Texts

Fled Bricrenn ‘The feast of Bricriu’

prose
Ulster Cycle

Title

Fled Bricrenn

‘The feast of Bricriu’

Also spelled Fled Bricrend.

Manuscripts

Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, MS 23 E 25 (1229) = Lebor na hUidre [s. xi/xii]

ff. 99b–112b

+H (interpolated). End missing.

London, British Library, MS Egerton 93 [s. xv (?)]

ff. 20r–25v

Fragment.

Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Adv. MS 72.1.40 [s. xv-xvi]

ff. 35r–36v pp. 69–76

part 5

Fragment, Cennach ind ruanada episode only.

Leiden, University Library, MS VLQ 7 [s. xvi]

ff. 3r–9v

Fragments.

Dublin, Trinity College, MS 1336 5, cols 681-710 [s. xv]

cols 683–710

Fragment; ends imperfect.

Dublin, Trinity College, MS 1337 19, pp. 565–628 [s. xvi (?)]

p. 607

Glossed extracts.⁽¹⁾^{n. 1} George Henderson, Fled Bricrend (1899): xxiv–xxx; Johan Corthals, Manuscript sources to Old and Middle Irish tales (MsOmit) (2010).

Form

prose (primary)

verse (secondary)

Textual relationships

Related: Cles Con CulainnCles Con Culainn

A repertory of Cú Chulainn's feats, similar to that contained in Scéla Conchobuir meic Nessa.

Irish glossary from TCD 1337, pp. 623-628Irish glossary from TCD 1337, pp. 623-628Medieval Irish glossary in TCD 1337, pp. 623-628. Many of the entries are known from other works and learned compilations, such as Sanas Cormaic.

Classification

Ulster Cycle
Ulster Cycle

id. 1797

Subjects

Bricriu

Bricriu

(time-frame ass. with Ulster Cycle)

hostel-keeper (briugu) in the Ulster Cycle of tales

See more Cú Chulainn

Cú Chulainn

Young Ulster hero and chief character of Táin bó Cuailnge and other tales of the Ulster Cycle; son of Súaltam or Lug and Deichtire (sister to Conchobor); husband of Emer (ingen Forgaill)

See more Conall Cernach

Conall Cernach

(time-frame ass. with Ulster Cycle)

Warrior of the Ulaid in the Ulster Cycle; son of Amergin and Findchóem. In Irish genealogies, he is presented as an ancestor of the kings of the Dál nAraidi and the Uí Echach Coba.

See more Lóegaire Búadach

Lóegaire Búadach

(time-frame ass. with Ulster Cycle)

Hero in tales of the Ulster Cycle; said to be a son of Connad Buide and grandson of Iliach

See more Cú Roí

Cú Roí (mac Dáiri)

(time-frame ass. with Ulster Cycle)

Warrior and king of Munster in tales of the Ulster Cycle.

Sources

Notes

^1.

George Henderson, Fled Bricrend (1899): xxiv–xxx; Johan Corthals, Manuscript sources to Old and Middle Irish tales (MsOmit) (2010).

Primary sources Text editions and/or modern translations – in whole or in part – along with publications containing additions and corrections, if known. Diplomatic editions, facsimiles and digital image reproductions of the manuscripts are not always listed here but may be found in entries for the relevant manuscripts. For historical purposes, early editions, transcriptions and translations are not excluded, even if their reliability does not meet modern standards.

[crit. ed.] [dipl. ed.] Mac Cana, Proinsias, and Edgar M. Slotkin, Fled Bricrenn, Online: Irish Texts Society, 2014. URL: <https://irishtextssociety.org/texts/fledbricrenn.html>.

Unfinished draft of a critical and diplomatic edition of Fled Bricrenn, with notes, commentary and an English translation.

abstract:

After Professor Proinsias Mac Cana's death in 2004, his widow Réiltín discovered among his papers the detailed preparatory work he and his collaborator Professor Edgar Slotkin had made towards an edition of Fled Bricrenn. Since this work was already at an advanced stage, Réiltín felt it should be made more widely available. On being asked by Réiltín to examine the work, Pádraig Ó Riain and Kevin Murray of the Department of Early and Medieval Irish in University College Cork, made a proposal in 2014 to the Irish Texts Society, whose Council generously agreed to have the edition (electronic copy kindly supplied by Dr Sharon Arbuthnot), working texts, translation and other parts of the work as completed by Proinsias and Edgar published on its website. Users of this work should reference the website when citing it in publications and should understand that the material on the site, though an important contribution to scholarship, represents an unfinished work. Finally, we wish to pay tribute here to the memories of Professors Mac Cana and Slotkin, and to thank Réiltín Mac Cana for making this material available.

[ed.] [tr.] Henderson, George [ed. and tr.], Fled Bricrend, Irish Texts Society, 2, London and Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1899.

Internet Archive: <link> Internet Archive: <link>

[ed.] Windisch, Ernst [ed.], Irische Texte mit Wörterbuch, 4 vols, vol. 1, Leipzig, 1880.

Internet Archive: <link> Internet Archive – Originally from Google Books: <link> – Vol. 1, part 1: View in Mirador – Vol. 1, part 2: Wörterbuch: View in Mirador

235–311, 330–336 Text based on LU, with variants.

[ed.] Stern, Ludwig Christian [ed.], “Fled Bricrend nach dem Codex Vossianus”, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 4 (1903): 143–177.

CELT – edition: <link> Internet Archive: <link>

[ed.] [tr.] Meyer, Kuno [ed. and tr.], “The Edinburgh version of the Cennach in Rúanado”, Revue Celtique 14 (1893): 450–459.

Internet Archive: <link> Internet Archive: <link>

[tr.] Carey, John [tr.], “[Various contributions]”, in: John T. Koch, and John Carey (eds), The Celtic Heroic Age. Literary sources for ancient Celtic Europe and early Ireland & Wales, 4th ed., 1, Aberystwyth: Celtic Studies Publications, 2003. [Various].

[id. 81.] Based on Henderson's translation.

[tr.] Gantz, Jeffrey [tr.], Early Irish myths and sagas, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981.

219–255

[tr.] Draak, Maartje, and Frida de Jong, Het feestgelag van Bricriu: een heldenverhaal, uit het Oudiers vertaald, Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1986.

Translation into Dutch.

[tr.] d'Arbois de Jubainville, Marie-Henri [tr.], “[Various contributions]”, in: Marie-Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville (ed.), L’épopée celtique en Irlande, 5, Paris: Thorin, 1892. [Various].

Internet Archive: <link>

81–146

Secondary sources (select)

Slotkin, Edgar M., “The structure of Fled Bricrenn before and after the Lebor na hUidre interpolations”, Ériu 29 (1978): 64–77.

Borsje, Jacqueline, “Úath mac Imomain und andere Schreckgespenster — Phantasievolle Kreationen oder traditionelle Elemente des irischen mittelalterlichen Erbes”, in: Helmut Birkhan (ed.), Kelten-Einfälle an der Donau. Akten des Vierten Symposiums deutschsprachiger Keltologinnen und Keltologen ... Linz/Donau, 17.-21. Juli 2005, Denkschriften, Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2007. 51–65.

Downey, Clodagh, “Intertextuality in Echtra mac nEchdach Mugmedóin”, in: John Carey, Máire Herbert, and Kevin Murray (eds), Cín Chille Cúile: texts, saints and places. Essays in honour of Pádraig Ó Riain, 9, Aberystwyth: Celtic Studies Publications, 2004. 77–104.