IF you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you… I had never considered that I might commence a comparison of the beheading game in Fled Bricrenn and Gawain and the Green Knight with a quote from Rudyard Kipling. It is apt, particularly in terms of the…
Category: Related Material
Explorations and developments of the themes of each episode
Dressed to the nines! ~ a gallery of finery.
Fled Bricrenn is rich in its descriptions of finery. In its feasting halls, heroes and horse harness, detail is embelished with vivid detail. Our text is, of course largely ninth century CE but the story telling recalls an earlier heroic age of epic deeds. It is possible to identify memories of a mthologised pre-christian world throughout…
The mead-circling hall ~ roundhouses and their stories
I have always liked round houses. Since, as a child, I first discovered that there were mysterious wicker chests of red-gold gem stories tucked away, unregarded, behind the marbled classical tales of fabled Greek heroes, I wanted to know more. But the stories from Wales and, above all, Ireland were hard to find, and even…
The Two Sisters ~ An Old Ballad
The well of Inis Clothran, where Medb of Cruachan met her death, has murky depths, or at least, the tale of Medb and her sisters is somewhat opaque. As we discussed in the podcast , there are some unanswered questions. Does Medb kill Cothru or Ethne, or both of her sisters? Is Furbaide Clothru’s son…
Inis Clothran in pictures
Inis Clothrann Inis Clothrann is the largest of the islands in Lough Ree on the River Shannon, in County Longford. Inis Clothrann is also known as “Quaker Island” or even the “Island of the Seven Churches”. This map, from the six inch Ordnance Survey maps of Ireland completed in 1846, shows several important features of the island, including the Griannán Meidhbhe , “Medb’s…
REPOST: Don’t shout – Someone might hear you!
NOTE: This article was originally posted to accompany the episode Series 2: The Battle of Moytura – Episode 10: The Children of Tuirenn Part 2 – Three Shouts on a Hill. These are some of the ideas that kicked off the current series dedicated to Dindshenchas! I am writing this article, or more accurately an…
Australian Dindshenchas ~ Pictures
In the podcast episode, Dindshenchas and Dreamtime, we used examples of Australian Aboriginal Creation Ancestor stories. To support the episode, I have placed a few of the photos I took while in and around Kakadu. For more pictures go to http://kakadu.com.au/ Narmagon is known as “Lightning Man”. On one of his travels, he left his eye…
References for Episode 12
In the episode, we referred to a passage in the introduction to Elizabeth Gray’s Irish Texts Society edition of Cath Maige Tuired [page 19 of the print edition]. If you have been reading the text on CELT, it doesn’t include the introduction. So below is a list of the sections she cites containing the Old Irish…
Three shouts on a hill ~ Notes on the final task of the Children of Tuirenn
As we discussed in Episode 9, Lugh sets eight tasks for Brian and his brothers as an éric for the death of his father, Cian. He demands a series of marvelous items (see “Pleasing the King of Bling” for details). However, the final task is of a very different nature. Lugh cannot gain materially by the…
Pleasing the “King-of-Bling!” ~ Notes on the tasks of the Sons of Tuireann
Lugh is, of course, well within his rights to ask for a high éric, an honour price for the murder of his father, Cian. However, in this story, which clearly reflects Classical influences, Lugh intends the collection of the quest items to cost the lives of Brian and his brothers. Lugh hopes that the brothers…