The settling of the The Tuatha Dé Danann in Ireland and their struggle against the mysterious Fomoire, form the central strand of the ancient Irish Mythological Story Cycle. Join Chris as she explores why this great cycle of stories might just be the ‘Jewel in the Crown’ of Irish mythology. If you explore further into…
Category: The Battle of Moytura 01: Echtrae Nuadat – The Adventures of Nuada
The ‘Cath Maige Tuired’ Audio Stories: an introduction
I have been a story-teller in schools, libraries, etc. for almost 35 years focusing on early Irish stories, mostly text based. My intention has been to make them accessible to all age groups, yet few stories from, the Mythological Cycle, have formed a regular part of my repertoire. This oversight is now addressed on Story…
The Cath Maige Tuired, for a wider audience: Part 1~ The First Battle.
The battle of Moytura is better known as the Mythological story cycle. This audio re-telling is especially designed for, but not limited to, a younger audience. In part 1, The First Battle, we meet the Firbolg champion, Streng and the Dé Danann king, Nuada and discover what happened when they met at the first battle…
Chris’ Ramble 12: The Rider on the River
This ‘Ramble’ is inpired by the silver rider on the River Seine at the Paris 24 Olympics. So join Chris as she explores the history and mythology of three great rivers, the Seine, the Severn and the Shannon and discovers just how their stories may just meander together. Explore a gallery page of images of…
Midsummer Midnight Skies over Leitrim
In the podcast episode, we mentioned how bright the night skies can be, here in Leitrim, even at midnight. The sun does not go far down behind the horizon then, and even at midnight the sun glow is still visible. It is easy to imagine that there is some wonderful city casting its light into…
The Romano-British temple to Nodens at Lydney Park:
I have never visited Lydney Park in Gloucestershire so I cannot give a personal impression of the complex. However, the site is very relevant to any exploration of Nuada. There are definite etymological connections between the British Nodens, the Welsh Lludd (Nudd) and the Irish Nuada. Descriptions of the temple complex given below are largely…
The Fisher King
The Fisher King is a figure closely associated with the Arthurian cycle and, more directly, with the legends of the search for the Grail. A discussion on the development and varying source materials for the stories is beyond the scope of this article, but similar motifs and character types appear in each version, the main…
Four Cities, Four Teachers, Four Treasures
There is much curiosity surrounding the four cities and teachers named in the opening lines of Cath Maige Tuired. The names are archaic-sounding, with their -ias endings. The “cities” do not seem identifiable with any geographic location, ancient or modern. And aside from this brief appearance, the “teachers” are never heard from again. However, the…
Cath Maige Tuired – Sections 1 – 14
Edition: Elizabeth Gray Translation: Elizabeth Gray [Isolde Carmody] This text and its published translation are made available by kind permission of CELT, the Corpus of Electronic Texts, at University Colege Cork: http://www.ucc.ie/celt/ We will not always put the full text here on our blog, and we recommend that you read Gray’s edition, or better still,…
The Story of Nuada
Nuada stared into a palm of silver, a cupped pool reflecting a refracted and shattered image of his frowning face. He held the hand up before him, flexed his fingers and five silver rays flared like a crown around his image. So it worked to his will then. It was more than a magnificent glove….