Bibliography

Kobel, Chantal, “Varium. Cú Chulainn’s battle-scars: a new interpretation of a quatrain in Aided Guill meic Carbada 7 Aided Gairb Glinne Rige”, Ériu 70 (2020): 171–176.

  • journal article
Citation details
Contributors
Article
“Varium. Cú Chulainn’s battle-scars: a new interpretation of a quatrain in Aided Guill meic Carbada 7 Aided Gairb Glinne Rige
Periodical
Ériu 70 (2020)
Ériu 70 (2020), Dublin: Royal Irish Academy.
Volume
70
Pages
171–176
Description
Abstract (cited)

DIL s.v. forrind ‘point (of a weapon), barb’ provides three examples. One of these is taken from a quatrain preserved in the late Middle Irish ­prosimetric tale Aided Guill meic Carbada 7 Aided Gairb Glinne Rige (hereafter AG), edited by Stokes (1893). The word in question is found in the final line of the second couplet: ni ḟail díb ar talmain tend / crecht arna fagbaim fairrend, ‘Of them on the firm earth there is none for which I do not leave a spearpoint’, LL 12881 (trans. Stokes 1893, 423). Stokes’s translation of ­ fairrend as ‘spearpoint’ suggests he understood it as a word consisting of for- + rind ‘a point, tip, apex’ (DIL 1 rind), an i-stem. The editors of the Dictionary suggested emending tend … fairrend to tind … fairrind, presumably on the basis that a palatalised final -nd would be expected for an acc. sg. i-stem and therefore emendation to tind would also be needed to fulfil the requirement for deibide rhyme. In this note I revisit this proposed emendation in the Dictionary and provide a new analysis and interpretation of the second couplet in AG, suggesting that fairrend has a more nuanced meaning than forrind ‘barb, spearpoint’ and that perhaps no emendation is needed.

Subjects and topics
Headings
Ulster Cycle early Irish poetry
Approaches
lexicography
Sources
Texts
Language
Lexical itemSingle words, morphemes or phrases.
Irish fairrendIrish forrind
Contributors
Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
January 2022