Bibliography
Narrative literature
Irish literature
Ulster CycleCycles of the KingsFinn CycleMythological CycleDinnshenchas ÉrennWelsh literature
MabinogionUlster Cycle
Results (879)
Duignan, Leonie, “The echtrae as an Irish literary genre”, PhD thesis, NUI Maynooth, 2010.
Eprints.maynoothuniversity.ie: <link>
abstract:
As its title indicates, this thesis is concerned with the echtrae as a genre m early Irish literature
Chapter I looks at the basic use of the term in medieval Irish tale-lists and elsewhere, and then briefly considers modem scholarship and vanous issues raised by it regarding the nature and function of the pre-Norman Irish echtrae
Chapter II endeavours to gather such information as is available about echtrae titles attested in the tale-lists and then to examine the medieval provenance (or lack of it) of the use of the echtrae to refer to various tales often associated with the genre.
Narratives for which this can be established form the initial database of seven tales examined in Chapter III, which proposes a preliminary taxonomy of what can be regarded as reasonably typical echtrai in the light of ten significant common elements.
Chapter IV augments this rather restricted corpus with five further texts selected for similar analysis on the strength of significant typological affinities with the group considered in Chapter III.
The role of sovereignty or kingship, which emerges as a central concern of echtrai in Chapters III and IV, will be examined further in Chapter V, which will also look at the royal or other connections of the persons named in the titles of various lost echtrai.
Chapter VI explores the way in which sovereignty and other motifs are exploited in individual extant echtrai.
Chapter VII examines stones relating the otherworldly expeditions of Cu Chulainn and their relationship to the echtrai.
Finally, Chapter VIII endeavours to summarise the main findings and attempts to sketch the development of the echtrae in the pre-Norman period.(source: eprints (redacted))
Nagy, Joseph Falaky, “Finn and the Fenian tradition”, in: Julia M. Wright (ed.), A companion to Irish literature, vol. 1, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. 27–38.
Dooley, Ann, “Táin bó Cúailnge”, in: Julia M. Wright (ed.), A companion to Irish literature, vol. 1, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. 17–26.
Griffin-Kremer, Cozette, “Wooings and works: an episode on yoking oxen in the Tochmarc Étaine and the Cóir anmann”, Eolas: The Journal of the American Society of Irish Medieval Studies 4 (2010): 54–85.
Mac Gearailt, Uáitéar, On the date of the Middle Irish recension II: Táin bó Cúailnge, E. C. Quiggin Memorial Lectures, 11, Cambridge: Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge, 2010.
Means-Shannon, Hannah, “Seeing double: the transforming personalities of Alan Moore’s Promethea and the Ulster Cycle’s Cuchulain”, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 1:2 (2010): 93–104.
Hily, Gaël, “Conflits au sein de familles royales: les cas d’Eochaid Feidlech et de Math”, in: Gaël Hily, Patrice Lajoye, and Joël Hascoët (eds), Deuogdonion: mélanges offerts en l’honneur du professeur Claude Sterckx, 2, Rennes: Tir, 2010. 335–348.
Osborne, Jaquelyn, “Sport, games, women and warriors: an historical and philosophical examination of the early Irish Ulster Cycle”, PhD thesis, Victoria University, 2010.
Ó Cathasaigh, Tomás, “King, hero and hospitaller in Aided Celtchair maic Uthechair”, in: Wilson McLeod, Abigail Burnyeat, Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart, Thomas Owen Clancy, and Roibeard Ó Maolalaigh (eds), Bile ós chrannaibh: a Festschrift for William Gillies, Tigh a' Mhaide, Brig o' Turk, Perthshire: Clann Tuirc, 2010. 355–364.
Bondarenko, Grigory, “Autochthons and otherworlds in Celtic and Slavic”, in: Dunja Brozović-Rončević, Maxim Fomin, and Ranko Matasović (eds), Celts and Slavs in central and southeastern Europe: proceedings of the Third International Colloquium of the Societas Celto-Slavica, Dubrovnik, September 18–20, 2008, 3, Zagreb: Institut za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje, 2010. 281–302.
Ulster Institutional Repository – eprint: <link>
abstract:
The separation of the lower Otherworld from the human middle world is explained as a ‘historical’ fact both in medieval Irish tales and in northern Russian folklore. The problem of subterraneous autochthones (áes síde or Chud’) and their enmity towards humans is posed in order to determine the conflict in the narratives. The special localization of the Otherworld is associated in the texts discussed with the coming of the sons of Míl and the beginning of Goidelic Ireland or with the coming of Russian settlers and the beginning of history in the Russian North. The very notion of the separation between this world of humans and the Otherworld is closely related to the beginning of history as such. When history begins the sacred has to be separated from the profane (belonging to mortals). When this separation is performed the binary opposition between the lower Otherworld and the upper world of humans becomes a distinctive feature of the early Irish mythological narrative or Northern Russian and Komi folklore. Both Celtic and Slavic examples seem to reflect a transition stage when cosmological elements (such as the lower world, supernatural chthonic entities etc.) are superimposed on the emerging historical consciousness.
Russell, Paul, Sharon Arbuthnot, and Pádraic Moran, Early Irish glossaries database, Online: Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge, 2010–. URL: <http://www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/irishglossaries>
Toner, Gregory, “Macha and the invention of myth”, Ériu 60 (2010): 81–109.
abstract:
This paper provides new literary analyses of two tales associated with Emain Macha, both of which feature a woman called Macha: Noínden Ulad, which purports to tell the origin of the debility that the Ulstermen suffered during the Táin, and the story of Macha Mongrúad, who overthrew her enemies and forced them to construct the fort of Emain Macha. The discussion considers issues of warriorhood, justice and gender, and seeks to disentangle the themes of sovereignty and war in relation to the women called Macha. Two of the four women bearing the name Macha are, in all probability, relatively late innovations, and the primary function of the remaining two figures lies in warfare.
Caball, Marc, “Lost in translation: reading Keating’s Foras feasa ar Éireann, 1635-1847”, in: Marc Caball, and Andrew Carpenter (eds), Oral and printed cultures in Ireland, 1600–1900, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010. 47–68.
Ó Mainnín, Mícheál B., “‘Co mbeidh a ainm asa’: the eponymous Macha in the place-names Mag Macha, Emain Macha and Óenach Macha”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 195–207.
Siewers, Alfred K., “Nature as Otherworld: landscape as centre in Táin bó Cúailnge”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 81–94.
Schwerteck, Hans, “Merismen in der Geschichte vom Schwein des Mac Dathó”, in: Stefan Zimmer (ed.), Kelten am Rhein: Akten des dreizehnten Internationalen Keltologiekongresses, 23. bis 27. Juli 2007 in Bonn, 2 vols, vol. 2: Philologie: Sprachen und Literaturen, Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2009. 267–268.
Kimpton, Bettina [ed. and tr.], The death of Cú Chulainn. A critical edition of the earliest version of Brislech Mór Maige Muirthemni, Maynooth Medieval Irish Texts, 6, Maynooth: School of Celtic Studies, National University of Ireland, 2009.
Ó Cathasaigh, Tomás, “Ailill and Medb: a marriage of equals”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 46–53.
Retzlaff, Kay, “Pretext and context: the remscéla and the Táin”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 285–295.
Herbert, Máire, “Reading Recension 1 of the Táin”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 208–217.
Putter, Ad, “Multilingualism in England and Wales, c. 1200: the testimony of Gerald of Wales”, in: Christopher Kleinhenz, and Keith Busby (eds), Medieval multilingualism: the francophone world and its neighbours, 20, Turnhout: Brepols, 2009. 83–106.
Hicks, Ronald, “Place and time in the Tána”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 296–312.
Ó Béarra, Feargal, “The otherworld realm of Tír scáith”, in: Gisbert Hemprich (ed.), Festgabe für Hildegard L. C. Tristram: überreicht von Studenten, Kollegen und Freunden des ehemaligen Faches Keltologie der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, 1, Berlin: Curach Bhán, 2009. 81–100.
abstract:
The journey of the hero to the Otherworld is a familiar theme in the early literature of Ireland. The Early Middle Irish didactic text Síaburcharpat Con Culaind contains three separate accounts of Cú Chulainn’s journeys to the hostile otherworld realms of Lochlainn, Ifrend and Tír Scáith. The contrasting of the imagery of light and dark as well as that of diametrically opposite concepts through the creation of sets of homonymic pairs i. e. the creation of coincidentia oppositorum, is a quite common penchant of the Christian redactors, and is found in much of the earlier literature. Much of the imagery found in the Síaburcharpat Con Culaind account of the journey to Tír Scáith bears a close resemblance to that of the dread-inspiring mediaeval Christian imagery of Hell. The redactor of the tale sought to appropriate the pre-existing native familiarity with the concept of an orbis alius as a means of introducing his audience to the torments and horrors of the unfamiliar Christian (unhappy) orbis alius, thus furthering the propagation of the Faith and satisfying the Church’s hunger for the salvation of souls.
(source: publisher, slightly redacted)
Sheehan, Sarah, “Fer Diad de-flowered: homoerotics and masculinity in Comrac Fir Diad”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 54–65.
Rutten, Stuart, “Displacement and replacement: Comrac Fir Diad within and without Táin bó Cúailnge”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 313–325.
Mulligan, Amy C., “‘The satire of the poet is a pregnancy’: pregnant poets, body metaphors, and cultural production in medieval Ireland”, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 108:4 (October, 2009): 481–505.
Clarke, Michael, “An Irish Achilles and a Greek Cú Chulainn”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 238–251.
Bernhardt-House, Phillip A., “‘It’s beginning to look a lot like solstice’: sneachta, solar deities, and Compert Con Culainn”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 226–237.
Matasović, Ranko, “Descriptions in the Ulster Cycle”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 95–105.
Ó hUiginn, Ruairí, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009.
Miles, Brent, “The literary set piece and the imitatio of Latin epic in the Cattle raid of Cúailnge”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 66–80.
Ní Bhrolcháin, Muireann, “Serglige Con Culainn: a possible re-interpretation”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 344–355.
Bondarenko, Grigory, “Oral past and written present in ‘The finding of the Táin’”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 18–24.
University of Ulster – eprint: <link>
abstract:
Pre-Christian Irish culture as any pre-literate society and culture was governed by the traditional type of memory. The medieval Irish texts on the other hand witness gradual shift from this type of memory towards the historical one. The historical type of memory is characterised by its special attention to causes and effects, and to results of actions: this memory fixes crops for particular years but not the sowing-time. This type of memory causes written history to appear on the cultural level (Lotman 2000, 364). It is more or less clear that this shift could not have been an instantaneous one especially as we know that the early medieval Irish filid retained forms of the early traditional type of memory during the whole period of Middle Ages. Certain stories from the dindshenchas and certain tales devoted to exemplary characters fulfilled mnemonic functions.
(source: Source)
Chekhonadskaya, Nina Y., “The unheroic biography of Bricriu mac Carbada”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 252–261.
Gray, Brenda, “Reading Aislinge Óenguso as a Christian-Platonist parable”, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 24–25 (2004/2005, 2009): 16–39.
Fomin, Maxim, “Bríatharthecosc Con Culainn in the context of early Irish wisdom-literature”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 140–172.
– University of Ulster: eprint: <link>
Toner, Gregory, “Scribe and text in Lebor na hUidre: H’s intentions and methodology”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 106–120.
Bondarenko, Grigory, “Cú Roí and Svyatogor: a study in chthonic”, in: Tatyana Mikhailova, Maxim Fomin, and Grigory Bondarenko (eds), Proceedings of the Second International Colloquium of Societas Celto-Slavica, held in Moscow (14–17 September 2006), 2, Moscow: Moscow State University, 2009. 64–74.
University of Ulster – eprint: <link>
abstract:
Both Early Irish and Russian mythological traditions demonstrate a particular example of an extraordinary character showing supernatural features as well as the features of a chthonic monster: it is Cú Roí mac Daire on the Irish side, and Svyatogor on the Russian side. We have to be careful before arguing that these two mythological characters reflect one particular archetype of a monstrous chthonic creature (cf. views expressed by Henderson (1899) in Ireland and Putilov (1986) in Russia); on the contrary, one has to consider both heroes as complex and independent entities who appear in the two quite distinct mythologies (Early Irish and Russian). This is especially true in relation to the Russian tradition of byliny (былины) which have been preserved orally until the first published editions of the nineteenth century. Cú Roí and Svyatogor, the two mythological characters discussed, play essentially the same rôle of chthonic monsters in the basic myth. They act as an ‘obstacle’, ‘barrier’ for human heroes such as Ilya and Cú Chulainn. They are primeval characters in both traditions, that is why they are not associated with the dominant population groups: Svyatogor is not of Rus’ but from outer space (mountains on the borderland, Carpathians?), Cú Roí is from outer Munster, from marginal auto-chthonous (sic!) population groups. At the same time both characters as they have survived in the literature are contaminated by Biblical and apocryphal stories of Samson and Delilah. This is how they became incorporated into a comparatively new synthetic literary tradition.
(source: Source)
Ronan, Patricia, “Ingressive periphrasis in some manuscript versions of Táin bó Cúailnge”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 275–284.
Ó Flaithearta, Mícheál, “The etymologies of (Fer) Diad”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 218–225.
Muhr, Kay, “Where did the brown bull die? An hypothesis from Ireland’s epic Táin bó Cúailnge Version I”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 121–139.
Barry, John, “Derricke and Stanihurst: a dialogue”, in: Jason Harris, and Keith Sidwell (eds), Making Ireland Roman: Irish Neo-Latin writers and the republic of letters, Cork: Cork University Press, 2009. 36–47.
Ingridsdotter, Kicki, “Aided Derbforgaill ‘The violent death of Derbforgaill’: a critical edition with introduction, translation and textual notes”, PhD dissertation, Uppsala University, 2009. http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?searchId=2&pid=diva2:213892.
Kühns, Julia S., “The pre-19th-century manuscript tradition and textual transmission of the Early Modern Irish tale Oidheadh Con Culainn: a preliminary study”, PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2009.
Glasgow Theses Service – PDF: <link>
abstract:
The Early Modern Irish recension of the tale relating Cú Chulainn’s death, Oidheadh Con Culainn, has received comparatively little scholarly attention, especially compared with its Early Irish counterpart, Aided Con Culainn. Consequently, little is known about the textual transmission and manuscript tradition of the Early Modern Irish tale. The present thesis seeks to rectify this and give a more accurate view and preliminary analysis of the extant manuscripts, concentrating on the manuscripts that date to before the 19th century. A core element of this thesis is a draft catalogue of these pre-19th-century manuscripts. Taking advantage of the tale’s prosimetric structure, it will be argued and demonstrated that it is possible to classify the manuscripts of Oidheadh Con Culainn into distinct groups. Within the extant manuscripts preserving the tale we can identify a number of versions of it, differing most notably in the poetry that they contain. The classification of the manuscripts into groups can be established on the basis of the poetry that a version of the tale contains; the emerging groups thus established can be used to comment on the transmission of the tale. In order to corroborate the argument for the manuscript groups, we will explore a number of aspects of the text and the manuscripts, such as textual comparisons on both intra- and inter-group levels, possible relations (e.g. geographical) of the scribes, linguistic and metrical variations, the ‘rhetorics’, and different versions of the tale written by the same scribe. The thesis will further investigate the most famous poem from the text, Laoidh na gCeann (‘The Lay of the Heads’), in order to establish to what extent the evidence from the poem can be used to add to our understanding of the transmission of the overall tale.
Burnyeat, Abigail, “Córugud and compilatio in some manuscripts of Táin bó Cúailnge”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 356–374.
Schlüter, Dagmar, “A contradiction in terms? A short note on Do fhallsigud Tána bó Cúailnge”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 25–30.
Tristram, Hildegard L. C., “Narratology and salvation: aspects of ‘narrated time’ and the ‘time of narrating’ in Táin bó Cúailnge”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 31–45.
MacKenna, Mary, “The Irish mythological landscape and the Táin”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn, and Brian Ó Catháin (eds), Ulidia 2: proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Maynooth 24-27 July 2005, Maynooth: An Sagart, 2009. 262–274.
Ó Murchadha, Diarmuid, “Keating: traditionalist or innovator”, in: Pádraig Ó Riain (ed.), Geoffrey Keating’s Foras feasa ar Éirinn: reassessments, 19, London: Irish Texts Society, 2008. 90–102.
Putter, Ad, “Gerald of Wales and the prophet Merlin”, Anglo-Norman Studies 31 (2008): 90–103.
abstract:
My subject is the remarkable role of the prophet Merlin in English politics from Henry II through to King John, as evidenced by the writer who outlived them both, Gerald of Wales. [...]
