line he also
acknowledges his own power of foresight. Celtic poets, also known as fili, were
known for their extreme foresight as well. The term fili, though wrongly associated
As a side note, both Guaire and Marban, and Senchan and Caillin are brothers
coming from the same mother, perhaps an allusion to mother Mary.
1
with praise and poison, actually refers to sight. Dallan, the first poet featured in the
tale, was blind, similar to many other important poetic and prophetic figures in
literature. His blindness gave him the greater power of foresight, a magical, not
physical, capability. In memorializing Dallan through poetry, Senchan
acknowledges the fact that he was in possession of the ability for premonition: “No
seer, whether from north or south, will surpass the wisdom of Eochaid-Dallan” (85).
Marban, though no longer a figure related to Celtic myth and magic, exhibits
some startling qualities that relate him to otherworldly figures. His home is in
nature, in a place called Glen in Scail. The land in which he resides seems to be
ethereal in the sense that it is filled with an overabundance of everything Guaire
might need. Marban wants for nothing in the Phantom’s Glen. The animals
described, by Guaire to Marban, feature the magical colors of red and white. Though
the animals are nowhere to be seen in the real world, Marban has no problem
locating them in his “realm.” Similar to figures such as the sovereignty goddess or
hag, or the “bird men” in The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel, Marban has the
capability of placing taboos, or geiss, on people. Throughout Celtic mythology,
encounters with taboos are commonplace, but only certain tales describe the
placing of taboos. Many of these magical rules are taken for granted and are
accepted as commonplace. For example, the taboo of hospitality is necessary in
order to be understood as a good ruler. When it comes to out of the ordinary
taboos, however, narratorial asides relate to the reader from where the rule
originated. In Guaire’s Greedy Guests, Marban puts the entourage of poets “under
taboos not to stay in the same place for two nights” (104) until they were able to
recite to him the Cattle-raid of Cooley.
The tale of Guaire’s Greedy Guests is a battle between two worlds, Christian
and pagan. In a duel, the two participants exhibit similar qualities and try to “one
up,” or best, each other in their respective talent. In placing Marban in a duel
against the group of poets, the raconteur immediately puts Christian and pagan into
the same category, emphasizing their similarities more so than their differences. In
the duel, one that lasts for several pages and several rounds, Marban beats each of
the poets at their own game. Though he is a saint and from a different walk of life,
Marban shows that the saint and the poet are one and the same.
The goal of the tale of Guaire’s Greedy Guests was to put Irish poets and the
Bardic tradition in their place, and to depict the victory of Christianity in the land.
The tale can be compared to the cliché duels between good and evil, new and old, or
us and them. Marban succeeds in preventing any more poets from roaming the land
in search of unjust satires. In accomplishing his aim, Marban and the storyteller
demonstrate to the reader that the role of saint and poet are not as different as
previously thought.