Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures
Harvard University
All Sessions of the Colloquium are held
in the Thompson Room (110) in the
Barker Center, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA
Thursday October 8, 2009
5:00 p.m.
~ John V. Kelleher Lecture
Sponsored by the
Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures,
Harvard University Theatre Room, Harvard Faculty Club, 20 Quincy
Street, Cambridge, MA
Professor Patrick Sims-Williams
Department of Welsh, Aberystwyth University
"‘So Many Dark and Time-worn Volumes’:
How our Understanding of Early Irish Literature has Progressed"
~ This event is
open to the Public ~
Colloquium Sessions
October 9, 2009
Dydd Gwener / Dé hAoine / Friday
9:00-10:30 a.m. Session One
Erin Boon
(Harvard University) Arthur as Alexander in Culhwch ac Olwen
Herve Le Bihan
(Université Rennes 2, Brittany) "An Dialog etre Arzur Roe d’an Bretounet ha Guynglaff" and its connections with the Arthurian tradition
Natalia I. Petrovskaia
(University of Cambridge) Dating Peredur: New Light on Old Problems
10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Session Two
Sarah Zeiser
(Harvard University) Qui venerunt angeli: Latin and the vernacular in medieval Wales
Kasi Conley
(Harvard University) Deflowering Gwynedd: (Dis)use of the Sovereignty Goddess Myth in the Fourth Branch
Sarah L. Pfannenschmidt
(University of Aberystwyth) "From the Shame You Have Done": Comparing the stories of Blodeuedd and Bláthnait
1:30-3:00 p.m. Session Three
Kylie Murray
(University of Oxford) Dreams of Medieval Scottish Nationhood: the epic case of William Wallace
A. Joseph McMullen
(Harvard University) Land Genealogy: The Phenomenological Function of Place in the Early Irish Dindshenchas
Patrick Wadden
(University of Oxford) Cumtach na n-Iudaide n-rad: A middle Irish Poem on Nation Characteristics
3:15-4:45 p.m. Session Four
Sheila Kidd
(University of Glasgow) Readers, listeners and nineteenth-century Scottish Gaelic dialogue
Philip O'Leary
(Boston College) Gaelic Gumshoes and Gunslingers: The early work of Cathal Ó Sándair
Ríona Nic Congáil
(St. Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin/DCU) "Some of you will curse her": women's fiction during the Irish-language revival
5:00-6:00 p.m. Session Five
Matthieu Boyd
(Harvard University) The commonplaces of Gwerziou Breiz-Izel, and other remarks on an English translation of François-Marie Luzel's Breton ballads
Éva Guillorel(Harvard University and Université Européenne de Bretagne) Collecting in the Breton islands: prejudices and realities
Friday's Abstracts
October 9, 2009
Dydd Gwener / Dé hAoine / Friday
9:00-10:30 a.m. Session One
Erin Boon
(Harvard University) Arthur as Alexander in Culhwch ac Olwen
The characterization of Arthur in Culhwch ac Olwen resonates too well with the depiction of Alexander the Great in a poem from Book of Taliesin not to be somewhat influenced by the same materials. Perhaps not directly modeled on the Macedonian king, Arthur in Culhwch ac Olwen is nevertheless characterized by a civilizing strength in his exploits beyond the edges of the known world. This characterization may derive from the trend of interest in Alexander’s eastern adventures, or, if already imagined, the civilizing nature of Arthur attracted the quality of far-traveler from the Alexander legend and other Welsh texts of eastern exploration. Whatever we wish to speculate as the "traditional" material of this tale, the travels of Arthur and Culhwch’s company are more than the journeys to the otherworld or Ireland we might expect from reading other Welsh Arthurian texts. These characters are pushing farther into unknown regions and encountering people who are meant to be foreign in a realistic geographical sense.
Herve Le Bihan
(Université Rennes 2, Brittany) "An Dialog etre Arzur Roe d’an Bretounet ha Guynglaff" and its connections with the Arthurian tradition
The poem known as "An Dialog etre Arzur Roe d'an Bretounet Ha Guynglaff", from a manuscript dated 1716, is in fact the copy of a former manuscript which appears to date back to 1450. This text is of paramount importance as it is the only document testifying of the existence of an ancient literature whose traces in the Breton language are extremely rare in Armorican Brittany. Its meaning is somewhat hard to figure since it has given rise to many interpolations. In 1930, Emile Ernault identified a truly archaic first part figuring an old hermit prophet living in the woods as main character. Some of Guinglaff’s features are clearly reminiscent of Wild Merlin or of one of his avatars, Laloken. The second half of the poem is related to a series of prophecies dealing with some historical events of XVth and XVIth centuries Armorican Brittany.
Recent works show that the poem undeniably contains traces of elements belonging to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s "Prophetia Merlini" as well as parts of "An den koz dall", a "gwerz collected by Jean-Marie de Penguern c. 1830, together with elements from the popular prophecies which were collected during the XIXth century. This paper will raise the question of the various sources of this poem (for which I am currently preparing an edition) and its connections with the Arthurian tradition.
Natalia I. Petrovskaia
(University of Cambridge) Dating Peredur: New Light on Old Problems
The proposed paper is a contribution to the ongoing argument relating to the date and context of Historia Peredur fab Efrawc, the Welsh version of the well-known Grail story. The relationship between this tale and its closest continental counterpart, Le Conte du Graal of Chrétien de Troyes, has been the subject of much discussion. Elements of the Welsh tale which are absent from the French version have previously been regarded as the residue of myth and oral tradition, as represented by the figure of Sovereignty, for example. Notable proponents of this theory include G. Goetinck, the editor of Historia Peredur. The present paper presents a new interpretation of the text and proposes to explain its relationship with the French version, based on the identification of certain characters with historical personages of particular relevance to the Welsh. This approach of anchoring the text within a cultural or political reality (an approach adopted by A. Breeze in his article on windmills and watermills in Historia Peredur), permits to throw new light not only on the date of the composition of certain episodes within the tale, but also on its relationship with the continental counterpart. In the course of the paper I intend to demonstrate how Goetinck’s dating of Historia Peredur to the 1130s and the relevance of one of the episodes of the tale to the events of the 1140s (to be demonstrated in the present paper) combine to explain the mystery of the tale’s differences from its 1180s French counterpart and how these differences, which have mystified scholars for several generations, could have come about.
10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Session Two
Sarah Zeiser
(Harvard University) Qui venerunt angeli: Latin and the vernacular in medieval Wales
If, as D. Simon Evans argues in Medieval Religious Literature, Welsh had overtaken Latin as the language of esteem among Welsh poets by the twelfth century, it may be curious to note a combination of both in the decidedly Welsh manuscript known as the Book of Taliesin (NLW Peniarth MS 2, f. 2v). One of the first poems in the manuscript contains a twelfth-century Latin "sequence" seamlessly interwoven with a Welsh litany on the slaughter of the innocents. The Qui venerunt angeli verses are so well integrated yet so starkly alien to the remaining linguistic trend of the manuscript that we must ask why they held a place in such a treasured "native" collection. This paper will address the issue of Cambro-Latin composition, and the rich culture of linguistic flexibility that we find in the complex intellectual communities of medieval Wales.
Kasi Conley
(Harvard University) Deflowering Gwynedd: (Dis)use of the Sovereignty Goddess Myth in the Fourth Branch
The medieval Welsh narrative tradition often seems to entice and reject readers who wish to scour for the remnants of a common Celtic mythological past among its words. Unlike the Old Irish sources which explicitly develop the relationships between the gods and man such as Cath Maige Tuired and Táin Bó Cuillinge, the Mabinogi gives us little with which to work besides reflexes of Continental Celtic names and archetypes. Indeed, the Branches seem to follow a natural progression away from a mythologized past towards a new society led by "culture heroes" such as Manawydan. In the First Branch, the bonds between the Otherworld and Dyfed are established and solidified through Pwyll’s marriage to Rhiannon; in the Second Branch, the ill affects of the heroic and mythic mode can be witnessed through the plight of Branwen and the ultimate destruction of the men of both Ireland and Wales; and, finally, in the Third Branch we see the restoration of civilization fashioned not through violence but through agriculture and trade. Although the tidiness of this model is alluring, it leaves out the troubling complications brought about by the Fourth Branch, namely the incest, rape, and sterility that overshadow its plot. If Manawydan reconstructs a fractured heroic world into a practical environment more akin to 13th century Wales than the age of Beli Mawr, Math immediately ruptures this newly created political landscape.
Sarah L. Pfannenschmidt
(University of Aberystwyth) "From the Shame You Have Done": Comparing the stories of Blodeuedd and Bláthnait
In 1928, W. J. Gruffydd published his edition and discussion of the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, Math vab Mathonwy. During the course of his investigation, Gruffydd devoted a segment to the genesis and putative evolution of the tale of Blodeuedd, the flower woman and wife of Lleu. He concluded that the story in Math, which he saw as greatly contaminated, was originally taken in part from a selected subset of Irish tales involving the Munster hero Cú Roí mac Dáiri and his faithless wife, Bláthnait. Though Gruffydd was not incorrect in his observation that the stories of Blodeuedd and Bláthnait share the theme of the Unfaithful Wife, I have been revisiting the original texts and propose that the connection between the stories is more complex than he concluded. For example, Gruffydd did not discuss the puzzle of British Museum MS Egerton 88 fol. 10a, which gives an independent version of Cú Roí mac Dáiri’s death and complicates the comparison between the Irish tale and the Blodeuedd story. This paper will feature a selection of my findings and will raise questions about the nature of the relationship between these stories in light of the known Welsh and Irish variants, as well as international folk motifs and themes.
1:30-3:00 p.m. Session Three
Kylie Murray
(University of Oxford) Dreams of Medieval Scottish Nationhood: the epic case of William Wallace
Late fifteenth-century Scotland saw a distinctive flowering of both nationalist and dream literature, in response to internal and external political pressures. Blind Hary’s Wallace, a Scottish vernacular verse epic in twelve books, was produced during this period (1470s), and recounts the life and deeds of the eponymous Scottish hero during the Wars of Independence. The work has long been recognised as a prime example of late medieval national consciousness and political ardour.
Yet one way in which the text intensifies its political stance – through its sequence of dream and visionary episodes - remains largely neglected, despite revealing much about the nationalist agenda of the work. This paper will discuss the poem’s three key visionary episodes (from books 5, 7 and 12), with particular emphasis on the second vision (book 7).
It will argue that the visions form the structural and conceptual heart of the work, firstly by their strikingly original response to the sovereign midpoint motif to contend Wallace’s proximity to, yet distance from, Scottish kingship. Next, it will discuss how the visions inflect towards a Scottish nationalistic agenda a broad spectrum of sources and analogues, positing Wallace’s affinity with a range of seminal figures, such as Scottish patron saint, scriptural martyr, Arthurian victor, founding father from Scotland’s own origin myth, and even Saviour. The paper thus illustrates how Scottishness in the Wallace is most acutely focused by dream and vision states, to prescribe and describe Scottish national identity at this time.
A. Joseph McMullen
(Harvard University) Land Genealogy: The Phenomenological Function of Place in the Early Irish Dindshenchas
Throughout early Irish mythology there exists an enveloping trope of the value of the landscape and the necessity for origin stories to describe how the land has changed over time. In the Táin Bó Cúailnge the bodies of the bulls are strewn about the land as they fight—creating and recreating place-names, origin stories are explained to Saint Patrick in Acallam na Senórach (Tales of the Elders of Ireland), and Otherworldly gods like the Dagda and Midir must actively change the land in order to attain Etain in Tochmarc Étaíne (The Wooing of Etain). For Proinsias Mac Cana stories like these bring out the “profound importance of the sense of place in Irish thought throughout the ages—the sense of place as defined in space, in form and in name. The physical features of the land with their names and their histories outlive the generations and embody the aetiologies, the inherited wisdom and experience of society.”1 Consequently, notions of space, place, and landscape become central concerns in early Irish literature. Defining landscape as “a series of spaces which become places, thus establishing territory,”2 landscape is where nature and humanity meet—making an abstract “space” into a network of place through social production engaging the physical environment. Within medieval Irish literature, this most often culminates in the creation of a place-name that “creates shared existential space out of a blank environment.”3su In this paper I will explore how the early Irish place “Loch Garman” got its name and how, in the naming, backgrounded societal practices entwine with topography to create landscapes layered with meaning. This, what I call “land genealogy,” then reveals how a variety of different temporalities and traditions can harmoniously exist in various planes within a single place while reflecting an early enunciation of a phenomenological existence within the world.
_______________________ 1Proinsias Mac Cana, “Placenames and Mythology in Irish Tradition: Places, Pilgrimages and Things,” Proceedings of the First North American Congress of Celtic Studies held at Ottawa from 26th-30th March, 1986, ed. G. W. Mac Lennan (Ottawa: Chair of Celtic Studies, University of Ottawa, 1988), 340. 2George Children and George Nash, “Establishing a Discourse: The Language of Landscape,” Semiotics of Landscape: Archaeology of Mind, ed. George Nash (Oxford, UK: Archaeopress, 1997), 1. 3Christopher Tilley, A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths, and Monuments, Providence, RI: Berg, 1994), 18.
Patrick Wadden
(University of Oxford)
Cumtach na n-Iudaide n-rad: A middle Irish Poem on Nation Characteristics
The Middle Irish poem beginning Cumtach na n-Iudaide n-ard, "The architecture of the noble Jews", contains a list of several of the peoples of the world and attributes physical or, more often, psychological characteristics to each of them. The composition is an example of a genre with a European tradition stretching back to the classical period and is, in fact, largely a translation of an earlier continental Latin tract, although this paper will illustrate that previous commentators have been unsuccessful in their attempts to identify its immediate exemplar. The poem is not, however, a direct translation and perhaps its most interesting aspects are the adaptations and innovations made by the Irish poet. One of these in particular, when compared to other Middle Irish poetry, provides grounds for dating the poem to the middle decades of the eleventh century. The alterations made by the Irish poet to his exemplar can therefore be explained as reflecting contemporary political relations between the Irish and their neighbors at the time of composition. As a final note, it will be argued that while these national characteristics were, in fact, situational, the Irish literati did not present them as such but instead developed a theory with which to explain their origins as genetic traits inherited from the apical ancestors of each group.
3:15-4:45 p.m. Session Four
Sheila Kidd
(University of Glasgow) Readers, listeners and nineteenth-century Scottish Gaelic dialogue
The Scottish Gaelic dialogue, or còmhradh, of which over 300 were published in the course of the nineteenth century, affords scholars the opportunity to examine how Gaelic writers responded to the emergence of a Gaelic reading public in the nineteenth century. Virginia Cox, in her study of the Italian Renaissance dialogue, has observed that "when any age adopts on a wide scale a form which so explicitly ‘stages’ the art of communication, it is because that act has, for some reason, come to be perceived as problematic." This has a particular resonance in the case of the còmhradh which became so popular with Gaelic writers in the nineteenth century and foremost among the many questions which should be asked about this literary form is what it, as a genre, reveals about the oral-literary interface in contemporary Gaelic-speaking society. What does it indicate about the dynamics between author, reader and text as increasing levels of literacy meant that new relationships were being forged between writers and their readers? This paper will discuss the emergence of the còmhradh as a popular secular genre in the context of the nascent Gaelic periodical press, the ways in which writers used it to engage with their audience and the evidence it provides for this transitional phase from a primarily oral culture to an increasingly literate one. The dialogue has a lengthy pedigree in Celtic, and indeed in European, literature and these Gaelic texts will also be considered in this wider context.
Philip O'Leary
(Boston College) Gaelic Gumshoes and Gunslingers: The early work of Cathal Ó Sándair
Writing of the English-born Cathal Ó Sándair (1922-1996) in 1949, "H. Ó S." declared that "he has done more to awaken a love of the language in the hearts of the young during the short period he has been writing than all of the ministers and teachers of the Twenty-Six Counties have done since the State was founded." By far the most prolific and best-selling writer of Irish in the history of the language, over a career that spanned four decades Ó Sándair wrote detective stories, cowboy yarns, outer space fantasies, swashbuckling pirate tales, and edifying boarding-school stories. This paper will discuss his early efforts as a writer of what he himself called "thrillers," featuring his crime-fighting hero Réics Carló, and of stories set in the Wild West, asking why his work found such an immediate and enthusiastic welcome from young readers in the Ireland of the 1940s.
Ríona Nic Congáil
(St. Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin/DCU) "Some of you will curse her": women's fiction during the Irish-language revival
The autobiography of Peig Sayers has come to symbolize the totality of Irish-language women’s literature of the early twentieth century. Critical ideology since De Valera’s era has consistently feted the Gaelic-speaking, poverty-stricken, rural-based, mother figure as representative of the truest soul of the Irish people. Nevertheless, this work was and remains at variance with the literary genres with which the more numerous, educated, middle class, urban-based Irish-language women writers of the era experimented. In this paper, I will argue that the work of two writers, Agnes O’Farrelly and Máire Ní Chinnéide, better represent the trends in women’s writing of the period.
During the Revivalist era, O’Farrelly and Ní Chinnéide emerged as leading female cultural nationalists, who publicly engaged in various areas of social and educational reform, immersing themselves in
the activities of Inghinidhe na hÉireann, the Suffragette movement, the Gaelic League and the Camogie Association of Ireland. While their activism and zeal for the Irish language was constantly acknowledged, their literary endeavors were often overlooked by male critics as they wrote in what were traditionally considered female genres. Thus work such as O’Farrelly’s 1901 Grádh agus Crádh (Love and Torment), a feminist-inspired and subversive novella, and Ní Chinnéide’s 1908 An Dúthchas (The Heritage), a treatise on abusive and fragile family relationships caused by alcoholism, have been dismissed as minor women’s literature rather than being subjected to critical assessement.
5:00-6:00 p.m. Session Five
Matthieu Boyd
(Harvard University) The commonplaces of Gwerziou Breiz-Izel, and other remarks on an English translation of François-Marie Luzel's Breton ballads
I am translating François-Marie Luzel's canonical collection of Breton ballads,
Gwerzioù Breiz-Izel "The Ballads of Western Brittany" (1868-1874), into
English. I will be giving an overview of the project and discussing what my
close encounter with the texts has made me realize about the way these songs
are composed. In a previous presentation (CSANA meeting, 2008) I argued that
formulaic language - commonplaces and recurring episodes - should be recognized
as one of the defining features of the genre. In this one I will look at
different ways in which this formulaic language operates, and to characterize
the verbal art of the gwerzioù with as many concrete examples as time will
allow.
Increasingly (and rightly so), the gwerzioù are seen as valuable primary sources
for the cultural and social history of Brittany. A few famous examples of
archaism show the continuity of the Breton oral tradition from the Middle Ages
to the twentieth century. But here I will offer an appreciation of the
gwerzioù as artistic works, intriguing and delightful in themselves.
Éva Guillorel(Harvard University and Université Européenne de Bretagne) Collecting in the Breton islands: prejudices and realities
The Breton islands were underexplored by folklorists interested in Breton oral traditions in the nineteenth century. Several of them – especially François-Marie Luzel, who is often considered the most important collector of folktales and songs in Brittany – developed the idea that maritime and littoral life was incompatible with popular creativity. As a consequence, rural communities from the interior of the country were collected first. The case of the island of Ouessant (Breton: Enez Eusa) is particularly interesting because it was explored by François-Marie Luzel in 1873, who asserted that traditional songs had all disappeared. However, in 1906, a singer from Ouessant sent around sixty Breton songs from her familial repertoire to a traditional song competition. The size and quality of her repertoire prove Luzel’s assertions to be false; moreover, these songs are often the only examples we have of several old ballad-types from Léon (North-West Brittany), an area generally considered by folklorists to be irrelevant to collecting. Analysing the repertoire of songs coming from the Breton islands can help us to completely redefine our knowledge of Breton oral tradition. It also invites us to question the prejudices of folklorists, and the consequences of such prejudices on the collections obtained in the nineteenth century.
October 10, 2009
Dydd Sadwrn/ Dé Sathairn / Saturday
9:00-10:30 a.m. Session Six
Alaw Mai Jones
(University of Wales) The Sweet and the Sour: the medieval feast and the imagery of food and drink in fifteenth-century Wales
Tina Chance(Harvard University) Ethnicity,
Geography, and the Passage of Dominion in the Mabinogi and Brut y
Brenhinedd
Kelly Ann Randell
(University of Cambridge) "And there was a fourth son, Llefelys": narrative structure and variation in Cyfranc Lludd a Llefelys
10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Session Seven
Aaron Alzola Romero and Eduardo Sanchez-Moreno
(University of Oxford and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
Fabricating Celts: How Iron Age Iberians became Indo-Europeanized during the Franco regime
Dinah Evans
(Bangor University) "Constructing the priceless heritage of Welsh children?": a study of bilingualism in Welsh schools in the 1950s
Tomos Dafydd Davies
(Aberystwyth University) The British Conservative Party and the "Celtic Fringe"
1:30-3:00 p.m. Session Eight
Natalie Anne Franz
(Harvard University) At the Crossroads: World War One and the shifting roles of men and women in Breton ballad song practice
Gwendal Denez
(Université Rennes 2, Brittany) Gwalarn: an attempt to renew Breton literature
Yann Bevant
(Université Rennes 2, Brittany) Nations in tune: the influence of Irish music on the Breton musical revival
3:15-4:45 p.m. Session Nine
Nicholas Zair
(University of Oxford) MW. heul, MB. heol, MC. houl "sun" and the development of Proto-British *aw
Anders Ahlqvist
(University of Sydney) Irish sí and English she
Benjamin Bruch
(Harvard University) An lavar kôth yu lavar guîr: The Cornish Englyn Revisited
5:00-6:30 p.m. Session Ten
Natasha Sumner
(Harvard University) The Life and Tales of Peig Sayers: A Woman's Foray into Masculine Territory
Adam Coward
(University of Wales, Newport) Rejecting Mother's Blessing: the Absence of the Fairy in the Welsh Search for National Identity
Gearóid Denvir
(NUI Galway) The True Word: The Oral Poetry of Learaí Phádraic Learaí Ó Fínneadha
Saturday's Abstracts
October 10, 2009
Dydd Sadwrn/ Dé Sathairn / Saturday
9:00-10:30 a.m. Session Six
Alaw Mai Jones
(University of Wales) The Sweet and the Sour: the medieval feast and the imagery of food and drink in fifteenth-century Wales
During the fifteenth century, the great medieval Welsh feast reached its peak in Wales. The poets travelled from one great hall to another, offering their praise in exchange for hospitality. It was a period of a general increase in the standard of living, and, due to developments in trade, a period of lavishness and comfort. The poets soon realized how exciting it was to taste such new and varied foods: spices like cinnamon, cumin and cloves, exotic fruits and wines from Spain, France and Greece. This paper will therefore examine carefully the references to these different foods and drinks and see what we can learn about everyday life in fifteenth-century Wales. In the second part of the paper, the main emphasis will be on how the poets are inspired to use these new tastes metaphorically. To a great extent, the lavishness of the nobleman's feast reflected his wealth and social status, as well as his and his wife's ability to maintain their household. The poets, fully realizing this, often dedicated many lines in their poems to describing in detail the generosity bestowed upon them at the nobleman’s table. It was yet another means to confirm the nobleman’s right to his power base. The paper will attempt to answer questions such as: what was the metaphorical meaning of taste and flavour to the poets? Was there a dish which reflected Welsh culture? What ingredients were considered exotic and new? In addition, was there a Welsh "tradition" to a medieval feast in the fifteenth century? By answering some of these questions I hope to offer new insights into the economic situation in fifteenth-century Wales, the dietary customs of the Welsh and the importance of literature as a source to discover more about their way of life.
Tina Chance(Harvard University) Ethnicity, Geography, and the Passage of Dominion in the Mabinogi and Brut y Brenhinedd
Brynley Roberts has argued that, faced with the geographic and political realities of their time, the medieval Welsh continued to embrace the concept of Brythonic sovereignty over Ynys Prydein, but necessarily refigured their imagining of the island whole to be an ethnic one—that is, that Ynys Prydein consisted only of the ethnically British parts of the island: Wales, Cornwall, and the Old North. Reading medieval Welsh texts that deal with the passage of dominion of the island from British hands suggests a more complex interaction of the ethnic and geopolitical, of myth and reality. The second and third branches of the Mabinogi, though not usually read as dealing with Brythonic loss of sovereignty, in truth provide an illuminating presentation of this theme. Studied in conjunction with Brut y Brenhinedd, the widely copied Welsh version of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, this native configuration of loss of British sovereignty provides an intriguing and complex insight into the ways that the medieval Welsh conceptualized their island, their identity, and their past.
Kelly Ann Randell
(University of Cambridge) "And there was a fourth son, Llefelys": narrative structure and variation in Cyfranc Lludd a Llefelys
The short pseudo-historical tale Cyfranc Lludd a Llefelys has been classified in the past as a fragmentary narrative that may be little more than an extended triad, one which lacks the stylistic brilliance and artistic nuances of the native tales and "romances". It is almost exclusively studied as an independent text, but it is the only Middle Welsh prose tale that appears in an earlier form, as an embedded narrative in a thirteenth-century version of Brut y Brenhinedd. Despite its unique position, these negative views of the text have limited the critical attention paid to the tale in studies of the Welsh Bruts, and encouraged a purely stylistic comparison with the other prose tales. In many ways, this is an unfair comparison: Lludd a Llefelys should be defined by its evolution in form and content. It appears in four of the seven manuscript versions of Brut y Brenhinedd, and each of these versions contains a different text. In this paper, I will discuss the structure and style of the Brut variants, and argue that the text was composed in a consciously historical style that continues to distinguish the narrative in its independent form. In addition, I propose that the focus on the supernatural oppressions oversimplifies the narrative; the structure of the text suggests that it is more concerned with the interplay between Lludd and Llefelys. The episodes focus on the relationship between kings and the giving of advice, and show striking structural similarities to the Second Branch of the Mabinogi.
10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Session Seven
Aaron Alzola Romero and Eduardo Sanchez-Moreno
(University of Oxford and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
Fabricating Celts: How Iron Age Iberians became Indo-Europeanized during the Franco regime
On April 1939, General Franco proclaimed his victory in the Spanish Civil War. The ensuing militaristic, fascist-sympathising government urgently required a means of justifying its controversial ultra-conservative agenda. In addition, national morale was rapidly deteriorating: post-war Spain was ravaged by strict rationing, poverty, and violent sectarianism. The Francoist intelligentsia identified archaeology and history as potential remedies to these ailments, hoping that they would allow the regime to instil a sense of pride in the new construct of Spanish nationhood. Previous governments had already adopted the Iberians (i.e. Iron Age communities that spoke non-Indoeuropean tongues) as the main protagonists of the Spanish "glorious past." However, these representations of the nation’s history no longer suited the political interests of the incoming regime. The country’s cultural and identitary heritage had to be presented in a new light. Therefore, archaeological studies of pre-Roman Spain increasingly disregarded or downplayed autochthonous traits, emphasising instead the Celtic elements believed to originate from Central Europe. Eventually, this was carried to the extreme of denying outright the existence of an Iberian Culture, attributing Celtic origins to all of Spain’s Iron Age indigenous ancestry. In doing so, Spain was consciously brought closer to the cultural origins of a pan-Celtic Europe (in particular the Hallstatt region), thus linking the country’s "glorious past" with that of its strongest political ally at the time — Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Despite the overwhelming archaeological and palaeolinguistic evidence against this far-fetched model, Iberians had been, in effect, converted into Celts.
Dinah Evans
(Bangor University) "Constructing the priceless heritage of Welsh children?": a study of bilingualism in Welsh schools in the 1950s
Just before St David’s Day 1953, the Welsh Department of the Ministry of Education issued a circular titled, Dydd Gwyl Dewi 1953, Cymru Ddwyieithog ? (St. David’s Day 1953, A Bilingual Wales ?). The circular called on local education authorities to prepare detailed plans for the teaching of Welsh, stressing that if bilingualism was to be achieved there was need for vigorous effort. However by 1957 an official at the Ministry was not only forced to admit that English was the first language of two-thirds of the inhabitants of Wales, but also to compare the Welsh language to "one of Swift’s Lilliputian folk pitting his strength and skills against a Brobdingian!".
This paper considers whether the teaching of Welsh in schools in Wales during the 1950s could reflect the needs of the nation, given the polar extremes of contemporary opinion. It will also consider whether bilingualism in the Principality was driven more by the desires of civil servants at the Welsh Department of the Ministry than by the elected members of local authorities who often argued that "there should be no right to thrust Welsh down the throats of children".
Tomos Dafydd Davies
(Aberystwyth University) The British Conservative Party and the "Celtic Fringe"
As a historically centralized and unitary party, steadfast in its support for the United Kingdom and vehemently opposed to political devolution, the advent of sub-state government in both Scotland and Wales posed many political and conceptual challenges to the British Conservative Party. For many commentators, the ideological re-definition of the Conservative Party was seen as vital for the so called "English" Party, long considered to be of little or no relevance to the Scottish and Welsh electoral contexts. The following paper considers to what extent has the British Conservative Party successfully responded to the challenges posed by devolution in Scotland and Wales. In doing so, the paper considers how British Conservatives have historically conceptualized or understood the respective Scottish and Welsh "nations." The paper argues that the advent of devolution necessitated a radical overhaul of the Conservative Party’s understanding of the British state, and her respective constituent nations. The paper concludes by considering whether the Conservative Party has successfully developed its unionism in wake of devolution, and articulated a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the Scottish and Welsh nations.
1:30-3:00 p.m. Session Eight
Natalie Anne Franz
(Harvard University) At the Crossroads: World War One and the shifting roles of men and women in Breton ballad song practice
As I have noted in an earlier paper [Rennes, 2007], although women may be considered to be the primary purveyors of the Breton ballad tradition [gwerzioù], men—most notably, beggars and tailors—also played an essential role in the song practices associated with this oral poetic tradition in pre-World War I Brittany. Indeed, I would suggest that the role of women as singers of the gwerzioù, has been somewhat dissimulated in the years following the war of 1914-18, particularly as men have become increasingly associated with modern gwerz song practice. This interplay of—and apparent shift in—the roles of men and women as performers of the gwerzioù, opens the door to an important and necessary discussion of the Breton ballad tradition as a gendered song practice, particularly with regards to men’s role in the gwerz tradition both prior to and following the First World War. Based on parallel research for an article which I am currently preparing for publication ["O Sister, Where Art Thou? Reflections on the Role of Women in the Breton Ballad Tradition"], this paper will review some of the socio-cultural changes in traditional, rural Breton communities following the first World War, focusing particularly on the influence such changes may have had on traditional gwerz song practice and content.
Gwendal Denez
(Université Rennes 2, Brittany) Gwalarn: an attempt to renew Breton literature
The first issue of the literary journal Gwalarn was published in 1925; its main purpose was to root out the Breton literature from "provincialism" and the loads of clichés attached to it as well as to "pledge a literary renewal as other many small nations have already done". From March 1925 to July 1926—when the journal became independent—Gwalarn was published as a supplement to the openly separatist political paper Breiz Atao. In addition to this political anchoring, the aim of the founders (Roparz Hemon, Youenn Drezen and Fañch Elies being the most important figures) was to create a modern literature far from the still persistent influence of the French "schools" (such as Le Parnasse, de Heredia, T. Gautier etc.) or any ever-lasting post-romanticism. But Gwalarn had another goal: going back to the celtic roots, and the name of the journal is the key to this quest: gwalarn means north-west… and north-west of Brittany lies Ireland. The cultural struggle that occurred in Ireland (1898–1907) and its fundamental debate about "what is a national literature" (Yeats, Russel, Douglas Hyde, Eglinton, etc.), as well as the Easter uprising in 1916 had a real influence on the "gwalarnists". The paper will focus on the emergence of a "national literature" in Brittany that took root in the language activism of the early twentieth century, just as it occurred in other "small nations" (Galicia or Albania) for instance.
Yann Bevant
(Université Rennes 2, Brittany) Nations in tune: the influence of Irish music on the Breton musical revival
The first Breton musical revival started in the wake of the second world war. It was essential for Brittany to maintain the presence of a musical tradition which was part and parcel of its Celtic heritage and contributed to the fabric of the nation at a time the very existence of Breton culture was jeopardized by the omnipresence of the French language and the transformation of a largely rural society into a more industrialised and urban one. Even before the war traditional music and dances were being neglected to the benefit of a standardised French—in fact Parisian—model which was able to reach out to the wider world. From Maurice Chevalier to the musette, a whole generation grew increasingly disaffected and turned towards fashionable French tunes—and French lyrics. In such a context the first step in the evolution of Breton traditional music occurred in the 1940s under the influence of men like Polig Monjarret and Dorig le Voyer. Their contribution to the revival of Breton music is considerable and the repercussions of their action are still visible today. Following in the footsteps of the panceltic movement, they turned towards their celtic neighbours for ideas and models and in 1943 they founded Bodadeg ar Sonerien—the gathering of the pipers—which proved very successful and became a landmark in the evolution of traditional music in Brittany. Yet if the BaS is at the origin of Breton Bagadoù and of the interceltic festival now located in Lorient, credits must also go to Polig Monjarret for the creation of Kan ar Bobl which has become a very popular song contest in Brittany, and again Monjarret found his inspiration in Ireland, when he attended the Fleadh Choil final in Kerry in 1972. Breton music went through its second revival in the 1970s, and in that period Irish influence became more obvious through its presence in the instrumental and musical apparatus of Breton musicians, Alan Cochevelou -better known as Alan Stivell- or uilleann piper Patrick Molard being probably among the most potent examples. Last but not least, the Interceltic Festival in Lorient has now reached international fame, and the evolution of the festival reflects to a large extent the evolution of Breton music. Since its creation, the festival has been a bridge between the musical traditions of the Celtic nations, and as Bretons musicians were looking for new models in the 1970s, many famous Irish bands such as the Chieftains or the Dubliners came to the festival and had a tremendous impact on them. From the 1980s onwards the festival has been characterised by its creativity and the collaboration between the musicians of the celtic nations. It symbolizes a Breton culture opened on the world, which owes much to the influence of the Irish.
3:15-4:45 p.m. Session Nine
Nicholas Zair
(University of Oxford) MW. heul, MB. heol, MC. houl "sun" and the development of Proto-British *aw
The exact origin of OW. houl, MW. heul,W. haul "sun, sunlight", OC. heuul, MC. heul, houl, OB. houl, MB. heaul, heol, B. heol "sun" is not yet certain, although it is generally agreed to be somehow related to OIr. súil "eye", Greek eélios, Latin sol "sun". According to Jackson (1953: 374), the original form was *sawelyo-. However, this requires an early, and unexpected, loss of an internal vowel to give *sawlyo- and an unexpected development of *aw. Hamp (1975) argues that the words come regularly from a stem *sawl-, which was generalised from a nominative singular *sawel. Yet another suggestion is that they come from *sawol (Matasovic 2009: 324).
This talk will examine the evidence for the regular development of *aw in the Brittonic languages; only when this has been decided can the different arguments be assessed. In particular, it will be shown that stressed *aw resulted in MW. o (e.g. MW. glo "charcoal" < *glawo-), and that therefore other factors must be taken into account in the development to heul etc. It will be concluded that *sawol is the most likely preform, and it was part of a declension from which OIr. súil and MW. huan "sun" were also derived.
Anders Ahlqvist
(University of Sydney) Irish sí and English she
Modern Irish sí and English she sound identical and mean the same thing, yet few scholars have dared to look at any kind of connection between them. The paper discusses some previous attempts to link these words and tries to assess to what extent these may or may not have been successful. It also draws attention to the still not very extensively researched existence of similar pairs of words elsewhere, in the shape of, for instance, Finnish hän (meaning "he" and "she") and Swedish han ("he").
Benjamin Bruch
(University of Bonn) An lavar kôth yu lavar guîr: The Cornish Englyn Revisited
In 1707, the Welsh scholar Edward Lhuyd published the following poem in his masterwork Archæologia Britannica:
An lavar kôth yu lavar guîr,
Bedh dorn rê ver, dhon tavaz rê hîr;
Mez dên heb davaz a gollaz i dîr.
What’s said of old, will always stand:
Too long a tongue, too short a hand:
But he that had no tongue, lost his land.
Lhuyd described this poem as an example of a Cornish verse form derived from the same ancient source as the Welsh englyn milwr, a view which went largely unquestioned until 1980, when an article by R. G. Maber in BBCS 28 cast doubt upon the poem’s antiquity. Based on his research into Cornish versification and the history of the proverbial sayings incorporated into the poem, Maber concluded that there is no reliable evidence that An lavar kôth represents a survival of an early Brittonic englyn form, and suggested that the poem is more likely to have been composed by a Cornishman of Lhuyd’s day who was familiar with Welsh verse. In 1999, the Middle Cornish play Bewnans Ke was discovered, and while it contains no englynion, the word eglynnyon does appear in the text. One of the editors of Bewnans Ke, N. J. A. Williams, recently (2007) reopened the debate about An lavar kôth, claiming that it and two other texts from eighteenth-century sources represent genuine examples of Cornish englynion. This paper will examine Williams’ and Maber’s arguments in the light of historical, linguistic, and metrical evidence.
5:00-6:30 p.m. Session Ten
Natasha Sumner
(Harvard University) The Life and Tales of Peig Sayers: A Woman's Foray into Masculine Territory
"Peig Sayers" is a household name in Ireland today, and she is one of the few Irish storytellers whose legacy crosses international boundaries. Born in 1873 in Dunquin parish on the Dingle Peninsula, Peig moved to the Great Blasket Island after her marriage. It was there that she honed her skill as a raconteur. Peig is unique in that she recited folktales that many women were discouraged from telling. J. H. Delargy notes the proverb, "A woman fiannaí or a crowing hen!" and Clodagh Brennan Harvey’s more recent study evidences the continuance of this social proscription. Peig, however, was respected and admired for her masculine tales "about the old heroes of legend." As evidenced in her story, "Fionn in Search of His Youth," these accounts do not always conform to the ideal structure and length of a hero tale. Such renditions may therefore have been more innocuous for a female storyteller to relate. Peig’s stories also differ from masculine tellings in that she emphasizes feminine concerns. For example, "Seán na Bánóige" focuses strongly on the issue of family, even though Seán’s wife and children are not present throughout most of the tale. It can be observed that because of Peig’s unique social environment and her remarkable talent, she was able to transcend gender barriers and introduce new aspects to her tales while still preserving their traditional structure.
Adam Coward
(University of Wales, Newport) Rejecting Mother's Blessing: the Absence of the Fairy in the Welsh Search for National Identity
In the long eighteenth century Wales experienced a cultural renaissance, with groups and individuals refining, distilling, and, in many cases, inventing a Welsh national identity. Through the efforts of antiquarians and cultural barons like Thomas Pennant, the Morris Brothers, and Iolo Morganwg, the Welsh to some extent took on the persona of the "Celt" through emphasis of their rich antiquity, celebration of their wild, picturesque landscape, and general romanticism in poetry and song; but, unlike Yeats in Ireland and Sir Walter Scott in Scotland, these men shied away from the Romantic’s affinities with the realm of faerie. This was in part due to the intellectual climate of the time. The preternatural was not accepted as a serious intellectual topic of discussion as it had been in the seventeenth century and would be among nineteenth century spiritualists and theosophists. Nor was it yet a serious area of popular antiquities as Welsh antiquarians sought to follow in the rational, sceptical footsteps of Edward Lhuyd. What is more, Wales was already considered by some intellectuals, politicians, divines, and English travellers a backward land of superstition, an image Welsh cultural elites sought to discourage. Thus figures like Hywel Dda, Prince Madog, and Owain Glyndwr were glorified and the Tylwyth Teg pushed aside. Druids were made into pre-Christian philosophers while the Eisteddfod and Gorsedd became national institutions as these men sought to change the image of Wales from the land of prophesy, magic and fairies into an ancient and civilized land of poets, bards, and songs.
Gearóid Denvir
(NUI Galway) The True Word: The Oral Poetry of Learaí Phádraic Learaí Ó Fínneadha
Traditional oral poetry is alive and well in the Connemara Gaeltacht today. It is not a
semi- or sub-literary genre, or the last hurrah of a dying civilisation, or as one scholar
claims of 18th century poetry, "the end of a tradition ... the last phase of the Gaelic
tradition ... in a sociologically peasant society". Despite the many metamorphoses of
the Gaelic tradition, and despite the obvious modernity of subject matter and other
influences from outside, I have argued for some years that the basic function and
modes of discourse in this poetry are fundamentally the same throughout what I
would term the Gaelic continuum. This paper examines the oral poetry of
Learaí Phádraic Learaí Ó Fínneadha of An Lochán Beag, Indreabhán. His father and
grandfather were well-known local poets and some of their songs are still sung in the
area. Learaí’s poetry is always strongly descriptive, an account in medias res from a
participant of his own world through the medium of a hereditary traditional craft. It is
a celebration of a community and indeed of his own life as a member of that
community and the poetry not only celebrates but also perpetuates the happenings and
events described. In ethnographical terms it is the presentation of the nativist
worldview from within by an active and committed participant as opposed to a
prescription from without by an outsider.
October 11, 2009
Dydd Sul/ Dé Domhnaigh / Sunday
8:30-10:00 a.m. Session Eleven
Charlene Eska
(Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) Mothers, Sons and Sureties in Early Irish Law
Edyta Lehmann
(Harvard University) A Walk on the Wild Side: Women, Men, and Madness
Beth Moore
(Harvard University) "The Marshalled Fence of Battle of All the Men of Earth": A Reading of Cú Chulainn’s First Recension ríastrad
10:15-11:45 a.m. Session Twelve
Michael Linkletter
(St. Francis Xavier University) The Early Establishment of Celtic Studies in North American Universities
Katie Gramich
(Cardiff University) "Big Peig" Sayers and Kate "Queen of Our Literature" Roberts
Joshua Byron Smith
(Northwestern University) The Composition and Sources of Benedict of Gloucester's Vita Dubricii
12:00-1:00 p.m. Session Thirteen
Máire Johnson
(Clarion University of Pennsylvania) Apocryphal Sanctity in the Lives of Irish Saints
Gene Haley
(Harvard University) Irelands of the mind: early Irish allegories and the great seventh-century Easter dispute
Sunday's Abstracts
October 11, 2009
Dydd Sul/ Dé Domhnaigh / Sunday
8:30-10:00 a.m. Session Eleven
Charlene Eska
(Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) Mothers, Sons and Sureties in Early Irish Law
In §22 of the early Irish law tract Cáin Lánamna "the law of couples" there is a much-debated phrase concerning whether it is a woman’s sureties or sons who can impugn all of her husband’s disadvantageous contracts—provided she is a primary wife of equal status as her husband. The actual passage in question reads conda tathbongat a maic, where the form maic can be interpreted to refer either to her sureties or her sons. In fact, the glossators themselves, in two different manuscripts, seem to be uncertain whether maic refers to her sureties or sons as they gloss maic with both the word for "children" and "binding sureties". Another issue surrounding this passage of the tract is whether this point of law only applies to cases where the union is described as lánamnas mná for ferthinchur "union of a woman on a man’s contribution", or if it applies to other types of unions as well. This paper exams the roles of sons and sureties in early Irish law and offers a possible solution to this textual problem.
Edyta Lehmann
(Harvard University) A Walk on the Wild Side: Women, Men, and Madness
This paper will examine the role of female characters operating within the paradigm of a madman in Irish literary tradition. It will concentrate on two texts, The Romance of Mis and Dubh Ruis and Buile Suibhne. While literary instances of male insanity have attracted ample scholarly attention (Suibhne Geilt being a model example of a deranged hero), female characters who are either mad or are in any way associated with madness have been glossed over as alleged reflexes of territorial goddesses and/or as symbolic of the unpredictability of nature. This paper will seek to problematize that interpretation and present the character of Mis as well as the supporting female characters of Buile Suibhne as distinct characters facilitating a narrative excursion into liminal spaces between sanity and madness, society and individuality, and culture and nature.
Beth Moore
(Harvard University) "The Marshalled Fence of Battle of All the Men of Earth": A Reading of Cú Chulainn’s First Recension ríastrad
Scholarship concerning Cú Chulainn’s ríastrad has tended to note an ambiguity of heroism in his frightening transformation. Kim McCone, for example, has cited Cú Chulainn as "a Jekyll and Hyde figure", and Jeremy Lowe has identified the warrior as an embodiment of Kristeva’s abject. Such readings denote either a fickleness of heroic character or an anomalous figure who exceeds the definition that his heroic code would normally provide.
I believe, however, that a different reading of the significance of the ríastrad is possible in the first recension. The text contains three descriptive passages pertaining to the distortion which may be read in light of an existing interplay between the literal description and the figurative language that comprise them. Several of the motifs associated with the ríastrad in these passages are notable for their functional associations and, often, are all too familiar: apples, needles, brush reinforcing a hedge. When such images are written onto Cú Chulainn’s body, they, too, are effectively distorted, their very associations warped. They ultimately indicate not only that sovereignty has become ineffective, but also form the basis for a watchman technique in which readers may participate as identifiers. This paper is thus an exploration of how the ríastrad serves to facilitate our identification of Cú Chulainn as a thoroughly heroic and reflective figure whose distorted body visually articulates the dangerous effects of unrestrained violence, an all-encompassing force that, unlike heroic martial action, originates not in the warrior himself, but in the ineptitude of poor sovereigns.
10:15-11:45 a.m. Session Twelve
Michael Linkletter
(St. Francis Xavier University) The Early Establishment of Celtic Studies in North American Universities
There were two main influences at work in the establishment of courses in Celtic languages in Canada and the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Universities that were among the first to offer Celtic courses, such as Notre Dame University, St. Francis Xavier University, the Catholic University of America, Harvard University, and UC Berkeley, seem to have been influenced by either cultural sympathies towards a particular Celtic country or by interests in Celtic as an aspect of historical linguistics. In this paper I will discuss the history of the establishment of Scottish Gaelic studies in North America as a case study in the context of the development of the wider field of Celtic studies in general.
Katie Gramich
(Cardiff University) "Big Peig" Sayers and Kate "Queen of Our Literature" Roberts
Peig Sayers (1873-1958) and Kate Roberts (1891-1985) occupy analogous positions in the national imaginary of Ireland and Wales, respectively. These "queens" of our Celtic vernacular literature are, paradoxically, both revered and derided. They, their published work, and even the frequently reproduced photographs of them in extreme old age stand not only as emblems of Celtic languages and cultures but also as icons of their nations. Later generations of Welsh- and Irish speakers have, perhaps understandably, regarded them with ambivalence, since the focus in their lives and work on loss, suffering, and stoical femininity appear to belong to a more repressed and less enlightened age than our own. Their work has been set as exemplars for generations of schoolchildren in Wales and Ireland to study the "purity" of the language but it has also been subjected to ridicule and parody, often by male writers who see themselves as iconoclasts, such as Flann O’Brien, Dermot Bolger, and Mihangel Morgan. Building on the work of feminist recuperation initiated by critics such as Patricia Coughlan and Delyth George, my argument is that the reception of these two female writers is very similar in the two countries and that the tensions and contradictions perceptible in that reception are characteristic of the problematic position that contemporary Celtic languages and cultures find themselves in today. A comparative approach highlights both the commonalities of this situation and, in the evident differences between the illiterate oral mode of Peig’s art and the highly literate, scribal quality of Roberts’s work, illuminates the discontinuous histories of the two Celtic languages.
Joshua Byron Smith
(Northwestern University) The Composition and Sources of Benedict of Gloucester's Vita Dubricii
Benedict of Gloucester’’s Vita Dubricii is one of the few early and indisputable cases of Welsh literature traveling into England. In this paper, I argue that Benedict’s life demonstrates one way in which Welsh literature could find an audience outside of Wales. I will also present my preliminary findings on the Vita Dubricii’s textual history, and its use of the figure of Arthur. Around the middle of the twelfth century, Benedict, a monk at St. Peter’s Abbey in Gloucester, acquired the vita of Dyfrig, an important saint in Southwest Wales. Benedict had been a careful reader of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, and he set out to update the vita of Dyfrig with material that he found in Geoffrey’s Historia. Benedict’s Vita Dubricii differs substantially from the earlier life–Dyfrig, for instance, is made crucial to Arthur’s success—yet this version of the vita has garnered little critical attention: The only printed edition of Benedict’s Vita is Henry Wharton’s 1690 transcription, which is incomplete and unreliable. Furthermore, scholars of medieval Wales have preferred to study the original, unredacted version of the Vita Dubricii. My discussion of Benedict’s Vita Dubricii stems from a new edition of the text, which I am preparing as part as my doctoral research.
12:00-1:00 p.m. Session Thirteen
Máire Johnson
(Clarion University of Pennsylvania) Apocryphal Sanctity in the Lives of Irish Saints
The saints of medieval Ireland have long had a reputation for being rather idiosyncratic, and have even been accused of representing non-Christian ideals. In fact, many of the hagiographically atypical elements of the Lives of Ireland’s holy men and women show signs of apocryphal inspiration. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, for example, can be shown to have influenced the depictions of saints’ nativities in some Lives, as well as having provided exempla for deeds of saintly retribution. Although most apocryphal works seem to relate to New Testament characters or events, there are also appearances of Old Testament texts such as the Paraleipomena of Jeremiah. "Apocryphal sanctity in the Lives of Irish saints" addresses the ways in which both Old and New Testament apocrypha are used in the construction of Irish holiness in the vernacular and Latin Lives of Irish saints, from the embodiment of the sanctifying essence of God’s favor in a human form through the acts of the saint in Irish society. It demonstrates that far from being idiosyncratic or non-Christian, Ireland’s medieval saints are drawn in the illustrious—but often apocryphal—patterns of not only Old Testament prophets and New Testament apostles but also in both a canonical and an apocryphal image of Christ himself.
Gene Haley
(Harvard University) Irelands of the mind: early Irish allegories and the great seventh-century Easter dispute
This paper examines the early narratives Cath Maige Léna, Scéla Mucce Meic Dathó, and Táin Bó Cúailnge (Recension I) as artifacts of the troubled history of early Christian Ireland, especially relating to the great seventh century dispute over the proper dating of Easter. At issue was whether Ireland in the first half of that century would join in a new and improved "Roman" computation of Easter, or stand loyal to one of the "Irish" methods laid down centuries before by Saints Patrick, Colum Chille, and others. The so-called "Irish" cause would eventually be championed solely by Iona, mother house of the Columban paruchia.
Each of the three tales creates an imaginery Ireland of a time beyond memory, complete with heroes and villains, animal helpers, otherworld protectors, and magical plot devices. Satirical burlesques though they be at certain points, each tale is occasioned by serious historical concerns. The action described in each serves an historical purpose. And traversed in each narrative is a real landscape dotted with real places. The multiplicity of such topographical details is not without importance in these interrelated and serious entertainments.
CML is clearly an allegory written on behalf of the northern or Irish faction, at a time when it seemed they had won the fight and could style themselves as Leth Cuinn, the Chieftain’s Side or Half. The apparent losers, toadies of Rome, were accordingly named Leth Mogha, the Slave's Side or Half. The tale satirizes the Synod of Mag Léna held c.629/630 C.E. at Durrow in Westmeath to solicit unanimous support for Rome among the southern "elder" monasteries. A Columban monastery but on the Roman side, Durrow was located in Mag Léna, the Plain of Meadows, on the present Westmeath-Offaly border. TBC seems dedicated to the defense of Iona, the last holdout in the Easter debate and epitomized by Sétanta, the Hound of Culann, the spirit of Iona in Louth. SMMD by contrast is a later, more sophisticated response to TBC, a burlesque of the same Mag Léna synod as it reconvened some two years later in Mag nAilbe, the White Plain, in Leinster near Leighlin, Co. Carlow. The author of SMMD playfully drops hints as to what it finally took to get the northern faction's agreement to the new Easter: the full-blown Patrician legend and the primacy of Armagh!
