CLT 2140
• All information about the course, dates,
books, schedule etc is posted on:
• www.courseweb.uottawa.ca/CLT2140
Mythology and Saga
In Early Irish Society
(c700-1100AD)
Early Celtic Literature: the Church.
• The development of the Irish church is
essential to our understanding of early
Irish and Welsh literature. The church
introduced literacy first in Latin and soon
afterwards this skill was adapted to the
Irish language (in Welsh in Wales).
• The Irish church was very independent, as
was Christianity throughout the Celtic
world.
Early Celtic Literature:
Early Celtic Literature
• The Irish Celtic church followed a unique
pattern, revolving around (small)
monasteries rather than bishoprics, and
evolving its own customs (its own form of
tonsure, and the method for calculation of
Easter).
• Aspects of the older pagan religion were
also incorporated to aid conversion.
• Brigid and Anna (Brigitia and Anu).
Early Celtic Literature
• From our point of view, it is the scholarship and
writing skills that developed in the Irish church
which draw our attention.
• Despite its peculiarly local flavour, the Irish
church blossomed into the leading centre of
scholarship in northwest Europe with
internationally renowned centres in Clonmacnois
and Glendalough. Scholars and students came
to Ireland from the whole of Europe.
Early Celtic Literature: the church
• Likewise Irish missionaries roamed the
British Isles and Europe. (Playing an
important part in the conversion of
Germanic- speaking nations).
• One of the cultural achievements of the
Irish church was the production of a native
literature in the Irish language.
Early Celtic Literature:
• At the same time we must be aware that
that we are talking of a written culture.
Ireland, like most of Europe had its own
oral culture which had existed since time
immemorial.
• The new written culture reflects this oral
culture, and brings in its own genius.
The Oral Tradition- Béaloideas
• In the pre-Christian period in Ireland, high
culture (bardic poetry, the law system,
tribal traditions) was oral, yet cultivated by
a high-status cast, the intellectual class
who had been called druids in antiquity.
• This culture was handed down from one
generation to another, embellished yet
essentially unchanged (myth, saga).
The Oral Tradition- Béaloideas
• At the same time a more popular culture
must have existed outside of the more
aristocratic elements in early Irish society.
• Of this we have few indications, but
certainly it would have also shared some
of the storytelling features of the highculture (Tales of Fionn Mac Cumhaill, and
the Ulster Cycle).
The Oral Tradition- Béaloideas
• When literacy evolved in Ireland, elements
of both traditions began to be written down
(in an ecclesiastical setting most often).
Early Celtic Literature: the church
• The early Irish church was a highly scholastic
and artistic institution, including the production of
exquisite religious manuscripts.(The Book of
Kells)
• But we owe them a special thanks for preserving
(and adding to) many traditional Irish tales
(narratives) which is a great treasure since these
are our only record of the oral literature of a
Celtic people unconquered by the Romans.
Early Celtic Literature
• Although early Irish and Welsh literature are
products of the high medieval period in
European literature, it will become very obvious
that the kind of writing that has survived is very
different to popular concepts of what ‘medieval’
writing is like.
• The medieval writing of France and England
have their origin in the elitist courts of the AngloNorman aristocracy.
Early Celtic Literature
• Early Celtic writing, as has been said, is
not a new literature created for the élites of
the court, but the survival or re-creation of
materials which belong to an earlier time in
Irish history- the heroic age of Ulster and
Connacht, and the mythological materials
of the pre-Christian Irish.
Early Celtic Literature
• There are various reasons for the
preservation of this saga material.
• Writing was soon understood as a means
of conserving traditional sagas about
semi-mythological or legendary heroes or
kings. Those who traced their lineage back
to such figures were the same as those
who protected and patronised the church.
Early Celtic Literature
• Provincial history ( the ancient provinces of
Ireland: Ulster, Connacht, Meath, Leinster and
Munster) was remembered in the form of annals
(lists of historical events) and saga: how
ancestors had led the ‘men of Ulster’, or the
‘men of Connacht’.
• The church was not independant of the political
life of Ireland in the early Middle Ages.
Early Celtic Literature:
realism
• Unlike the popular preconception of what
Celtic writing is deemed to be, Irish
writing is realistic, it is in fact sometimes
a kind of magical realism, but the realism
of the events and values presented in
these narratives relates closely to the
social order that existed in the early Irish
middle ages.
.
Early Celtic Literature: realism
• The closest parallel in medieval European
literature is the Icelandic sagas, but here
the important pre-Christian element is less
obvious.
• The Celtic Otherworld plays an important
role in early Irish literature.
Classifying the Irish material.
• The Mythological Cycle.(the gods and
goddesses of pagan Ireland, tales of the
Otherworld)
• The Ulster Cycle. (the stories of Cú
Chulainn)
• The Kings’ Cycle (focusses on historical
and legendary kings of early Ireland)
• The Finn Cycle. (Adventures of Fionn mac
Cumhaill)
Early Celtic Literature
• In this course we will be studying the first
three categories.
• Despite this classification, there is a
continual overlap from one category to the
next especially where the semi-mythic
Otherworld is concerned (the world of the
pre-Christian deities and other
supernatural beings).
Aspects of Early Irish Society
reflected in E I Literature
•
•
•
•
Sacred Kingship The Sovereignty goddess
Festivals in Early Ireland (Samhain)
The ‘Otherworld’ ( the Sidh= ‘shee’)
The ‘Heroic’ Age (next class).
Mythology and Saga
• Sacred kingship in Ireland:
• Ireland was never a single kingdom but had
many regional and ‘provincial’ monarchs.
• One estimate states that Ireland had some 150
kings between the 5th and 12th centuries in a
population of no more than c500,000.
• Chieftain might be a more accurate term.
• The Irish term is ríg.
Mythology and Saga
• The ‘king’ or chieftain was not only a
political figure. He was the ‘embodiment of
the prosperity of his people’.
• Although early Irish tradition speaks of the
powerful queen-Queen Medb (Meeve),
there is no reference to queens in early
Irish tradition (annals). (But we know that
the Celtic Britons had queens, eg
Boudica).
Mythology and Saga
• The king was sacred because he was
called to perform religious rituals, that
even the priests (usually called druids)
could not perform.
• There are several prominent kings in early
Irish tradition:
• Niall of the Nine Hostages; Conn of the
Hundred Battles; and Brian Boru.
Mythology and Saga
• Such kings living in an isolated island
culturally and geographically in the early
centuries oversaw societies which were
often radically different from their
counterparts in continental Europe.
• Their concepts of family, property and law
are often reflected in the saga material of
the period which has survived.
Mythology and Saga
• Where the Romans conquered their law and
much of their societal structure was introduced.
Ireland had only trade contacts with the
Romans, and minimal military contact.
• Despite the introduction of Christianity into
Ireland by Celtic Britons (Patrick) brought writing
and primitive monasticism into the island.
• But Ireland retained its own Celtic law system for
centuries (Brehon law until 12th century)
Mythology and Saga
• Early Irish history is dominated by warring
dynasties, especially that of the O’Neills
whose original territory was in NE Ireland
but spread all over the island.
• A major influence on Ireland during 9-11th
centuries were the Vikings, who founded
such cities as Dublin, Limerick and
Galway.
Mythology and Saga
• Christianity became well established in
Ireland in the centuries following its
introduction in the 5th century. It retained a
local form, uninfluenced by the ‘Roman
tendences’ of continental Christianity.
This came to an abrupt end in the 12th
century when Henry II of England brought
the Irish church closer to European
practises.
Mythology and Saga
• However, in the sagas we shall be reading
from Ireland (as well as the intermixed
mythology), we will be in a largely preChristian context (Ulster Cycle, Kings’
Cycle, Mythology). Yet the writers of these
texts lived a life of Christian custom and
ritual. Hence, one of the ironies of this
valuable material.
Mythology and Saga
• Irish law pervades much of this literature,
often the result of judgments given by the
druids who play a central role in these
narratives.
• Here are some major differences between
Irish law and contemporary European law
(c9-12th centuries):
Mythology and Saga: kings
• The early Irish did not practise
primogeniture.
• The new Irish king was not necessarily the
son of the previous king; in fact the king
might not even come from the king’s
immediate family (fine), but rather from a
much wider family spectrum, the so-called
derbfhine (descendants from a common
great-grandfather).
Mythology and Saga: kings
• The new king should be ‘unblemished’;
• The son of a principal wife, or if this was
not possible the son of a legitimate second
wife.
• There was nothing to stop a younger son
becoming king over an older son.
• ‘electing’ a new king could be quite
complicated (see Da Derga’s Hostel) and
highly ritualized.
Mythology and Saga: kings
• The candidate should belong to the same
derbfhine as the previous king.
• A contest, test or election would follow.
• Any male descendant could be
considered. Obviously such a system led
to internecine conflict if not outright war.
• A new king was expected to have certain
moral qualities:
Mythology and Saga: kings
• A good ruler should have fir flathemon
(Truth of the Ruler). Basically this meant
that he would have a character above
reproach, he would be a good judge.
• He should be descended from high
ancestry, and clearly should be ‘heroic’.
• His actions would have a direct impact on
the fertility of the land (again see Da
Derga’s Hostel).
Mythology and Saga: kings
• Another form of succession also existed
whereby a deputy-king was appointed
called the tánaise (rig).
• His appointment would have entailed
testing in the same manner as that of the
king.
Mythology and Saga
• The ‘high-king and Tara (Temuin).
• The Hill of Tara in Co Meath close to
Navan, the ancient capital of the Ulaid
(Ulster) people.
• It is possible to see a great distance from
the site (‘one third of Ireland’).
• Traditionally this site was associated with
the ard-rí (high-king of Ireland). It was also
associated with the goddess Medb.
Mythology and Saga
• Normally a king (or tribal chieftain) would
rule over a tuath (thus the rí tuaithe).
• Such a king had a small retinue of soldiers
(or armed clansmen), a following of noble
‘clients’, and a stewart to collect revenues.
• Clientship.
• Elaborate tests to determine the suitability
of a king at Tara (rí Temhrach).
Mythology and Saga
•
•
•
•
Driving the chariot through Tara.
The ‘bull-feast’ (tarbhfheis).
(King Conaire in Da Derga’s Hostel)
Tara also features as a magical place in
the narratives of Fionn Mac Cumhaill. This
is also implied in the tale of Da Derga’s
Hostel.
Mythology and Saga:
Sovereignty
• Kingship in Ireland was closely associated
with pagan concepts to do with
‘sovereignty’.
• Here sovereignty is less a political term,
but rather one connected with the
mythology of early Ireland.
• Sovereignty (in Irish flaith)=right to rule,
lordship over territory.
Sovereignty
• Early Irish records are full of sexual metaphors
with regard to the initiation of a new king in the
context of sovereignty.
• The sacral king is the spouse of his tuath.
• In the 6th century this initiation was called the
‘wedding feast of kingship’ (banais righe).
• The new king would be given a libation to drink
and then would ‘sleep’ with the goddess of the
land.
Sovereignty
• At Tara (the main site of kingship in
Ireland), the ceremony was called feis
Tem(h)rach.
• It is claimed that this was reaffirmed each
year (Geoffrey Keating 1625-31).
• Possibly this was held at times when
fertility was needed for the land, and
animals.
Sovereignty goddesses
• ‘kingship is male and sovereignty is
female’.
• Possibly this explains why the concept of
the queen seems absent from early laws
and annals (although there is a major
exception in early Irish literature: queen
Medb).
Sovereignty goddesses
• Most of our knowledge of such concepts
are found scattered in the early narratives
themselves.
• Irish myth is mostly found in the saga
material.
• In other words, Irish ‘myths’ do not occur
as specific tales.
• Compare a Greek ‘myth’.
Sovereignty goddesses
• This concept of the female embodiment of
power (and the right to reign) is reflected
in the various female characters in early
Irish narrative:
• They must be won sexually by any male
who aspires to be king. Ie the land
goddess (the goddess of sovereignty gives
the authority to rule).
Sovereignty goddesses
• Such females change in the course of
even one narrative from being seductive to
being loathsome.
• Such concepts are not uniquely Irish, but
are found in antiquity in the eastern
Mediteranean and areas in modern-day
Iraq.
Sovereignty goddesses
• In Irish mythological tales (usually inserted into
saga material or pseudo-history) such
sovereignty characters as the following appear:
• Mór Mum(h)an from SW Ireland. She is
described as being indescribably beautiful.
• She is also described as having been involved
sexually with known historical figures.
• Her names occurs in many placenames (Tigh
Mhoire).
Sovereignty goddesses
• Other sovereignty goddess are the trio Banba,
Fodla and Eriu, all of whom represent the island
of Ireland. We will hear more about them when
we come to study the Book of Invasions next
week. The modern name Eire is a version of her
name.
• She was especially associated with another
sacral site in Ireland called Uisnech (known as
the centre of Ireland).
Sovereignty goddesses
• Eriu also appears in the 11th century tale
Baile in Scail in which she is portrayed as
the woman of sovereignty of Ireland.
• She is obliquely described as the wife of
the Irish god Lug(h) who presides over a
scene in which Conn of a Hundred Battles
hears that his descendants will rule
Ireland. (Lugh appears in the Ulster
Cycle).
Sovereignty goddesses
• The best known sovereignty goddess in
Ireland is undoubtedly the Cailleach
Bhéire or Hag of Beare.
• She will appear to a hero or warrior as an
old woman to be loved. When she
receives love she becomes a beautiful
young woman.
• Medb.
Feasts in Early Ireland
• Early Ireland had four major festivals which were
celebrated by regional assemblies in which
everyone participated. These are referred to
quite frequently in the Sagas.
• These festivals were:
–
–
–
–
Samhain (Samuin)
Imbolc
Beltaine
Lughnasa
Feasts in Early Ireland
• Samhain
• Without question this is the festival which
occurs most frequently in Irish narratives
of the early Middle Ages.
• It marks the beginning of the Celtic new
year, although it also marks the end of
summer.(end of October).
Feasts in Early Ireland
• The root of the word is undoubtedly sam(meaning summer). In the earlier late Iron
Age period approximately 100BC, the
word was samon(ios) as attested by the
Coligny Calendar.
• The modern world (or parts of it) have
inherited some small part of the ancient
Celtic festival, and in English it is better
known as Hallowe’en.
Feasts in Early Ireland
• It is associated with the dead reaching out
to the living (MacKillop), but in early Irish
tradition and before the emphasis is not on
the dead but on the inhabitants of the
Celtic otherworld (the si(dh) ).
• During this chaotic period, the mortal world
and the otherworld can overlap leading to
magical, dreadful and marvellous events
taking place.
Feasts in Early Ireland
• Thus in the many sagas that mention
Samhain, this festival heralds supernatural
events.
• The festival was of supreme importance in
early Ireland when each province (there
were officially five) sent delegates every
three years.
• The lighting of ritual fires was also a
feature.
Feasts in Early Ireland
• The lighting of fires was a common
precedure at festivals but in this case at
Tlachtga near Tara the fires
commemorated a very basic and mythic
event:
• The main male deity of the Irish Dagda
would mate with three divinities (Morrigan,
Boand and the daughter of Indech).
Feasts in Early Ireland
• Possibly at an earlier time (ie pre 400AD),
sacrifices (human?) would take place at
this time.
• Certainly at this time, certain mythic
events were deemed to have taken place.
• Both Tara and Emain Macha (the capital of
the Ulaid) were burned down by a
character known as Aillen mac Midgna.
Feasts in Early Ireland
• In the Ulster Cycle of tales, the main
character Cú Chulaind met two
otherworldly women at the time of the
Samain feast.the love interest theme is
also found in the ‘mythic’ tale of Oengus
who escapes with an otherworldly woman
in the form of a swan.
Feasts in Early Ireland
• In their book Celtic Heritage, Alwyn and Brinley
Rees describe Samhain as being a time of
confusion, the setting for voyages to the
Otherworld, sexual relations between mortals
and others, and gender-ambiguity with crossdressing.
• The fact of being between two major seasons,
makes the difference between the real and the
supernatural seem blurred.
Feasts in Early Ireland
• The other three major festivals (Imbolc,
Beltaine and Lughnasa) do not figure
largely in the early Irish sagas or the
mythology.
• Imbolc 1st February
• Beltaine 1st May
• Lughnasa =harvest festival.
The Otherworld
• Another important feature of early Irish
tradition (and later tradition too) is the
belief in another parallel world beyond the
senses, and beyond the rational, everyday
world.
• In many ways it is an improvement on the
world of everyday existence, infinitely
more beautiful, and peopled by an
immortal god-like people called the sí(dh).
The Otherworld
• Voyages to the Otherworld (Imram):
otherworld islands. Such adventure tales
are deamed to be a genre largely created
by the monastic orders, but surely based
on shorter accounts of how a hero
ventures to the Otherworld in search of
exploits or love. We shall see how Cú
Chulaind goes to the Otherworld to fight a
battle and to meet a woman he loves.
The Otherworld
• Entering the Otherworld can be in a
number of ways:
• By boat (on a lake or on the sea) to an
island;
• Under the water
• Through an entrance found in the side of a
small tumulus (also called sí(dh).
The Inhabitants of the Otherworld
• The otherworld abodes called si(dh)
probably meant nothing more than seat, or
abode.
• It has been suggested that such places
were imagined to exist as a parallel to the
tuath, except that the hostility between the
mortal tuaithe was not found in the
Otherworld.
The Inhabitants of the Otherworld
• Many of the Irish narratives tell how men
(usually) enter the sidh, by invitation often by an
otherworld woman.
• It is important to realise that the early Irish did
not think of such places as the abode of the
dead (Teach Duinn).
• We shall see soon that many residences that are
central to specific sagas or myth tales are in fact
sidh. This will be especially true of the narratives
located around the river Boyne and the great
site of Newgrange.
The Inhabitants of the Otherworld
• Such sidh abodes can be found in tales
such as The Wooing of Etain, The Dream
of Oengus, The Birth of Cú Chulaind, and
occasionally in The Táin.