As we glimpse safe harbour after our mammoth Immram, we take the opportunity to get to know a favourite Otherworld character. But where does Manannan Mac Lir come from? Is he all he appears to be? This quest became so huge that we had to split it into two episodes. So join the Story Archaeologists as they part…
Tag: Immrám Brain
Mongán, Taliesin, Finn and Arthur!
What is so special about Mongán? Mongán is no longer a well-known figure in Irish mythology; and yet we have found ourselves giving three full podcast episodes to exploring his stories. In the Irish annals (3.1), Mongán was referenced as a king who died in 625 CE. There is also an existing prose text and…
The Text of Immram Brain Part 2: Manannan’s Poem and the Prophecy of Mongán
Here is the second part of the text of Immram Brain, as edited by Séamus Mac Mathúna. The translation is based on that of Kuno Meyer, although where my translation differs significantly from his, I have included his translation in brackets. For Chris Thompson’s rendition of part of the poem, see Manannán’s Prophecy of Mongán….
The Tabulated Immráma
While we were working on this series, Isolde thought that it might be helpful to create a table comparing all the islands and events of the four members of the set. Not all the details of each story are present, but it is a useful aide memoire to use while listening to any episode in…
Reflections On The Skelligs
In our first episode on the Imramma, ‘The Voyage of Bran Mac Febul, we discussed the monastic preference for settling in lonely and out of the way places. We referred to the practice as ‘extreme monasticism’. One of the best examples of this must be early monastic complex on a lonely rock, you can hardly…
The Text of Immram Brain Part 1: The Woman’s Poem
Here is the first part of the text of Immram Brain, as edited by Séamus Mac Mathúna. The translation is based on that of Kuno Meyer, although where my translation differs significantly from his, I have included his translation in brackets. I have also marked the scribe’s glosses with brackets, introduced with .i. in the…